THE WITNESS OF FHILOLOGY. 32/ 



association when under the guidance of the *' logic of events." 

 But when I came to deal with the philology of predication, it 

 became evident that there was even an earlier phase of the 

 faculty in question than that of apposing denotative terms by 

 sensuous association. For, as we have so recently seen, 

 philologists have proved that even before there were any 

 denotative terms respectively significant of objects, qualities, 

 actions, states, or relations, there were sentence-words which 

 combined in one vague mass the meanings afterwards appor- 

 tioned to substantives, adjectives, verbs, prepositions, &c., with 

 the consequence that the only kind of apposition which 

 could be called into play for the purpose of indicating the 

 particular significance intended to belong to such a word on 

 particular occasions, was the apposition of gesture-signs. 

 Now, I had two reasons for thus postponing our consideration 

 of what is undoubtedly the earliest phase of articulate sign- 

 making. In the first place, it seemed to me that I might 

 more easily lead the reader to a clear understanding of the 

 subject by beginning with a phase of predication which he 

 could most readily appreciate, than by suddenly bringing him 

 into the presence of a germ-like origin which is far from 

 being so readily intelligible. But over and above this desire 

 to proceed from the familiar to the unfamiliar, I had, in the 

 second place, a further and a better reason for not dealing 

 with the ultimate germ of articulate sign-making so long as 

 I was dealing only with the psychology of our subject. This 

 reason was, that in the development of speech as exhibited 

 by the growing child — which, of course, furnishes our only 

 material for a study of the subject from a psychological point 

 of view — the original or germinal phase in question does not 

 appear to be either so marked, so important, or, comparatively 

 speaking, of such prolonged duration as it was in the develop- 

 ment of speech in the race. To use biological terms, this the 

 earliest phase in the evolution of speech has been greatly fore- 

 shortened in the ontogeny of mankind, as compared with what 

 it appears to have been in the phylogeny. The result, of 

 course, is that we should gain but an inadequate idea of its 

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