To the student of language the Categories sometimes present themselves as pronominal, or formal roots,--those roots which, as it is said, do not denote things, but relations between things. He meets them in the inflections of nouns and verbs; in the signs of number, gender, case, and person: but, as thus presented, their influence is subordinate to the things of which they are, as it were, the accidents. He meets them in a more independent and tangible shape in the articles, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, and numerals, and in what are called the auxiliary verbs. In these apparently trifling, and in some languages almost non-existent words or parts of words, we have the symbols of relations,--the means of connexion between single words,--the cement which binds significant speech together. There are languages, such as the older and classical forms of Chinese, where these categorising terms are, as it were, in the air: where they are only felt in accent and position, and have no separate existence of their own. But in the languages of the Indo-European family they gradually appear, at first in combination, perhaps, with the more material roots, and only in the course of time asserting an independent form. Originally they appear to denote the relations of space and time,--the generalised or typical links between the parts of our sense-perceptions: but from there they are afterwards, and in a little while, transferred into the service of intellect. These little words are the very life-blood of a language,--its spirit and force. It is in these categories, as they show themselves in the different linguistic families, that a nation betrays its mode and tone of thought. The language of the Altaic races, e. g., expresses activity only as a piece of property, an appropriation of a substance, and knows no true distinction of noun and verb: the Semitic Tongues in their tense-system perhaps betray the intense inwardness of the race: whereas the immense inflectionalism of the Indo-European seems not unconnected with his greater versatility and energy. Complete mastery in the manipulation of these particles and forms is what makes an idiomatic knowledge of a language, as distinct from a mere remembrance of the vocabulary. And philosophy is the recognition of their import and significance. Thus in Greek philosophy the central questions turn upon such words as Being and not-Being: Becoming: that out of which: that for the sake of which: the what-was-being: the what is: the other: the one: the great and small: that which is upon the whole: what is according to each: this somewhat: &c.[7] And again in Modern Philosophy, how often has the battle raged about the meaning of such words as I: will: can: must: because: same and different: self: &c.! [Footnote 1: Cf. Herbart's maxim, 'Wie viel Schein, so viel Hindeutung auf Sein.' (_Hauptpunkte der Metaphysik._)]