
954 The American Naturalist. [November, 
Müller wishes language to be regarded as a physical science. 
Granting that it is such, why then should it be isolated from 
all other sciences? Chemistry would be lame indeed without 
physics; and what would astronomy be without either ? 
Berkeley was right in saying that words are often impediments 
to thoughts. They do in many cases convey wrong impressions. 
They are false symbols, and, being inadequate, choke the intel- 
lectual processes. 
Huxley says that the sooner you forget the derivation of a word, 
and use it in zoology, etc., as a mere arbitrary associated name 
(nomen proprium), the better you are off. 
The fact cited, that the Greeks had but one name for language 
and thought, is about as important as that the Cheyenne Indians 
have but one word for head and leg. 
The illustration of Gambetta shows that by habit thinking can 
be elicited in some only by speaking. It is an exercise of the 
symbolic field; but how is it that we find some of our greatest 
thinkers most reticent? Sir John Hunter could express himself 
with difficulty, and the most voluble elocutionist or orator may 
have an empty head. 
Müller is unequivocal in making thought inseparable from 
language and considering them identical. “We think in names, 
and names only,” he says. Do we? What did Caspar Hauser 
name his guardian ? 
Hobbes is quoted approvingly in saying that “truth and falsity 
have no place but among such living creatures as use speech,” 
when the fox and wolf resort to subterfuges, and dogs and cats 
know that playing is not in earnést. 
He reduces all languages to a few words, and then turns his 
back upon what it indicates—that man came from primitive 
stock. He states that “ nature produces the greatest effects by 
the smallest means,” and yet Miiller turns to the supernatural to 
account for language. 
e “bow-wow theory” is contemptuously disposed of, and 
“clamor concomitans” is not anatomically referred to as depend- 
ing upon effort and air expulsion from the throat. 




