Let us remember then that a most careful psychological analysis had led Noiré to the conclusion that the germs of all conceptual thought were to be found in the consciousness of our own repeated acts. And let us place by the side of this, the well-ascertained fact that the germs of all conceptual language, what we call the roots, express with few exceptions the repeated acts of men. Is not the conclusion almost inevitable that these two processes were in reality but two sides of one and the same process in the evolution of human thought and human language? Professor Noiré did not know of the linguistic fact, when he arrived at his psychological conclusions. I did not know of his psychological conclusions, when I arrived at my linguistic facts. But when I saw that by different roads we had both arrived at exactly the same point, I thought that this could not be by an accident.
There remained, however, one more question to be answered, and that question again could be answered hypothetically only. How can we account for the sounds of the roots, which we have recognised as the germs of conceptual thought and conceptual language? Why should, for instance, the concept of rubbing be expressed by MAR, and that of tearing by DAR? Here again Noiré and others before him have pointed to the well-known fact that men, when engaged in common acts, find a relief in emitting their breath in more or less musical modulation. It has therefore been supposed that our roots are the remnants of sounds which accompanied these acts, and which, being used, not by one man only, but by men acting in common, were therefore intelligible to the whole community.
No one would dream of representing this theory of the origin of our conceptual roots as a well-ascertained historical fact. It is and can only be an hypothesis. But, as such, it fulfils all the requirements of a working hypothesis. It explains all that has to be explained, and it does not run counter to any facts, or any well established theories. It explains the sounds of our roots, not as mere interjections, which would be the signs of momentary feelings, and not, what we want, the signs of our consciousness of a number of repeated acts as one action. Our roots are, if we may venture to say so, conceptual, not interjectional sounds. They are, in fact, exactly what, according to Noiré's philosophical system, the primary elements of language ought to be.
I do not say that this theory is the only possible theory of the origin of roots, and therefore of language. Let a better theory be started, and I shall be delighted to accept it. But don't let us try to revive exploded theories, unless there are new facts to support them. I can only give you my own experience. For many years I was satisfied to look upon roots as ultimate facts. But when Professor Noiré showed that the fundamental concepts of our thought must be concepts expressive of our own acts, and when thereupon I went carefully through the list of our Aryan roots and found that with few exceptions, every one of them, as a matter of fact, expressed the ordinary acts of men in a simple state of civilisation, I was driven to the conclusion that the primitive roots of Aryan speech may owe their origin to the sounds which naturally accompany many acts performed in common by members of a family, a clan, or a village. This would vindicate once more the conviction which I have always held that language was from the beginning conceptual, and confirm the well-known statement of Locke, that 'the having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction between man and brutes, and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain to.'
Allow me in conclusion to say a few words on what I can hardly call a criticism, but rather a misrepresentation, or, I ought perhaps to say, a complete misapprehension of this theory of the origin of roots which appeared in a book lately published by Professor Romanes, "Mental Evolution in Man," as a continuation of an earlier work of his, called "Mental Evolution in Animals." My learned friend, Professor Romanes, labors to show that there is an unbroken mental evolution from the lowest animal to the highest man. But he sees very clearly and confesses very honestly that the chief difficulty in this evolution is language and all that language implies. He tries very hard to remove that barrier between beast and man. For that purpose he devotes a whole chapter, the thirteenth, to a consideration of the roots of language, and yet he says at the end of the chapter, "I wish in conclusion to make it clear that the matter—that is the question whether roots are imitations of sound or interjections—is not one which seriously affects the theory of evolution."
If it were so, why should Professor Romanes have devoted a whole chapter to it? But it is not my intention to argue this question with Professor Romanes, but rather to show how difficult it is for any one, not acquainted with the Science of Language, even to apprehend the problems that have to be solved. Professor Romanes is, I believe, a most eminent biologist, and the mantle of Darwin is said to have fallen on his shoulders. Far be it from me to venture to criticise his biological facts. But we see in his case how dangerous it is for a man who can claim to speak with authority on his own special subject, to venture to speak authoritatively on subjects not his own. Professor Romanes has, no doubt, read several books on philology and philosophy, but he is not sufficiently master of his subject to have the slightest right to speak of men like Noiré, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, to say nothing of Hobbes, with an air of superiority. That is entirely out of place. When he points out differences of opinion between philologists, he does not even understand how they have arisen, and he ought to know better than anybody else that mere difference of opinion between two competent scholars does not prove that both are wrong and can never be used to throw discredit on the whole science.
But as I said just now, I am not going to argue with Professor Romanes because, as he says himself (p. 276), if I were right, his whole theory would collapse. I hope this is not the case, but I feel sure that, if it were, Professor Romanes would only rejoice at it. Anyhow why introduce so much of the meum and tuum into these discussions? If it could be proved that the Aryas came from Europe, then, no doubt, the other theory that they came from Asia, would collapse. But among serious students every such collapse would be greeted with gratitude, and would be looked upon simply as a step in advance. We are all fellow workers, we all care for one thing only, the discovery of truth. It is in this spirit, and without a thought of any collapse, that I venture to point out a number of clear mistakes which occur on almost every page when Mr. Romanes touches linguistic questions, and which fully account for his not perceiving the true character of the evidence placed before us by the Science of Language.
On page 267 he says that I profess, as a result of more recent researches, to have reduced the number of Sanskrit roots to 121.
I wish I had. But the number of roots in Sanskrit stands as yet at about 800; the number 121, of which he speaks, is the number of concepts expressed by these roots, many of them conveying the same, or nearly the same idea. A root is one thing, a concept quite another. To confuse the two is like confusing thought and expression.
I thought I had made it quite clear, that these 121 concepts, conveyed by about 800 roots, are simply and solely the residue of a careful analysis of Sanskrit, and of Sanskrit only. I took particular care to make this clear. 'They constitute the stock in trade,' I said, 'with which every thought that has ever passed through the mind of India, so far as it is known to us in its literature, has been expressed.' What can be clearer? Still Professor Romanes thinks it necessary to remark that 'these concepts do not represent the ideation of primitive man!' I never said they did. I never pretended to be acquainted with the ideation of primitive man. All I maintained was that, making allowance for obscure words, every thought, that of the lowest savage as well as that of the most minute philosopher, can be expressed with these 800 roots, and traced back to these 121 concepts. I even hinted that the number of these concepts might be considerably reduced. The question is not whether forms of activity, such as to yawn, to spew, to vomit, to sweat, were of vital importance to the needs of a primitive community, but whether they were known and therefore named, in the early vocabulary of India. If on the other hand some of these concepts, such as to cook, to roast, to measure, to dig, to plat, to milk, betoken an advanced condition of life, all we can say is that they would probably not occur in the dictionary of primeval savages, wherever such a being can be found, and that they do not profess to be the first utterances of the Homo alalus, whoever that may be.