general ideas without the outward signs of language, he never questions for a moment the received theory that at some time or other in the history of the world men had accumulated a treasure of anonymous general conceptions, to which, when the time of intellectual and social intercourse had arrived, they prudently attached those phonetic labels which we call words.

The age in which Locke lived and wrote was not partial to those inquiries into the early history of mankind which have, during the last two generations, engaged the attention of the most eminent philosophers. Instead of gathering the fragments of the primitive language, poetry, and religion, not only of the Greeks and Romans, but of all the nations of the world, and instead of trying to penetrate, as far as possible, into the real and actual life of the fathers of the human race, and thus to learn how both in our thoughts and words we came to be what we are, the great schools of philosophy in the 18th century were satisfied with building up theories how language might have sprung into life, how religion might have been revealed or invented, how mythology might have been put together by priests, or poets, or statesmen, for the purposes of instruction, of amusement, or of fraud. Such systems, though ingenious and plausible, and still in full possession of many of our handbooks of history and philosophy, will have to give way to the spirit of what may be called the Historical School of the 19th century. The principles of these two schools are diametrically opposed; the one begins with theories without facts, the other with facts without theories. The systems

of Locke, Voltaire, and Rousseau, and in later times of Comte, are plain, intelligible, and perfectly rational; the facts collected by men like Wolf, Niebuhr, F. Schlegel, W. von Humboldt, Bopp, Burnouf, Grimm, Bunsen, and others, are fragmentary, the inductions to which they point incomplete and obscure, and opposed to many of our received ideas. Nevertheless, the study of the antiquity of man, the Palæontology of the human mind, can never again be allowed to become the playground of mere theorizers, however bold and brilliant, but must henceforth be cultivated in accordance with those principles that have produced rich harvests in other fields of inductive research. It is no want of respect for the great men of former ages to say that they would have written differently if they had lived in our days. Locke, with the results of Comparative Philology before him, would have cancelled, I believe, the whole of his third book "On the Human Understanding"; and even his zealous and ingenious pupil, Horne Tooke, would have given us a very different volume of " Diversions of Purley." But in spite of this, there are no books which, with all their faults nay, on account of these faults very so instructive to the student of language as Locke's Essay," and Horne Tooke's "Diversions"; nay, there are many points bearing on the later growth of language which they have handled and cleared up with greater mastery than even those who came after them.

are

Thus the fact that all words expressive of immaterial conceptions are derived by metaphor from words expressive of sensible ideas was for the first

time clearly and definitely put forward by Locke, and is now fully confirmed by the researches of comparative philologists. All roots, i. e. all the material elements of language, are expressive of sensuous impressions, and of sensuous impressions only; and as all words, even the most abstract and sublime, are derived from roots, comparative philology fully indorses the conclusions arrived at by Locke. This is what Locke says (iii. 4, 3):

"It may also lead us a little toward the original of all our notions and knowledge, if we remark, how great a dependence our words have on common sensible ideas; and how those, which are made use of to stand for actions and notions quite removed from sense, have their rise from thence, and from obvious sensible ideas are transferred to more abstruse significations, and made to stand for ideas that come not under the cognizance of our senses: e. g. to imagine, apprehend, comprehend, adhere, conceive, instil, disgust, disturbance, tranquillity, &c., are all words taken from the operations of sensible things, and applied to certain modes of thinking. Spirit, in its primary signification is breath; angel, a messenger; and I doubt not, but if we could trace them to their sources, we should find, in all languages, the names which stand for things that fall not under our senses to have had their first rise from sensible ideas. By which we may give some kind of guess, what kind of notions they were and whence derived, which filled their minds, who were the first beginners of languages; and how nature, even in the naming of things, unawares suggested to men the originals and principles of all their knowledge; whilst, to give names, that

might make known to others any operations they felt in themselves, or any other ideas that come not under their senses, they were fain to borrow words from ordinary known ideas of sensation, by that means to make others the more easily to conceive those operations they experimented in themselves, which made no outward sensible appearances; and then, when they had got known and agreed names, to signify these internal operations of their own minds, they were sufficiently furnished to make known by words all their other ideas, since they could consist of nothing but either of outward sensible perceptions, or of the inward operations of their minds about them; we having, as has been proved, no ideas at all, but what originally came either from sensible objects without, or what we feel within ourselves from the inward workings of our own spirits, of which we are conscious to ourselves within."

This passage, though somewhat involved and obscure, is a classical passage, and has formed the subject of many commentaries, both favorable and unfavorable. Some of Locke's followers, particularly Horne Tooke, used the statement that all abstract words had originally a material meaning, in order to prove that all our knowledge was restricted to sensuous knowledge; and such was the apparent cogency of their arguments, that, to the present day, those who are opposed to materialistic theories consider it necessary to controvert the facts alleged by Locke and Horne Tooke, instead of examining the cogency of the consequences that are supposed to flow from them. Now the facts stated by Locke seem to be above all doubt. Spiritus is certainly derived from a

The same

verb spirare, which means to draw breath. applies to animus. Animus, the mind, as Cicero says, is so called from anima, air. The root is an, which in Sanskrit means to blow, and which has given rise to the Sanskrit and Greek words for wind, an-ila, and án-emos. Thus the Greek thymós, the soul, comes from thýein, to rush, to move violently, the Sanskrit dhu, to shake. From dhu we have in Sanskrit dhûli, dust, which comes from the same root, and dhuma, smoke, the Latin fumus. In Greek, the same root supplied thýella, storm-wind, and thymós, the soul, as the seat of the passions. Plato guesses correctly when he says (Crat. p. 419) that thymos, soul, is so called ἀπὸ τῆς θύσεως καὶ ζέσεως τῆς ψυχῆς. To imagine certainly meant in its original conception to make pictures, to picture to ourselves; but even to picture is far too mixed an idea to have been expressed by a simple root. Imago, picture, stands for mimago, as imitor for mimitor, the Greek miméomai, all from a root má, to measure, and therefore meaning originally to measure again and again, to copy, to imitate. To apprehend and to comprehend meant to grasp at a thing and to grasp a thing together; to adhere to one's opinions was literally to stick to one's opinions; to conceive was to take and hold together; to instil was to drop or pour in; to disgust was to create a bad taste; to disturb was to throw into disorder; and tranquillity was calmness and particularly the smoothness of the sea.

Look at any words expressive of objects which cannot fall under the immediate cognizance of the

1 Cicero, Tuscul. i. 9, sub fin. note (ed. London, 1836, p. 412).

Locke, Human Understanding, iv. 3, 6, "Anima sit animus ignisve nescio," &c.