Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/133

Rh of Signatures," which supposed that plants and minerals indicated by their external characters the diseases for which nature had intended them as remedies. Thus the Euphrasia or eye- bright was, and is, supposed to be good for the eyes, on the strength of a black pupil-like spot in its corolla, the yellow turmeric was thought good for jaundice, and the blood-stone is probably used to this day for stopping blood. By virtue of a similar association of ideas, the ginseng, which is still largely used in China, was also employed by the Indians of North America, and in both countries its virtues were deduced from the shape of the root, which is supposed to resemble the human body. Its Iroquois name, abesoutchenza, means "a child," while in China it is called jin-seng, that is to say, "resemblance of man."

Such cases as these bring clearly into view the belief in a real and material connexion existing between an object and its image. By virtue of their resemblance, the two are associated in thought, and being thus brought into connexion in the mind, it conies to be believed that they are also in connexion in the outside world. Now the association of an object with its name is made in a very different way, but it nevertheless produces a series of very similar results. Except in imitative words, the objective resemblance between thing and word, if it ever existed, is not discernible now. A word cannot be compared to an image or a picture, which, as everybody can see, is like what it stands for; but it is enough that idea and word come together by habit in the mind, to make men think that there is some real bond of connexion between the thing, and the name which belongs to it in their mother-tongue. Professor Lazarus, in his "Life of the Soul," tells a good story of a German who went to the Paris Exhibition, and remarked to his companion what an extraordinary people the French were, "For bread, they say du pain!" "Yes," said the other, "and we say bread." "To be sure," replied the first, "but it is bread, you know."