Ifδίφρος(carriage) stands forδιφόρος, it means originally a carriage for two persons, just asἀμφορεύς, Latinamphora, was a vessel with two handles. We should scarcely believe that the same root is concealed in the GermanZuber(tub) andEimer(bucket). ButZuberwas originallyZwiber, a vessel[pg 146]with two handles, andEimerwasEinber, a bucket with one bail. We may comparemanubrium(handle) and derivatives likecandelebrum,lugubris, as well asluctifer. Ifbhartrimeant bearer and then husband, asbhâry[~a]meant wife,i.e.the one to be maintained, we are probably justified in seeing inbhrâtar(brother) the original meaning of helper, protector. Although the wife is to be maintained and sustained, she, too, brings something to the household, and that is theφέρνω(dowry). The Middle Latin expressionparaphernaliais properly dowry, though it has now assumed an entirely different meaning.“To be carried”easily takes the meaning of being torn away,s'emporter, and this we find in the Greek represented byφέρεσθαι, in the Sanskrit in the secondary formbhur(to hasten), yieldingbhuranyú,bhúrni(hasty, violent), and other derivatives.We have already seen howφόροςandφοράsignified that which is contributed, then duty, tribute. This is the Gothicgabaur, that is,gebühr(due), and consequently all things that are proper or becoming.Offerre(bring before) leads toOpfer(sacrifice) and to the simpleroffrir, assufferretosouffrir(suffer).It has been usual to deriveFors,Fortuna, fromferre,50the goddess who brings, although she takes away as well. The ancients had no doubts of this derivation, andτὸ φέρον(fate) andτὸ φερόμενον(chance) seem to substantiate it. But the old[pg 147]divine character ofFors,Fortuna(as related to Harit), points to other sources, which had already entirely vanished from the consciousness of the ancients. Yet the expression,es trägt sich zu(it happens), the oldgaburjan, Anglo-Saxongebyrian, andkipuri(zufällig, casual), must be taken into account, and forms such asforte,forsan,fortassis(forte an si vis),fortuitus, are very remote from their supposed mythological meaning. Ifferrewere the root, we should have further proof of the immeasurable fertility to which we owe such words asfortuneandmisfortune.It would lead us too far if we tried to collect all the meanings which our roots had in the various ancient Aryan tongues in combination with prepositions. It must suffice to select a small number from a modern language such as French, which give us an idea of the endless modifications to which every root is more or less adapted. Thus fromcircumferrewe havecirconférence, alsopériphérie, fromconferre,conférenceand alsoconfortable, fromdeferredéférence, fromdifferredifférence, frompraeferrepréférence, fromproferreproférer, fromreferreréférence, each word again with numerous offshoots. We are not at the end yet, and still less when we keep in view also the parallel formationstuliandlatum, orportare. We then see what a root in this language has to signify, whether considered as a concrete word or as a mere abstraction. This is prolific of contention and has been much disputed; the main thing is to[pg 148]know the facts. From these we may infer how in all this multiplicity the unity of the root element can be best explained.I do not say that all ideas can be so clearly traced to their origin as in this root. In some the intermediate forms have been lost, and the etymologies become uncertain, often impossible. But the result on the whole remains the same. Wherever we can see clearly, we see that what we call mind and thought consists in this, that man has the power not only to receive presentations like an animal, but to discover something general in them. This element he can eliminate and fix by means of vocal signs; and he can further classify single presentations under the same general concepts, and mark them by the same vocal signs. What we call derivative forms, such asdevabesidesdiv, are originally varieties in the formation of words, that in time proved useful, and through repeated employment obtained their special application. Often, too, there are real compounds, just as the Germanbarinfruchtbar,furchtbar, etc., was originally the same word that we have inBahre(bier), but was very different frombarinNachbar(neighbour), which in spite of the similarity in sound comes from an entirely different root, seen inbauen(build),bebauen(cultivate),bauer(peasant), and in the English neighbour.If we have the ideas and the words, the process of thought, as Hobbes has taught us, is nothing but an addition and subtraction of ideas. We add when we say, A is B; when we say, for instance, man, or Caius,[pg 149]is mortal, adding Caius, or man, to all that we call mortal; we subtract when we say, A is not B; that is, when we abstract Enoch from all that we call mortal. Everything that man has ever