Be it observed, in the first place, that whatever may be thought of the foregoing “justification,”—whether it be held that the misapprehensions are due to ambiguity on the one side or to obtuseness on the other,—at least it is certain that the misapprehensions complained of all have reference to points of no importance whatsoever as regards the general theory of descent, even although some of them are not altogether without importance as regards the particular science of philology. Thus it is quite immaterial, so far as the doctrine of _Mental Evolution_ is concerned, whether we say that the roots of Sanskrit are 800, philologically speaking, or 121, psychologically speaking. Again, as soon as it is explained by Prof. Max Müller that by his “121 original concepts” he means the number of concepts “original” only as regards the Sanskrit language; that by “primitive social man” he means only the semi-civilised progenitors of the Indo-European race; that by “every thought that ever crossed the mind of man” admitting of being “traced back to about 121 simple concepts,” he means no more than that such is the case as regards the recent and highly evolved Aryan branch of the human species;—when once all this is explained, it becomes evident that thus far there _can_ be no difference of opinion between us. For in that case he is not dealing with “the Origin of Human Faculty,” either in regard to language or to thought: he is considering merely the higher inflorescence of both. Once more, whether all, or nearly all, the roots of Sanskrit can properly be called _words_, and, if so, whether we must not go still further and call them _verbs_,—these are questions of mere terminology. If the roots were originally “used in conversation,” and if, as thus used, they were, with but few doubtful exceptions, all expressive of “acts” or “states,” it becomes mere verbal hair-splitting to challenge the propriety of saying that the roots were originally verbs. At all events, the matter has nothing to do with the general question of man’s derivative origin. Lastly, the same has to be said of the purely philological question as to how far the principle of imitation has obtained in the first formation of these archaic “words,” or “roots.” For, archaic though they be in a philological sense, in a phylological sense they are things of yesterday, and so can scarcely be said to have any direct relation at all to “the origin of speech,” or the rise of articulate sign-making. This has to be inferred from observations in the “menagerie,” as distinguished from research in the library; and the fact that Prof. Max Müller expressly refuses to give me the pleasure of his company where the best materials for studying the really “primitive” condition of the sign-making faculty are to be met with, merely renders more impossible than ever any real collision between his linguistic studies on the one side, and my “biological theory” on the other.