Writing is to drawing what speaking is to singing. Originally it was not an artifice invented to help vocal language. Here again the ideological theory aggravates the part played by reflection. Man was obeying an instinct when by drawing he reproduced the familiar objects which met his gaze, occupied his imagination, and caused his strongest and most frequent emotions. Gradually, these spontaneous endeavours at imitation assumed the character of signs, became divided up and simplified, and finally were co-ordinated with vocal sounds which themselves had gone through a separate evolution.
Thus language and art have a common origin, which is the æsthetic, that is to say, the affective expression. Comte does not separate these two terms. He takes the word “æsthetic” at once in its etymological and in its modern sense. Our movements, at first involuntary, then voluntary, translate our impressions and react upon them, because they spring from them; that is the humble source from which everything else is derived. With animals it only gives rise to inarticulate vocal sounds, and to a more or less expressive mimicry. In man, it is the principle of language and of art. The latter begins by being a simple imitation. Then the reproduction of objects is perfected. It becomes more faithful “by bringing out better the chief features which were at first obscured by an empirical mixture.” “Idealisation” consists in this. Finally “expression” properly so called is developed, and “style.”[221]
Thus, if we call language the whole of the means suitable for the transmission beyond ourselves of our various impressions, this whole forms a system in which the most customary and least expressive portion, language, was at first mingled with the portion which bears the name of art, taking art in its most primitive elements: song and drawing. These two parts became differentiated in evolution. Our social requirements have continually increased the use and extension of the vocal and visual signs which are made use of in active life and in speculative thought. These signs have become simpler and simpler and even abstract: to such an extent that their origin ended by being considered the result of a convention.[222]
The primitive parentage of language and of art accounts for many facts which current theories do not explain. For instance, language is not only created but preserved by the people. Grammarians, “even more absurd than logicians,”[223] in general have understood nothing about it. Their claim to authority is amusing. But it is to popular spontaneity, at once conservative and progressive, that our languages owe their admirable rectitude. The basis of each language collects what is essential and universal in the æsthetic evolution of humanity. Hence the magic charm of poetry, the most ancient of all the arts. Words possess a power of evoking images from which the artist draws inexhaustible effects. Often during the long childhood of human reason even the power of words must have seemed to be supernatural: Nomina Numina. By dint of considering language as ideologists and logicians, we have forgotten that its nature is emotional and æsthetic. However, even to-day the mysterious power of words has not disappeared. How great is the action of forms of prayer on tender souls, even when faith has deserted them! Next to action itself, language is the most powerful of the exciting causes of feeling, and religions are well aware of this fact. They know how to make use of it to conquer or to retain souls.
IV.
The logical function of language is the only one which has been studied by philosophers; that is, by the “ontologists” and the “metaphysicians.” But even their study has remained incomplete. Condillac and his school have solely considered the language which lends itself to logical analysis. Consequently, they only saw a single kind of combination which may be called the logic of signs. But, in reality, the logic of signs rests upon the logic of images, and this one on the logic of feelings. The so-called logicians thus conceive a narrow and false idea of our intellectual mechanism, when they concentrate all their attention “upon the most voluntary, but the least powerful of the three essential modes of which the mental combination admits.”[224]
The logic of feelings is the art “of facilitating the combination of notions according to the connection between the corresponding emotions.” It is the most instinctive: it is the source of all the great inspirations of our intelligence. We can think nothing which contradicts it, or even which is not implied in it. But it has two grave defects. Its elements are not precise enough, and it is not at our disposal. It only operates under certain given conditions, and the appearance of these conditions does not rest with us. We see it at work, for instance, among animals, who occasionally provoke our admiration for the marvels suggested to them by this logic which is so closely bound up with the emotions. The logic of images, though less strong, is more free and precise than the logic of feelings. Nevertheless if we only had these two we should still be incapable of realising combinations conceived and prepared by us. This office belongs to the logic of signs. For to us almost entirely belongs the disposal of these signs, and it is this which has allowed of the development of abstract language and of the sciences.
But we must not separate this last logic from the two others. The laws of our nature always cause the logical use of feelings and images to prevail over that of signs. Undoubtedly, the union between signs and thoughts may become direct, and moreover in the case of abstract notions, it could not be otherwise. Thus our inner world is artificially united to the outer world. We have an abstract and symbolical representation of it, without going through the feelings, or even, strictly speaking, through the images. But this relation has far less consistency than the one which is established by the involuntary intervention of images and of feelings. As the abstract sign has its origin in the sign appreciated by the senses, which itself proceeds from the relation of the muscular system with the nervous system; so, the relations between signs have their origin in the relations between images, and these, in their turn, proceed from the relations between feelings.
The facility with which we manipulate signs hides this truth from us: it is none the less certain that these signs are united to our thoughts in a far less intimate and less spontaneous manner than the feelings and even the images.
The positive theory further allows us, not indeed to solve, but to adjourn the question of a universal language. Indeed are we concerned with a purely scientific language? Mathematical analysis in part fulfils this desideratum. It allows us to express the laws of the simplest phenomena by symbols which are at everyone’s disposal. But if it is a question of a complete language, destined to be in common use among all men, who does not see that this conception is incompatible with the present state of humanity? How could we establish a universal language, while allowing the prevalence of “divergent beliefs and of hostile customs.”[225] The unification of tongues will arise from the unification of peoples. When the latter has been realised, under the action of positive philosophy, the other will follow as a necessary consequence.