thought, humiliating as it may sound, consists in these two operations; just as the most abstruse operations of mathematics go back in the end to addition and subtraction. To what else could they go back? Whether these mental operations are true or false, is another question, with which the method of the thinker has nothing to do; any more than formal logic inquires whether all men are mortal, but only infers on the basis of these premises that Caius, because he is a man, is also mortal.We see, therefore, how language and thought go hand in hand; where there is as yet no word, there is not yet an idea. The thinking capacity of the mind has its source in language, lives in language, and develops continuously in language. The human mind is human language, and as animals possess no language, they do notipso factopossess what philosophers understand by mind. We need not for this reason ascribe any special faculty to men. Speech and thought are only a wider development of the faculty of presentation such as an animal may have; but in an animal it never develops any farther, for an animal has no general ideas; it remains at the individual, and never attains unity in plurality. It knows, as Plato would say, a horse, but not“horsedom.”If we wish to say that the perceiving self is present in animals as in men, there is no objection, though in all[pg 150]such, questions relating to animals we are always groping in the dark. But the fact remains that the step, whether small or vast, that leads from the individual to the general, from the concrete to the abstract, from perceiving (that is, being acted upon) to conceiving, thinking, speaking, that is, to acting, is for the animal impossible. An animal might speak, but it cannot; a stone might grow, but it cannot; a tree might walk, but it cannot. Why not? Because there are natural boundaries that are apparently easy to pass, and yet impassable. The tree grows up a tree, the animal an animal, but no farther, just as man never surpasses the human, and therefore can never think except through language, which often is very imperfect.In one sense, therefore, the Horseherd is quite right. The mind is a development, an eternal, ceaseless development; but when he calls it a function possessed by all living organisms, even a goose and a chicken, he goes far beyond the facts. No goose speaks, although it cackles, and although by cackling it apprised the Romans of the important fact that their Capitol was in danger. How much a dog could tell us if he could speak! As if this capacity or incapacity is not as much the result of intention as every other capacity and incapacity in nature! If we translate this ability byfacultas, that isfacilitas, we need not for that reason assume in man a faculty, or as the Horseherd calls it, a phantom, but the thing remains the same. We can speak, and an animal cannot; we can think, and an animal cannot.[pg 151]But it must not be supposed that because we deny thought and speech to animals, we wish to degrade them. Everything that has been told us of the ingenious tricks of animals, even the most incredible, we shall gladly believe, only not thatbos locutus est, or that an actual utterance lies hidden in the bark of a dog. A man who sees no difference between language and communication will of course continue to say that a dog speaks, and explain in how many dialects he barks, when he is hungry, when he wants to go out with his master, when he hears burglars in the house, or when he has been whipped and whines. It would be more natural if scientists confined themselves to facts, without asking for reasons, and primarily to the great fact that no animal, with the exception of man, speaks, or ever has spoken. The next duty of the observer is to ask: Why is this? There is no physical impossibility. A parrot can imitate all words. There must therefore be a non-physical cause why there has never been a parrot or dog language. Is that true or false? And if we now call that non-physical cause mind, or still better the Logos, namely, the gatherer of the many into the one, comprehending, conceiving, is our argument so erroneous if we seek the distinction between man and animal in the Logos, in speech and thought, or in mind? This mind is no ghost, as the Horseherd asserts, nor is it a mere phantom of the brain as is imagined by so many scientists. It is something real, for we see its effects. It is born, like everything that belongs to our ego, of[pg 152]the self-conscious Self, which alone really and eternally exists and abides.So far I hope to have answered the second objection of the Horseherd or Horseherds, that the mind is a function possessed also by a goose or a chicken. Mind is language, and language is mind, the one thesine qua nonof the other, and so far no goose has yet spoken, but only cackled.
