ve actions--to at once see that the nation of _likeness_ is
that from which the nomenclature of objects takes its rise.

Were there space we might go on to point out how this law of life is
traceable, not only in the origin but in the development of language;
how in primitive tongues the plural is made by a duplication of the
singular, which is a multiplication of the word to make it _like_ the
multiplicity of the things; how the use of metaphor--that prolific
source of new words--is a suggesting of ideas that are _like_ the ideas
to be conveyed in some respect or other; and how, in the copious use of
simile, fable, and allegory among uncivilised races, we see that complex
conceptions, which there is yet no direct language for, are rendered, by
presenting known conceptions more or less _like_ them.

This view is further confirmed, and the predominance of this notion of
likeness in primitive times further illustrated, by the fact that our
system of presenting ideas to the eye originated after the same fashion.
Writing and printing have descended from picture-language. The earliest
mode of permanently registering a fact was by depicting it on a wall;
that is--by exhibiting something as _like_ to the thing to be remembered
as it could be made. Gradually as the practice grew habitual and
extensive, the most frequently repeated forms became fixed, and
presently abbreviated; and, passing through the hieroglyphic and
ideographic phases, the symbols lost all apparent relations to the
things signified: just as the majority of our spoken words have done.

Observe again, that the same thing is true respecting the genesis of
reasoning. The _likeness_ that is perceived to exist between cases, is
the essence of all early reasoning and of much of our present reasoning.
The savage, having by experience discovered a relation between a certain
object and a certain act, infers that the _like_ relation will be found
in future cases. And the expressions we constantly use in our
arguments--"_analogy_ implies," "the cases are not _parallel_," "by
_parity_ of reasoning," "there is no _similarity_,"--show how constantly
the idea of likeness underlies our ratiocinative processes.

Still more clearly will this be seen on recognising the fact that there
is a certain parallelism between reasoning and classification; that the
two have a common root; and that neither can go on without the other.
For on the one hand, it is a familiar truth that the