Speech Defined--The True Nature of Speech--The Use of
Speech--The Limitations of Speech.
[Sidenote: SPEECH DEFINED]
What is speech? I shall endeavour to define it in such terms as will
relieve it of ambiguity, and deal with it as a known quantity in the
problems of mental commerce. Speech is that form of materialised thought
which is confined to oral sounds, when they are designed to convey a
definite idea from mind to mind. It is, therefore, only one mode of
expressing thought, and to come within the limits of speech, the sounds
must be voluntary, have fixed values, and be intended to suggest to
another mind a certain idea, or group of ideas, more or less complex.
The idea is one factor, and sound the other, and the two conjointly
constitute speech. The empty sounds alone, however modulated, having no
integral value, cannot be speech, nor can the concept unexpressed be
speech. Separately, the one would be noise, and the other would be
thought; and they only become speech when the thought is expressed in
oral sounds. Sounds which only express emotion are not speech, as
emotion is not thought, although it is frequently attended by thought,
and is a cause of which thought is the effect. Music expresses emotion
by means of sounds, but they are not speech; and even though the sounds
which express them may impart a like emotion to the hearer, they are not
speech. The sounds which express crying, sighing, or laughter, may
indeed be a faint suggestion of speech, since we infer from them the
state of the mind attending the emotions which produce them, yet they
are not truly speech. To be regarded as speech, the expression must be
preceded by consciousness, and the desire to make known to another the
sensation by which the expression is actuated. As the impulse can only
come from within, it appears that emotion is one source from which
thought is evolved, and speech is the natural issue of thought. Desire
gives rise to a class of thoughts having reference to the sensations
which produce them, and such thoughts find expression in such sounds as
may suggest supplying the want. As the wants of man have increased with
his changing modes of life and thought, his speech has drawn upon the
resources of sound to meet those increased demands for expression. It
appears only reasonable to me that thought must precede in point of time
and order any expression of thought, for thought is the motive of
expression, and the expression of thought in oral sounds is speech.
[Sidenote: NATURE OF SPEECH] Speech is not an invention, and therefore
is not symbolic in its radical nature. True, that much that is symbolic
has been added to it, and its bounds have been widened as men have risen
in the scale of civil life, until our higher types of modern speech have
departed so far from the natural modes of speech and first forms of
expression, that we can rarely trace a single word to its ultimate
source. And viewing it as we do from our present standpoint, it appears
to be purely symbolic; but if that be so, then we must deny the first
law of progress, and assign the origin of this faculty to that class of
phenomena known as miracles, which once explained by increasing the
mystery what we could not understand, and served at the same time to
conceal the exact magnitude of our ignorance; but as we added little by
little to our stock of knowledge, such phenomena were brought within the
realm of our understanding, and to-day our children are familiar with
the causes of many simple effects which our forefathers dared not
attempt to solve, but reverently ascribed to the immediate influence of
Divinity. If speech in its ultimate nature is symbolic, what must have
been the condition of man before its invention, and how did he arrive at
the first term or sound of speech? He did not invent sound nor the
means of making it. He did not invent thought, the thing which speech
expresses, and it is no more reasonable to believe that he invented
speech than to believe that he invented the faculties of sight and
hearing, which are certainly the natural products of his organic nature
and environments. So far as I can find through the whole range of animal
life, all forms of land mammals possess vocal organs which are developed
in a degree corresponding to the condition of the brain, and seem to be
in every instance as capable of producing and controlling sounds as the
brain is of thinking: in other words, the power of expression is in
perfect keeping with the power of thinking. From my acquaintance with
the animal kingdom, it is my firm belief that all mammals possess the
faculty of speech in a degree commensurate with their experience and
needs, and that domestic animals have a somewhat higher type of speech
than their wild progenitors. Why are all forms of mammals endowed with
vocal organs? Why should Nature bestow on them these organs if not
designed for use? One or the other of two conclusions seems inevitable.
As a law of evolution and progress, all organs are imparted to animals
for use and not for ornament. It seems consistent with what we know of
Nature, to suppose that the vocal organs of these lower forms are being
developed to meet a new requirement in the animal economy, or having
once discharged some function necessary to the being and comfort of the
animal, they are now lapsing into disuse and becoming atrophied. If they
are in the course of development, it argues that the creature which
possesses them must possess a rudimentary speech which is developing at
a like rate into a higher type of speech. If they are in a state of
decay or atrophy, it argues that the animal must have been able to speak
at some former period, and that now, in losing the power of speech it is
gradually losing the organ. In either case, the organs themselves would
be in a state of development in harmony with the condition of the speech
of the animal. [Sidenote: LIMITATIONS OF SPEECH] The function which
speech discharges is the communication of ideas, and its growth must
depend upon the extent of those ideas; and in all conditions of life,
and in all forms of the animal kingdom, the uses of speech are confined
to, and limited by the desires, thoughts, and concepts of those using
it. Its extent is commensurate with requirement. To believe that there
was a time in the history of the human race when man could not speak, is
to destroy his identity as man, and the romance of the _alalus_ could be
justified from a scientific standpoint only as a compromise between the
giants of science and superstition. Among the tribes of men whose modes
of life are simple, whose wants are few, and whose knowledge is confined
to their primitive condition, the number of words necessary to convey
their thoughts is very limited. Among some savage races there are
languages consisting of only a few hundred words at most, while as we
rise in the scale of civil and domestic culture, languages become more
copious and expressive as the wants become more numerous and the
conditions of life more complex. As we descend from man to the lower
animals, we find the types of speech degenerate just in proportion as we
descend in the mental and moral plane, but it does not lose its identity
as speech. Through the whole animal kingdom from man to protozoa, types
of speech differ as do the physical types to which they belong. But as
the same vital processes are found throughout the whole circle of life,
so the same phonetic basis is found through the whole range of speech.