The habit which I have contracted of living in the society of our
ancestors of prehistoric times, would, it might be thought, naturally
cause me to notice the dissimilarities between us and them rather than
the likenesses; this often happens, but not always. Our fathers, for
instance, did not know the thousandth part of our vocabulary, which
is very copious; this would seem to indicate that our knowledge has
considerably increased in the course of thirty or forty centuries.
Words of deep import are familiar to us; who amongst us does not
know and use such as these--Law, Necessity, Liberty, Spirit, Matter,
Conscience, Belief, Nature, Providence, Revelation, Inspiration, the
Soul, Religion, Infinite, Immortality, and many others, which are
either of recent origin, or have become new because their meaning has
changed? Here the difference between our fathers and ourselves springs
into sight.
But the points of resemblance are still more striking.
Long before our present era, certain philosophers asserted that their
world was full of gods, we may say with equal truth that God fills our
world; His name is in every mouth, and our little children know it
well. Moreover the complete identity between certain mental acts of our
fathers and our own is easily recognised. Our fathers were satisfied
not to enquire concerning the nature of their gods, they knew their
names, and that sufficed. We too have become accustomed to hear God’s
name repeated frequently, without always questioning ourselves as to
its meaning, and in what way He has made the earth His habitation.
To talk of what we do not grasp must be essentially human, since we
find the practice in two social conditions, separated from each other
by thousands of years.
It is incredible to what a point we of the nineteenth century carry
our lack of enquiry. If one day we were to count on our fingers the
number of interesting subjects we had allowed to pass by us without
any interrogations concerning them, fifty hands would not suffice us
for the tale; our ignorance would then become apparent. Should we
feel humiliated? In all probability no, for before arriving at this
much to be desired consummation, we should have been carried away by
many thoughts in no way bearing on the subject, and the one thought
which would come prominently to the front and hinder us from passing
our conduct in review would be, “I see no necessity to apply myself
to them.” In fact, nothing is easier and nothing so reposeful to our
mind as acquiescence in the popular opinion, which we allow to guide
us in our estimation of words and phrases; as so frequently happens
with ourselves (by “ourselves” I mean that very considerable portion
of society which separates the working classes from the savants and
philosophers).
“All things are full of the gods,” was said by the heathen in former
days; and in fact divinities abounded; this was not surprising. “God
has chosen to Himself a people and spread His name over the whole
earth, and to make His will to be known,” as we say now. Thus we know
that God is, and that His commandments must be kept.
To consider words as ideas is not wise. Why do we not imitate the
savages who when they hear an organ for the first time have a great
desire to open it in order to see what is inside; and we who are
civilised play with much light-hearted readiness on the gigantic
instrument of language without seeking to know the value of the sounds
we draw from it; and the names of beings and objects which should
exercise the most powerful influence to which moral things can be
subjected, are treated as mere sounds.
Have we asked ourselves the meaning of the word God? Many must answer
no to this question. This is not well, in spite of the fact that those
who have asked it in this form have not always succeeded in obtaining
an answer; no one has formed a complete conception of God, since
neither sense nor reason is equal to the task. Plato, although named
“Divine” by the ancient philosophers and by Christian theologians,
did not like to speak of _The Gods_, but replacing the plural by
the singular used the word “Divine,” but he did not explain what he
understood by this word. Plato certainly mentions the Creator of the
Universe, the Father of humanity, but--“he does not tell His name, for
he knew it not; he does not tell His colour, for he said it not; he
does not tell His size, for he touched it not.”[51] Xenophanes, who
lived 300 years before Plato, said, “There is one God, the greatest
amongst gods and men; neither in form nor in thought like unto
mortals.”[52]
The Greek philosophers protested against all attempts to apply a name
which should be adequate to the Supreme Being; since all the words
chosen failed to grasp His essence, and only designated certain sides
and points of view, predicting of Him whatever was most beautiful in
nature. For this reason early Christian writers who were Greeks rather
than Jews, who had studied in the schools of Plato and Aristotle, spoke
of God in the same abstract language, the same negative terms; they
said, “We cannot call Him Light, since Light is His creation; we cannot
call Him Spirit, since the Spirit is His breath; nor Wisdom, since
Wisdom emanates from Him; nor Force, since Force is the manifestation
of His Power.”
