LOGIC OF CONCEPTS. 73 



They pass to the exchange of values. First money, then 

 notes or bills, is the symbol of value. Finally men simply 

 debit and credit one another, so that immense transactions 

 are effected by means of this equation of equations. The 

 complicated processes of sowing, reaping, collecting, shipping, 

 and delivering a quantity of wheat, are condensed into the 

 entry of a few words in a ledger." 



Thus, without further treatment, it must be obvious that 

 it is impossible for us to over-estimate the importance of 

 Language as the handmaid of Thought. "A sign," as Sir 

 William Hamilton says, "is necessary to give stability to our 

 intellectual progress — to establish each step in our advance 

 as a new starting-point for our advance to another beyond. 

 . . . Words are the fortresses of thought. They enable us 

 to make every intellectual conquest the basis of operations 

 for others still beyond." Moreover, thought and language 

 act and react upon one another ; so that, to adopt a happy 

 metaphor from Professor Max Muller, the growth of thought 

 and language is coral-like. Each shell is the product of life, 

 but becomes in turn the support of new life. In the same 

 manner each word is the product of thought, but becomes in 

 turn a new support for the growth of thought. 



It seems needless to say more in order to show the 

 immense importance of sign-making to the development of 

 ideation — the fact being one of universal recognition by 

 writers of every school. I will, therefore, now pass on to the 

 theme of the present chapter, which is that of tracing in 

 further detail the logic of this faculty, or the method of its 

 development. 



From what I have already said, it may have been gathered 

 that the simplest concepts are merely the names of reccpts ; 

 while concepts of a higher order are the names of other 

 concepts. Just as reccpts may be either memories of par- 

 ticular percepts, or the results of many percepts {i.e. sundry 

 other reccpts) grouped as a class ; so concepts may be 

 cither names of particular recepts, or the results of many 