Ifδίφρος(carriage) stands forδιφόρος, it means originally a carriage for two persons, just asἀμφορεύς, Latinamphora, was a vessel with two handles. We should scarcely believe that the same root is concealed in the GermanZuber(tub) andEimer(bucket). ButZuberwas originallyZwiber, a vessel[pg 146]with two handles, andEimerwasEinber, a bucket with one bail. We may comparemanubrium(handle) and derivatives likecandelebrum,lugubris, as well asluctifer. Ifbhartrimeant bearer and then husband, asbhâry[~a]meant wife,i.e.the one to be maintained, we are probably justified in seeing inbhrâtar(brother) the original meaning of helper, protector. Although the wife is to be maintained and sustained, she, too, brings something to the household, and that is theφέρνω(dowry). The Middle Latin expressionparaphernaliais properly dowry, though it has now assumed an entirely different meaning.“To be carried”easily takes the meaning of being torn away,s'emporter, and this we find in the Greek represented byφέρεσθαι, in the Sanskrit in the secondary formbhur(to hasten), yieldingbhuranyú,bhúrni(hasty, violent), and other derivatives.We have already seen howφόροςandφοράsignified that which is contributed, then duty, tribute. This is the Gothicgabaur, that is,gebühr(due), and consequently all things that are proper or becoming.Offerre(bring before) leads toOpfer(sacrifice) and to the simpleroffrir, assufferretosouffrir(suffer).It has been usual to deriveFors,Fortuna, fromferre,50the goddess who brings, although she takes away as well. The ancients had no doubts of this derivation, andτὸ φέρον(fate) andτὸ φερόμενον(chance) seem to substantiate it. But the old[pg 147]divine character ofFors,Fortuna(as related to Harit), points to other sources, which had already entirely vanished from the consciousness of the ancients. Yet the expression,es trägt sich zu(it happens), the oldgaburjan, Anglo-Saxongebyrian, andkipuri(zufällig, casual), must be taken into account, and forms such asforte,forsan,fortassis(forte an si vis),fortuitus, are very remote from their supposed mythological meaning. Ifferrewere the root, we should have further proof of the immeasurable fertility to which we owe such words asfortuneandmisfortune.It would lead us too far if we tried to collect all the meanings which our roots had in the various ancient Aryan tongues in combination with prepositions. It must suffice to select a small number from a modern language such as French, which give us an idea of the endless modifications to which every root is more or less adapted. Thus fromcircumferrewe havecirconférence, alsopériphérie, fromconferre,conférenceand alsoconfortable, fromdeferredéférence, fromdifferredifférence, frompraeferrepréférence, fromproferreproférer, fromreferreréférence, each word again with numerous offshoots. We are not at the end yet, and still less when we keep in view also the parallel formationstuliandlatum, orportare. We then see what a root in this language has to signify, whether considered as a concrete word or as a mere abstraction. This is prolific of contention and has been much disputed; the main thing is to[pg 148]know the facts. From these we may infer how in all this multiplicity the unity of the root element can be best explained.I do not say that all ideas can be so clearly traced to their origin as in this root. In some the intermediate forms have been lost, and the etymologies become uncertain, often impossible. But the result on the whole remains the same. Wherever we can see clearly, we see that what we call mind and thought consists in this, that man has the power not only to receive presentations like an animal, but to discover something general in them. This element he can eliminate and fix by means of vocal signs; and he can further classify single presentations under the same general concepts, and mark them by the same vocal signs. What we call derivative forms, such asdevabesidesdiv, are originally varieties in the formation of words, that in time proved useful, and through repeated employment obtained their special application. Often, too, there are real compounds, just as the Germanbarinfruchtbar,furchtbar, etc., was originally the same word that we have inBahre(bier), but was very different frombarinNachbar(neighbour), which in spite of the similarity in sound comes from an entirely different root, seen inbauen(build),bebauen(cultivate),bauer(peasant), and in the English neighbour.If we have the ideas and the words, the process of thought, as Hobbes has taught us, is nothing but an addition and subtraction of ideas. We add when we say, A is B; when we say, for instance, man, or Caius,[pg 149]is mortal, adding Caius, or man, to all that we call mortal; we subtract when we say, A is not B; that is, when we abstract Enoch from all that we call mortal. Everything that man has ever