Thus instead of saying what God is, the philosophers, heathen as well
as Christian, prefer to say what He is not. But in that case what
idea could man form of a Being whom the wisest amongst them could not
represent or describe? Do we understand the nature of this Supreme
Being better by using the name so well known of Providence? Again no;
since we have introduced several meanings into this word which are
inconsistent the one with the other. Amongst them there might well be
some that are erroneous, which would thus lead us to rest our hopes on
false foundations.
This mist, hiding from us the meaning of words and obscuring our ideas,
is partly owing to a fault committed by the ancients themselves.
When our ancestors communed with their divinities, they did not ask
themselves what the names they pronounced really meant; in invoking
Varuna, Helios, Athene, Prithvi, and the others, they were satisfied,
at least for the time being, since names possess a strange calming
property; this unquestioning acquiescence has been bequeathed to us.
We are neither more enquiring, more exact, nor more pedantic than
the greater part of our ancestors; we speak of angels, for instance,
without seeking to fathom their nature, much in the same way as we
might mention lords and dukes without troubling ourselves to reflect
that the one means “bread-giver” and the other “dux,” or one capable of
being a leader of men.
In speaking of the soul, the immortality of the soul, and of religion,
we use words which have become common property, and it is not necessary
to analyse them in order to feel sure that they represent things which
are very real; still we do not strive to understand what these things
really are. Thus it happens that words whose meaning is unknown to us
or escapes us, are generally those of which we make daily use; we keep
to the impression received of them in our childhood, or accepted by
current opinion, or with which sentiment invests them, but this is
unsatisfactory; we should feel ashamed of not possessing more accurate
knowledge than this of geography or arithmetic. On the other hand,
there are scientific terms which seem to us so technical that we
willingly abandon their use to experts, and yet their meaning can be
readily and definitely grasped.
What meaning, for instance, has the word _infinite_ for us, even if
taken in its most simple acceptation; this _infinite_ towards which our
thoughts travel when we raise our eyes to the skies? Astronomers say to
us, “Look at something greater than the greatest possible greatness,
that is the infinitely great.” They then quote figures, but these
figures of infinite greatness elude our imagination, we repeat them
mechanically and only out of respect to the high scientific authority
who guarantees the accuracy of the calculations or the value of the
appreciation.
A small object, apparently of the size of a homeopathic globule, moves
in space, it contains our continents and our oceans, this globule moves
in company with other globules of the same nature.
Astronomers speak to us of the millions of miles separating us from the
sun, yet this distance dwindles down to nothing as compared with the
nearest star, which, we are told, lies twenty millions of millions of
miles from our earth. Another stupendous thought is that a ray of light
traverses space at the rate of 187,000 miles in a second, and yet it
requires three years to reach us.
But this is only a small matter.
More than one thousand millions of such stars have been discovered by
our telescopes, and there may be millions of millions of suns within
our siderial system which are as yet beyond the reach of our best
telescopes; even that siderial system need not be regarded as single
within the universe, thousands of millions of similar systems may be
recognised in the galaxy or milky way.[53]
Now let us turn our eyes to the infinitely little. One drop of water
taken from the ocean contains atoms so small that a grain of the finest
dust would seem colossal by the side of them; chemists are now able to
ascertain the relative positions of atoms so minute that millions of
them can stand upon a needle’s point.
All this we gather from science when--working together with the
telescope--it investigates space; and this may still be little compared
to what we might see through glasses, which should magnify objects some
millions of times more than our best instruments.
The infinite in space has engaged the attention of many thinkers; I
will quote from two only, as this infinite, which they studied from
different points of view, yet suggests thoughts somewhat alike. Kepler,
the discoverer of the laws on which our planetary system is based,
said, “My highest wish is to find _within_ the God whom I have found
everywhere _without_.” Kant, the philosopher, to whom the Divine in
nature and the Divine in man appeared as transcendent and beyond our
cognisance, and who refused to listen to any theological argument
tending to prove the existence of God, yet says, “Two things fill me
with new and ever growing admiration and awe: the starry firmament
above me, and the moral law within me; neither of them is hidden in
darkness, I see them both before me, and I connect them directly with
the consciousness of my own existence.”[54]
These are very abstract thoughts; and it is pertinent to notice that
the most solemn religious terms, and the most striking expressions of
admiration, and poetical phrases of love, have their source in verbal
roots, indicative of acts and conditions palpable to the senses.
