We conclude. Although the ethical problem can and must be split up in innumerable different problems, we should never lose sight of its unity.
Our age is a period of specialisation, of a division of labor and of detail work. This is true. But the more will it be necessary to survey the whole field and keep in mind the unity of which all piecemeal efforts are but parts. As soon as we lose sight of the unity in a certain system of problems, we are most liable to drop into inconsistencies. This is true of all things, of every science in particular, and of philosophy, the science of the sciences, also. It is no less true of ethics. We cannot engage, with any hope of success, in any of the diverse ethical questions unless we have first solved the ethical problem.
EDITOR.
ON THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE.
A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF GLASGOW, ON JAN. 21, 1891.
It seems impossible to many people to look upon language as anything but an instrument of thought. In one sense this is perfectly true. We think by means of words, just as we see by means of eyes, and hear by means of ears, and walk by means of legs. But could we walk without our legs, or see without our eyes? We can walk with artificial legs, no doubt, and so we can think and speak in foreign languages, and in every kind of artificial sign-language. But as artificial legs presuppose natural legs, foreign and artificial languages presuppose our own natural language.
When we speak of instruments we mean generally such things as knives with which we cut, or pens with which we write. They are instruments which are useful, but they are not indispensable, and can be replaced by other instruments. This does not, however, apply to eyes, ears, or language, and in order to mark that distinction the former are generally called instruments, the latter organs.
Now, if we call language the organ of thought, we, no doubt, admit that we can distinguish between the organon, that which works, and the ergon, i. e. the work which it performs. But it does by no means follow that therefore the ergon could ever exist without the organon. We can easily distinguish between the act of spoken thought and the organ of spoken thought, but it does by no means follow that therefore the act of spoken thought could ever exist without the organ of spoken thought.
It may seem unfair in this argument to call thought "spoken thought." It looks like begging the whole question. But it really is not so. By calling thought "spoken thought," we only supply a deficiency of our modern languages. If we were Greeks, we should use the simple word Logos, and instead of begging the question, we should show that our proposition is, really self-evident, or, it may be, even tautological, namely that logos is impossible without logos.
Here we can see at once how intimately thought is connected with language, how it is dependent on it, or, more correctly, how inseparable the two really are. If, like the Greeks, we had a word such as logos, we should probably never have doubted that what we call speech and thought are but two sides of the same thing. And the same lesson is taught us again and again, if only we are inclined to listen to it.