thought, humiliating as it may sound, consists in these two operations; just as the most abstruse operations of mathematics go back in the end to addition and subtraction. To what else could they go back? Whether these mental operations are true or false, is another question, with which the method of the thinker has nothing to do; any more than formal logic inquires whether all men are mortal, but only infers on the basis of these premises that Caius, because he is a man, is also mortal.We see, therefore, how language and thought go hand in hand; where there is as yet no word, there is not yet an idea. The thinking capacity of the mind has its source in language, lives in language, and develops continuously in language. The human mind is human language, and as animals possess no language, they do notipso factopossess what philosophers understand by mind. We need not for this reason ascribe any special faculty to men. Speech and thought are only a wider development of the faculty of presentation such as an animal may have; but in an animal it never develops any farther, for an animal has no general ideas; it remains at the individual, and never attains unity in plurality. It knows, as Plato would say, a horse, but not“horsedom.”If we wish to say that the perceiving self is present in animals as in men, there is no objection, though in all[pg 150]such, questions relating to animals we are always groping in the dark. But the fact remains that the step, whether small or vast, that leads from the individual to the general, from the concrete to the abstract, from perceiving (that is, being acted upon) to conceiving, thinking, speaking, that is, to acting, is for the animal impossible. An animal might speak, but it cannot; a stone might grow, but it cannot; a tree might walk, but it cannot. Why not? Because there are natural boundaries that are apparently easy to pass, and yet impassable. The tree grows up a tree, the animal an animal, but no farther, just as man never surpasses the human, and therefore can never think except through language, which often is very imperfect.In one sense, therefore, the Horseherd is quite right. The mind is a development, an eternal, ceaseless development; but when he calls it a function possessed by all living organisms, even a goose and a chicken, he goes far beyond the facts. No goose speaks, although it cackles, and although by cackling it apprised the Romans of the important fact that their Capitol was in danger. How much a dog could tell us if he could speak! As if this capacity or incapacity is not as much the result of intention as every other capacity and incapacity in nature! If we translate this ability byfacultas, that isfacilitas, we need not for that reason assume in man a faculty, or as the Horseherd calls it, a phantom, but the thing remains the same. We can speak, and an animal cannot; we can think, and an animal cannot.[pg 151]But it must not be supposed that because we deny thought and speech to animals, we wish to degrade them. Everything that has been told us of the ingenious tricks of animals, even the most incredible, we shall gladly believe, only not thatbos locutus est, or that an actual utterance lies hidden in the bark of a dog. A man who sees no difference between language and communication will of course continue to say that a dog speaks, and explain in how many dialects he barks, when he is hungry, when he wants to go out with his master, when he hears burglars in the house, or when he has been whipped and whines. It would be more natural if scientists confined themselves to facts, without asking for reasons, and primarily to the great fact that no animal, with the exception of man, speaks, or ever has spoken. The next duty of the observer is to ask: Why is this? There is no physical impossibility. A parrot can imitate all words. There must therefore be a non-physical cause why there has never been a parrot or dog language. Is that true or false? And if we now call that non-physical cause mind, or still better the Logos, namely, the gatherer of the many into the one, comprehending, conceiving, is our argument so erroneous if we seek the distinction between man and animal in the Logos, in speech and thought, or in mind? This mind is no ghost, as the Horseherd asserts, nor is it a mere phantom of the brain as is imagined by so many scientists. It is something real, for we see its effects. It is born, like everything that belongs to our ego, of[pg 152]the self-conscious Self, which alone really and eternally exists and abides.So far I hope to have answered the second objection of the Horseherd or Horseherds, that the mind is a function possessed also by a goose or a chicken. Mind is language, and language is mind, the one thesine qua nonof the other, and so far no goose has yet spoken, but only cackled.
