Language And Mind
The number of Horseherds appears to grow each month. He would rejoice to
see the letters of men and women who are all on his side, and give me
clearly to understand that I should by no means imagine that I have
refuted my unknown friend. The letter of Ignotus Agnosticus in the June
number of the _Deutsche Rundschau_ is a good example of these
communications. I have read it with much interest, and have partly dealt
with it in my article in the same number; but I hope at some future time
to answer his objections, and those of several other correspondents, more
fully. I should have been glad to publish some of these letters. But
first, they are too long, and they are far inferior in power to the letter
of the Horseherd. Moreover, they are usually so full of friendly
recognition, even when disagreeing with me, that it would ill become me to
give them publicity. That there was no lack of coarse letters as well, may
be taken for granted; these however were all anonymous, as if the writers
were ashamed of their heroic style. I have never been able to understand
what attraction there can be in coarseness. The coarse work is generally
left for the apprentice. Everything coarse, be it a block, a wedge, or a
blade, passes as unfinished, as raw, jagged, and just the reverse of
cutting. No one is proud of a coarse shirt, but many, even quite
distinguished people, proudly strut about the streets in a coarse smock of
abusive language, quite unconcernedly, without any suspicion of their
unsuitable attire.
Well, I shall endeavour to be as fair as I can to my unknown opponents and
friends, the coarse as well as the courteous. I cannot be coarse myself,
much as it seems to be desired in some quarters that I should. Each one
must determine for himself what is specially meant for him.
I cannot of course enter into all the objections that have been made. Many
have very little or nothing to do with what lay nearest the Horseherd’s
heart. The antinomies, for example, on the infinity of space and time,
have long since belonged to the history of metaphysics, and have been so
thoroughly worked out by Kant and his school that there is hardly anything
new to be said about them. In the question about the age of our world, we
need only distinguish between world as universe and world as our world,
that is, as the earth or the terrestrial world. A beginning of the world
as universe is of course incomprehensible to us; but we may speak of the
beginning of the earth, especially of the earth as inhabited by man,
because here, as Lord Kelvin has shown, astronomical physics and geology
have enabled us to fix certain chronological limits, and to say how old
our earth may be, and no older or younger. When I said of the world, that
though it were millions of years old, there still was a time before it was
one year or 1897 years old, I referred to the world in the sense of our
world, that is, the earth. Of the world as universe this would scarcely be
said; on the contrary, we should here apply the axiom that every boundary
implies something beyond, _i.e._ an unbounded, until we arrive at the
region where, as people say, the world is nailed up with boards. Many
years ago I tried to prove that our senses can never perceive a real
boundary, be it on the largest or the smallest scale; they present to us
everywhere the infinite as their background, and everything that has to do
with religion has sprung out of this infinite background as its ultimate
and deepest foundation. Instead of saying that by our senses we perceive
only the finite or limited, I have sought to show (_On the Perception of
the Infinite_) that we everywhere perceive the unlimited, and that it is
we, and not the objects about us, that draw the boundary lines in our
perceptions. When I also called this unknown omnipresence of the infinite
the source of all religion, this was the highest, the most abstract, and
the most general expression that could be found for the wide domain of the
transcendent; it had of course nothing to do with the historical
beginnings of religion. When the Aryans felt, thought, and named their
god, their Dyaus, in the blue sky, they meant the blue sky within the
limits of the horizon. We know, however, that while they called the sky
Dyaus, they had in mind an infinite subject, a Deva, a God. But, as
stated, these things were remote from the Horseherd, and he would scarcely
have had anything to object.
His chief objection was of a quite different nature. He wished to show
that the human mind was a mere phantom of man’s making, that there are
only bodies in the world, and that the mind has sprung from the body, and
therefore constituted, not the _prius_, but the _posterius_ of those
bodies. This view is evidently widely disseminated and has found very
abundant support, at least in the letters addressed to me. “The mind,” so
wrote the Horseherd, “is not a _prius_, it is a development, a
self-evolving phenomenon.” Everything is now development, and there is no
better salve for all ills than development. If our knowledge of
development is taken in the sense of scientific historical inquiry, then
we all agree, for how can there be anything that has not developed? In
order to know what a thing is, we must learn how it became what it is. A
much-admired philosopher, recently deceased, Henry Drummond, who was quite
intoxicated with evolution, nevertheless admits quite plainly in his last
work, _The Ascent of Man_, that “Order of events is history, and evolution
is history” (p. 132). With this I am of course quite satisfied, for it is
what I have been preaching in season and out of season for at least thirty
years. But this order, or this sequence of facts, must be proved with
scientific accuracy, and not merely postulated. If then my Horseherd had
been content to say, “The human mind is also a development,” certainly no
student of history, least of all a philologist, would have contradicted
him. But he says: “Max, all German savants, or, if you please, the
majority of them, still labour under the delusion that mind is a _prius_.
But nonsense, Max, mind is a development, a self-evolving phenomenon. One
would consider it impossible that a thinking man, who has ever observed a
child, could be of any other opinion; why seek ghosts behind matter? Mind
is a function of living organisms, which belongs also to a goose and a
chicken.”
In the Horseherd such language was excusable, but for philosophers to talk
in the same style is strange, to say the least. How can such an assertion
be made without any proof whatever, without even a few words to explain
what is meant by the term "mind"? The German like the English language
swarms with words that may be used interchangeably, though each of them
has its own shade of meaning. If we translate Geist (Spirit) as mind, then
we must consider that “spirit,” in such expressions as “He has yielded up
his spirit,” means the same as the principle of life or physical life. The
same is true of “spirit” in such a phrase as “his spirit has departed.”
But easy as it is to distinguish between spirit in the sense of the breath
of life, and spirit in the sense of mind, the exact definition of such
words as intellect, reason, understanding, thought, consciousness, or
self-consciousness becomes very difficult, to say nothing of soul and
feeling in their various activities. These words are used in both English
and German so confusedly that we often hesitate merely to touch them. Now
if we say that the mind is a development, and is not a _prius_, what idea
ought it to suggest? Does this mean the principle of life, or the
understanding, or the reason, or consciousness? We suffer here from a real
and very dangerous _embarras de richesse_. The words are often intended to
signify the same things, only viewed under different aspects. But as there
were various words, it was believed that they must also signify various
things. Different philosophers have further advanced different definitions
of these words, until it was finally supposed that each of these names
must be borne by a separate subject, while some of them originally only
signified activities of one and the same substance. Understanding, reason,
and thought originally expressed properties or activities, the activities
of understanding, of perceiving, of thinking, and their elevation to nouns
was simply psychological mythology, which has prevailed, and still
prevails just as extensively as the physical mythology of the ancient
Aryan peoples.
It would be most useful if we could lay aside all these mouldy and decayed
expressions, and introduce a word that simply means what is not understood
by body, the subject, in opposition to the objective world. It would by no
means follow that what is not body must therefore exist independent of the
body. It would first of all only declare that beside the objective body
perceived by the senses, there is also something subjective, which the
five senses cannot perceive. The best name for this appears to me still to
be the Vedantic term _Âtman_, which I translate into “the Self” (neuter),
because our language will scarcely allow the phrase “the Self”
(masculine). “Soul” has a too tender quality to be the equivalent of
_Âtman_.
