“Give us,” he says, “about 800 roots, and we can explain the largest dictionary; give us about 121 concepts, and we can account for the 800 roots.” (“Science of Thought,” p. 551.) Well, if this is so, the 800 roots (i. e. phonetically separable elements) have been reduced to the 121 “concepts or roots” (i. e. psychologically separable elements). My critic cannot both have his cake and eat it. Either he must abide by the philological meaning of a root, as the ultimate result of philological analysis; or else he must abide by his own philosophical meaning of a root, as the embodiment of a concept. Under the former definition there will be about 800 roots of Sanskrit; under the latter definition, and according to his analysis, there will be only 121. * * * * * The next point with regard to which “complete misapprehension” is alleged may best be presented by my critic’s own words, thus: “Professor Romanes thinks it necessary to remark that ‘these concepts do not represent the ideation of primitive man’! I never said they did. I never pretended to be acquainted with the ideation of primitive man. All I maintained was that, making allowance for obscure words, every thought, that of the lowest savage as well as of the most minute philosopher, can be expressed with these 800 roots, and traced back to these 121 concepts.” (_The Monist_, p. 584.) Now, it is perhaps needless to say, I am extremely glad to learn that such was the meaning intended; but I trust that the following quotations will furnish a sufficient excuse for my misunderstanding of it: “I hope that those who will carefully examine the results at which I have arrived, will admit that they prove by overwhelming evidence that the meanings of roots are really what we expected them to be, and that they express the primitive social acts of primitive social man, and the states more or less closely associated with such acts.” (“Science of Thought,” p. 403.) From this it appears that if Prof. Max Müller never professed to be acquainted with the ideation of _primitive_ man, he did profess to have proved, by overwhelming evidence, a very large acquaintance, not only with the ideation, but also with primitive acts of primitive _social_ man. Possibly his acquaintance with both these matters is very much more intimate than mine; but as I have always taken it to be virtually certain that “primitive man” was “social” in his habits, I should like to learn the reasons which have induced my critic to believe in a still more “primitive man,” who was addicted to a solitary mode of life. For, otherwise, the only distinction on which his criticism appears to rest is a distinction without a difference. Again he says: “The Science of Thought assures us that every thought that ever crossed the mind of man can be traced back to about 121 simple concepts.” (Ibid., p. 418.)