348 
Because he stretches Professor Muller’s celebrated dogma, “No 
speech without reason. No reason without speech,” to the 
extent of holding that there is no reasoned thought before 
verbal utterance. Thus “ the illuminated space of rational 
thought,” = “the store-house of linguistic expression.” Having 
given Lange’s definition of a “ thing,” i.e ., “ a group of 
phenomena, which, making abstraction of remoter relations 
and internal changes, we grasp and conceive as one ; ” he 
asserts that “ there are things for men,” because they can 
name them ; and, conversely, that “ it follows undoubtedly 
from this definition, that things have no existence for animals.” 
What ! Cannot one dog grasp as one the group of phenomena 
which compose another dog ? Does he regard that other dog 
as more than one, or as merely part and parcel of surrounding 
appearance ? Or are the “ remoter relations and internal 
changes ” everlastingly present to his mind, so that he cannot 
abstract them from the concept ? I trow not. And when tins 
previously thoughtless quasi-human creature, uncognisant of 
“ things,” in his excitement had involuntarily ejaculated da or 
mar , what was there in so doing, what occult philosophy did 
this potent utterance possess, which at once brought his bestial 
intelligence within “ the illuminated space of rational thought ?” 
I doubt not but that just as man is he who means , not he who 
sjoeaks, so man had his meaning all along ; he had his rational 
thought prior to its expression, as the child exists before its 
birth ; and the circumstance that his choice of a sound was not 
haphazard, but more or less deliberate, — for mere ejaculations 
are not speech, — was not the only, but one of the chief reasons, 
why any sound hardened into a phonetic type. 
I have elsewhere quoted an unproved assertion of Professor 
Noire, that there was a time when man’s thought knew “ no I 
nor thou, no here nor there,” etc., and we find in illustration of 
his general position the statement that “ the earliest meanings 
of verbal roots referred to human action. An impartial glance 
at any dictionary of roots will serve to verify this assertion. We 
do not find there Sun and Moon, Thou and I, nor yet anything 
about shining, flashing or burning. No thoughtful etymologist, 
even if he found them, would allow them to pass as primitive 
intuitions ; such is the power of truth ! What we do find are 
words signifying to dig,” etc., i.e., other strictly human activities. 
Of course, in the nature of things, most verbal forms indicate 
actions such as might be performed by human beings ; but when 
we pass this truism we find : — 
1. The assumption that men spoke in dictionary roots, which 
may or may not be true ; but which many' high authorities, e.cj., 
Professor Sayce, regard as absurd. 
