The philologists distinguish carefully between a science of language and
a science of languages. The latter teaches Egyptian, Assyrian, Hebrew,
Greek, Latin, English, French, etc., while the former treats of the
general characteristics common to all languages, of language itself.
Philosophical logic stands in the same relation to other sciences. The
latter make us acquainted with special truths, while logic treats of
truth in general. Those overintelligent people who claim that truth is
merely a collective term for many truths do not see the woods for trees.
Herder, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Max Mueller, Steinthal, etc., have many
things to say about the science of language of which the linguists with
many languages never dream.
The science of language, aside from its many amenities, is also burdened
with a difficult problem which it cannot solve without the help of
logic. This problem is the point of differentiation where babbling and
word-mongery cease and intelligent speech begins. For human speech has a
certain meaning, and even the cries of the animals are not without
sense. The sparrows know how to converse together, the rooster calls
his flock together, the dog knows how to announce that a stranger
enters his master's home. Not alone the jokers, but serious thinkers
speak of animal language, of a sign language, and maintain that speech
does not alone consist of words, but also of inarticulate sounds and
gestures. Poets endow even the storm, the thunder and the winds with
speech. We wish to clear this confusion and ascertain what language is
and where it begins. Languages, as is well known, have their beginning
at the Tower of Babel. But in order to get close to language, we must
look for a beginning of things either in God or in logic.
You know the old question: Which was first, the egg or the hen? But only
a frivolous mind overlooks the serious side of this question and turns
it into a mere joke. The question of beginning and end is an eminently
logical one, and an unequivocal and clear answer to it would bring light
not alone into the science of language, but also into the human brain.
Let us, therefore, follow up the problem of the "origin of language" a
little farther. When our forefathers dealt with this question, they
thought that a God had given speech to man or some genius had invented
it. They thought of a beginning in time. The modern thinkers speculate
more deeply. They have found out that language is not a fixed thing, but
fluid, and has risen from low beginnings to a great perfection. We can
no more find its temporal beginning by looking backward than we can see
its end by looking ahead. For this reason we no longer look for its
temporal, but for its ideological beginning. (Steinthal.) We should like
to have a fixed mark where we might say: Up to this point that which
resembles speech is only roaring, exclamation, noise, and here is the
beginning of the well articulated sound which deserves the name of
"spoken word."
But there is still another factor which complicates the question
further. Some say: It is not only the sound, the word, which constitutes
speech, but the connected sentence; there must be sense and reason mixed
with it. And this applies to the speaker and to the listener. Language
presupposes reason.
Then, again, intellect is not a fixed thing, but a fluid process which
develops in, from, and by speech. So it appears on one side as if the
mind produces language, and on the other, as if language produces the
mind, the reason. Where, then, is the beginning and end, and how can we
bring order into these relations?
For us, who are studying the mind, not the language, the conclusion
follows that it is not alone the word, but also the sound, the tone, the
gesture, that all things have a meaning and speak a language. We find
mind wherever we penetrate with our mind. Not alone language, but the
world is connected with the mind, with the thought. But the connection
with language may well serve as an illustration by which the connection
of the cosmic mind may be demonstrated and the human brain illuminated.
Language shares the honor with the mind of being extolled, even in this
sober century, if not to the skies, at least far out of the general
connection of common things. For this reason, we must emphasize in the
case of language as in that of the mind, that they exist, that they are
part and parcel of the universal existence. At this point I wish to give
you a vivid illustration of the unity of all being by pointing out that
it is indubitably established by the existence of one single name which
is sufficient to designate _All_. True, language employs many names for
this unity of the world, but that is a luxury. It is logical and
necessary for the intellect to have _one_ name for the _All_, because
everything is not only infinitely variegated, but also infinitely one,
or a unit. There are many different waters, but all water partakes of
the general nature of water. Unless that nature is present, there is no
water and the name of water does not apply. In the same way there are
many kinds of oil; olive oil, kerosene oil, castor oil, etc., and each
kind has its own subdivisions. But everything that has a common name is
a unit.
Kindly observe, now, that the names of things form just such circles as
the water does after being struck by a stone. Just as the name water, so
the name oil indicates a ring. Then the name fluid constitutes another
and wider ring which includes both oil and water. Then the name matter
draws a still wider circle and includes solids as well as fluids, and
finally the name being, or _All_, includes mind and matter, all matter
and force, including heaven and hell, in one sole ring, in one unit.
On the basis of this universal unity, from which it becomes apparent
that high and low, dry and fluid, in short the whole universe is made of
the same substance, any fantastic thinker can prove that human and
animal language is one, for otherwise one could not refer to both of
them as language. He may then justly contend that speech, producing a
sound, is a noise, that speech and noise are one. Speech is sound and
sound speaks. In this way language would have no beginning and no end.
In the last analysis it would be one with all things, and all things
would be one with it. In this way the whole universe would become an
inexplicable, incomprehensible, inexpressible mixture of speech.
And yet it is an old story that man's insight grows the more he
magnifies a thing. The more excessively we exaggerate a thing, the
plainer become its boundaries. Language indeed requires one single name
for _All_, but it also requires an infinite number of names in order to
specify the parts of _All_. Inasmuch as language claims to be only a
part of existence, this part has to be bounded, and you should in this
connection remember the unlimited freedom of man in drawing such
boundaries. Words are not merely empty words, but names of cosmic parts,
of cosmic rings of undulation. Language, or rather the mind connected
with language, wishes to bound the infinite by the help of language. The
instinctive popular use of language does this in a haphazard way.
Conscious science proceeds in an exact manner. Just as it has determined
on the field of temperature what should be called hot and what warm, so
it is at liberty on the field of sounds to determine where the name of
language begins or ceases. The end of the discussion of language is
therefore this: That which has already been done to horse power has not
yet been done to the concept of language; it has been somewhat fixed by
common usage, but only insufficiently. And so the moral of this tale is
that the things of this world, even mind and language, are connected and
intermingling undulations of the same stream, which has neither
beginning nor end.
Let me say it once more clearly and without circumlocution: The logic
which I teach and the thought which is its object are parts of the
world, of the infinite, and every part being a piece of the infinite is
likewise infinite. Every part partakes of the nature of the infinite.
Hence you must not expect that I should exhaust my infinite subject. I
confine myself to the logical chapter of "the One and the Many." I
simply wish to make it plain that without any contradiction the whole
multiplicity of existence is of the same nature, and that this oneness
of nature subdivides into manifold forms. The world is interconnected
and this interconnection is subdivided into departments. It adds to the
general enlightenment of the human brain to recognize this in regard to
language, to mind, to all parts of the universe.
I repeat, then: One may think logically without having attended any
lectures on logic, just as one may raise potatoes without a scientific
knowledge of agriculture. It was possible to invent the thermometer, to
clearly distinguish between sounds and colors, and a hundred other
things, without having explained the faculty of discrimination. But the
most abstract distinctions, such as beginning and end, word and meaning,
body and soul, man and animal, matter and force, truth and error,
presuppose for their explanation a logical explanation of their
interconnection with our intellect.