But I am approaching too closely to matters of high import. I am drawn
by the word _Infinite_. Aristotle said truly, “the Infinite attracts.”
He was thinking of that other infinite, which is not the one intended
by astronomers; but for myself the infinite in nature captivates me so
powerfully that I find it difficult to touch earth again. Let us walk
in beaten paths; let us endeavour to grasp the meaning of the more
simple words learnt mechanically at school, such as those denoting
abstraction as well as nouns, and terms both general and particular;
and let us see to what phase of thought and speech these grammatical
exercises will carry us.
* * * * *
Each palpable object is known to us according as it affects our senses,
that is to say, by its properties; all impalpable objects cannot be
known otherwise than by their qualities; but nothing exists in nature,
whether palpable or impalpable, that has only one property or one
quality, each object has several; an object as it exists in reality
is concrete, and has a concrete name. If we wished to consider only
one of its attributes, we should have to take that apart and isolate
it, in order to fix our thoughts exclusively on that; “we must drop
that of which the attributes are attributes.”[55] We see white snow,
white chalk, white milk, we have the sensation of the white colour;
but to take whiteness apart from the snow, the chalk, and the milk, is
an operation which requires an instrument, a means, this we possess
in a word, viz., the word _white_. Without that word we should have
the sensation of whiteness, but not the idea; it is the word _white_,
whilst separating the white colour from the snow, the chalk, and the
milk, that gives us the abstract idea as well as the abstract term
whiteness. This mental act is called _abstraction_: and it is by this
process of abstraction that we really arrive at the true knowledge of
anything, apart from the sensation of it only.
Here is another example of abstraction. Let us suppose that two persons
are in one room, and that there are in the room two windows, two doors,
two tables and two chairs. Let us try to obliterate in our mind the
persons, the windows, the doors, the tables and the chairs; nothing
now remains but the abstraction _two_. Now _two_, as such, apart from
objects, does not exist in nature; still it is a conception we can
retain in our mind, and this abstract idea can be incorporated in the
abstract word _two_.
These two examples of abstraction tell us but little of what is meant
by it; and although they teach us little of the part abstraction plays
in our mental life, they are correct from a logical point of view, and
clearly demonstrate the impossibility of retaining a thought apart from
the word expressing it, since evidently the representation of _two_ and
of _whiteness_ could not have been made if the words had been lacking.
The faculty of abstraction has no doubt taken time to develop in man,
and the absence of abstract words and consequently of abstract ideas
was complete in primitive man as it now is in our very young children.
The faculties of brutes can by no means attain to abstraction. One
reason, amongst others, why we have no ground to think brutes have
abstract general ideas is that they do not speak, that they have no use
of the words without which it is impossible to carry out the operation
which I have just described, and to cause a conception to arise from a
sensation.
* * * * *
When, in our early days, our parents gave us instruction on the
three divisions of natural history, and explained to us of what
they consisted, we did not suspect that a period of immense length
had elapsed before man succeeded in thus skilfully classifying the
vast mass of names in the manner which struck us as so natural and
inevitable. Many thousands of objects were before us, each one entitled
to bear an expressive name; and in proportion as our knowledge of
things increased was science called upon to furnish new terms; their
name became legion and memory failed to retain them. It therefore
became a necessity to classify the objects of a common nature under one
name; hence the evolution of the terms animal, vegetable and mineral,
which relieved us from the burden of enumerating all the objects
composing genus and species; then in speaking of them to others we use
the generic term, which at the same time presents the image to our own
minds. Thus when we wish to denote men having the same nationality as
ourselves we employ the collective term compatriot; in the same way the
word furniture includes all that serves to furnish our rooms. By the
help of this ingenious combination we relieve our memories of a mass of
encumbering words, we economise our time and our powers, and simplify
the machinery of our thoughts.
