[Findlater's footnote 53: The account of predication above given is in conformity with the phenomena of the family of languages known as the Indo-European. Logicians, in fact, in treating of this subject have had almost exclusive regard to Greek and Latin and the literary languages of modern Europe, which are all of one type. It might therefore be presumed that the theory thus formed would be found not to fit in all its parts when applied to languages of an altogether different structure. The mental process must doubtless be the same in all; but the words that express the several parts may be used in new and unprecedented ways. Were naturalists to construct a scheme of the animal organism without ever having seen any other animals than those of the vertebrate type, the theory would certainly fail in generality; certain organs or functions would be set down as essential to animal existence which acquaintance with other classes of creatures shows can be quite well dispensed with. Similarly, the current theory of predication, when viewed in the light of a wider and deeper knowledge of the organism of speech, seems to attach an exaggerated importance to the peculiar predicative power presumed to be inherent in verbs, and especially in the verb of existence. It is now a well known fact that in the monosyllabic class of languages, in which a third part of the human race express their thoughts, there is no distinction among the parts of speech. In Chinese, for example, the word _ta_ expresses indifferently great, greatness, to be great, to make great or magnify, greatly. It is only position that determines in each case how the word is to be understood; thus traditional convention assigns to _ta fu_ the meaning of "a great man," and to _fu ta_ that of "the man is great." Being habituated to the constant use of the verb _is_ in such a case as the latter, we are apt to suppose that the expression derives its predicative force from its suggesting the verb of existence, which the mind instinctively and necessarily supplies for itself. How little ground there is for this presumed necessity, has been conclusively shown by the late Mr. Garnett, in his profound and exhaustive essay on the Nature and Analysis of the Verb. Speaking of the theory that makes the essential difference between the verb and other parts of speech to reside in the verb substantive, which is to be supplied by the mind in all cases where the functions of the verb proper are to be called into requisition, he observes: "This theory presupposes the existence of a verb substantive in the languages in question, and consciousness of that existence and of the force and capabilities of the element in those who speak them. Unfortunately the Spanish grammarians, to whom we are indebted for what knowledge we possess of the Philippine dialects, unanimously concur in stating that there is no verb substantive either in Tagalá, Pampanga, or Bisaya, nor