enters into language. The creative power abating is supplemented by a
mechanical process. “Languages are not made but grow,” but they are
made as well as grow; bursting into life like a plant or a flower, they
are also capable of being trained and improved and engrafted upon one
another. The change in them is effected in earlier ages by musical and
euphonic improvements, at a later stage by the influence of grammar and
logic, and by the poetical and literary use of words. They develope
rapidly in childhood, and when they are full grown and set they may
still put forth intellectual powers, like the mind in the body, or
rather we may say that the nobler use of language only begins when the
frame-work is complete. The savage or primitive man, in whom the
natural instinct is strongest, is also the greatest improver of the
forms of language. He is the poet or maker of words, as in civilised
ages the dialectician is the definer or distinguisher of them. The
latter calls the second world of abstract terms into existence, as the
former has created the picture sounds which represent natural objects
or processes. Poetry and philosophy—these two, are the two great
formative principles of language, when they have passed their first
stage, of which, as of the first invention of the arts in general, we
only entertain conjecture. And mythology is a link between them,
connecting the visible and invisible, until at length the sensuous
exterior falls away, and the severance of the inner and outer world, of
the idea and the object of sense, becomes complete. At a later period,
logic and grammar, sister arts, preserve and enlarge the decaying
instinct of language, by rule and method, which they gather from
analysis and observation.
(2) There is no trace in any of Plato’s writings that he was acquainted
with any language but Greek. Yet he has conceived very truly the
relation of Greek to foreign languages, which he is led to consider,
because he finds that many Greek words are incapable of explanation.
Allowing a good deal for accident, and also for the fancies of the
conditores linguae Graecae, there is an element of which he is unable
to give an account. These unintelligible words he supposes to be of
foreign origin, and to have been derived from a time when the Greeks
were either barbarians, or in close relations to the barbarians.
Socrates is aware that this principle is liable to great abuse; and,
like the “Deus ex machina,” explains nothing. Hence he excuses himself
for the employment of such a device, and remarks that in foreign words
there is still a principle of correctness, which applies equally both
to Greeks and barbarians.
(3) But the greater number of primary words do not admit of derivation
from foreign languages; they must be resolved into the letters out of
which they are composed, and therefore the letters must have a meaning.
The framers of language were aware of this; they observed that alpha
was adapted to express size; eta length; omicron roundness; nu
inwardness; rho accent rush or roar; lambda liquidity; gamma lambda the
detention of the liquid or slippery element; delta and tau binding;
phi, psi, sigma, xi, wind and cold, and so on. Plato’s analysis of the
letters of the alphabet shows a wonderful insight into the nature of
language. He does not expressively distinguish between mere imitation
and the symbolical use of sound to express thought, but he recognises
in the examples which he gives both modes of imitation. Gesture is the
mode which a deaf and dumb person would take of indicating his meaning.
And language is the gesture of the tongue; in the use of the letter rho
accent, to express a rushing or roaring, or of omicron to express
roundness, there is a direct imitation; while in the use of the letter
alpha to express size, or of eta to express length, the imitation is
symbolical. The use of analogous or similar sounds, in order to express
similar analogous ideas, seems to have escaped him.
In passing from the gesture of the body to the movement of the tongue,
Plato makes a great step in the physiology of language. He was probably
the first who said that “language is imitative sound,” which is the
greatest and deepest truth of philology; although he is not aware of
the laws of euphony and association by which imitation must be
regulated. He was probably also the first who made a distinction
between simple and compound words, a truth second only in importance to
that which has just been mentioned. His great insight in one direction
curiously contrasts with his blindness in another; for he appears to be
wholly unaware (compare his derivation of agathos from agastos and
thoos) of the difference between the root and termination. But we must
recollect that he was necessarily more ignorant than any schoolboy of
Greek grammar, and had no table of the inflexions of verbs and nouns
before his eyes, which might have suggested to him the distinction.
(4) Plato distinctly affirms that language is not truth, or
“philosophie une langue bien faite.” At first, Socrates has delighted
himself with discovering the flux of Heracleitus in language. But he is
covertly satirising the pretence of that or any other age to find
philosophy in words; and he afterwards corrects any erroneous inference
which might be gathered from his experiment. For he finds as many, or
almost as many, words expressive of rest, as he had previously found
expressive of motion. And even if this had been otherwise, who would
learn of words when he might learn of things? There is a great
controversy and high argument between Heracleiteans and Eleatics, but
no man of sense would commit his soul in such enquiries to the imposers
of names...In this and other passages Plato shows that he is as
completely emancipated from the influence of “Idols of the tribe” as
Bacon himself.
