286 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



ance differs widely even among different races of existing 

 men, so that the onomatopoetic words of one race do not 

 convey any imitative suggestion to the minds of another.* 

 Similarly, Professor Sayce insists, " it is not necessary that 

 the imitation of natural sounds should be an exact one ; 

 indeed, that it never can be : all that is wanted is that the 

 imitation should be recognizable by those addressed. The 

 same natural sound, consequently, may strike the ear of 

 different persons very differently, and so be represented in 

 articulate speech in a strangely varying manner." f Another 

 very good illustration of the same point is to be found in the 

 names for a grass-hopper in different languages. After giving 

 a number. Archdeacon Farrar remarks that obviously they are 

 " all imitative : yet how immensely varied by the fantasies 

 of imitation ! How is this to be explained } Simply by the 

 fact to which it is so often necessary to recur, that words are 

 not mere imitations, but subjective echoes and reproduc- 

 tions — repercussions which are modified both organically 

 and ideally — which have moreover been immensely blurred 

 and disintegrated by the lapse of ages." % 



But perhaps the best illustration that has been given of 

 this point is in the different words which obtain in different 

 languages as names for Thunder. Two independent treatises 

 have been written on the subject, one by Grimm, § and 

 the other by Pott. || While in nearly all the languages the 



* "Nichtsdestoweniger bleibt es eine wichtige psychologische Thatsache, 

 dass die Laute einen onomatopoetischen Werth haben, dass wir diesen Werth 

 heute noch fiihlen. Nur ist dieses Gefuhl nicht sicher genug, um als wissen- 

 schaftlicher Beweis zu gelten, wie es denn auch bei den verschiedenen Racen 

 verschieden ist. Die Sprachen der mongolischen Race haben zur Bezeichnung 

 von Natuiereignissen viele Onomatopoien, welche wir nicht mitfiihlen. Und das 

 ist w eder zu verwundern, noch ist es ein Beweis gegen die geistige Einheit des 

 Menschengeschlechtes. Das Gefiihl wird ja vielfach durch Associationen der 

 Vorstellungen bestimmt. Andere Associationen aber walten im Kaukasier, 

 andere im Mongolen" {Zcits. b. Volkerpsych. u. Sprachivissen., 1867, s. 76). 



t Introduction, vSr^f., i., p. 108. He points out that '■'■ bilbit, glut-glut, s.nd/>uls, 

 are all attempts to represent the same sound." 



X Chapters on Language, p. 1 54. 



§ Ueber N'amen des Donners, 1855. 



II Steinthal's Zeitschrift, &c. 