This Self is something that exists for itself and not for others. While
everything that is purely corporeal only exists for us men, inasmuch as it
is perceived, the Self exists by reason of the fact that it perceives.
While the _Esse_ of all objects is a percipi, a something perceived, which
has come into knowledge, the _Esse_ of the self is a _percipere_, a
perceiving, a knowing, that is, the Self can only be thought of as
self-knowing. The Self exists even when it does not yet clearly know
itself, but it is not the real Self until it knows itself; and it requires
long and earnest thought for the Self to know or recognise itself as
different from the ego or the body. But if the Self has once come to
itself, the darkness or the phenomenal appearance which the Vedânta
philosophers called _Avidyâ_ (not knowing, ignorance), or also _Mâyâ_
(appearance, or illusion), vanishes.
The origin of this ignorance, this illusion, or the world of appearance,
is a question which no human being will ever solve. There are questions
which must be set aside as simply _ultra vires_ by every reasonable
philosophy. We know that we cannot hear certain tones, cannot see certain
colours; why not then understand that we cannot comprehend certain things?
The Vedânta philosophers consider the _Avidyâ_ (ignorance) as
inexplicable, and this was no doubt originally implied in the name which
they gave it. Their aim was, to prove the temporal existence of such an
_Avidyâ_, not to discover its origin; and then in the _Vidyâ_, the Vedânta
philosophy, to set forth the means by which the Avidyâ could be destroyed.
How or when the Self came into this ignorance, _Avidyâ_, or _Mâyâ_
(illusion, or the phenomenal world), the Vedânta philosophers no more
sought to explain than we seek to explain how the Self comes into the
body, the bodily senses, and the phenomenal world which they perceive. We
begin our philosophy with what is given us, that is, with a Self, that in
its embodiment knows everything that befalls the body; that for a time is
blended with the body, till it attains a true self-knowledge, and then,
even in life, or later in death, by liberation from its phenomenal
existence, or from the body, again comes to itself.
How this body, with its senses that convey and present to us the
phenomenal world, originated or developed, is a question that belongs to
biology. So far as is possible to the human understanding, this question
has been solved by the cell theory. The other question is the development
of what we call mind, that is, the subjective knowledge of the phenomenal
world. To this the body, as it exists and lives, and the organs of sense,
as they exist, are essential. We know that all sense-perceptions depend
upon bodily vibrations, _i.e._ the nerves; and if we wish to make plain
the transition of impressions to conscious ideas, we can best do so
through the assumption of the Self as a witness or accessory to the
nerve-vibrations. This, however, is only an image, not an explanation, for
an explanation belongs to the Utopia of philosophy. How it happens that
atoms think, atomists do not know, and no one should imagine that
so-called Darwinism has helped or can help us even one step farther.
Whatever some Darwinians may say, nothing can be simpler than the frank
admission of ignorance on this point on the part of Darwin. The frank and
modest expressions of this great but sober thinker are generally passed
over in silence, or are even controverted as signs of a temporary
weakness. To me, on the contrary, they are very valuable, and very
characteristic of Darwin.
In one place(40) he says, “I have nothing to do with the origin of the
primary mental power any more than I have with that of life itself.” In
another place(41) he speaks still more plainly and says, “In what manner
the mental powers were first developed in the lowest organisms is as
hopeless an inquiry as how life first originated.” Let no one suppose,
therefore, that all gates and doors can be opened with the word
“evolution” or the name Darwin. It is easy to say with Drummond,
“Evolution is revolutionising the world of nature and of thought, and
within living memory has opened up avenues into the past and vistas into
the future such as science has never witnessed before.”(42) Those are bold
words, but what do they mean or prove? DuBois-Reymond has said long
before, “How consciousness can arise from the co-operation of atoms is
beyond our comprehension.” In the _Contemporary Review_, November,
1871,(43) Huxley speaks just as decidedly as Darwin in the name of
biology, “I really know nothing whatever, and never hope to know anything,
of the steps by which the passage from molecular movement to states of
consciousness is effected.” Molecules and atoms are objects of knowledge.
If we ascribe knowledge to them, they immediately become the monads of
Leibnitz; you may evolve out of them what you have first involved into
them. Knowledge belongs to the Self alone, call it what we will. The
nerve-fibres might vibrate as often as they pleased, millions and millions
of times in a second; they would never produce the sensation of red if
there were no Self as the receiver and illuminator, the translator of
these vibrations of ether; this Self, that alone receives, alone
illumines, alone knows, and of which we can say nothing more than what the
Indian philosophers call _sak-kid-ânanda_, that it exists, that it
perceives, and as they add, that it is blessed, _i.e._ that it is complete
in itself, serene and eternal.
If we take a firm stand on this living and perceiving Self (for _kid_ is
not so much thinking as perceiving, or knowing), there can then be no
question that it is present not only in men, but in animals as well; only
let us beware of the inference that what we mean by human mind, that is,
understanding and reasoning thought, is a necessary function of all living
organisms, and is possessed also by a goose or a chicken. It is just the
same with the perceiving Self as it is with the cell. To the eye they are
all alike. To express it figuratively, one cell has a ticket to Cologne,
another to Paris, a third to London. Each reaches its destination, and
then remains stationary, and no power on earth can make it advance beyond
the place to which it is ticketed, that is, its original destination, its
fundamental eternal idea. It is just the same with the perceiving Self. It
is true that the Self sees, hears, and thinks. As there are animals that
cannot see, that cannot hear, so there are animals—and this class includes
the whole of them—that cannot speak. It is true that the speaking animals,
that is men, have passed the former stations on a fast train; but they did
not leave the train, nor have they anything in common with those who
remained behind at previous stations, least of all can we consider them as
the offspring of those that remained behind. This is only a simile, and
should not provoke ridicule. Of course it will be said that those who can
journey to Cologne may go on to Paris, and once in Paris may easily cross
the Channel. We must not ride a comparison to death, but always adhere to
the facts. Why does not grass grow as high as a poplar, why is care taken,
as Goethe says, that no tree grows up to the sky? A strawberry might grow
as large as a cucumber or a pumpkin, but it does not. Who draws the line?
It is true, too, that along every line slight deviations take place right
and left. Nearly each year we hear of an abnormally large strawberry, and
no doubt abnormally small ones could be found as well. But in spite of
all, the normal remains. And whence comes it, if not from the same hand or
the same source which we compared with the ticket agent at the railway
station, in whom all who are familiar with the history of philosophy will
again readily recognise the Greek Logos?