This is evidently an advantage. But now a difficulty presents itself.
When employing these general terms, such as vegetable, animal, the
human race, we are speaking of things of which we are ignorant, and are
therefore for us as if they had no existence. We cannot have a complete
knowledge of vegetables since that word comprehends all plants and
trees on the earth; neither of animals, since “animal” includes not
only all beasts lacking reason but also man who is endowed with it. We
are equally ignorant of the human race, since it is composed of all
human creatures, past, present and to come. It is evident that we only
know individual persons and things, such as this fir tree or that oak,
this horse, this cow, Paul or James, and we know them because we are in
a position to distinguish them by naming them, or indicating them.
How is it that philosophers of the mental calibre possessed by Locke,
Hume and Berkeley--whose minds follow so closely the progress of the
perception of general ideas--did not question how it was that terms
which were applicable to these ideas could equally well be applied to
particular things? What was the origin of the word _man_ that it could
be as suitable for Paul or James as for many men, in fact the whole
human race? This is a fact about which philosophers do not appear to
have troubled themselves, and which the science of language alone can
explain.
In the time of our primitive ancestors human knowledge was evolved
gradually from what was confused and vague, before arriving at what was
deemed settled and distinct. Man’s vocabulary was small, substantives
were rare; that which we now understand by garden, courtyard, field,
habitation, was merged into one and the same conception, and would be
expressed by one vocable, of which the modern equivalent is enclosure;
the word _serpent_ designated all creatures that crawled, the word
_fruit_ implied all that could be eaten, the word _man_ all who could
think; each name was a general term expressive of a general idea.
We may remember that the Sanscrit word _sar_, to run, which was
at first used for rivers in general, became a particular name; a
demonstrative element joined to the verb, changing it into _sarit_,
run here, sufficed at once to turn it into an intelligible phrase,
and the name of a particular river. In order to form the word
_man-u-s_, man, the constructors of language combined the root _man_,
measurer, thinker, in its secondary form _man-u_, with the suffix
_s_, which gives the meaning think-here. This was at first not of
general application, but as it could be repeated any number of times
and referred each time to different persons, who could each be named
thinker-here, it became a general term. We thus see that the name
_manus_ was from the beginning something more than a mere conventional
sign applied to a particular person as are all proper names. It was
a predicative name, that is applicable to all possessing the same
attributes, viz., of being able to think, and capable of the same act,
that of thinking.
This discovery was followed by another not less unexpected. When
examining the oldest word for name, which in Sanscrit is _nâman_, in
Greek _onoma_, in Latin _nomen_, we find that it dates from a time when
the Sanscrit, Greek and Latin languages were all one; consequently the
English _name_ and the German _Name_ are not as we supposed, words
invented by the ancient Saxons, but they already existed before the
separation of Teutonic idioms from their elder brothers.
After some further steps our contemporary philologists discovered
the sources whence proceeded this Sanscrit _nâman_; it is formed
of the root _nâ_, originally _gnâ_, to know, joined to a suffix
which generally expresses an instrument, a means; _nâman_ is the
representative of _gnâman_, which we recognise in the Latin _cognomen_,
the consonant _g_ being dropped as in _natus_, son, which was formerly
_gnatus_. This word _name_ had at first a much more extended meaning
than that of a simple arbitrary sign applied “to what we call a
thing.” The constructors of the word were aware of a fact of which
consciousness was afterwards lost, and which the learned ignored during
all the supervening centuries--viz., that all names, far from being
mere conventional signs used to distinguish one thing from another,
were meant to express what it was possible to know of a thing; and
that a name thus places us in a position really to be cognisant of a
thing. A natural insight taught the early framers of our language a
truth only acquired by us after interminable researches, such as Hegel
expresses when saying, “We think in words,” and which we find again in
this somewhat tautological expression “nominibus noscimus” = “tel nom,
telle notion.”
The fact that names, which are signs not of things, but of particular
concepts, are all derived from general ideas, is one of the most
fruitful discoveries of the science of language; since it not only
expresses the truth which has been stated below, that language and the
capability of forming general ideas separate man from the animals, but
also a second truth that these two phenomena are two sides of the same
truth. This explains the reason why the science of language rejects
equally the interjectional theory and the mimetic, but accepts the
final elements of language, those roots which all contain concepts.
