THE WITNESS OF PHILOLOGY, 355 



overwhelming evidence of the connotative extension of these 

 denotative terms. Indeed, many of these terms have probably 

 undergone a certain amount of connotative extension as the 

 condition to their having survived as roots ; and, therefore, in 

 these lowest deposits it is difficult to be sure that an apparently 

 denotative term is not really a term which has underL^one the 

 earlier stages of connotative extension. If such were the case, 

 we can understand the loss of any onomatopoetic significance 

 which it may originally have presented. But, however this 

 may be, there is an endless mass of evidence to prove the 

 subsequent and continuous growth of connotative extension 

 throughout the whole range of philological time. 



Lastly, as regards the predicative phase, we have seen that 

 philology shows the same order and method to have been 

 followed in the race as in the child. In the growing child, as 

 we have seen, pre-conceptual predication is contemporary 

 with — or occupies the same psychological level as — the conno- 

 tative extension of denotative terms. Indeed, the very act 

 of connotation is in itself an act of predication — if in the 

 conceptual sphere, of conceptual predication (denomination) ; 

 if in the pre-conceptual, of pre-conceptual. Again, in the 

 psychogenesis of the child we noted how important a part 

 is played in the development of pre-conceptual predication 

 by the mere apposition of connotative terms — such apposition 

 being rendered inevitable by the laws of association. If A is 

 the connotative name for ^, B the connotative name for B, 

 when the young child sees that A and B occur together, the 

 statement A B is rendered inevitable by '' the logic of events ; " 

 and this statement is a pre-conceptual proposition. Now, in 

 both these respects philology yields abundant parallels. The 

 quotations which I have given conclusively prove that " every 

 word must originally have been a sentence ; " or, in my own 

 terminology, a pre-conceptual proposition of precisely the same 

 kind as that which is employed by a young child. If it be 

 replied that the young child is without self-consciousness, 

 while the primitive man was not without self-consciousness, 

 this would merely be to beg the whole question on which we 