These comparisons should at least be so far useful as to disclose the
confusion of thought, when, for instance, Mr. Romanes holds that it is not
only comprehensible, but the conclusion is unavoidable, that the human
mind has sprung from the minds of the higher quadrumana on the line of
natural genesis. The human mind may mean every possible thing; the
question therefore arises if he refers only to consciousness, or to
understanding and reason. In the second place the human mind is not
something subsisting by itself, but can only be the mind of an individual
man. We cannot be too careful in these discussions—otherwise we only end
by substituting bare abstractions for concrete things. We do not know the
human mind as anything concrete at all, only as an abstraction, and in
that case only as the mind of one man, or of many men. How can it then be
thought that my mind or the mind of Darwin sprang from the minds of the
higher quadrumana. We may say such things, but what meaning can we attach
to them? The same misconception exists here, if I am not mistaken, as in
the statement, that the human body springs from the bodies of the higher
quadrupeds—a misconception to which we have already referred. That has
absolutely no sense if we only hold firmly, that every organised body was
originally a cell, or originates in a cell, and that each cell, even in
its most complicated, manifold, and perfect form, always is, and remains,
an individual. It is useless therefore to talk of a descent of the human
mind from the minds of the higher quadrupeds, for no intelligible meaning
can be discovered in it; we should have to fall back on a miscarriage, and
to set up this miscarriage as the mother of all men, and without a
legitimate father. Such are the wanderings of a wrong method of thought,
even if it struts about in kingly robes.
Above all things we must settle what we are really to understand by the
mind of the higher quadrupeds as distinguished from the human mind. What
is there lacking in these animal minds to make them human? And what do
they possess, or what are they, that they should claim equal birth with
man? How much obscurity there is in these matters among the best animal
psychologists is seen when, for instance, we compare the assertions of
Romanes with those of Lloyd Morgan. While the former sets up a natural
genesis of the human mind from animal mind as being indisputable and as
not being thinkable in any other way, the latter, his greatest admirer,
says, “Believing, as I do, that conception is beyond the power of my
favourite and clever dog, I am forced to believe that his mind differs
generically from my own.”(44) Undoubtedly by “generically” is meant,
according to his genus or his genesis. But in spite of this, the same
savant says in another place, that he cannot allow that there is a
difference _in kind_, that is _in genere_, between the human mind and the
mind of a dog. If men would only define their words, such contradictions
would in time become impossible.
What men and animals have in common is the Self, and this so-called Self
consists first of all in perception. This perception belongs, as has been
said, to those things which are given us, and not to those which can be
explained. It is a property of the eternal Self, as of light, to shine, to
illumine itself, that is, to know. Its knowing is its being, and its being
is its knowing, or its self-consciousness. If we take the Self as we find
it, not merely in itself, but embodied, we must attribute to it, besides
its own self-consciousness, a consciousness of the conditions of the body;
but of course we must not imagine that we can make this embodiment in any
way conceivable to us. It _is_ so—that is all that we can say, just as in
an earlier consideration of the embodiment and multiplication of the
eternal Logos we had to accept this as a datum, without being able to come
any nearer to the fact by conceptions, or even by mere analogies. This is
where the task of the psychologist begins. Grant the self-consciousness of
the individual, although still very obscure; grant the sentient
perception; everything else that we call mind is the result of a
development, which we must follow historically in order to understand that
it could not come about in any other way. But where are the facts, where
the monuments, where the trustworthy documents, from which we can draw our
knowledge of this wonderful development?
Four sources have been propounded for the study of psychogenesis. It has
been said that to investigate the development of the human mind, the
following objects must be scientifically observed: (1) The mind of a
child; (2) the mind of the lower animals; (3) the survivals of the oldest
culture, as we find it in ethnological collections; (4) the mind of still
living savages. I formerly entertained similar hopes, but in my own
melancholy experience all these studies end in delusion, in so far as they
are applied to explain the genesis of the human mind. They do not reach
far enough, they give us everywhere only the products of growth, the
result of art, not the natural growth, or the real evolution. The
observations on the development of a child’s mind are very attractive,
especially when they are made by thoughtful mothers. But this nursery
psychology is wanting in all scientific exactness. The object of
observation, the child that cannot yet speak, can never be entirely
isolated. Its environment is of incalculable influence, and the petted
child develops very differently from the neglected foundling. The early
smile of the one is often as much a reflex action as the crying and
blustering of the other, from hunger or inherited disease. Much as I
admire the painstaking effort with which the first evidences of perception
or of mental activity in a child have been recorded from day to day, from
week to week, these observations prove untrustworthy when we endeavour to
control them independently. It has been said that the mental activities of
a child develop in the following order:—
After three weeks fear is manifested;
After seven weeks social affections;
After twelve weeks jealousy and anger;
After five months sympathy;
After eight months, pride, sentiment, love of ornament;
After fifteen months, shame, remorse, a sense of the ludicrous.(45)
We may generalise this scale as much as we please, and gradually permit
the gradations to vanish, but I doubt if even two mothers could be found
who would agree in such an interpretation of their children’s looks. Add
to this that this whole scale has very little to do with what, in the
strict sense of the word, we call mind. From fear up to shame and
penitence are all manifestations simply of the feelings, and not of the
mind. We know that what we call fear is often a reflex action, as when a
child closes its eyelids before a blow. What has been named jealousy in a
child, is often nothing but hunger, while shame is instilled into one
child, and in others is by no means of spontaneous growth.
The worst feature of such observations is that they are very quickly
regarded as safe ground, and are reared higher and higher until in the end
the entire scaffold collapses. In order to establish the truth of this
psychologic scale in children still more firmly, and at the same time to
make good its universal necessity, an effort has been made to prove that a
similar scale is to be found in the animal kingdom, and of course what was
sought has been found. Romanes asserts that the lowest order of animals,
the annelids, only show traces of fear; a little higher in the scale, in
insects, are found social instincts such as industry, combativeness, and
curiosity; another step higher, fishes exhibit jealousy, and birds,
sympathy; then in carnivorous animals follow cruelty, hate, and grief; and
lastly, in the anthropoid apes, remorse, shame, and a sense of the
ridiculous, as well as deceit. It needs but one step more to make this
scale, which belongs much more to the sphere of feeling than the realm of
thought, universally applicable to all psychology. How should we otherwise
explain the parallelism between the mental development of infants and that
of undeveloped animals? One need but take a firm hold of such
observations, and they are transformed into airy visions. Who, for
instance, would dare to distinguish the traces of fear in annelids from
those of surprise in higher animals? Nevertheless fear occupies the first
place, surprise the third. And what mark distinguished combativeness in
insects from jealousy in fishes? In the same way I doubt if any two nurses
would agree in the chronology of the phenomena of the infant disposition,
and have therefore long since given up all hope of obtaining any hints
either in embryological or physiological development, about the real
historical unfolding of the human consciousness, either out of a nursery
or out of a zoölogical garden.
As for ethnological museums, they certainly give us wonderful glimpses
into the skilfulness of primitive man, especially in what relates to the
struggle for life; but of the historic or prehistoric age of these wood,
horn, and stone weapons, they tell us absolutely nothing. Whoever thinks
that man descended from an ape, may no doubt say that flint implements for
kindling fire belonged to a higher period, _post hominem natum_, although
it has been thought that even apes could have imitated such weapons,
though they could not have invented them. Romanes, in his book on _Mental
Evolution in Animals_, has collected a large number of illustrations of
animal skilfulness; the majority of them, however, are explained by mere
mimicry; of a development of original ideas peculiar to animals in their
wild state, apart from the contact and influence of human society, there
is no trace. Even the most intelligent animal, the elephant, acquires
reason only in its intercourse with men, and similarly the more or less
trained apes, dogs, parrots, etc. All this is very interesting reading,
and an English weekly, _The Spectator_, has from week to week given us
similar anecdotes about wonderfully gifted animals from all parts of the
earth, but these matters lie outside the narrow sphere of science.