Ifδίφρος(carriage) stands forδιφόρος, it means originally a carriage for two persons, just asἀμφορεύς, Latinamphora, was a vessel with two handles. We should scarcely believe that the same root is concealed in the GermanZuber(tub) andEimer(bucket). ButZuberwas originallyZwiber, a vessel[pg 146]with two handles, andEimerwasEinber, a bucket with one bail. We may comparemanubrium(handle) and derivatives likecandelebrum,lugubris, as well asluctifer. Ifbhartrimeant bearer and then husband, asbhâry[~a]meant wife,i.e.the one to be maintained, we are probably justified in seeing inbhrâtar(brother) the original meaning of helper, protector. Although the wife is to be maintained and sustained, she, too, brings something to the household, and that is theφέρνω(dowry). The Middle Latin expressionparaphernaliais properly dowry, though it has now assumed an entirely different meaning.“To be carried”easily takes the meaning of being torn away,s'emporter, and this we find in the Greek represented byφέρεσθαι, in the Sanskrit in the secondary formbhur(to hasten), yieldingbhuranyú,bhúrni(hasty, violent), and other derivatives.We have already seen howφόροςandφοράsignified that which is contributed, then duty, tribute. This is the Gothicgabaur, that is,gebühr(due), and consequently all things that are proper or becoming.Offerre(bring before) leads toOpfer(sacrifice) and to the simpleroffrir, assufferretosouffrir(suffer).It has been usual to deriveFors,Fortuna, fromferre,50the goddess who brings, although she takes away as well. The ancients had no doubts of this derivation, andτὸ φέρον(fate) andτὸ φερόμενον(chance) seem to substantiate it. But the old[pg 147]divine character ofFors,Fortuna(as related to Harit), points to other sources, which had already entirely vanished from the consciousness of the ancients. Yet the expression,es trägt sich zu(it happens), the oldgaburjan, Anglo-Saxongebyrian, andkipuri(zufällig, casual), must be taken into account, and forms such asforte,forsan,fortassis(forte an si vis),fortuitus, are very remote from their supposed mythological meaning. Ifferrewere the root, we should have further proof of the immeasurable fertility to which we owe such words asfortuneandmisfortune.It would lead us too far if we tried to collect all the meanings which our roots had in the various ancient Aryan tongues in combination with prepositions. It must suffice to select a small number from a modern language such as French, which give us an idea of the endless modifications to which every root is more or less adapted. Thus fromcircumferrewe havecirconférence, alsopériphérie, fromconferre,conférenceand alsoconfortable, fromdeferredéférence, fromdifferredifférence, frompraeferrepréférence, fromproferreproférer, fromreferreréférence, each word again with numerous offshoots. We are not at the end yet, and still less when we keep in view also the parallel formationstuliandlatum, orportare. We then see what a root in this language has to signify, whether considered as a concrete word or as a mere abstraction. This is prolific of contention and has been much disputed; the main thing is to[pg 148]know the facts. From these we may infer how in all this multiplicity the unity of the root element can be best explained.I do not say that all ideas can be so clearly traced to their origin as in this root. In some the intermediate forms have been lost, and the etymologies become uncertain, often impossible. But the result on the whole remains the same. Wherever we can see clearly, we see that what we call mind and thought consists in this, that man has the power not only to receive presentations like an animal, but to discover something general in them. This element he can eliminate and fix by means of vocal signs; and he can further classify single presentations under the same general concepts, and mark them by the same vocal signs. What we call derivative forms, such asdevabesidesdiv, are originally varieties in the formation of words, that in time proved useful, and through repeated employment obtained their special application. Often, too, there are real compounds, just as the Germanbarinfruchtbar,furchtbar, etc., was originally the same word that we have inBahre(bier), but was very different frombarinNachbar(neighbour), which in spite of the similarity in sound comes from an entirely different root, seen inbauen(build),bebauen(cultivate),bauer(peasant), and in the English neighbour.If we have the ideas and the words, the process of thought, as Hobbes has taught us, is nothing but an addition and subtraction of ideas. We add when we say, A is B; when we say, for instance, man, or Caius,[pg 149]is mortal, adding Caius, or man, to all that we call mortal; we subtract when we say, A is not B; that is, when we abstract Enoch from all that we call mortal. Everything that man has ever