grammar. It is commonly supposed that, as on all other subjects, so on the subject of language, Democritus took the opposite view of the dark thinker, nor can we doubt that Democritus represented language as due to thésis, i. e. institution, art, convention. None of these terms, however, can more than indicate the meaning of thésis. The lengthy arguments which are ascribed to him1 in support of his theory savor of modern thought, but the similes again, which go by his name, are certainly his own. Democritus called words agálmata phônéenta, statues in sound. Here, too, we have the pithy expression of ancient philosophy. Words are not natural images, images thrown by nature on the mirror of the soul; they are statues, works of art, only not in stone or brass, but in sound. Such is the opinion of Democritus, though we must take care not to stretch his words beyond their proper intent. If we translate thései by artificial, we must not take artificial in the sense of arbitrary. If we translate nómo by conventional, we must not take it to mean accidental. The same philosopher would, for instance, have maintained that what we call sweet or sour, warm or cold, is likewise so thései or conventionally, but by no means arbitrarily. The war-cries of phýsei or thései, which are heard through the whole history of these distant

1 Lersch, i. p. 14. Proclus, ad Plut. Crat. p. 6. 'O dè Anμókpitos DÉTEL λέγων τὰ ὀνόματα, διὰ τεσσάρων ἐπιχειρημάτων τοῦτο κατεσκεύαζεν· ἐκ τῆς ὁμωνυμίας· τὰ γὰρ διάφορα πράγματα τῷ αὐτῷ καλοῦνται ὀνόματι· οὐκ ἄρα φύσει τὸ ὄνομα· καὶ ἐκ τῆς πολυωνυμίας· εἰ γὰρ διάφορα ονόματα ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ καὶ ἓν πρᾶγμα ἐφαρμόσουσιν, καὶ ἐπάλληλα, ὅπερ ἀδύνατον· τριτὸν ἐκ τῆς τῶν ὀνομάτων μεταθέσεως· διὰ τί γὰρ τὸν ̓Αριστοκλέα μὲν Πλάτωνα, τὸν δὲ Τύρταμον Θεόφραστον μετωνομάσαμεν, εἰ φύσει τὰ ὀνόματα; ἐκ δὲ τῆς τῶν ὁμοίων ἐλλείψεως· διὰ τί ἀπὸ μὲν τῆς φρωνήσεως λέγομεν φρονεῖν, ἀπὸ δὲ τῆς δικαιοσύνης οὐκ ἔτι παρονομάζομεν; τύχῃ ἄρα καὶ οὐ φύσει τὰ ὀνόματα.

battles of thought, involved not only philosophical, but political, moral, religious interests. We shall best understand their meaning if we watch their application to moral ideas. Philolaos, the famous Pythagorean philosopher, held that virtue existed by nature, not by institution. What did he mean? He meant what we mean when we say that virtue was not an invention of men who agreed to call some things good and others bad, but that there is a voice of conscience within us, the utterance of a divine law, independent of human statutes and traditions, self-evident, irrefragable. Yet even those who maintained that morality was but another name for legality, and that good and bad were simply conventional terms, insisted strongly on the broad distinction between law and the caprice of individuals. The same in language. When Democritus said that words were not natural images, natural echoes, but works of art in sound, he did not mean to degrade language to a mere conglomerate of sound. On the contrary, had he, with his terminology, ascribed language to nature, nature being with him the mere concurrence of atoms, he would have shown less insight into the origin, less regard for the law and order which pervade language. Language, he said, exists by institution; but how he must have guarded his words against any possible misapprehension, how he must have protested against the confusion of the two ideas, conventional and arbitrary, we may gather from the expression ascribed to him by a later scholiast, that words were statues in sound, but statues not made by the hands of men, but by the gods themselves. The boldness and pregnancy 1 Olympiodorus ad Plat. Philebum, p. 242, örɩ áɣáλμara pwvýevтa kal

of such expressions are the best guaranty of their genuineness, and to throw them aside as inventions of later writers would betray an utter disregard of the criteria by which we distinguish ancient and modern thought.