What then remains to enable us to study the earliest phase of development
of the human mind accessible to us? If we go to savages, whose language we
only understand imperfectly, these observations are of course still more
untrustworthy than in the case of our own children; at all events we must
wait before we receive any really valuable evidence of the development of
the human mind from that source. I repeat that the human mind itself, as
far as it perceives, must simply be accepted as a fact, given to us and
inexplicable, whether in civilised or uncivilised races; but only in its
greatest simplicity, as mere self-conscious perception—a perception which
in this simplicity can in no wise be denied to animals, although we can
only with difficulty form a clear idea of the peculiarity of their
sentient perceptions.
Where can we observe the first steps that rise above this simple
perception? I say, as I have always said, In language and in language
alone. Language is the oldest monument which we possess of man’s mental
power, older than stone weapons, than cuneiform inscriptions, than
hieroglyphics. The development of language is continuous, for where this
continuity is broken, language dies. After every Tasmanian had been killed
or had died, the Tasmanian language _ipso facto_ ceased; and even if any
literary remains had survived, the language itself would have to be
reckoned, like Latin and Greek, with dead languages. Thousands of them may
have disappeared from the earth; in its development a language may have
changed as much as Sanskrit to Bengali; but it suffers no break, it
remains always the same, and in a certain sense we still speak in German
the same tongue as was spoken by the Aryans before there was a Sanskrit, a
Greek, or a Latin language. Consider what this signifies. Chronologically,
we cannot get at this primitive Aryan speech. Let us assume that Sanskrit,
Greek, and Latin were spoken as independent national tongues at least
fifteen hundred years before our chronology—what an age had elapsed before
these three, as well as the remaining Aryan tongues, could have diverged
so much as Sanskrit diverges from Greek and Greek from Latin. The numerals
are the same in these three languages, and yet _katvāras_ sounds quite
differently from τέσσαρες and _quatuor_ and our four. The words for eight,
_octo_ in Latin, ὀκτώ in Greek, and _ashtau_ in Sanskrit, are nearly
identical; and it is even possible that the lesser deviations in the
pronunciation of these words demanded no great interval of time. But now
let us consider what lies behind these ten numerals. There is the
elaboration of a decimal system from 1 to 10, no, to 100 (ἑκατόν),
Sanskrit _satám_, _centum_. There is the formation and fixing of names for
these numbers, which must have been originally more or less arbitrary,
because numbers only subordinate themselves with difficulty to one of
those general ideas which are expressed in the Aryan roots. Besides these
words are, even in their oldest attainable forms, already so
weather-beaten, that in most cases it is impossible even to guess their
etymology and original meaning. We see that the names for two and eight
are dual, while those for three and four clearly have plural endings. But
why eight in the primitive Aryan was a dual, and what were the two
tetrads, which, combined in _asht-au_, _oct-o_, ὀκτ-ώ, expressed the
number eight, will probably never be discovered. It is possible that
_asht-i_ was a name for the four phases of the moon, or for the four
fingers of the hand without the thumb. Analogies occur in other families
of language, but certainty is beyond our reach. If we now consider what
mental effort is necessary to work out a decimal system, and to secure
general recognition and value for the name given to each number, we shall
readily realise what remote periods in the development of the human mind
open up before us here, and of how little use it would be to try to
establish chronological limits. Old as the Vedas, old as the Homeric songs
may be, what is their age compared with the periods that were required not
only to work out the numerals but the entire treasury of Aryan words, and
the wonderful network of grammar that surrounds this treasure, which also
was complete before the separation of the Aryan languages began. The
immeasurable cannot be measured, but this much stands immovable in the
mind of every linguist, that there is nothing older in the entire Aryan
world than the complete primitive Aryan language and grammar, in which
nearly all the categories of thought, and consequently the whole scaffold
of our thinking, have found their expression.
Of course it will be said that all this only applies to the Aryan race,
and that they constitute only a small and perhaps the youngest portion of
the human race. Well, it is difficult to prove that the Aryans constitute
the least numerous subdivision. We know too little of their great masses
to attempt a census. That they are the youngest branch of the human race
is really of no consequence; we should then have to assume against all
Darwinian principles, various, not contemporaneous, but successive
monstrosities, slowly ascending to humanity, and this would only be pure
invention. Nothing absolutely compels us to ascribe a shorter earthly life
to those races which speak Chinese, Semitic, Bantu, American, Australian,
or other languages, than to the Aryans. That all races have begun on a
lower plane of culture, and especially of the knowledge of language, will
no doubt be universally acknowledged. But even if we only place the first
beginnings of the Aryan race at 10,000 B.C., there is time enough for it
and other races to have risen, and also to have again declined. The
difference would merely be that the Aryans, in spite of many drawbacks, on
the whole constantly progressed, while the Australians, Negroes, and
Patagonians, forced into unfavourable positions, remained stationary on a
very low level. That their present plane can in any respect, and
especially in regard to their language, supply a picture of the earliest
condition of the human race, or even of certain branches of it, is again
mere assumption, and as bare of all analogy as the attempt to see in the
salons of London a picture of Aryan family life before the first
separation. There are savages who are cannibals. Shall we conclude from
this that the first men all devoured each other, or that only those who
were least appetising remained over as survivals of the fittest? It is
remarkable how many ideas are current in science which the healthy human
mind, after short reflection, silently lays aside. Any one who has
occupied himself with the polysynthetic tongues of the Redskins, or with
the prefixes in the languages of the Bantus, knows how much time must have
been needed to develop their grammar, and how much higher the makers of
these languages must have stood than those who speak them now.
But even if language is the oldest chronicle in which the human mind has
traced its own development, we must by no means imagine that any known
language, be it as old as the pyramids, or as the cuneiform inscriptions,
can offer us a picture of the first beginning of the mental life of the
race. Long before the pyramids, long before the oldest monuments in
Babylon, Nineveh, and China, there was language, even writing; for on the
oldest Egyptian inscriptions we find among the hieroglyphic signs writing
materials and the stilus. Here perspectives open up to us, before which
every chronological telescope gives way. There is a rigorous continuity in
the development of a language, but this continuity in no wise excludes a
transformation as marked as that of the butterfly from the caterpillar.
Even when, as for instance in Sanskrit, we go back to a number of roots,
to which Indian grammarians such as _Pânini_ have systematically traced
back the entire wealth of their abundant language, we must not suppose
that these roots really constituted the original and complete material
with which the primitive Aryan tongue began its historical career. This is
not true even of the Indian branch of this primitive tongue, for in its
development much may have been lost, and much so changed that we dare not
think of restoring a perfect picture from these fragments of the earliest
mental development of the Indians. These things are so simple that
philologists accept them as axioms; but it is curious to observe, that in
spite of the widespread interest that has been created in all civilised
nations by the results of the science of language, philosophers who write
about language and its relation to thought still trouble themselves over
notions long since antiquated. I had, for instance, classified the
principal ideas expressed in Sanskrit roots, and had reduced them to the
small number of 121.(46) With these 121 ideas, Indian philology pledges
itself to explain all the simple and derivative meanings of words that
fill the thick volumes of a Sanskrit lexicon. And what did ethnologists
say to this? Instead of gratefully accepting this fact, they asserted that
many of these 121 radical ideas, as for instance, weaving or cooking,
could not possibly be primitive. Impossible is always a very convenient
word. But who ever claimed that these 121 fundamental ideas all belonged
to the primitive Aryan language. They are, in fact, the ideas that are
indicated in the thousands of words in classical Sanskrit, but they have
never made any claim to have constituted the mental capital of the
primitive Aryans, whether acquired from heaven or from the domicile of
apes. And if now a few of these ideas, such as to weave, to cook, to
clean, appear modern, what of that compared with the simple fact that they
are actually there?