The lesson which may be gathered from words is not metaphysical or
moral, but historical. They teach us the affinity of races, they tell
us something about the association of ideas, they occasionally preserve
the memory of a disused custom; but we cannot safely argue from them
about right and wrong, matter and mind, freedom and necessity, or the
other problems of moral and metaphysical philosophy. For the use of
words on such subjects may often be metaphorical, accidental, derived
from other languages, and may have no relation to the contemporary
state of thought and feeling. Nor in any case is the invention of them
the result of philosophical reflection; they have been commonly
transferred from matter to mind, and their meaning is the very reverse
of their etymology. Because there is or is not a name for a thing, we
cannot argue that the thing has or has not an actual existence; or that
the antitheses, parallels, conjugates, correlatives of language have
anything corresponding to them in nature. There are too many words as
well as too few; and they generalize the objects or ideas which they
represent. The greatest lesson which the philosophical analysis of
language teaches us is, that we should be above language, making words
our servants, and not allowing them to be our masters.
Plato does not add the further observation, that the etymological
meaning of words is in process of being lost. If at first framed on a
principle of intelligibility, they would gradually cease to be
intelligible, like those of a foreign language, he is willing to admit
that they are subject to many changes, and put on many disguises. He
acknowledges that the “poor creature” imitation is supplemented by
another “poor creature,”—convention. But he does not see that “habit
and repute,” and their relation to other words, are always exercising
an influence over them. Words appear to be isolated, but they are
really the parts of an organism which is always being reproduced. They
are refined by civilization, harmonized by poetry, emphasized by
literature, technically applied in philosophy and art; they are used as
symbols on the border-ground of human knowledge; they receive a fresh
impress from individual genius, and come with a new force and
association to every lively-minded person. They are fixed by the
simultaneous utterance of millions, and yet are always imperceptibly
changing;—not the inventors of language, but writing and speaking, and
particularly great writers, or works which pass into the hearts of
nations, Homer, Shakespear, Dante, the German or English Bible, Kant
and Hegel, are the makers of them in later ages. They carry with them
the faded recollection of their own past history; the use of a word in
a striking and familiar passage gives a complexion to its use
everywhere else, and the new use of an old and familiar phrase has also
a peculiar power over us. But these and other subtleties of language
escaped the observation of Plato. He is not aware that the languages of
the world are organic structures, and that every word in them is
related to every other; nor does he conceive of language as the joint
work of the speaker and the hearer, requiring in man a faculty not only
of expressing his thoughts but of understanding those of others.
On the other hand, he cannot be justly charged with a desire to frame
language on artificial principles. Philosophers have sometimes dreamed
of a technical or scientific language, in words which should have fixed
meanings, and stand in the same relation to one another as the
substances which they denote. But there is no more trace of this in
Plato than there is of a language corresponding to the ideas; nor,
indeed, could the want of such a language be felt until the sciences
were far more developed. Those who would extend the use of technical
phraseology beyond the limits of science or of custom, seem to forget
that freedom and suggestiveness and the play of association are
essential characteristics of language. The great master has shown how
he regarded pedantic distinctions of words or attempts to confine their
meaning in the satire on Prodicus in the Protagoras.
(5) In addition to these anticipations of the general principles of
philology, we may note also a few curious observations on words and
sounds. “The Eretrians say sklerotes for skleroter;” “the Thessalians
call Apollo Amlos;” “The Phrygians have the words pur, udor, kunes
slightly changed;” “there is an old Homeric word emesato, meaning ‘he
contrived’;” “our forefathers, and especially the women, who are most
conservative of the ancient language, loved the letters iota and delta;
but now iota is changed into eta and epsilon, and delta into zeta; this
is supposed to increase the grandeur of the sound.” Plato was very
willing to use inductive arguments, so far as they were within his
reach; but he would also have assigned a large influence to chance. Nor
indeed is induction applicable to philology in the same degree as to
most of the physical sciences. For after we have pushed our researches
to the furthest point, in language as in all the other creations of the
human mind, there will always remain an element of exception or
accident or free-will, which cannot be eliminated.
The question, “whether falsehood is impossible,” which Socrates
characteristically sets aside as too subtle for an old man (compare
Euthyd.), could only have arisen in an age of imperfect consciousness,
which had not yet learned to distinguish words from things. Socrates
replies in effect that words have an independent existence; thus
anticipating the solution of the mediaeval controversy of Nominalism
and Realism. He is aware too that languages exist in various degrees of
perfection, and that the analysis of them can only be carried to a
certain point. “If we could always, or almost always, use likenesses,
which are the appropriate expressions, that would be the most perfect
state of language.” These words suggest a question of deeper interest
than the origin of language; viz. what is the ideal of language, how
far by any correction of their usages existing languages might become
clearer and more expressive than they are, more poetical, and also more
logical; or whether they are now finally fixed and have received their
last impress from time and authority.