The name man, which we all apply to ourselves, is a title of nobility
to which none other can compare. It is the direct issue of _man_, which
in its turn came from _mâ_, to measure, this gave _mâs_, moon, to the
Sanscrit language. The word man contains in itself the kernel of subtle
thought; if we connect the word with the celestial body that helps us
to measure our time, we do not therefore necessarily invest the moon
with a living and thinking personality; it is sufficient to consider
that if our ancestors conceived of it as measuring the nights and days,
they had in themselves the capabilities with which they invested the
words they created.
We must also notice that the creators of this name having connected
it with the loftiest thing of which they could conceive--thought--did
not stop there; the sight of what was lowest--the dust--inspired them
with another name, _homo_ = earth-born; this Latin word having the
same source as _humus_ = the soil. Our fathers also gave themselves
a third name, which was _brotos_ in Greek, _mortalis_ in Latin, and
_marta_--the dying--in Sanscrit; they could hardly have applied the
word mortal to themselves if they had not at the same time believed in
other beings who did not die.
And this strange fact has come to pass, that on our planet there
existed in former days men--simple mortals as they were--who
manipulated thought, incorporating it with language, the only domain
in which it can exist; then these marvellous men so entirely eclipsed
themselves, and passed out of our ken, that their posterity do not
recognise them under their modest garb of anonymity; for their work
though still living through thousands of centuries, is so unrecognised
that men ask themselves, “Why is it not possible to think apart from
words?”
Thus we acknowledge the profound wisdom of the conceptions of our
ancestors; but their understanding worked unequally, on certain points
it was very advanced, but on others behindhand.
In following the march of human intellect in the past, we are struck
by the slowness with which thought and speech co-operated. As long as
our ancestors had no occasion to speak of the action of covering a
surface with a liquid or soft substance, they did not possess the word
_var_ = to cover; “the name of colour in Sanscrit is _varna_, clearly
derived from this word; and not till the art of painting, in its most
primitive form, was discovered and named, could there have been a name
for colour.” For some time they continued to view various objects
differently coloured without distinguishing the tints; it is well known
that the distinction of colours is of late date; our ancestors gazed on
the blue sky, or the green trees, as in a dream, without recognising
blue or green, as long as they lacked words to define the two colours,
and some time elapsed before they particularised the colours by giving
each its proper title.
We speak of the seven colours of the rainbow, because the intermediate
tints elude us; the ancients acted much in the same way, Xenophanes
speaks of the rainbow as a cloud of purple, red, and yellow; Aristotle
also speaks of the tri-coloured rainbow, red, yellow, and green; and
Democritus seems only to have mentioned black, white and yellow.
Does this indicate that our senses have gradually become more acute and
accurate? No, no one has asserted that the sensitiveness of the organs
of sense was less thousands of years ago than it is now; the sensation
has not changed, but “we see in this evolution of consciousness of
colour how perception goes hand in hand with the evolution of language,
and how, by a very slow process, every definite concept is developed
out of an infinitude of indistinct perceptions.”[56]
The names of colours have not been applied arbitrarily, any more than
the names given to divinities. Blue, for instance, owes its origin to
the visible results of violence, or of an accident; the science of
etymology shows us that the Old Norse words, blár, blá, blatt, which
now mean blue, meant originally the livid colour of a bruise. Grimm
traces these words back to the Gothic _bliggvan_, to strike; and he
quotes as an analogous case the Latin _cæsius_--a bluish grey, from
_cædere_, to cut. If the assertion that blue and green are rarely
mentioned until a late date be correct, it would follow that they had
been worked out of an infinity of colours before they took their place
definitely as the colour of the sky and the colour of the trees and
grass.