These ethnologists, too, always make the old mistake of confounding the
learning of a language, as is done by every child, with the first
invention or formation of a language. The two things are as radically
different as the labour of miners who bring forth to the light of day gold
ore out of the depths of the earth, and the enjoyment which the heirs of a
rich man have in squandering his cash. The two things are quite different,
and yet there are books upon books which attempt to draw conclusions as to
the creation of language from children learning to talk. We have at least
now got so far as to admit that language facilitates thinking; but that
language first made thought possible, that it was the first step in the
development of the human mind, but few anthropologists have seen.(47) They
do not know what language in the true sense of the word means, and still
think that it is only communication, and that it does not differ from the
signals made by chamois, or the information imparted by the antennæ of
ants. Henry Drummond goes so far as to say that “Any means by which
information is conveyed from one mind to another, is language.”(48) That
is entirely erroneous. The entire chapter on sign language, interesting as
it is, must be treated quite differently by the philologist, compared with
the ethnologist. When the sign is such as was used in the old method of
telegraphing, and meant a real word, or, as in modern electric telegraphy,
even a letter, this is really speaking by signs; and so is the finger
language of the deaf and dumb. But when I threaten my opponent with my
fist, or strike him in the face, when I laugh, cry, sob, sigh, I certainly
do not speak, although I do make a communication, the meaning of which
cannot be doubted. Not every communication, therefore, is language, nor
does every act of speaking aim at a communication. There are philologists
who maintain that the first words were merely a clearing of the ideas, a
sort of talking to oneself. This may have been so or not, at any rate it
appears to me that in such primitive times, practical ends deserve the
first consideration. No one can distinguish the difference in the stages
of mental development, between wiping the perspiration from the brow after
work, which signifies and communicates to every observer, “It is warm” or
“I am tired,” and the man who can actually say, “It is warm,” “I am
tired.” Thousands, millions of years may lie between these two steps. We
do not know, and to attempt to fix periods of time where the means are
lacking, is like pouring water into the Danaids’ sieves.
Just consider what effort was required to enable an Aryan man to say, “It
is warm.” We shall say nothing of “it”; it may be a simple demonstrative
stem, which needed little for its formation. But before this “i-t” or “id”
could become an impersonal “it,” long-continued abstraction, or, if you
prefer, long-continued polishing, was required. Take the word _is_. Whence
comes such a verbal form, Sanskrit _as-ti_, Greek ἔστι, Latin _est_? Was
the abstract “to be” onomatopoetically imitated? Often, of course, we
cannot answer such questions at all. In this case, however, it is
possible. The root _as_ in _asti_, that we now translate as _is_, means as
we see from _as-u_, breath, originally _to breathe_. Whoever likes may see
in _as_, to breathe, an imitation of hissing breath. We neither gain or
lose anything by this; for the critical step always remains to be taken
from a single imitation of a single act, to the comprehension of many such
acts, at various places, and at various times, as one and the same, which
is called abstraction or the forming of a concept.
This may appear to be a very small step, just as the first slight
deviation in a railroad track is scarcely a finger’s breadth, but in time
changes the course of the train to an entirely different part of the
world. The formation of an idea, such as to be, or to become, or to take a
still simpler one, such as four or eight, appears to us to be a very small
matter, and yet it is this very small matter that distinguishes man from
the animal, that pushed man forward and left the animal behind on his old
track. Nay, more, this “concept” has caused much shaking of the head among
philosophers of all times. That one and one are two, two and two, four,
four and four, eight, eight and eight, sixteen, etc., appears to be so
very easy, that we do not understand how such things can constitute an
eternally intended distinction between man and animal. I have myself seen
an ape so well trained that as the word “seven” was spoken, he picked up
seven straws. But what is such child’s play in comparison with the first
formation of the idea of seven? Do you not see that the formation of such
an abstract idea, isolating mere quantity apart from all qualities,
requires a power of abstraction such as has never been displayed by an
animal? If there were any languages now that actually had no word for
seven, it would be a valuable confirmation of this view. I doubt only,
whether the speakers of such languages could not call composition to their
aid, and attain the idea of seven by two, two, two, plus one. We still
know too little of these languages and of those who speak them. Of what
takes place in animals we know absolutely nothing, and nowhere would a
dose of agnosticism be more useful than here. Sense-impressions an animal
certainly has; whether quite the same as man must remain uncertain. And
sense-impressions enable an animal to accomplish much, especially in the
realm of feeling; but language—never.
This fact, as a bare undeniable fact, should have startled the Darwinians,
even as it startled the venerable Darwin, when I simply set the facts
before him, and he immediately drew the necessary consequences. Of any
danger there could be no fear. The facts are there and show us the right
path. And it is not only simple facts, but the consequences of preëxisting
conditions which render every so-called transition from animal to man
absolutely unthinkable. Language—as ethnologists should have learned—has
neither originated from artificial signs, nor from imitation of sounds.
That we can communicate with signs without saying a word, that we even now
use signs in our speech, is best learned in southern races, and in such
pantomimes as _L’enfant prodigue_. We have long known that imitations of
sound exist in greater or lesser numbers in every language, and how far
they can reach has probably never been shown in such detail as by
myself.(49) But that our Aryan tongues, and also the Semitic, and all
others that have been studied scientifically, originated from roots, is
now generally known and recognised. That these roots may in remote times
have contained an element of imitation, we may readily concede, for it is
really self-evident; only we should not from the beginning bar our way by
conceiving them as mere imitations of sound. If this were so, the problem
of language would long since have been solved, and the first formation of
ideas would require no further reflection. It must be conceded on the
other side that the origin of roots still contains much that is obscure,
and that even Noiré’s _clamor concomitans_ does not explain every case.
Only it is firmly established that a scientific analysis of language
leaves a certain number of roots which are not mere sound-imitations, such
as “bow wow,” or “moo moo.” There are people who have taken much pains to
discover whether the roots ever had an independent existence, or if they
have merely been scientifically abstracted, or shelled out of the words in
which they occur. These are vain questions, for we can never of course
come at the matter historically, and the attempt to prove the necessity of
the one or the other view is a useless undertaking. It appears to be the
most reasonable plan to assume for the Aryan languages a period that
approaches the Chinese, in which roots had the same sound and the same
form as the corresponding noun, adjective, and verb. Even in Sanskrit
roots appear at times still unchanged, although it is quite right that as
soon as they take on grammatical functions, they should no longer be
called roots. Much may be said in favour of both views, without arriving
one step nearer our goal. If we now only remember that the whole Sanskrit
language has been reduced to 121 primitive ideas, and that the roots
denoting these (which are of course much more numerous) are not imitations
of sound in the strict sense of the word, but sounds about whose origin we
may say much but can prove little, we have at least a που στῶ for our
researches. I myself, like my deceased friend Noiré, have looked upon
roots as _clamor concomitans_, that is, not as sound-imitations, but as
actual sounds, uttered by men in common occupations, and to be heard even
now. Why, however, the Aryans used and retained _ad_ for eat, _tan_ for
stretch, _mar_ for rub, _as_ for breathe, _sta_ for stand, _ga_ for go, no
human thought can find out; we must be content with the fact that it was
so, and that a certain number of such roots—of course much greater than
the 121 ideas expressed by them—constitute the kernels from which has
sprouted the entire flora of the Indian mind.