thought, humiliating as it may sound, consists in these two operations; just as the most abstruse operations of mathematics go back in the end to addition and subtraction. To what else could they go back? Whether these mental operations are true or false, is another question, with which the method of the thinker has nothing to do; any more than formal logic inquires whether all men are mortal, but only infers on the basis of these premises that Caius, because he is a man, is also mortal.We see, therefore, how language and thought go hand in hand; where there is as yet no word, there is not yet an idea. The thinking capacity of the mind has its source in language, lives in language, and develops continuously in language. The human mind is human language, and as animals possess no language, they do notipso factopossess what philosophers understand by mind. We need not for this reason ascribe any special faculty to men. Speech and thought are only a wider development of the faculty of presentation such as an animal may have; but in an animal it never develops any farther, for an animal has no general ideas; it remains at the individual, and never attains unity in plurality. It knows, as Plato would say, a horse, but not“horsedom.”If we wish to say that the perceiving self is present in animals as in men, there is no objection, though in all[pg 150]such, questions relating to animals we are always groping in the dark. But the fact remains that the step, whether small or vast, that leads from the individual to the general, from the concrete to the abstract, from perceiving (that is, being acted upon) to conceiving, thinking, speaking, that is, to acting, is for the animal impossible. An animal might speak, but it cannot; a stone might grow, but it cannot; a tree might walk, but it cannot. Why not? Because there are natural boundaries that are apparently easy to pass, and yet impassable. The tree grows up a tree, the animal an animal, but no farther, just as man never surpasses the human, and therefore can never think except through language, which often is very imperfect.In one sense, therefore, the Horseherd is quite right. The mind is a development, an eternal, ceaseless development; but when he calls it a function possessed by all living organisms, even a goose and a chicken, he goes far beyond the facts. No goose speaks, although it cackles, and although by cackling it apprised the Romans of the important fact that their Capitol was in danger. How much a dog could tell us if he could speak! As if this capacity or incapacity is not as much the result of intention as every other capacity and incapacity in nature! If we translate this ability byfacultas, that isfacilitas, we need not for that reason assume in man a faculty, or as the Horseherd calls it, a phantom, but the thing remains the same. We can speak, and an animal cannot; we can think, and an animal cannot.[pg 151]But it must not be supposed that because we deny thought and speech to animals, we wish to degrade them. Everything that has been told us of the ingenious tricks of animals, even the most incredible, we shall gladly believe, only not thatbos locutus est, or that an actual utterance lies hidden in the bark of a dog. A man who sees no difference between language and communication will of course continue to say that a dog speaks, and explain in how many dialects he barks, when he is hungry, when he wants to go out with his master, when he hears burglars in the house, or when he has been whipped and whines. It would be more natural if scientists confined themselves to facts, without asking for reasons, and primarily to the great fact that no animal, with the exception of man, speaks, or ever has spoken. The next duty of the observer is to ask: Why is this? There is no physical impossibility. A parrot can imitate all words. There must therefore be a non-physical cause why there has never been a parrot or dog language. Is that true or false? And if we now call that non-physical cause mind, or still better the Logos, namely, the gatherer of the many into the one, comprehending, conceiving, is our argument so erroneous if we seek the distinction between man and animal in the Logos, in speech and thought, or in mind? This mind is no ghost, as the Horseherd asserts, nor is it a mere phantom of the brain as is imagined by so many scientists. It is something real, for we see its effects. It is born, like everything that belongs to our ego, of[pg 152]the self-conscious Self, which alone really and eternally exists and abides.So far I hope to have answered the second objection of the Horseherd or Horseherds, that the mind is a function possessed also by a goose or a chicken. Mind is language, and language is mind, the one thesine qua nonof the other, and so far no goose has yet spoken, but only cackled.
