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

also the same word will be at one time presentive and at another time symbolic. And there is perhaps no more effective display of the distinction now before us than that which shews itself within the limits of the history of single words. Let us therefore take a few examples of the transition of a word from a presentive to a symbolic use.

232. Thing. This is a very good example, on account of its unmixed simpleness. For it is almost purely symbolic, and devoid of presentive power. It is still more. It is of universal application in its symbolic power. There is not a subject of speech which may not be indicated by the word thing.

For thou, O Lorde God, art the thynge that I longe for.--Psalm lxxi. 4, (1539).

By these ways, as by the testimony of the creature, we come to find an eternal and independent Being, upon which all things else depend, and by which all things else are governed.-John Pearson, An Exposition of the Creed, Art. I.

or of

It is plain that we cannot name a creature, whether visible or invisible, whether an object of sense thought, which may not be indicated by the word thing. It is therefore of universal application in its symbolical power.1

But if we ask, on the other hand, What idea does this word present? We answer, None! There is no creature, no subject of speech or of thought, which can claim the word thing as its presenter. There was a time when the word was presentive like any ordinary noun, but that time is now far behind us. The most recent example I am able to quote is of the fourteenth century.

In Chaucer's Prologue it occurs twice presentively:

1 The few instances in which thing (with a faint rhetorical emphasis) is opposed to person, are to be regarded as stranded relics on the path of the transition which the bulk of the word has passed through.

He wolde the see were kept for any thyng
Bitwixen Myddelburgh and Orewelle. (1. 278.)

Ther to he koude endite and make a thyng. (1. 327.) 233. The fullness of tone which the rhythm requires for the word thyng in both these places, is by itself almost enough to indicate that they are not to be taken as when we say 'I would not do it for anything,' or 'Here's a thing will do.' In these trivial instances the word is vague and symbolical, but it would hardly have beseemed such a poet as Chaucer to bring the stroke of his measure down upon such gossamer. The Merchant desired that the sea should be protected for the sake of commerce at any price, condition, or cost-on any terms; for such is the old sense of the word thing. The old verb to thing, Saxon pingian, meant to make terms, to compromise, pacisci. So also in German the word Ding had a like use, as may be seen through its compounds. The verb bedingen is to stipulate, bargain; and Bedingung is condition, terms of agreement, contract.

In Denmark and Norway the word still retains its presentiveness, and signifies a judicial or deliberative assembly. In Denmark the places where the judges hold session are called Ting. In Norway the Parliament is called Stor Ting, that is, Great Thing. In Iceland the old parliament field was called Thing-völlr, and the hill in the Isle of Man from which the laws are proclaimed is called Tynwald. The same word in the same sense is contained in the Danish word husting, as Longfellow indicates by his manner of printing it :

Olaf the King, one summer morn,

Blew a blast on his bugle-horn,

Sending his signal through the land of Drontheim.

And to the Hus-Ting held at Mere
Gathered the farmers far and near,

With their war weapons ready to confront him.

The Saga of King Olaf.

In Molbech's Danish Dictionary there is a list of compounds with Ting, in its presentive value of adjudicating or adjusting conflicting interests. In such a sense it is said by Chaucer that his Sergeaunt of Lawe could endite and make a THYNG, meaning, he could make a contract, was a good conveyancer.

234. How wide is the separation between such a use of the word and that more familiar one which meets us so often in this manner, 'The liberal deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things shall he stand'-in which 'liberal things' is equivalent to 'liberality,' or at any rate the difference between the general and the abstract is so fine that, if preserved at all, it requires a high metaphysical discernment to define it.

A question may be raised here-What part of speech is this symbolic thing? Grammar, which looks only to its literary action, will say it is a noun, and that however much it may have changed in sense, it cannot cease to be a noun. Yet it will often be found to act the part and fill the place of pronouns in other tongues. The Latin neuter pronouns hac, ea, ista, their Greek analogues ταῦτα, ἐκεῖνα, τοιαῦτα Toσaura, can hardly be rendered in English in any other way than by the expressions these things, those things, such things, so great things. If in all cases we must grammatically insist that thing is a noun, then what part of speech are something, nothing, anything, everything? It may be a question at what stage of symbolism a noun passes over to the ranks of the pronoun, but it appears plain that there is a point at which this transition must be admitted, and that the whole question turns upon the degree of symbolism that is requisite. If the word thing has not quite attained that degree, it certainly approaches very near to it.

It would not have been worth while to dwell so long on these aspects, if they had not been typical. But that they