If we now return, to our _is_,—Sanskrit _as-ti_, Greek ἔστι, Latin
_est_,—we see that it originally meant “to breathe out.” This blowing or
breathing was then used for “life,” as in _as-u_, breath of life, and from
life it lost its content until it could be applied to everything existing,
and meant nothing more than the abstract “to be.” There are languages that
possess no such pale word as “be” and could not form such a sentence as
“It is warm.” The auxiliary verb “to have” is also lacking in many
languages, especially the ancient, such as Sanskrit, Greek, and even
classical Latin. If the words failed, the ideas failed as well, and such
languages had to try and fulfil their requirements in other ways. If there
was no such word as “be,” “stand” was employed; where there was no word
for “have,” then “hold,” _tenere_, would render the same, or at least
similar service. But this implied not only different speech, but different
thought.
But here I should like to call attention to the long process through which
a language must pass, before it could reduce “breathe” to “be” and form
such a sentence as “It is warm.” Even an animal feels warmth, and can in
various ways make known if it is overheated. But in all this it is only a
question of feelings, not to ideas, and still less of language. Let us
consider “warm.” Of course “warm” may represent a mere feeling, and then a
simple panting would suffice to express it. That is communication, but not
language. To think a word like warm, a root and an idea are necessary.
Probably, and in spite of a few phonetic difficulties, the root was in
this case _ghar_ (in _gharmá_, θερμός), and this meant at first to be
bright, to glitter, to shine, then to burn, to heat, to be warm; that is
to say, the observing mind of man was able to abstract brightness from the
sense-impressions produced by sun, fire, gold, and many other objects,
and, letting everything else drop, to reach the idea of shining, then of
being warm. These ideas, of course, do not exist on their own account
anywhere in the world; they must be and have been constructed by man
alone, never by an animal. Why? Because an animal does not possess what
man possesses: the faculty of grasping the many as one, so as to form an
idea and a word. Light or lighting, warmth or warming, exist nowhere in
the world, and are nowhere given in sentient experience. Every object of
sense exists individually, and is perceived as such individually, such as
the sun, a torch, a stove; but heat in general, like everything general,
is the product of our thought; its name is made by us, and is not given
us.
Of all this, of course, when we learn to speak as children, we have no
suspicion. We learn the language made by others who came before us, and
proceed from words to ideas, not from ideas to words. Whether the relation
between ideas and words was a succession, it is hard to say, because no
idea exists without a word, any more than a word without an idea. Word and
idea exist through each other, beside each other, with each other; they
are inseparable. We could as easily try to speak without thinking, as to
think without speaking. It is at first difficult to grasp this. We are so
accustomed to think silently, before speaking aloud, that we actually
believe that the same is true, even of the first formation of ideas and
words. Our so-called thinking _before_ speaking, however, refers simply to
reflection, or deliberation. It is something quite different, and occurs
only with the aid of silent words that are in us, even if they are not
uttered. Every person, particularly in his youth, believes that he
cherishes within himself inexpressible feelings, or even thoughts. These
are chiefly obscure feelings, and the expression of feelings has always
been the most difficult task to be performed by language, because they
must first pass through a phase of conception. If, however, they are
actually ideas, they are such as have an old expression that is felt to be
inconvenient, or inadequate, and must be replaced by a new one. We cannot
do enough to rid ourselves of the old error, that thought is possible
without words. We can, of course, repeat words without meaning; but that
is not speaking, only making a noise. If any one, however, tells us that
he can think quite well without words, let this silent thinker be suddenly
interrupted, ask him of what he has thought in silence, and he will have
to admit that it was of a dog, a horse, or a man—in short, of something
that has a name. He need not utter these words—that has never been
maintained, but he must have the ideas and their signs, otherwise there
are not, and there cannot be for him, either ideas or things. How often we
see children move their lips while they are thinking, that is, speaking
without articulation. We can, of course, in case of necessity, use other
signs; we can hold a dog on high and show him, but if we ask what is
shown, we shall find that the actual dog is only a substitute for the
abstract word “dog,” not the reverse, for a dog that is neither a spaniel,
poodle, dachshund, etc., is nowhere to be found, _in rerum natura_, or in
domestic life. These things, that give us so much trouble, were often
quite clear to the ancient Hindus, for their usual word for “thing” is
_padârtha_; that is, meaning or purpose of the word. But men persist that
they are able to think without speaking aloud, or in silence. They persist
that thought comes first, and then speech; they persist that they can
speak without thinking,—and that is often quite true,—and that they can
also think without speaking, which must first be proved. Consider only
what is necessary to form so simple a word as “white.” The idea of white
must be formed at the same time, and this can only be done by dropping
everything but the colour from the sense-perceptions of such things as
snow, snowdrop, cloud, chalk, or sugar, then marking this colour, and, by
means of a sign (in this case a vocal one), elevating it to a
comprehensible idea, and at the same time to a word. How this vocal token
originates it is often difficult, often quite impossible, to say. The
simplest mode is, for example, if there be a word for snow, to take this
and to generalise it, and then to call sugar, for instance, snow, or
snowy, or snow-white. But the prior question, how snow was named, only
recedes for a while, and must of course be answered for itself. Given a
word for snow, it can easily be generalised. But how did we name snow? I
believe that snow, which forms into balls in melting and coheres, was
named _nix nivis_, from a root _snigh_ or _snu_, denoting everything which
melted and yet stuck together or cohered. But these are mere possibilities
that may be true or false; yet their truth or falsity leave undisturbed
the fundamental truth, that each individual perception, as, for example,
this snow or this ice, first had to be brought under a general conception,
before it could be clearly marked, or elevated to a word. In such a case
men formed, by living and working together, a general conception and a
root, for an oft-repeated action, such as forming into balls; and under
this general concept they then conceived an individual impression like
snow; that is, that which is formed into a ball, so that they had the
sign, and with the sign the concept of snow, both inseparable in reality,
distinguishable as they are in their origin. Having this, they could
extend the concept in the vocal sign for snow, and speak of snowy things,
just as they spoke of rosy cheeks. Only we must not imagine that it will
ever be possible to make the origin of root sounds perfectly clear. This
goes back to times that are entirely withdrawn from our observation. It
goes back to times in which the first general ideas were formed, and
thereby the first steps were taken in the development of the human mind.
