Another most interesting feature of a general kind which the list presents is, that it is composed exclusively of verbs.[187] This peculiarity of the ultimate known roots of all languages, which shows them to have been expressive of actions and states as distinguished from objects and qualities, is a peculiarity on which Professor Max Müller lays much stress. But the inference which he draws from the fact is clearly not justifiable. This inference is that, as every root expresses “the consciousness of repeated acts, such as scraping, digging, striking,” &c., the naming of actions, as distinguished from objects, “must be considered as the first step in the formation of concepts.” Now, in drawing this inference—and, indeed, throughout all his works as far as I remember—Professor Max Müller has entirely overlooked two most important considerations. First, as already observed, that the roots in question are _demonstrably_ very far from having been the original material of language as first coined by primitive man; and, next, that whatever this original material may have been, from the first there must have been a struggle for existence among the really primitive roots—only those surviving which were most fitted to survive as roots, _i.e._ as the parent stems of subsequent word-formations. Now, it appears to me obvious enough that archaic—though not necessarily aboriginal—words which were expressive of actions, would have stood a better chance of surviving as roots than those which may have been expressive of objects; first because they were likely to have been more frequently employed, and next because many of them must have lent themselves more readily to metaphorical extension—_especially under a system of animistic thought_.[188] And, if these things were so, there is nothing remarkable in words significant of actions having alone survived as roots.[189]