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to discover the apparently occult, and yet, I think, really simple 
principle in the limitation of original names, call in to our aid 
the sister branch of language — drawing. If we wish to draw, 
e.g ., Death, might we not depict a skeleton, a skull and cross 
bones, a winged skull, a black figure with a dart, a prostrate 
human body,* any usual means of putting to death, as an axe, 
guillotine, etc., or otherwise express the idea in fifty variant ways, 
which, however different from each other, would yet all agree 
in being aspects and phases of the general concept. And how 
many such pictures could we draw ? Obviously as many as our dis- 
tinct ideas of the original, and no more ; given fifty independent 
ideas, and fifty different pictures can be produced. Here, then, 
we touch the principle of limitation of choice in original names. 
A man could give the dog as many of such names as he had 
distinct ideas concerning the animal, and no more. Thus, to 
instance some names which Ovid gives to dogs of the pack of 
Aktaion, he could call a dog Blackfoot, Tracer, Gflutton, Quick- 
sight, Banger, Hunter, Swiftfoot, Spot, Smut, Snap, Kunner 
(. Dromas , i.e ., “ Dog ”),fi Barker (Kanake-Kalbu), etc. But he 
could not call a dog Tree, Boot, Onehorn, Tenlegs, etc., because 
naming was a powerful exercise of rational judgment, and not 
an aberration of judgment ; and such names as the latter would 
have been, to quote the simile of Kratvlos, “ unmeaning sound, 
like the noise of hammering at a brazen pot.” But could not 
we call a dog Tenlegs ? Certainly, although any one who did 
so would be thought very foolish, or at all events decidedly 
eccentric, which is almost the same thing. But we possess a 
power of abstract and arbitrary and sportive thought, which 
primitive man, the slave of truth and reality in nature imme- 
diately around, had no idea of. 
Gifted with a supreme power of apprehension in the matter 
of simple natural facts, it was as impossible for him to con- 
tradict the vivid impression of his every-day ideas, as it would 
be now for a sane man to take a madman’s stand-point. Thus 
every archaic animal-name is based upon an excellent reason ; 
and it was nothing short of an illumination of genius, the 
quintessence of correct observation, which made the mighty 
animal call himself man , he-who -means, — “ the Thinker,” not 
“ the Speaker,” observe ; for speech is based on thought, not 
thought on speech. Thus we may conclude that Original 
names do not exceed in number the number of distinct ideas 
entertained by the namer. 
* The Kamic ideograph for “ to kill. 7 ' 
t Vide sup., Sec. 4. 