How is it possible that any recollection should have remained of such
early times, or even any understanding of these mental processes? We may
settle many things, but in the end nothing is left but to say: It is so,
and remains so, whether we can explain it or not. The first general
concept may no doubt have been, as Noiré affirmed, an often repeated
action, such as striking, going, rubbing, chewing—acts that spontaneously
present themselves to consciousness, as manifold and yet single, that is,
as continually repeated, in which the mind consequently found the first
natural stimulus to the formation of concepts. Why, however, rub was
denoted by _mar_, eat by _ad_, go by _ga_, strike by _tud_, we may perhaps
apprehend by feeling, but we could not account for or even conceive it.
Here we must be content with the facts, especially as in other families of
languages we find entirely different vocal signs. No doubt there was a
reason for all of them; but this reason, even if we could prove it
historically, would always remain incomprehensible to us, and only as fact
would it have any significance for science.
At any rate, we can now understand in what manner language offers us
really historical documents of the oldest stages which we can reach in the
development of the human mind. I say, “which we can reach,” for what lies
beyond language does not exist for us. Nothing remains of the history of
_homo alalus_. But every word represents a deed, an acquisition of the
mind. If we take such a word as the Vedic _deva_, there may have been many
older words for god, but let us not imagine that a fetish or totem, whose
etymology is or should be known, belongs to them. But at all events we
know from _deva_ and the Latin _deus_, that even before the Aryan
separation a root _dyu_ or _div_ had been formed, as well as the
conception “shine.” If this root was first used actively for the act of
shedding light, of striking a spark, of shining, it was a step farther to
transfer this originally active root to the image which the sky produces
in us, and to call it a “shiner,” _dyu_ (nom. _dyaus_), and then with a
new upward tendency to call all bright and shining beings, _deva_, _deus_.
Man started, therefore, from a generalisation, or an idea, and then under
this idea grouped other single presentations, such as sun, moon, and
stars, from which “shining” had been withdrawn, or abstracted, and thus
obtained as a mental acquisition a sign for the idea “shine,” and further
formations such as _Dyaus_ (shiner) and _deva_ (shining). Now observe how
_Dyaus_, as “shiner,” at the same time assumed the significance of an
otherwise unknown agent or author of light, and developed into the ancient
Dyaus, into Zeus and Jove; that is, into the oldest personal God of the
still united Aryans. These are the true stages of the development of the
human mind, which are susceptible of documentary proof in the archives of
language.
All this occurred, of course, on exclusively Aryan ground, while the
Semitic and other branches went their own way in the formation of ideas,
and of sounds for their ideas. Physiologically all these branches may have
one and the same origin, but linguistically they have various beginnings,
and have not, at least as far as scientific proof is possible, sprung from
one and the same source. The common origin of all languages is not
impossible, but it is and remains undemonstrable, and to science that is
enough, _sapienti sat_. If we analyse the Semitic and other languages, we
shall find in them as many ancient documents of the development of the
human mind as in the Aryan. And just as we can clearly and plainly trace
back the French _dieu_, the Latin _deus_, the Sanskrit _deva_, divine, to
the physical idea _div_, “shine,” so we can with thousands of other words,
of which each indicates an act of will, and each gives us an insight into
the development of our mind. Whether the Aryans were in possession of
other ideas and sounds for “shine,” etc., before the formation of _div_,
_Dyaus_, and _deva_, must be left uncertain; at all events we see how
naturally the first consciousness of God developed in them, how the idea
conditioned the language, and the language the idea, and both originated
and continued inseparable one from the other.
If we take any root of the Aryan language, we shall be astonished at the
enormous number of its derivatives and the shades in their meaning. Here
we see very plainly how thought has climbed forward upon words. We find,
for instance, in the list of Sanskrit roots, the root _bhar_ with the
simple meaning to bear. This we see plainly in _bharâmi_, in _bibharmi_,
in _bibharti_ (I bear, he bears), also in _bháras_ or _bhartár_ (a
bearer), and _bhârás_ (load) and _bhárman_ and _bhartí_ (bearing), etc.
But these forms, with all their cases and persons and tenses, give us no
idea of the fruitfulness of a root, especially if we follow its
ramifications in the cognate languages. In Greek we have φέρω, in Latin
_fero_, in Gothic _bairan_, in English _to bear_. The principal meanings
which this root assumes are, to carry, carry hither, carry away, carry in,
to support, to maintain, to bring forth, etc. We find simple derivatives
such as the German _Bahre_, English _bier_ (French _bière_, borrowed), and
also φέρετρον and _feretrum_, as well as _ferculum_ (a litter). On the
other hand there is φόρετρον (a porter’s wages), and φaρέτρa (quiver). And
_barrow_ in wheel-barrow has the same origin. _Burden_ is that which is
borne, then a load, as, for instance, the burden of years. A step farther
takes us to φερτός (bearable) and ἄφερτος (unbearable). We also find in
Greek δύσφορος, which corresponds exactly to the Sanskrit _durbhara_, with
the meaning “heavy to bear.” In Latin, however, _fertus_ signifies
fruitful, like _fertilis_, _ferax_. We say, “The earth bears” (_trägt_),
and _Getreide_ (grain) meant originally that borne (_getragen_) by the
earth (hence in Middle High German _Geträgede_). So we have also _far_,
the oldest corn grown by the Romans, derived from _fero_, and along with
it _fārina_ (flour), if it stands for _farrina_. _Far_ may originally,
however, have also meant food, maintenance, and the Anglo-Saxon _bere_,
the English _barley_, are again related to it. Of course we have the same
root in derivatives, such as _lucifer_, _frugifer_, in Greek καρποφόρος or
φερέκαρπος. In German it becomes a mere suffix, as _fruchtbar_, _dankbar_,
_scheinbar_, _urbar_. Like φόρος, φορά means also what is carried or
brought, hence specially tribute, duty, tax. To bear a child was used in
the sense of to bring forth, and from this we have many derivatives such
as _birth_, _born_, and Gothic _berusjos_ (parents), _parentes_ and _barn_
(the child), like the Greek φέρμα.
If δίφρος (carriage) stands for διφόρος, it means originally a carriage
for two persons, just as ἀμφορεύς, Latin _amphora_, was a vessel with two
handles. We should scarcely believe that the same root is concealed in the
German _Zuber_ (tub) and _Eimer_ (bucket). But _Zuber_ was originally
_Zwiber_, a vessel with two handles, and _Eimer_ was _Einber_, a bucket
with one bail. We may compare _manubrium_ (handle) and derivatives like
_candelebrum_, _lugubris_, as well as _luctifer_. If _bhartri_ meant
bearer and then husband, as _bhâry[~a]_ meant wife, _i.e._ the one to be
maintained, we are probably justified in seeing in _bhrâtar_ (brother) the
original meaning of helper, protector. Although the wife is to be
maintained and sustained, she, too, brings something to the household, and
that is the φέρνω (dowry). The Middle Latin expression _paraphernalia_ is
properly dowry, though it has now assumed an entirely different meaning.
“To be carried” easily takes the meaning of being torn away, _s’emporter_,
and this we find in the Greek represented by φέρεσθαι, in the Sanskrit in
the secondary form _bhur_ (to hasten), yielding _bhuranyú_, _bhúrni_
(hasty, violent), and other derivatives.
We have already seen how φόρος and φορά signified that which is
contributed, then duty, tribute. This is the Gothic _gabaur_, that is,
_gebühr_ (due), and consequently all things that are proper or becoming.