On the whole, the Cratylus seems to contain deeper truths about
language than any other ancient writing. But feeling the uncertain
ground upon which he is walking, and partly in order to preserve the
character of Socrates, Plato envelopes the whole subject in a robe of
fancy, and allows his principles to drop out as if by accident.
II. What is the result of recent speculations about the origin and
nature of language? Like other modern metaphysical enquiries, they end
at last in a statement of facts. But, in order to state or understand
the facts, a metaphysical insight seems to be required. There are more
things in language than the human mind easily conceives. And many
fallacies have to be dispelled, as well as observations made. The true
spirit of philosophy or metaphysics can alone charm away metaphysical
illusions, which are always reappearing, formerly in the fancies of
neoplatonist writers, now in the disguise of experience and common
sense. An analogy, a figure of speech, an intelligible theory, a
superficial observation of the individual, have often been mistaken for
a true account of the origin of language.
Speaking is one of the simplest natural operations, and also the most
complex. Nothing would seem to be easier or more trivial than a few
words uttered by a child in any language. Yet into the formation of
those words have entered causes which the human mind is not capable of
calculating. They are a drop or two of the great stream or ocean of
speech which has been flowing in all ages. They have been transmitted
from one language to another; like the child himself, they go back to
the beginnings of the human race. How they originated, who can tell?
Nevertheless we can imagine a stage of human society in which the
circle of men’s minds was narrower and their sympathies and instincts
stronger; in which their organs of speech were more flexible, and the
sense of hearing finer and more discerning; in which they lived more in
company, and after the manner of children were more given to express
their feelings; in which “they moved all together,” like a herd of wild
animals, “when they moved at all.” Among them, as in every society, a
particular person would be more sensitive and intelligent than the
rest. Suddenly, on some occasion of interest (at the approach of a wild
beast, shall we say?), he first, they following him, utter a cry which
resounds through the forest. The cry is almost or quite involuntary,
and may be an imitation of the roar of the animal. Thus far we have not
speech, but only the inarticulate expression of feeling or emotion in
no respect differing from the cries of animals; for they too call to
one another and are answered. But now suppose that some one at a
distance not only hears the sound, but apprehends the meaning: or we
may imagine that the cry is repeated to a member of the society who had
been absent; the others act the scene over again when he returns home
in the evening. And so the cry becomes a word. The hearer in turn gives
back the word to the speaker, who is now aware that he has acquired a
new power. Many thousand times he exercises this power; like a child
learning to talk, he repeats the same cry again, and again he is
answered; he tries experiments with a like result, and the speaker and
the hearer rejoice together in their newly-discovered faculty. At first
there would be few such cries, and little danger of mistaking or
confusing them. For the mind of primitive man had a narrow range of
perceptions and feelings; his senses were microscopic; twenty or thirty
sounds or gestures would be enough for him, nor would he have any
difficulty in finding them. Naturally he broke out into speech—like the
young infant he laughed and babbled; but not until there were hearers
as well as speakers did language begin. Not the interjection or the
vocal imitation of the object, but the interjection or the vocal
imitation of the object understood, is the first rudiment of human
speech.
After a while the word gathers associations, and has an independent
existence. The imitation of the lion’s roar calls up the fears and
hopes of the chase, which are excited by his appearance. In the moment
of hearing the sound, without any appreciable interval, these and other
latent experiences wake up in the mind of the hearer. Not only does he
receive an impression, but he brings previous knowledge to bear upon
that impression. Necessarily the pictorial image becomes less vivid,
while the association of the nature and habits of the animal is more
distinctly perceived. The picture passes into a symbol, for there would
be too many of them and they would crowd the mind; the vocal imitation,
too, is always in process of being lost and being renewed, just as the
picture is brought back again in the description of the poet. Words now
can be used more freely because there are more of them. What was once
an involuntary expression becomes voluntary. Not only can men utter a
cry or call, but they can communicate and converse; they can not only
use words, but they can even play with them. The word is separated both
from the object and from the mind; and slowly nations and individuals
attain to a fuller consciousness of themselves.
Parallel with this mental process the articulation of sounds is
gradually becoming perfected. The finer sense detects the differences
of them, and begins, first to agglomerate, then to distinguish them.
Times, persons, places, relations of all kinds, are expressed by
modifications of them. The earliest parts of speech, as we may call
them by anticipation, like the first utterances of children, probably
partook of the nature of interjections and nouns; then came verbs; at
length the whole sentence appeared, and rhythm and metre followed. Each
stage in the progress of language was accompanied by some corresponding
stage in the mind and civilisation of man. In time, when the family
became a nation, the wild growth of dialects passed into a language.
