denoted by _mar_, eat by _ad_, go by _ga_, strike by _tud_, we may perhaps apprehend by feeling, but we could not account for or even conceive it. Here we must be content with the facts, especially as in other families of languages we find entirely different vocal signs. No doubt there was a reason for all of them; but this reason, even if we could prove it historically, would always remain incomprehensible to us, and only as fact would it have any significance for science. At any rate, we can now understand in what manner language offers us really historical documents of the oldest stages which we can reach in the development of the human mind. I say, “which we can reach,” for what lies beyond language does not exist for us. Nothing remains of the history of _homo alalus_. But every word represents a deed, an acquisition of the mind. If we take such a word as the Vedic _deva_, there may have been many older words for god, but let us not imagine that a fetish or totem, whose etymology is or should be known, belongs to them. But at all events we know from _deva_ and the Latin _deus_, that even before the Aryan separation a root _dyu_ or _div_ had been formed, as well as the conception “shine.” If this root was first used actively for the act of shedding light, of striking a spark, of shining, it was a step farther to transfer this originally active root to the image which the sky produces in us, and to call it a “shiner,” _dyu_ (nom. _dyaus_), and then with a new upward tendency to call all bright and shining beings, _deva_, _deus_. Man started, therefore, from a generalisation, or an idea, and then under this idea grouped other single presentations, such as sun, moon, and stars, from which “shining” had been withdrawn, or abstracted, and thus obtained as a mental acquisition a sign for the idea “shine,” and further formations such as _Dyaus_ (shiner) and _deva_ (shining). Now observe how _Dyaus_, as “shiner,” at the same time assumed the significance of an otherwise unknown agent or author of light, and developed into the ancient Dyaus, into Zeus and Jove; that is, into the oldest personal God of the still united Aryans. These are the true stages of the development of the human mind, which are susceptible of documentary proof in the archives of language.