132 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



Stocks, may be confidently ascribed. The explanation thus aflForded 

 removes the weightiest stumbling-block which has impeded the pro- 

 gress of philological science, and, at the same time, lays a solid founda- 

 tion for ethnology, which that science has never before possessed. If 

 this explanation, which has already been accepted as probable by 

 authorities of the first rank, like Huxley, Parkman, Romanes and 

 Sully, and for which other scholars of similar eminence, like Mr Glad- 

 stone and Professor Snyce, have only asked further evidence, shall be 

 finally received as the true scientific solution of a great linguistic pro- 

 blem, it will largely modify, not only the sciences which have been 

 named, but also the prevalent opinions on many points of mental, social, 

 and political philosophy of the highest interest. It may therefore fairly 

 claim the serious and candid consideration of all scholars who are inter- 

 ested in the.se important studies. 



Note. — Since the foregoing paper was written, my attention has been drawn 

 to the important use which M. Taine, in his profoundly philosophical treatise, 

 " De riutelligence,'" makes of the language of children in explaining the 

 origin of general terms. The portions of the work relating to this subject 

 will be found in his First Book, chapter 1, "on Signs," and in his Fourth 

 Book, chapter 1, on "General Characters and General Ideas." In the 

 former he observes: "The formation of these general liames may be 

 narrowly watched with little children ; we take them in the act." He gives 

 sevei'al examples of childish exj^ressions assuming a general sense through 

 the natural tendency to association of ideas, which at that age is specially 

 powerful. "/« i<, " he proceeds, ^^ we have the farnltj of lanfjuarje." Some of 

 his instances curiously recall those related by Professor Von der Gabelentz, 

 though none of the children displayed the peculiar inflecting turn of the Pro- 

 fessor's nephew. " A little boy a year old," writes M. Taine, " had travelled 

 a good deal by railway. The engine with its hissing sound and smoke, and the 

 great noise of the train, stnick his attention, and the first word he learned to 

 pronounce was /a/Vr {die nun defer). Henceforward a steamboat, a cofiFee-pot 

 with spirit lamp — everything that hissed, or smoked, or made a noise, was a 

 fafer." This is interesting. With the German child it would have been still 

 more so. The steamboat would have quickly become (in French orthography) 

 foiifour ; a tea-kettle would have heen fe/er ; and the coffee-pot with spirit - 

 lampjijir. In his Fourth Book the author returns to the subject, and elucidates 

 it by further explanations and examples. " The infant invents and discovers 

 incessantly, and of its own accord ; there is no period of life in ivhich hit intelli- 

 gence is so creative. The names suggested to him by his parents and the persons 

 about him are but starting points for his innumerable efforts." " There is not 