Ifδίφρος(carriage) stands forδιφόρος, it means originally a carriage for two persons, just asἀμφορεύς, Latinamphora, was a vessel with two handles. We should scarcely believe that the same root is concealed in the GermanZuber(tub) andEimer(bucket). ButZuberwas originallyZwiber, a vessel[pg 146]with two handles, andEimerwasEinber, a bucket with one bail. We may comparemanubrium(handle) and derivatives likecandelebrum,lugubris, as well asluctifer. Ifbhartrimeant bearer and then husband, asbhâry[~a]meant wife,i.e.the one to be maintained, we are probably justified in seeing inbhrâtar(brother) the original meaning of helper, protector. Although the wife is to be maintained and sustained, she, too, brings something to the household, and that is theφέρνω(dowry). The Middle Latin expressionparaphernaliais properly dowry, though it has now assumed an entirely different meaning.“To be carried”easily takes the meaning of being torn away,s'emporter, and this we find in the Greek represented byφέρεσθαι, in the Sanskrit in the secondary formbhur(to hasten), yieldingbhuranyú,bhúrni(hasty, violent), and other derivatives.
We have already seen howφόροςandφοράsignified that which is contributed, then duty, tribute. This is the Gothicgabaur, that is,gebühr(due), and consequently all things that are proper or becoming.
Offerre(bring before) leads toOpfer(sacrifice) and to the simpleroffrir, assufferretosouffrir(suffer).
It has been usual to deriveFors,Fortuna, fromferre,50the goddess who brings, although she takes away as well. The ancients had no doubts of this derivation, andτὸ φέρον(fate) andτὸ φερόμενον(chance) seem to substantiate it. But the old[pg 147]divine character ofFors,Fortuna(as related to Harit), points to other sources, which had already entirely vanished from the consciousness of the ancients. Yet the expression,es trägt sich zu(it happens), the oldgaburjan, Anglo-Saxongebyrian, andkipuri(zufällig, casual), must be taken into account, and forms such asforte,forsan,fortassis(forte an si vis),fortuitus, are very remote from their supposed mythological meaning. Ifferrewere the root, we should have further proof of the immeasurable fertility to which we owe such words asfortuneandmisfortune.
It would lead us too far if we tried to collect all the meanings which our roots had in the various ancient Aryan tongues in combination with prepositions. It must suffice to select a small number from a modern language such as French, which give us an idea of the endless modifications to which every root is more or less adapted. Thus fromcircumferrewe havecirconférence, alsopériphérie, fromconferre,conférenceand alsoconfortable, fromdeferredéférence, fromdifferredifférence, frompraeferrepréférence, fromproferreproférer, fromreferreréférence, each word again with numerous offshoots. We are not at the end yet, and still less when we keep in view also the parallel formationstuliandlatum, orportare. We then see what a root in this language has to signify, whether considered as a concrete word or as a mere abstraction. This is prolific of contention and has been much disputed; the main thing is to[pg 148]know the facts. From these we may infer how in all this multiplicity the unity of the root element can be best explained.
I do not say that all ideas can be so clearly traced to their origin as in this root. In some the intermediate forms have been lost, and the etymologies become uncertain, often impossible. But the result on the whole remains the same. Wherever we can see clearly, we see that what we call mind and thought consists in this, that man has the power not only to receive presentations like an animal, but to discover something general in them. This element he can eliminate and fix by means of vocal signs; and he can further classify single presentations under the same general concepts, and mark them by the same vocal signs. What we call derivative forms, such asdevabesidesdiv, are originally varieties in the formation of words, that in time proved useful, and through repeated employment obtained their special application. Often, too, there are real compounds, just as the Germanbarinfruchtbar,furchtbar, etc., was originally the same word that we have inBahre(bier), but was very different frombarinNachbar(neighbour), which in spite of the similarity in sound comes from an entirely different root, seen inbauen(build),bebauen(cultivate),bauer(peasant), and in the English neighbour.
