ON THE FACTORS OF EVOLUTION IN LANGUAGE. 239 
the vital functions, in the ascending scale of organic nature, 
is due to the increasing development of this organization. 
To mention one of the most striking instances ; the efficiency 
of the power of vision is altogether due to the development 
of the optical and nervous organization of the visual organs. 
Life constructs the organism to be the means of its action ; 
life is the cause of organization, and not its effect. 
Moreover, it has been made known by microscopic research 
that minute masses of unorganized though living matter, or 
protoplasm, are to be found in the highest organisms ; this, 
in its general properties, appears to resemble the gelatinous 
substance called sarcode, which constitutes the entire bodies 
of the lowest structureless organisms. Not only is this proto- 
plasm living, but life appears to depend upon it; and it 
appears highly probable that every particle of the organized 
structure of the body has been in the form of protoplasm 
before being converted into organized tissue.* The relation 
of protoplasm to tissue is consequently somewhat like that 
of a solution to the crystals which are formed from it; 
and Prof. Cope has advanced the opinion that the proto- 
plasm is the seat of the organizing intelligence, and, to 
use his own expression, is itself intelligent.f This, pro- 
bably, does not admit of proof; but, fantastic as it may seem 
at first sight, I believe that the more it is examined the more 
probable it will appear. 
The relation of language to thought is parallel with the 
relation of organization to life. Itis no longer necessary to 
insist on the truth that language is not conventional, but is a 
natural product of man’s thought when acting in society. 
Prof. Max Miiller admirably remarks that ‘language is not 
outside thought, but is the outside of thought.” + The evolu- 
tions of thought and of language act and re-act on each 
other. As he elsewhere remarks,$ “The growth of reason 
and language may be said to be coral-like,—nay, even 
more simultaneous than the growth of corals. Hach shell is 
the product of life, and becomes in turn the support of 
new life; in the same manner, each word is the work of 
_ ™ See Beale’s edition of Todd & Bowman’s Physiology. “Germinal matter” 
is Beale’s name for protoplasm. 
+ See the essay “‘ Consciousness in Evolution” in his volume, The Origin 
of the Fittest. He thinks protoplasm is not only intelligent, but conscious ; 
but my belief is that its intelligence is unconscious. 
t Science of Thought, p. 215. The author has written “the mind” where 
T quote “ thought.” 
§ Ibid., p. 298. 
s 2 
