PREFACE.

THIS book has been written for myself, and for a few friends with whom I have been travelling for many years on the same road. We have exchanged our thoughts from time to time. We agree on some points, we differ, or we imagine we differ, on others; and as we shall soon have come to the end of our journey, I wished to leave on record what is the outcome of many years of common work and thought and friendly discourse. Beyond my friends and acquaintances, scattered in England, Germany, France, Italy, America, and India, whose ranks have of late been sadly thinned, there will be few, I am afraid, to whom this book is likely to be of much interest. The subjects of which it treats do not at present excite public sympathy, whether in England or on the Continent. There is a fulness of time for philosophical as there is for political and social questions. As the successful statesman must keep his eye on the sphere of practical politics, as the efficient reformer must set his sail to catch the wind blowing from the right quarter, a writer who wishes to produce a telling and popular book ought not to choose a subject which has had its day, and is not likely soon to rise again above the horizon.

And not only are the subjects treated in this

volume out of fashion, but the views advocated in it run counter to the trade-wind of public opinion, that, if noticed at all, I fear my venturesome craft will be severely buffeted by the waves of adverse criticism, if not sucked down mercilessly by the maelstrom of general indifference.

It might have seemed more prudent, no doubt, not to publish the book, at least not in its present form, which may often betray its slow and gradual growth. Some of the views here put forward date really from the days when I attended the lectures of Lotze, Weisse, and Drobisch at Leipzig, and of Schelling at Berlin; when I discussed Veda and Vedânta with Schopenhauer, and Eckhart and Tauler with Bunsen. The fundamental principles of the classification of languages were foreshadowed as early as 1854, in my Letter on the Turanian Languages.' Some portions of my book formed part of Lectures given at the Royal Institution in 1873 on the Philosophy of Language (Fraser's Magazine, May, June, July 1873); while others appeared in the Contemporary Review, February 1878, in an essay on the Origin of Reason, devoted to Noiré's book, Der Ursprung der Sprache. In working up these long accumulated materials and trying to amalgamate them with the results of later labours, it was not always easy to avoid a certain iteration, more perhaps than is justified by a wish to force reluctant minds into a readier acceptance of strange and unpalatable truths.

But, after all, we cannot always be guided by prudence, nor ought a man at my time of life to think

much of momentary success. I feel convinced that the views put forward in this book, which are the result of a long life devoted to solitary reflection and to the study of the foremost thinkers of all nations, contain certain truths which deserve to be recorded. I trust that in time some of them will be recognised as well founded, while others may at all events claim their place in that continuous dialectic process which, by rubbing off the rough edges of prejudice and error, will in the end restore the old gem of truth to its perfect form and its own innate brilliancy. I have written some of my books as a pleader, and, if I may judge by results, I have not pleaded quite in vain. But the present book is not meant to be persuasive. All I can say of it is, Dixi et salvavi animam meam.

And yet, such is paternal weakness that I cannot help putting forth a few pleas for my unattractive offspring. I always appreciate honest criticism, more even than honest praise. But if my book is to be criticised at all, I pray it may not be tested by mere shibbolethis, or condemned by being called names.

I know, of course, that the system of philosophy which it propounds may, and probably will be called Nominalism, and Nominalism in its most extreme form. I have the highest regard for Nominalism. I believe it has purified the philosophical atmosphere of Europe more effectually than any other system. But nothing is so misleading as to use old names, as if everybody knew what they meant. Those who know the writings of William of Occam, would never

think of applying the same name to his system and to my own. In one sense my system may, no doubt, be called Nominalism, because it aims at determining the origin and the true nature of names. But that is not the historical meaning of Nominalism, and the results to which a study of language has led us in this nineteenth century are very different from those that were within the reach even of the profoundest thinkers in the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. If there must be a name for the theories established by the combined Sciences of Language and Thought, let it be a distinctive name, not Nominalism, but Nominism.

Again, it would be very easy to call my system Materialism, and to paint in dismal colours what may not unfairly be represented as its outcome, namely, that there is no such thing as intellect, understanding, mind, and reason, but that all these are only different aspects of language. I certainly hold that view, and I do so after having carefully weighed and tested every argument that has been or can be advanced against it. My own opinion may be right or wrong, but supposing it should prove right in the end, the consequences would by no means be so terrible as they appear. We should remain in every respect exactly as we were before, we should only comprehend our inner workings under new and, I believe, more correct names. If I say, 'No reason without language,' I also say, 'No language without reason.'

Lastly, I hope that those who think that every