Lest it should be thought that I am assuming too much in thus referring the origin of pronominal elements to gesture-signs, I will here quote the opinion of Professor Max Müller, who of all philologists is least open to suspicion of bias towards my side of the present argument. Speaking of these “demonstrative elements, which point to an object in space and time, and express what we now express by _then_, _this_ [= I], _that_ [= there, he, she, it, &c.], near, far, above, below, &c.;” he says, “in their primitive form and intention they are addressed to the senses rather than to the intellect: they are sensuous, not conceptual.”[232] And elsewhere he adds, “I see no reason why we should not accept them as real survivals of a period of speech during which pantomime, gesture, pointing with the fingers to actual things were still indispensable ingredients of all conversation.”[233] Again, “it was one of the characteristic features of Sanskrit, and the other Aryan languages, that they tried to distinguish the various applications of a root by means of what I have called demonstrative roots or elements. If they wished to distinguish the mat as the product of their handiwork, from the handiwork itself, they would say ‘Platting—there;’ if they wished to encourage the work they would say, ‘Platting—they, or you, or we.’ We found that what we call demonstrative roots or elements must be considered as remnants of the earliest and almost pantomimic phase of language, in which language was hardly as yet what we mean by language, namely _logos_, a gathering, but only a pointing.”[234]