Our present object, however, is not to find out what these early philosophers thought of language, — Iam afraid we shall never be able to do that, but only to guard against their memory being insulted, and their names abused for sanctioning the shallow wis

dom of later ages. It is sufficient if we only see clearly that, with the ancient Greeks, language was not considered as mere onomatopeia, although that name means, literally, making of names. I should not venture to explain what Pythagoras meant by saying, "the wisest of all things is Number, and next to Number, that which gives names." But of this I feel certain, that by the Second in Wisdom in the universe, even though he may have represented him exoterically as a human being, as the oldest and wisest of men,2 Pythagoras did not mean the man who, when he heard a cow say moo! succeeded in repeating that sound, and fixed it as the name of the animal. As to Plato and Aristotle, it is hardly necessary to defend them against the imputation of tracing language back to onomatopeia. Even Epicurus, who is reported to have said that in the first formation of language men acted unconsciously, moved by nature, as in coughing, sneezing, lowing,

ταῦτα ἐστὶ τῶν θεῶν, ὡς Δημόκριτος. It is curious that Lersch, who quotes this passage (iii. 19), should, nevertheless, have ascribed to Democritus the opinion of the purely human origin of language (i. 13). 1 Lersch, l. c. i. 25.

2 lbid. l. c. i. 27.

barking, or sighing, admitted that this would account only for one half of language, and that some agreement must have taken place before language really began, before people could know what each person meant by these uncouth utterances. In this, Epicu rus shows a more correct appreciation of the nature of language than many who profess to hold his theories at present. He met the objection that words, if suggested by nature, ought to be the same in all countries, by a remark in which he anticipated Humboldt, viz., that human nature is affected differently in different countries, that different views are formed of things, and that these different affections and views influence the formation of words peculiar to each nation. He saw that the sounds of nature would never have grown into articulate language without passing through a second stage, which he represents as an agreement or an understanding to use a certain sound for a certain conception. Let us substitute for this Epicurean idea of a conventional agreement an idea which did not exist in his time, and the full elaboration of which in our own time we owe to the genius of Darwin; - let us place instead of agreement, Natural Selection, or, as I called it in my former Lectures, Natural Elimina

1 Diogenes Laërtius, Epicurus, § 75. Οθεν καὶ τὰ ὀνόματα ἐξ ἀρχῆς μὴ θέσει γενέσθαι, ἀλλ ̓ αὐτὰς τὰς φύσεις τῶν ἀνθρώπων καθ ̓ ἕκαστα ἔθνη ίδια πάσχουσας πάθη, καὶ ἴδια λαμβάνουσας φαντάσματα, ἰδίως τὸν ἀέρα ἐκπέμπειν, στελλόμενον ὑφ ̓ ἑκάστων τῶν πάθων καὶ τῶν φαντασμάτων, ὡς ἄν ποτε καὶ ἡ παρὰ τοὺς τόπους τῶν ἐθνῶν διαφορὰ εἴη. Ύστερον δὲ κοινῶς καθ ̓ ἕκαστα ἔθνη τὰ ἴδια τεθῆναι, πρὸς τὸ τὰς δηλώσεις ἧττον ἀμφιβόλους γενέσθαι ἀλλήλοις, καὶ συντομοτέρως δηλουμένας· τινὰ δὲ καὶ οὐ συνορώμενα πράγματα εἰσφέροντας, τοὺς συνειδότας παρεγγυῆσαι τινὰς φθόγγους ὧν τοὺς μὲν ἀναγκασθέντας ἀναφωνῆσαι, τοὺς δὲ τῷ λογισμῷ ἑλομένους κατὰ τὴν πλείστην αἰτίαν οὕτως ἑρμηνεῦσαι. — Iersch, i. 39.

tion, and we shall then arrive, I believe, at an understanding with Epicurus, and even with some of his modern followers. As a number of sensuous impressions, received by man, produce a mental image or a perception, and, secondly, as a number of such perceptions produce a general notion, we may understand that a number of sensuous impressions may cause a corresponding vocal expression, a cry, an interjection, or some imitation of the sound that happens to form part of the sensuous impressions; and, secondly, that a number of such vocal expressions may be merged into one general expression, and leave behind the root as the sign belonging to a general notion. But as there is in man a faculty of reason which guides and governs the formation of sensuous impressions into perceptions, and of perceptions into general notions, the gradual formation of roots out of mere natural cries or imitations takes place under the same rational control. General notions are not formed at random, but according to law, that law being our reason within, corresponding to the reason without to the reason, if I may so call it, of nature. Natural selection, if we could but always see it, is invariably rational selection. It is not any accidental variety that survives and perpetuates itself; it is the individual which comes nearest to the original intention of its creator, or what is best calculated to accomplish the ends for which the type or species to which it belongs was called into being, that conquers in the great struggle for life. So it is in thought and language. Not every random perception is raised to the dignity of a general notion, but only the constantly recurring, the strong