[18] “The Descent of Man,” p. 88. By Charles Darwin, M.A. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1881.
[19] “Physiology of the Mind,” p. 480. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883.
As connected thoughts are impossible without words, or signs of words, so words are dependent upon objects for their existence. Says Dr. Maudsley, “Words cannot attain to definiteness save as living outgrowths of realities.”[20] And Heyse says, “Thought is not even present to the thinker till he has set it forth out of himself.”
[20] “I therefore declare my conviction,” says Max Müller, “whether right or wrong, as explicitly as possible, that thought in one sense of the word, i. e., in reasoning, is impossible without language.”—“Physiology of the Mind,” p. 480. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883.
It follows that language has its origin not less in external objects than in the mind. Objects make impressions upon the mind through the senses, and words serve as the means of preserving a record of such impressions and of communicating them to other minds. If, now, the mind should cease to receive impressions, language would no longer be required, since there would be nothing to express; and the occasion for the use of language ceasing to exist, the power of speech would ultimately be lost. The power of speech, then, depends upon a continuous succession of impressions made upon the mind by its contact, through the senses, with matter in its various forms, whether in nature or in art.
It may also be claimed that the power of speech depends almost entirely upon the endless succession of fresh objects presented to the mind by the hand. These form the subject as well as the occasion of speech. If the hand should cease to make new things, new words would cease to be required. The principal changes in language arise out of new discoveries in science and new inventions in art, each fresh discovery of science giving rise to many new things in art. Art and science react upon each other.[21] The growth of a State, its advance in the scale of civilization, depends upon progress in the practical arts. Hence the fact that, when a State ceases to advance, its language ceases to grow, becomes stationary, stagnates. In such a State there would be no occasion for new words. If a constantly diminishing number of objects were presented to the mind, speech would become less and less necessary. If no new objects were presented, no fresh impressions upon the mind would be made, and speech would degenerate into a mere iteration. If the hands should cease to labor in the arts, should cease to make things, should cease to plant and gather, the scope of speech would be still further restricted, would be confined to an expression of the wants of savages subsisting on the native fruits of field and forest.
[21] “And the great advances in science have uniformly corresponded with the invention of some instrument by which the power of the senses has been increased, or the range of action extended.”—“Physiology of the Mind,” p. 8. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883.
It comes to this, that progress can find expression only in the concrete. Guttenberg had an idea that he could employ movable types in the production of books. Suppose he had been content with the mere promulgation of his theory in words, and that those who came after him had been similarly content? There would have been no printing-presses down to the present time. Suppose that Watt and Stephenson and Fulton had been content with the declaration, in words, of the discoveries they made in regard to the application of the power of steam to useful purposes, and that those who came after them had been similarly content? There would have been neither railways, nor steamships, nor steam-driven machinery of any kind down to the present time.
As words are essential to the processes of thought, so objects are essential to words or living speech. And as all objects made by man owe their existence to the hand, it follows that the hand exerts an incalculable influence upon the mind, and so constitutes the most potent agency in the work of civilization. It was not without good reason that Anaxagoras characterized man as the wisest of animals because of his having hands. And what is it to be wise? To be wise is “to have the power of discerning and judging correctly, or of discriminating between what is true and what is false; between what is fit and proper and what is improper.” The hand is used as the synonym of wisdom because it is only in the concrete that the false is sure of detection, and it is through the hand alone that ideas are realized in things.[22] Again we have the hand as the discoverer of truth.
[22] “Let him [the youth] once learn to take a straight shaving off a plank, or draw a fine curve without faltering, or lay a brick level in its mortar, and he has learned a multitude of other matters which no lips of man could ever teach him.”—“Time and Tide,” p. 145. By John Ruskin, LL.D. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1883.