As we trace etymology to its source, we see how man’s perception was
confused at first. From the Sanscrit root _ghar_, which has many
different meanings, such as to heat, to melt, to drip, to burn, to
shine, come not only many words--heat, oven, warmth, and brightness,
but also the names of many bright colours, all varying between yellow,
green, red, and white. But the most striking example is afforded by
the Sanscrit word _ak-tu_. Here we have the first instance of the
uncertainty in the meaning of the names of colours which pervades
all languages, and which can be terminated at last by scientific
definition only. This word has two opposite meanings--a light tinge
or ray of light, and also a dark tinge, and night; this same word in
Greek, _ak-tis_, means a ray of light. Thus, whilst ideas are not
definitely named, even the most simple, such as those of white and
black, are not realised; philosophers have long known this, but the
learned in physical science seem only recently to have drawn attention
to the fact. Virchow was the first to make the following assertion:
“Only after their perceptions have become fixed by language, are the
senses brought to a conscious possession and a real understanding of
them.”[57]
Surgeons have explained that the faculty of sight proceeds from the
movement of an unknown medium, which in the case of light has been
called ether, this strikes the retina, and is conveyed to the brain
by the optic nerve; “but what relation there is between the effect,
namely, our sensation of red, and the cause, namely, the 500 millions
of millions of vibrations of ether in one second, neither philosophy
nor physical science has yet been able to explain.”[58]
We are able to picture to ourselves the difficulties which assailed man
in his efforts to express his impressions in primitive times, since
we find ourselves at times struggling with the same difficulties, and
there are occasions when we struggle in vain, we do not conquer the
difficulty.
Sensations which are subjective and personal are of all others the
most difficult to define, since we lack words to express what is from
its nature purely personal; and yet we have frequently occasion to
mention them, how can we best express ourselves? As the required word
does not seem forthcoming we have recourse to metaphor, and almost
unconsciously we use terms borrowed from external phenomena connected
with the sense of hearing, of smelling, and of tasting, and which
for the most part are acts or conditions in the domain of the sense
of sight. Our old acquaintances the roots, whose meanings are to
cut, to pinch, to bite, to burn, to hit, to sting, to soften, having
formed the base of the adjectives sharp, sweet, keen, burning, we use
these to describe certain sensations. We do not know how better to
particularise a physical pain than by comparing it to something that
tears, cuts or stings. But if certain physical ills, certain colour
perceptions, certain impressions of sharpness, sweetness and heat
experienced when tasting various foods find metaphorical expression in
external acts, there still remains a whole category of simple ideas
for which no words can be found. There are certain sensations of taste
which cannot be expressed in words. Yesterday I ate a pear, to-day I
have eaten a peach; I am quite capable of distinguishing the special
flavour of each, but finding nothing in the world of facts with which
to compare them, I am without words to apply to them, and it would be
as impossible for me to convey an idea of the flavour to any one who
had never eaten a pear or a peach as to make any person understand if I
spoke in a language which was unknown to him.
Since all words that succeed in expressing our sensations are drawn
from external phenomena, we are in a position to know the origin and
historic past of these words. But I cannot thus easily foresee even
the near future of some of these words. The sound of the clarionet and
that of the hautbois, the whistling of the wind, the whisper of the
waves, the yellow of the straw and that of the lemon, the green of the
emerald and the blue of the sky, all characterise objects belonging
to the material world; but if these words: clarionet and hautbois,
wind and waves, straw and lemon, emerald and sky, which alone enable
us to define clearly to our minds certain sounds and certain colours
were lacking in our vocabulary, I do not know how a musician could
have composed a symphony, or an artist painted his picture, although
the creation of both works of art proceeds equally from personal
inspiration invisible to the eye.
The tie that binds thought to speech has been alternately acknowledged
and forgotten; if Plato believed that the origin of language was the
imitation of the voices of nature (an error which weighed heavily
on humanity during the space of two thousand years), he also knew
that words are indispensable to man for the very formation of
thought. Abelard was more explicit on this point, he said: “Language
is generated by the intellect, and generates intellect.” Hobbes
understood so well that language was meant first of all for ourselves,
and afterwards only for others, that he calls words, as meant for
ourselves, _notæ_, and distinguishes them from _signa_, the same
words as used for the sake of communication, and he added: “If there
were only one man in the world he would require _notæ_.”[59] The
close connection between thought and speech cannot be more clearly or
concisely expressed.
