volume out of fashion, but the views advocated in it run counter to the trade-wind of public opinion, so that, if noticed at all, I fear my venturesome craft will be severely buffeted by the waves of adverse criticism, if not sucked down mercilessly by the maelstrom of general indifference.

It might have seemed more prudent, no doubt, not to publish the book, at least not in its present form, which may often betray its slow and gradual growth. Some of the views here put forward date really from the days when I attended the lectures of Lotze, Weisse, and Drobisch at Leipzig, and of Schelling at Berlin; when I discussed Veda and Vedânta with Schopenhauer, and Eckhart and Tauler with Bunsen. The fundamental principles of the classification of languages were foreshadowed as early as 1854, in my 'Letter on the Turanian Languages.' Some portions of my book formed part of Lectures given at the Royal Institution in 1873 on the Philosophy of Language (Fraser's Magazine, May, June, July 1873); while others appeared in the Contemporary Review, February 1878, in an essay on the Origin of Reason, devoted to Noiré's book, Der Ursprung der Sprache. In working up these long accumulated materials and trying to amalgamate them with the results of later labours, it was not always easy to avoid a certain iteration, more perhaps than is justified by a wish to force reluctant minds into a readier acceptance of strange and unpalatable truths.

But, after all, we cannot always be guided by prudence, nor ought a man at my time of life to think

much of momentary success. I feel convinced that the views put forward in this book, which are the result of a long life devoted to solitary reflection and to the study of the foremost thinkers of all nations, contain certain truths which deserve to be recorded. I trust that in time some of them will be recognised as well founded, while others may at all events claim their place in that continuous dialectic process which, by rubbing off the rough edges of prejudice and error, will in the end restore the old gem of truth to its perfect form and its own innate brilliancy. I have written some of my books as a pleader, and, if I may judge by results, I have not pleaded quite in vain. But the present book is not meant to be persuasive. All I can say of it is, Dixi et salvavi animam meam.

And yet, such is paternal weakness that I cannot help putting forth a few pleas for my unattractive offspring. I always appreciate honest criticism, more even than honest praise. But if my book is to be criticised at all, I pray it may not be tested by mere shibboleths, or condemned by being called names.

I know, of course, that the system of philosophy which it propounds may, and probably will be called Nominalism, and Nominalism in its most extreme form. I have the highest regard for Nominalism. I believe it has purified the philosophical atmosphere of Europe more effectually than any other system. But nothing is so misleading as to use old names, as if everybody knew what they meant. Those who know the writings of William of Occam, would never

think of applying the same name to his system and to my own. In one sense my system may, no doubt, be called Nominalism, because it aims at determining the origin and the true nature of names. But that is not the historical meaning of Nominalism, and the results to which a study of language has led us in this nineteenth century are very different from those that were within the reach even of the profoundest thinkers in the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. If there must be a name for the theories established by the combined Sciences of Language and Thought, let it be a distinctive name, not Nominalism, but Nominism.

Again, it would be very easy to call my system Materialism, and to paint in dismal colours what may not unfairly be represented as its outcome, namely, that there is no such thing as intellect, understanding, mind, and reason, but that all these are only different aspects of language. I certainly hold that view, and I do so after having carefully weighed and tested every argument that has been or can be advanced against it. My own opinion may be right or wrong, but supposing it should prove right in the end, the consequences would by no means be so terrible as they appear. We should remain in every respect exactly as we were before, we should only comprehend our inner workings under new and, I believe, more correct names. If I say, 'No reason without language,' I also say, 'No language without reason.'

Lastly, I hope that those who think that every

system must be hall-marked, will not ask whether my book is Darwinian or not. If Darwinism is used in the sense of Entwickelung, I was a Darwinian, as may be seen from my 'Letter on the Turanian Languages,' long before Darwin. No student of the Science of Language can be anything but an evolutionist, for, wherever he looks, he sees nothing but evolution going on all around him. But with regard to one question to which party-spirit has given an undue pre-eminence, namely, the descent of man from monkey, I am not a Darwinian, not because I am afraid to follow Darwin, but because I go far beyond Darwin. I believe I am correct in stating that at present the most competent judges consider the descent of man from any other kind of animal Not Proven. But while Darwin would have been satisfied with having established the descent of man from some kind of animal, I have never doubted, nor do I doubt, that man has been, is, and always will be an animal, i.e. a living being; only not a dumb animal, but an animal with the proprium of language and all that is implied by language. And here again I repeat, we must not be frightened by names. We are and shall remain what we are, whether we call ourselves angels or animals. We share everything with animals except language, which is our own; and if that is so, surely those who seem so anxious for the dignity of man, should care for nothing more than for the lessons which they can learn from the Science of Thought, founded, as it is and ought to be, on the Science of Language.

One more plea, and I have done. Thought, in the

sense in which I have defined it and used it in my book, represents one side of human nature only, the intellectual, and there are two other sides, the ethical and aesthetical, on which I have not touched. Whether the self-conscious Mona, which are all that I postulate, might be without any ideas of what is good or beautiful, I do not wish to determine. Anyhow, we can, for our purpose, treat them as if they were, and leave the origin of their ethical and aesthetical concepts and names to be treated by others.

To some it may seem indeed that the quality of self-consciousness need not be simply postulated, but stands to reason, because a Monon, in its absolute loneliness, could not be conceived to exist except as self-conscious. With it esse could be nothing if not percipi per se. There is, as I have shown in my book, some truth in this, but I have reserved the full treatment of that question for another book which I have long prepared, 'The Science of Mythology.' In it self-consciousness will appear under a new aspect, and after an analysis of both subjective and objective myth, two phases through which the human mind in its natural growth must pass, I hope, if life is still prolonged, to be able to show that the same road which led mankind into the wilderness of mythology, in the widest sense of the word, may lead us back to a point from which we recognise in all selfconscious Mona the Great Self, conscious of all Mona.

As this work may possibly be the last which I shall be allowed to finish, I take this opportunity of publicly thanking the Academies, Universities, and