THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE 219 



candle, the firelight are each " the moon." Mr. 

 Romanes records a case where a child made a 

 similar use of the word star — the gas, the candle, 

 the firelight were each " a star." If the makers of 

 Language proceeded on this principle, no wonder- 

 the philologist has riddles to read. How often 

 must the savage children of the world have started 

 off naming things from two such different points? 

 Mr. Romanes mentions a still more elaborate 

 example which was furnished him by Mr. Darwin : 

 "The child, who was just beginning to speak, called 

 a duck ' quack,' and, by special association, it also 

 called water ' quack.' By an appreciation of the 

 resemblance of qualities, it next extended the term 



* quack ' to denote all birds and insects on the one 

 hand, and all fluid substances on the other. Lastly, 

 by a still more delicate appreciation of resemblance, 

 the child eventually called all coins * quack,' because 

 on the back of a French sou it had once seen the 

 representation of an eagle. Hence, to the child, 

 the sign * quack,' from having originally had a very 

 specialized meaning, became more and more ex- 

 tended in its significance, until it now seems to 

 designate such apparently different objects as ' fly,' 



* wine,' and ' coin.' " ^ 



The instructiveness of this, in showing the reason 

 ^ Mental Evolution^ p. 283. 