This discovery makes its way slowly in the world, because certain
philosophers who have been rendered immobile by tradition, darken
counsel by their speculations. Some of the Polynesians would seem to
have a far truer insight into the nature of thought and language than
these philosophers to whom I have made allusion; they call thinking
“speaking in the stomach,” which means of course to speak inaudibly,
and it is this absolutely inarticulate speech which is so often
mistaken for thought without words; because the fact is ignored that
_notion_ and _name_ are two words for one thing. “It is certain,” they
say, “that a thought may be conceived in the mind, but is formulated
at a later period; for instance, if you have to write a letter of no
great importance, and which affects you little, take your pen, and
before the idea appears to you completely clothed, your hand has passed
over the paper, and you proceed to read your ideas in the words you
see before you.” This is an illusion. We can no doubt distinguish the
written word from the word-concept, but the former could not exist
without the latter. I defy our opponents to think of the most ordinary
and familiar object, such as a dog for instance, without saying to
themselves the word dog. They would explain that the remembrance only
of a special dog, or of its bark would suffice to call up the image of
the dog in their minds; they do not see that the likeness of a dog, or
the remembrance of its bark is equivalent to the word dog, and that
they cannot possibly become conscious to themselves of what they appear
to be thinking, without having the word in reserve in some part of
themselves, either “in the stomach,” as some savages say, or, as is
more gracefully expressed by the Italians, _in petto_.
Descartes was a learned Christian, who pondered for some time over the
questions whether the human mind could be certain of anything without
being supernaturally enlightened; he resolved to prove it; and to this
end he imagined that he, Descartes, was certain of nothing--doubted of
all--even mathematical conclusions; he then reflected on this position,
and after a time the idea occurred to him that as he was capable of
reflection it proved without a doubt that he, Descartes, existed, and
that consequently it was no longer possible to have doubts of his own
identity.
The portrait of this philosopher as depicted on the cover of his works,
represents him reclining in a chair thinking--thinking--thinking--and
exclaiming, “Cogito ergo sum.”
Those persons amongst us who are not specially interested in any
system of philosophy are certainly in the majority; all know that
such systems exist, and that they are noted, but from the want of
reflection, however little, some persons look upon them as having
sprung fully equipped, and in their present form, from the brains of
their founders. But it would be incorrect, simply on the evidence of
a frontispiece, to consider these philosophical processes as thus
instantaneous. The systems of philosophy, even those of small value,
require much time for their elaboration, and ripen slowly, and are
never free from opposition. They establish close links between the
living thinkers of to-day, and those who are no longer on earth. The
philosophers of the Middle Ages consulted those of antiquity, the
thinkers of to-day strove to be in agreement with those alike of the
Middle Ages and of antiquity, and there arise from this intercommunion
of knowledge, groups of ideas of which some are borrowed and some
original, some true and some false; these are dependent on the
intellectual lucidity and vigour of the latest arrivals in the arena.
Many problems are thus threshed out before our eyes. Not long ago three
philosophers were in dispute and Noiré records the arguments; the
discussion turned on the question of priority of thought or speech.
They agreed on the fundamental point, all three said there could be
no reason without language, nor language without reason. But as they
penetrated more deeply into the question, they perceived divergencies;
although the conception and the word be inseparable, yet there may be
a moment of time--infinitely little, doubtless--between the arrival of
the one and of the other, as with twins.
According to Schopenhauer conceptions were the first in the field, and
their immediate duty consisted in creating words; since the mind could
not deal with ideas at will, could neither evoke them, grasp them, nor
reject them, whilst no signs were attached to them.
To this Geiger objected. How could ideas be produced whilst no signs
existed with which to represent them? Words came first, and thought,
rendered possible by the development of language, followed; “language
has created reason; before language, man was without reason.”[60]
Max Müller replied to both. How could there be a sign when there was
nothing to represent? Conceptions and words, inseparable from the
beginning, were produced on the same day; the day when man’s history
begins; before that what was a fugitive impression and a vocal sound
void of sense, became a conception. Max Müller adds: “If Geiger had
said that with every new word there is more reason, or that every
progress of reason is marked by a new word, he would have been right,
for the growth of reason and language may be said to be coral-like,
each shell is the product of life, and becomes in turn the support of
new life.”[61]
The most important results obtained during the Middle Ages on these
subjects find their representations in this discussion carried on by
the three learned contemporaries. Max Müller’s point of view is one
which reconciles the two diverse opinions.
