374 Animal Life and Intelligence. 



to mark the exact point of change. But that does not in- 

 validate the fact that the change does actually take place. 



If I be asked how, in the course of mental evolution, the 

 new departure was rendered possible, I reply — Through 

 language. The first step was, I imagine, the naming of 

 predominants. If Noire and Professor Max Muller be 

 correct in their views, language took its origin in the asso- 

 ciation of an uttered sound with certain human activities. 

 The action thus named was, so to speak, floated off by its 

 sign. By diacritical marks attached to the word, the 

 agent, the action, and the object of the action were distin- 

 guished, and thus came to be differentiated the one from 

 the other. Inseparable in fact, they came henceforth to 

 be separable in thought. Here was analysis in the germ. 

 The action or activity was isolated, and henceforth stood 

 forth as an element in abstract thought. All the busy 

 world around was interpreted in terms of activities. The 

 host of heaven and all the powers of earth were named 

 according to their predominant activities. The moon 

 became the measurer, the sun the shining one, the wind the 

 one who bloweth, the fire the purifier, and so forth. Our 

 verbs and nouns, then, being named predominants (agents, 

 actions, or objects), adjectives and adverbs were subse- 

 quently introduced to qualify these by naming a quality less 

 predominant, or to indicate the how, the when, and the where. 

 When once the different activities and different qualities 

 came to be named or symbolized, they were, as I say, 

 floated off from the agents or objects, and through isolation 

 entered the conceptual sphere. The named predominant 

 became an isolate. Body and mind became separable in 

 thought ; the self was differentiated froni the not- self ; the 

 mind was turned inwards upon itself through the isolation 

 of its varying phases ; and the consciousness of the brute 

 became the self-consciousness of man. 



Language, and the analytical faculty it renders possible, 

 differentiates man from the brute. " If a brute," says Mr. 

 Mivart,* " could think ' is,' brute and man would be 



* " Lessons from Nature," pp. 226, 227. 



