1 14 Notices of Books . [January, 
the author says in his Introduction : — “ As signs serving to de- 
note an indefinite number of resembling individuals, to identify 
species under genera, and genera of a lower grade under genera 
of a higher grade, the general names of a language may be con- 
sidered not only as instruments of thought and of communica- 
tion, but also as originally being in themselves the clue to an 
important body of knowledge. For every general name expresses 
certain attributes, and the similar things which it denotes are all 
things whatever which possess these attributes. In learning, 
therefore, to apply the name to various things possessing the 
attributes which it expresses, the learner will be at the same time 
gathering knowledge of the things themselves, as agreeing with 
one another and differing from other things in certain definite 
respecfts. In the case, therefore, of a well-developed language, 
or one embracing the whole universe of discovered or imagined 
things under various degrees of generality, its gradual acquire- 
ment by any one as his native tongue would appear to involve a 
vast accession of knowledge, a certain insight indeed into the 
nature of all things known. Attainment of this knowledge, 
moreover, would seem to involve as a result a mind made open 
to every variety of impression ; an intellect quick, through con- 
stant exercise, to observe, compare, discriminate, and identify, — 
to perceive differences between things which resemble, and points 
of agreement between things the most seemingly different from 
one another.” 
To us this passage seems fraught with dangerous error. To 
endeavour to acquire a knowledge of things by comparing, ana- 
lysing, and classifying the names by which such things happen 
to be known, was a characteristic feature of the so-called 
“ stationary period ” of the human mind, and was one of the 
chief reasons of the impotence of the philosophies which pre- 
vailed before the epoch of Bacon, Descartes, and Galileo. No 
amount of inquiry into or speculation on words will enable us to 
discern minute differences between things which resemble each 
other, or occult points of approach between things seemingly 
distinct. For this purpose we must go to the things themselves. 
It is agreed by all competent judges that the mere reader, or the 
mere hearer, the man of words, however carefully he may weigh 
and define the terms which he uses or meets with, will have 
merely a dim and — so to speak — hearsay knowledge of the sub- 
ject which he takes up. If we wish to know the properties of 
matter or of force, we must work with or upon it. That very 
vagueness of which our author justly complains is mainly due 
to the circumstance that in our ordinary educational training 
thing are left out of sight, and words are treated as if they were 
not counters, but money.* 
If, to return to the illustration which we used, it is desired 
* “ Words are the counters of wise men, but the money of fools.” 