Then arose poetry and literature. We can hardly realize to ourselves
how much with each improvement of language the powers of the human mind
were enlarged; how the inner world took the place of outer; how the
pictorial or symbolical or analogical word was refined into a notion;
how language, fair and large and free, was at last complete.
So we may imagine the speech of man to have begun as with the cries of
animals, or the stammering lips of children, and to have attained by
degrees the perfection of Homer and Plato. Yet we are far from saying
that this or any other theory of language is proved by facts. It is not
difficult to form an hypothesis which by a series of imaginary
transitions will bridge over the chasm which separates man from the
animals. Differences of kind may often be thus resolved into
differences of degree. But we must not assume that we have in this way
discovered the true account of them. Through what struggles the
harmonious use of the organs of speech was acquired; to what extent the
conditions of human life were different; how far the genius of
individuals may have contributed to the discovery of this as of the
other arts, we cannot say: Only we seem to see that language is as much
the creation of the ear as of the tongue, and the expression of a
movement stirring the hearts not of one man only but of many, “as the
trees of the wood are stirred by the wind.” The theory is consistent or
not inconsistent with our own mental experience, and throws some degree
of light upon a dark corner of the human mind.
In the later analysis of language, we trace the opposite and contrasted
elements of the individual and nation, of the past and present, of the
inward and outward, of the subject and object, of the notional and
relational, of the root or unchanging part of the word and of the
changing inflexion, if such a distinction be admitted, of the vowel and
the consonant, of quantity and accent, of speech and writing, of poetry
and prose. We observe also the reciprocal influence of sounds and
conceptions on each other, like the connexion of body and mind; and
further remark that although the names of objects were originally
proper names, as the grammarian or logician might call them, yet at a
later stage they become universal notions, which combine into
particulars and individuals, and are taken out of the first rude
agglomeration of sounds that they may be replaced in a higher and more
logical order. We see that in the simplest sentences are contained
grammar and logic—the parts of speech, the Eleatic philosophy and the
Kantian categories. So complex is language, and so expressive not only
of the meanest wants of man, but of his highest thoughts; so various
are the aspects in which it is regarded by us. Then again, when we
follow the history of languages, we observe that they are always slowly
moving, half dead, half alive, half solid, half fluid; the breath of a
moment, yet like the air, continuous in all ages and countries,—like
the glacier, too, containing within them a trickling stream which
deposits debris of the rocks over which it passes. There were happy
moments, as we may conjecture, in the lives of nations, at which they
came to the birth—as in the golden age of literature, the man and the
time seem to conspire; the eloquence of the bard or chief, as in later
times the creations of the great writer who is the expression of his
age, became impressed on the minds of their countrymen, perhaps in the
hour of some crisis of national development—a migration, a conquest, or
the like. The picture of the word which was beginning to be lost, is
now revived; the sound again echoes to the sense; men find themselves
capable not only of expressing more feelings, and describing more
objects, but of expressing and describing them better. The world before
the flood, that is to say, the world of ten, twenty, a hundred thousand
years ago, has passed away and left no sign. But the best conception
that we can form of it, though imperfect and uncertain, is gained from
the analogy of causes still in action, some powerful and sudden, others
working slowly in the course of infinite ages. Something too may be
allowed to “the persistency of the strongest,” to “the survival of the
fittest,” in this as in the other realms of nature.
These are some of the reflections which the modern philosophy of
language suggests to us about the powers of the human mind and the
forces and influences by which the efforts of men to utter articulate
sounds were inspired. Yet in making these and similar generalizations
we may note also dangers to which we are exposed. (1) There is the
confusion of ideas with facts—of mere possibilities, and generalities,
and modes of conception with actual and definite knowledge. The words
“evolution,” “birth,” “law,” development,” “instinct,” “implicit,”
“explicit,” and the like, have a false clearness or comprehensiveness,
which adds nothing to our knowledge. The metaphor of a flower or a
tree, or some other work of nature or art, is often in like manner only
a pleasing picture. (2) There is the fallacy of resolving the languages
which we know into their parts, and then imagining that we can discover
the nature of language by reconstructing them. (3) There is the danger
of identifying language, not with thoughts but with ideas. (4) There is
the error of supposing that the analysis of grammar and logic has
always existed, or that their distinctions were familiar to Socrates
and Plato. (5) There is the fallacy of exaggerating, and also of
diminishing the interval which separates articulate from inarticulate
language—the cries of animals from the speech of man—the instincts of
animals from the reason of man. (6) There is the danger which besets
all enquiries into the early history of man—of interpreting the past by
the present, and of substituting the definite and intelligible for the
true but dim outline which is the horizon of human knowledge.