_Offerre_ (bring before) leads to _Opfer_ (sacrifice) and to the simpler
_offrir_, as _sufferre_ to _souffrir_ (suffer).
It has been usual to derive _Fors_, _Fortuna_, from _ferre_,(50) the
goddess who brings, although she takes away as well. The ancients had no
doubts of this derivation, and τὸ φέρον (fate) and τὸ φερόμενον (chance)
seem to substantiate it. But the old divine character of _Fors_, _Fortuna_
(as related to Harit), points to other sources, which had already entirely
vanished from the consciousness of the ancients. Yet the expression, _es
trägt sich zu_ (it happens), the old _gaburjan_, Anglo-Saxon _gebyrian_,
and _kipuri_ (_zufällig_, casual), must be taken into account, and forms
such as _forte_, _forsan_, _fortassis_ (_forte an si vis_), _fortuitus_,
are very remote from their supposed mythological meaning. If _ferre_ were
the root, we should have further proof of the immeasurable fertility to
which we owe such words as _fortune_ and _misfortune_.
It would lead us too far if we tried to collect all the meanings which our
roots had in the various ancient Aryan tongues in combination with
prepositions. It must suffice to select a small number from a modern
language such as French, which give us an idea of the endless
modifications to which every root is more or less adapted. Thus from
_circumferre_ we have _circonférence_, also _périphérie_, from _conferre_,
_conférence_ and also _confortable_, from _deferre_ _déférence_, from
_differre_ _différence_, from _praeferre_ _préférence_, from _proferre_
_proférer_, from _referre_ _référence_, each word again with numerous
offshoots. We are not at the end yet, and still less when we keep in view
also the parallel formations _tuli_ and _latum_, or _portare_. We then see
what a root in this language has to signify, whether considered as a
concrete word or as a mere abstraction. This is prolific of contention and
has been much disputed; the main thing is to know the facts. From these we
may infer how in all this multiplicity the unity of the root element can
be best explained.
I do not say that all ideas can be so clearly traced to their origin as in
this root. In some the intermediate forms have been lost, and the
etymologies become uncertain, often impossible. But the result on the
whole remains the same. Wherever we can see clearly, we see that what we
call mind and thought consists in this, that man has the power not only to
receive presentations like an animal, but to discover something general in
them. This element he can eliminate and fix by means of vocal signs; and
he can further classify single presentations under the same general
concepts, and mark them by the same vocal signs. What we call derivative
forms, such as _deva_ besides _div_, are originally varieties in the
formation of words, that in time proved useful, and through repeated
employment obtained their special application. Often, too, there are real
compounds, just as the German _bar_ in _fruchtbar_, _furchtbar_, etc., was
originally the same word that we have in _Bahre_ (bier), but was very
different from _bar_ in _Nachbar_ (neighbour), which in spite of the
similarity in sound comes from an entirely different root, seen in _bauen_
(build), _bebauen_ (cultivate), _bauer_ (peasant), and in the English
neighbour.
If we have the ideas and the words, the process of thought, as Hobbes has
taught us, is nothing but an addition and subtraction of ideas. We add
when we say, A is B; when we say, for instance, man, or Caius, is mortal,
adding Caius, or man, to all that we call mortal; we subtract when we say,
A is not B; that is, when we abstract Enoch from all that we call mortal.
Everything that man has ever thought, humiliating as it may sound,
consists in these two operations; just as the most abstruse operations of
mathematics go back in the end to addition and subtraction. To what else
could they go back? Whether these mental operations are true or false, is
another question, with which the method of the thinker has nothing to do;
any more than formal logic inquires whether all men are mortal, but only
infers on the basis of these premises that Caius, because he is a man, is
also mortal.
We see, therefore, how language and thought go hand in hand; where there
is as yet no word, there is not yet an idea. The thinking capacity of the
mind has its source in language, lives in language, and develops
continuously in language. The human mind is human language, and as animals
possess no language, they do not _ipso facto_ possess what philosophers
understand by mind. We need not for this reason ascribe any special
faculty to men. Speech and thought are only a wider development of the
faculty of presentation such as an animal may have; but in an animal it
never develops any farther, for an animal has no general ideas; it remains
at the individual, and never attains unity in plurality. It knows, as
Plato would say, a horse, but not “horsedom.” If we wish to say that the
perceiving self is present in animals as in men, there is no objection,
though in all such, questions relating to animals we are always groping in
the dark. But the fact remains that the step, whether small or vast, that
leads from the individual to the general, from the concrete to the
abstract, from perceiving (that is, being acted upon) to conceiving,
thinking, speaking, that is, to acting, is for the animal impossible. An
animal might speak, but it cannot; a stone might grow, but it cannot; a
tree might walk, but it cannot. Why not? Because there are natural
boundaries that are apparently easy to pass, and yet impassable. The tree
grows up a tree, the animal an animal, but no farther, just as man never
surpasses the human, and therefore can never think except through
language, which often is very imperfect.
In one sense, therefore, the Horseherd is quite right. The mind is a
development, an eternal, ceaseless development; but when he calls it a
function possessed by all living organisms, even a goose and a chicken, he
goes far beyond the facts. No goose speaks, although it cackles, and
although by cackling it apprised the Romans of the important fact that
their Capitol was in danger. How much a dog could tell us if he could
speak! As if this capacity or incapacity is not as much the result of
intention as every other capacity and incapacity in nature! If we
translate this ability by _facultas_, that is _facilitas_, we need not for
that reason assume in man a faculty, or as the Horseherd calls it, a
phantom, but the thing remains the same. We can speak, and an animal
cannot; we can think, and an animal cannot.
But it must not be supposed that because we deny thought and speech to
animals, we wish to degrade them. Everything that has been told us of the
ingenious tricks of animals, even the most incredible, we shall gladly
believe, only not that _bos locutus est_, or that an actual utterance lies
hidden in the bark of a dog. A man who sees no difference between language
and communication will of course continue to say that a dog speaks, and
explain in how many dialects he barks, when he is hungry, when he wants to
go out with his master, when he hears burglars in the house, or when he
has been whipped and whines. It would be more natural if scientists
confined themselves to facts, without asking for reasons, and primarily to
the great fact that no animal, with the exception of man, speaks, or ever
has spoken. The next duty of the observer is to ask: Why is this? There is
no physical impossibility. A parrot can imitate all words. There must
therefore be a non-physical cause why there has never been a parrot or dog
language. Is that true or false? And if we now call that non-physical
cause mind, or still better the Logos, namely, the gatherer of the many
into the one, comprehending, conceiving, is our argument so erroneous if
we seek the distinction between man and animal in the Logos, in speech and
thought, or in mind? This mind is no ghost, as the Horseherd asserts, nor
is it a mere phantom of the brain as is imagined by so many scientists. It
is something real, for we see its effects. It is born, like everything
that belongs to our ego, of the self-conscious Self, which alone really
and eternally exists and abides.
So far I hope to have answered the second objection of the Horseherd or
Horseherds, that the mind is a function possessed also by a goose or a
chicken. Mind is language, and language is mind, the one the _sine qua
non_ of the other, and so far no goose has yet spoken, but only cackled.