An Introduction to a Biology 



be a poor picture. I do not ask the reader to admit 

 that it helps to make clear the relation between the 

 word and the thing. I ask him to admit that the 

 fact that the difficulty of visually disentangling the 

 movement of a pair, or a harem, of gnats does not 

 present itself to the mind of an ostrich who has 

 buried his head in the comfortable sand of matter 

 hard by, does not prove that this difficulty is non- 

 existent. De non existentibus. . . . 



The phenomenon of which I have given a pic- 

 ture is the relation of the word and its meaning 

 regarded from a point of view which envisages the 

 whole evolution, the whole life of the word and its 

 meaning from the time of their origin. That was 

 perhaps too much to attempt. Let us examine the 

 changes which take place in this relation from a 

 nearer point of view which only envisages a period 

 of time so short that the word has undergone no 

 changes, or only insignificant changes, in that period. 

 From this point of view the word is seen to remain 

 fixed. When the word denotes a thing like bread, 

 the thing does not change very much more than 

 the word which denotes it. That is to say, the 

 names of things fit closely to them ; and the word 

 " bread " calls up in the mind the image of bread. 

 But ideas, attributes and processes are not held 

 closely by the words which denote them ; they are 

 attached to the word by a bond which varies in 

 length from case to case, but is usually fairly long. 

 The word is the fixed point, the peg to which the 

 leash is attached. The meaning, in such cases, is 

 the sportive goat who is free to wander anywhere 

 within the circle, the radius of which is the length 



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