Nevertheless, words correspond not to notions, but to images or representations. They mark the object of perception, not in the totality of its essential attributes, but by some single mark whereby the image may be conceived and fixed in the intelligence. In fact, the representation (Vorstellung), which in ordinary, although not in philosophical language, is called the conception, is a mere empirical notion, derived from familiarity with the external properties of the object (Anschauungsbegriff, Erfahrungsbegriff), and this is what every word expresses. The logical conception may be indefinitely more accurate and profound, but must yet employ the same word for its expression. Thus, to men in general, 'bird' simply means a creature with wings; nor would their rough definition of it exclude either butterflies or bats; yet the man of science has no other word than this (bird), to express the complex of essential characteristics involved in the accurate definition. And the philosopher uses the word 'man,' no less than the world in general; although the philosopher thereby expresses an idea which it exhausts his intellect to describe or to define, while the world merely implies by it the animal which Plato characterised as 'a featherless biped,' and which a modern philosopher has described as a forked radish with a curiously carved head.'

To illustrate this process: (i.) I see a bird flying, or a tree in bloom, and it makes a sensuous impression on my retina; but if I am absent or preoccupied, I may be wholly unconscious of this impression, which does not become even a sensation until my consciousness is excited. But when this is done, when my Attention is drawn to it, I have (ii.) a perception (Wahrnehmung). When I contemplate this perception as an inward pic

ture, mirrored a my consciousness. I have (i) the intuition Auchawung of the ring bird and the blooming tree. I by abstraction, I separate this individual phenomenon in its concrete totality into its several component elements, and range those elements under wome definite intellectual form as an ideal possession of my consciousness. I then have iv.) the representations (Vorstellungen, vernacule conceptions") of "bird,' 'Aging,' 'tree," "blooming. But the analytic activity of the intelligence proceeds still farther into particulars: it separates the elements of a representation, and apprehends them as so many independent representations. In the tree it distinguishes between leaf, twig, stem, root, and the properties of height, greenness, &c.—all of which furnish so many separate representations. It further distinguishes the species of a representation, such as tree, into oak, beech, pine, &c., each regarded as special representations, and recognised by specific signs; all of which I bear in mind when I use the word 'tree,' which thus, by material analysis, becomes to me (v.) an empirical concept (Erfahrungsbegriff), formed by a synthesis of observed characteristics, and expressing more or less adequately the nature of the object. Lastly, by still further acts of intellectual abstraction, I arrive (vi.) at the logical notion (Verstandesbegriff), which is no longer merely empirical or material, but which, by the synthetic activity of the judgment, recognises the object as the sum-total of all those attributes (and those only) which constitute its

essence.

Once more then. From passive receptivity I am

1 Heyse, p. 86.

awoke by sensuous impressions into free, spontaneous, creative activity, whereby I pass through the stages of sensation and perception to that of Intuition, in which I first become independent of the immediate effect of the external object on my senses, and then free myself from the dominion of the senses, and possess an inward picture which I can contemplate without any assistance from them. Still advancing, my intellect creates representations for itself, no longer merely retaining the sensuous picture, but forming it to an ideal existence, and using it as its own possession and its own production.

Sensations, Perceptions, Intuitions are individual and special in their character; but representations are general, and no longer refer to that which is single and concrete, or to the individual object of perception. In this sense all words are Abstracta. The real world of appearances, in which everything is individual, is recreated by the intelligence into an ideal world of general conceptions.

Thus, then, we have traced the psychological growth of the concepts, which may be represented by language. A word is a recognised audible sign for a special definite Intuition or concept. From the genesis of the concept we pass to the genesis of the sound which is accepted as its sign; and the questions which we have to consider are, How does the sound originate, and what is the connection, if any, between these two elements, the intellectual and the sensual, the concept and the sound? We need not fear that all such questions are insoluble. Speech is the expression of the free intellect, and if the

1 Heyse, p. 88.

laws and processes of the intellect are capable of being conceived and understood, why should Speech,' which is nothing miraculous, arbitrary, or accidental, but which is the natural organ and product of the intellect, be deemed incapable of similar comprehension?

1 Heyse, s. 20.

CHAPTER VI.

POSSIBLE MODES OF EXPRESSING THOUGHT.

He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers.-PROV. vi. 13.

FROM what we have already observed, it is evident that every mode of expression serves only to describe internal. sensations, not outward facts; it throws light on that which is subjective, not on that which is objective; it expresses ourselves, not the world around us; sensations, perceptions, intuitions, not external things.

But what is the medium of expression? Obviously it must have been one of the senses, which are the main gateways of knowledge, the portals of intercommunication between man and man, between men and the Universe around them.

It is conceivable that a language (i. e. a mode of communication) might have been invented which should use the medium of1 the touch, the taste, or the smell. Yet such a language, in the case of the two latter, could not but be infinitely imperfect, difficult, and obscure, nor has the attempt ever been made. This is to a less degree the case with the touch. It is well known that among certain animals the touch does serve all necessary purposes of intercommunication. Bees, for instance,

1 Heyse, p. 29; Charma, Ess. sur le Lang. p. 50.