the root of many words that denote a grinding, grating,
grasping, crushing, action; but I understand that the number of words due
to direct imitation is comparatively few in number, and that they have
been mainly coined as the result of connections so far-fetched and
fanciful as to amount practically to no connection at all. Once chosen,
however, they were adhered to for a considerable time among the dwellers
in any given place, so as to become acknowledged as the vulgar tongue,
and raise readily in the mind of the inhabitants of that place the ideas
with which they had been artificially associated.

As regards our being able to think and reason without words, the Duke of
Argyll has put the matter as soundly as I have yet seen it stated. "It
seems to me," he wrote, "quite certain that we can and do constantly
think of things without thinking of any sound or word as designating
them. Language seems to me to be necessary for the progress of thought,
but not at all for the mere act of thinking. It is a product of thought,
an expression of it, a vehicle for the communication of it, and an
embodiment which is essential to its growth and continuity; but it seems
to me altogether erroneous to regard it as an inseparable part of
cogitation."

The following passages, again, are quoted from Sir William Hamilton in
Professor Max Muller's own book, with so much approval as to lead one to
suppose that the differences between himself and his opponents are in
reality less than he believes them to be:--

"Language," says Sir W. Hamilton, "is the attribution of signs to our
cognitions of things. But as a cognition must have already been there
before it could receive a sign, consequently that knowledge which is
denoted by the formation and application of a word must have preceded the
symbol that denotes it. A sign, however, is necessary to give stability
to our intellectual progress--to establish each step in our advance as a
new starting-point for our advance to another beyond. A country may be
overrun by an armed host, but it is only conquered by the establishment
of fortresses. Words are the fortresses of thought. They enable us to
realise our dominion over what we have already overrun in thought; to
make every intellectual conquest the base of operations for others still
beyond."

"This," says Professor Max Muller, "is a most happy illustration," and he
proceeds to quote the following, also from Sir William Hamilton, whic