If we have the ideas and the words, the process of thought, as Hobbes has taught us, is nothing but an addition and subtraction of ideas. We add when we say, A is B; when we say, for instance, man, or Caius,[pg 149]is mortal, adding Caius, or man, to all that we call mortal; we subtract when we say, A is not B; that is, when we abstract Enoch from all that we call mortal. Everything that man has ever thought, humiliating as it may sound, consists in these two operations; just as the most abstruse operations of mathematics go back in the end to addition and subtraction. To what else could they go back? Whether these mental operations are true or false, is another question, with which the method of the thinker has nothing to do; any more than formal logic inquires whether all men are mortal, but only infers on the basis of these premises that Caius, because he is a man, is also mortal.
We see, therefore, how language and thought go hand in hand; where there is as yet no word, there is not yet an idea. The thinking capacity of the mind has its source in language, lives in language, and develops continuously in language. The human mind is human language, and as animals possess no language, they do notipso factopossess what philosophers understand by mind. We need not for this reason ascribe any special faculty to men. Speech and thought are only a wider development of the faculty of presentation such as an animal may have; but in an animal it never develops any farther, for an animal has no general ideas; it remains at the individual, and never attains unity in plurality. It knows, as Plato would say, a horse, but not“horsedom.”If we wish to say that the perceiving self is present in animals as in men, there is no objection, though in all[pg 150]such, questions relating to animals we are always groping in the dark. But the fact remains that the step, whether small or vast, that leads from the individual to the general, from the concrete to the abstract, from perceiving (that is, being acted upon) to conceiving, thinking, speaking, that is, to acting, is for the animal impossible. An animal might speak, but it cannot; a stone might grow, but it cannot; a tree might walk, but it cannot. Why not? Because there are natural boundaries that are apparently easy to pass, and yet impassable. The tree grows up a tree, the animal an animal, but no farther, just as man never surpasses the human, and therefore can never think except through language, which often is very imperfect.
In one sense, therefore, the Horseherd is quite right. The mind is a development, an eternal, ceaseless development; but when he calls it a function possessed by all living organisms, even a goose and a chicken, he goes far beyond the facts. No goose speaks, although it cackles, and although by cackling it apprised the Romans of the important fact that their Capitol was in danger. How much a dog could tell us if he could speak! As if this capacity or incapacity is not as much the result of intention as every other capacity and incapacity in nature! If we translate this ability byfacultas, that isfacilitas, we need not for that reason assume in man a faculty, or as the Horseherd calls it, a phantom, but the thing remains the same. We can speak, and an animal cannot; we can think, and an animal cannot.
But it must not be supposed that because we deny thought and speech to animals, we wish to degrade them. Everything that has been told us of the ingenious tricks of animals, even the most incredible, we shall gladly believe, only not thatbos locutus est, or that an actual utterance lies hidden in the bark of a dog. A man who sees no difference between language and communication will of course continue to say that a dog speaks, and explain in how many dialects he barks, when he is hungry, when he wants to go out with his master, when he hears burglars in the house, or when he has been whipped and whines. It would be more natural if scientists confined themselves to facts, without asking for reasons, and primarily to the great fact that no animal, with the exception of man, speaks, or ever has spoken. The next duty of the observer is to ask: Why is this? There is no physical impossibility. A parrot can imitate all words. There must therefore be a non-physical cause why there has never been a parrot or dog language. Is that true or false? And if we now call that non-physical cause mind, or still better the Logos, namely, the gatherer of the many into the one, comprehending, conceiving, is our argument so erroneous if we seek the distinction between man and animal in the Logos, in speech and thought, or in mind? This mind is no ghost, as the Horseherd asserts, nor is it a mere phantom of the brain as is imagined by so many scientists. It is something real, for we see its effects. It is born, like everything that belongs to our ego, of[pg 152]the self-conscious Self, which alone really and eternally exists and abides.
So far I hope to have answered the second objection of the Horseherd or Horseherds, that the mind is a function possessed also by a goose or a chicken. Mind is language, and language is mind, the one thesine qua nonof the other, and so far no goose has yet spoken, but only cackled.