ticular person, some particular thing, or some particular place. The question is rather unsubstantial, simply because the words are symbolic where they should be presentive. It is not utterly unsubstantial, because the verb dragged round is presentive. Put a more symbolic verb in its stead and you have a perfectly unsubstantial question: Who did what, and where did he do it?

This is a clown's toy in Shakspeare:

for, as the old hermit of Prage, that never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to a niece of king Gorbuduc, That that is is.-Twelfe Night, iv. 2. 14.

It will therefore be desirable to attempt some understanding of the nature of this difference between presentiveness and symbolism. The difficulty and danger of confusion lies in the fact―That all language is symbolical. As the chief characteristic of human language in regard to its external form is this, that it should be articulate; so, in regard to its signification, the chief characteristic is that it should be symbolical. If a man barks like a dog or crows like a cock, or whistles, these utterances do not constitute language in any but a metaphorical sense. They might indeed carry a real signification,-might in conceivable situations be necessary as means of communication between man and man; they might serve the purpose of language: but they would not be language. When the bark of the dog is represented in articulate syllables, as bow-wow, there is an important step made towards the attainment of language. 'Bow-wow,' says the dog; and this bow-wow, in the human mouth may pass for speech, but it is not yet a true specimen of the relation in which mature speech stands to meaning. When however we advance another step, and call the dog a bow-wow, here we have language. A childish specimen, it is true; but still a real specimen of language. And the

character which determines it is Symbolism. An understanding is established between minds that this articulate imitation of a dog's bark shall stand in human intercourse as the sign or symbol of a dog. And there is such a movement in language that, although at first bow-wow signified a bark, and so was a mere sound-word, yet it would be likely to move on a step and mean something else, as it actually has come to be used symbolically for a dog. Thus language is radically symbolical.

This fundamental truth is however overlaid and concealed from view by a mental habit which we call Association. We became acquainted with objects and ideas at the same time that we learnt how to name them, and the names have become so intimately identified with the things, that it is only by force of reflection we can separate them wide enough to verify their symbolic nature. This associative faculty is limited to words which express objects and ideas. When words express neither objects nor ideas they cannot be so associated; and their symbolic character is then patent, because it is their only character; insomuch that if it be fairly looked at, it must be immediately recognised. The difference then between the Presentive and the Symbolic words, is based, not upon the absence of symbolism in the former, but upon the absence of the presentive faculty in the latter, which leaves their unmixed symbolic character open to view.

When therefore we call a particular set of words Symbolic, we mean that they display in a clear and conspicuous manner that symbolism which is a pervading characteristic of all human language. And they display it in such a manner as to bear a great testimony to the fact that the symbolic tendency is infused into human language with its earliest germ. As a natural consequence of this innate

tendency, there is developed in language a graduated series of elevations from the sensible and material to the ethereal and subtle.

Such is the best explanation I can offer of this great distinction. Whatever be the value of the explanation, we must observe that it affects in no way either the fact of the distinction or the fact of its importance. These are to be established not by theory, but by evidence and exemplification and to these we now proceed.

Analogous movements may be traced in examples beyond the pale of language. When barbers' poles were first erected, they were pictorial and presentive, for they indicated by white bands of paint the linen bandages which were used in bloodletting, an operation practised by the old surgeon-barbers. In our time we only know (speaking of the popular mind) that the pole indicates a barber's shop; the why or how is unknown. And this is symbolism.

229. A highly appropriate illustration may be gathered from the letters of the Alphabet. Egyptian research seems to have quite established it for a fact, that the Phoenician Alphabet, which is the source of ours, was itself derived from the hieroglyphic picture-writing of Egypt; and many prototypes of our letters have been recognised in writing of four thousand years ago. Our A was at first a picture of an eagle, the B of some other bird, the D was a man's hand, the F was the horned viper whose horns still figure in the two upper strokes, while the cross-line in the H is a surviving trace of the pictured sieve whereof this letter is the symbol. Thus the Alphabet began in presentation and has reached a state of symbolism.

230. Writing is in fact the symbolism of the picture-story. Here we perceive that there has been a complete change of nature. The pictorial character with which the first artist

invested the figure has gradually and undesignedly evaporated from that figure, and has left a mere vague phantom of a character in its place, a thing which is the representative of nothing. And if we set the gain against the loss of such a transition, we find that the symbol has gained enormously in range, to make up for what it has lost in local or pictorial force. While it was presentive it was tied to a single object: since it became a symbol, it is ubiquitous in its function.

But it is to be observed further-and the observation is of wider application—that the symbol which remains after the evaporation of the pictorial element of the hieroglyphic or picture-writing is the true correspondent to the intention with. which the first effort was made at representing speech by the graphic art. Whatever there was in the picture which was germane to the intention has lived, while the alien parts have gradually died away, leaving behind the purely symbolic or alphabetical writing.

These observations will apply also in some degree to our two systems of numeration, the Roman and the Arabic. The numerals I and II and III and IIII are Presentive of the ideas of one and two and three and four, as truly as the holding up of so many fingers would represent those numbers. The numeral V is practically a mere symbol, though it began in presentation, if it be true that it is derived from the hand, the thumb forming the one side, and the four fingers the other. The figures 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 are, and so far as our knowledge reaches always were, pure symbols. It is worthy of observation, that the whole system of Decimal Arithmetic hinges upon these symbolic figures, or has acquired immense addition to its. range of capabilities by the use of these figures. So in like. manner will it be found by and bye, that the modern de

velopment of languages has hinged mainly upon symbolic words, and that their instrumentality has been the chief means of what progress has been made in the capabilities of expression.

231. The same general tendency which makes symbols take the place of pictures, makes or has made symbolic words take the place of presentives in a great number of instances. This tendency has led to the formation out of the large mass of presentive verbs of a select number of symbolic verbs, which are the light and active intermediaries, and the general servants of the presentive verbs. Thus the verbs partake of both characters, the presentive and the symbolic. But as regards the rest of the parts of speech, they fall into two natural halves in the light of this distinction. The substantives, adjectives, and adverbs are presentive words; the pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions are symbolic words.

But as the grammatical classification has become rigid in some of its parts, it must not be allowed to govern the Natural divisions which we are here seeking to establish. There is much of what is arbitrary in the denomination assigned by grammarians to many a word. 234. Some will think perhaps that my symbolic words are found to invade the domain of noun, adjective, and adverb; while they fail to cover and fully occupy what I have assigned to them—namely, the pronoun, conjunction, and preposition.

Therefore the grammatical scheme should not be trusted to as a frame for the new division. The student must seize the distinction itself; and the illustration of it by reference to the grammatical scale is only offered as a temporary

assistance.

As in the chapter Of the Parts of Speech we saw that the same word assumes a diversity of characters, so here