As the pure colorless intelligence
Which dwells in Heaven, and the dead Hadean shades.”
I do not think that man can understand the importance of man’s existence, its bearing on the other phenomena of life, until it shall become a remembrance to him the survivor that such a being or such a race once existed on the earth. Imagine yourself alone in the world, a musing, wondering, reflecting spirit, lost in thought, and imagine thereafter the creation of man!—man made in the image of God!
Looking into a book on dentistry the other day, I observed a list of authors who had written on this subject. There were Ran and Tan and Yungerman, and I was impressed by the fact that there was nothing in a name. It was as if they had been named by the child’s rigmarole of Iery [wiery] ichery van, tittle-tol-tan, etc. I saw in my mind a herd of wild creatures swarming over the earth, and to each one its own herdsman had affixed some barbarous name, or sound, or syllables, in his own dialect,—so in a thousand languages. Their names were seen to be as meaningless exactly as Bose or Tray, the names of dogs.[171] Men get named no better.
We seem to be distinct ourselves, never repeated, and yet we bear no names which express a proportionate distinctness; they are quite accidental. Take away their names, and you leave men a wild herd, distinguished only by their individual qualities. It is as if you were to give names in the Caffre dialect to the individuals in a herd of spring-boks or gnus.
We have but few patronymics, but few Christian names, in proportion to the number of us. Is it that men ceased to be original when genuine and original names ceased to be given. Have we not enough character to establish a new patronymic.
Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy if men were named merely in the gross, as they are known. It would only be necessary to know the genus and, perchance, the species and variety, to know the individual.
I will not allow mere names to make distinctions for me, but still see men in herds for all them. A familiar name cannot make a man less strange to me. It may be given to a savage who retains in secret his own wild title earned in the woods. I see that the neighbor who wears the familiar epithet of William or Edwin takes it off with his jacket. It does not adhere to him when asleep or when in anger, or aroused by any passion or inspiration. I seem to hear pronounced by some of his kin at such a time his original wild name in some jaw-breaking or else melodious tongue. As the names of the Poles and Russians are to us, so are ours to them.
Our names are as cheap as the names given to dogs. We know what are dogs’ names; we know what are men’s names. Sometimes it would be significant and truer, it would lead to generalization, it would avoid exaggeration, to say, “There was a man who said or did—,” instead of designating him by some familiar, but perchance delusive, name.
We hardly believe that every private soldier in a Roman army had a name of his own.[172]