Men still find themselves under the magic influence of the past after
some thousands of years; the first words which our ancestors used in
the midst of their ordinary occupations have not ceased to appear
in our daily conversations, in our philosophical writings, and in
the reports of scientific proceedings; it is impossible to speak
of our family or social relations, of our affections, our ordinary
obligations, our most sacred duties, our observance of laws, without
having recourse to words and expressions, which represent the acts
of linking or _tying_, those early activities of our ancestors. The
chemist speaks of the _affinity_ of the substances with which he is
working; the poet and the devout believer when giving free scope to
their highest aspirations do not find truer or loftier terms than
_links_, _chains_, _ties_, for that which connects them with the Giver
of all pure, sublime thoughts.
As it is possible in the present day to speak of _delving_ into a
question (_creuser_) and of _racking_ our brains (creuser) when
we puzzle over a conundrum; of _linking_ one idea to another; of
_polishing_ our manners by the help of art and letters; of seeking
to _soften_ the heart of God by offerings (as if He were a mercenary
Judge), of linking ourselves with others the better to accomplish
a good work, of uniting in freeing ourselves from an undesirable
opponent; it follows that our ancestors as they emerged from their
condition of muteness found it necessary to _dig_ (creuser) cabins for
themselves, to _polish_ stones, to weave and plait branches together,
and to soften tough roots for their nourishment. The same words repeat
themselves from time immemorial.
But how comes it that these words, which have remained the same
outwardly, have so completely changed their meaning as exactly to adapt
themselves to modern usage? We have been deceived by appearances. These
words have not changed their meaning, but at first they were applied to
tangible objects and visible acts, those which were the most necessary
and the most usual in daily life at that time; and now these words are
applied to intangible things, and invisible acts, the most necessary
and usual in our present mental life.
Nor is this which follows less curious. This adaptation of the old
words to modern usages could only have been accomplished on one
condition, that we should forget many things, and be utterly oblivious
to the original destination of these words; that we should put from
before our eyes all images of caves, branches, stones and tough roots;
and this condition we have fulfilled absolutely; the forgetfulness has
been complete; no one suspects the source of these expressions; only a
small number of men knows it, but these men are thoroughly aware that
they are making use of the true primitive forms of the human language.
A difficulty to be avoided still remains. It might be said that, as
it is the result of concerted action undertaken from a community of
interest, that these images have become fixed in the memory, and that
if the ideas and representations exercised so potent a spell on us,
that we were compelled to use the words which can be traced back to
the first period of language, does it not follow that we absolutely
resemble each other, and that consequently we must renounce the idea
of attributing the least individuality to ourselves? This is a great
mistake. Each one of us gives to these representations of ideas that
form towards which he is impelled by his own nature, his education, his
environment. A man who has some knowledge of astronomy will look at
the star-lit sky with quite another eye to that of the poet, who knows
nothing of the subject but is struck with its inexpressible splendour.
A landscape painter would see in a tree details of beauty which would
quite escape one who admired it, but had never sought to draw it; a
clever architect with one glance at a newly-built house could assign
it a place either with the failures or with those houses which were a
success, and this glance would sufficiently account for the murmured
exclamation, “How gladly would I live in it!”
FOOTNOTES:
[51] Max Müller, _Anthropological Religion_, p. 100.
[52] _Ibid._, p. 181.
[53] Max Müller, _Natural Religion_, p. 138.
[54] Max Müller, _Anthropological Religion_, p. 393.
[55] Max Müller, _Science of Thought_, p. 80.
[56] Max Müller.
[57] _Science of Thought_, p. 151. Max Müller.
[58] _Natural Religion_, p. 118. Max Müller.
[59] _Science of Thought_, p. 40. Max Müller.
[60] _On the Origin of Human Language and Reason._ Geiger.
[61] _Science of Thought_, p. 299. Max Müller.