LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE 213

understood both by those who uttered them and those who

heard them. Speech requires an apprehending intelligence on

the part of the hearer as well as on the part of the speaker if

it is to be more than a monologue. Without the attainment

of this mutual comprehension spoken language could never have

arisen. It is true, of course, that one man performing some

act in the presence of others would know what he was about

while the onlookers would know it also, and thus a sound

repeated by him while so acting might generate a term to

denote such action, which term would be understood by him

and by those who saw and heard him. But for this it must

have been necessary to have the mental conception of what

was being done, that is, an abstract idea. If the man acting

and the onlookers only uttered the sound accidentally, with-

out will and intention, and then repeated it automatically, and

not as a sign deliberately meant, such sounds (articulate or not)

could be no form of speech. It is evident none of them could

understand or apply it except by first acquiring the idea or

conception itself. Therefore the doctrine " Speech begot

reason " cannot be maintained, for speech cannot exist

without the existence with it of that intellectual activity

of which it is the external expression. As well might the

concavities of a curved line be supposed to exist without

its convexities, as the spoken word be supposed to have

arisen prior to the idea which it represents. Experience

shows us, as we have already observed, that it is new

thoughts which generate new words, and not the reverse.

As the deaf-mutes teach us, rational conceptions can

exist without words. The intellect is the common root from

which both thought and language (whether of word or

gesture) spring.

This radical distinction between sounds denoting abstract

ideas and sounds which are but the expression of emotional

feeling is the distinction between the language (whether

understood both by those who uttered them and those who

heard them. Speech requires an apprehending intelligence on

the part of the hearer as well as on the part of the speaker if

it is to be more than a monologue. Without the attainment

of this mutual comprehension spoken language could never have

arisen. It is true, of course, that one man performing some

act in the presence of others would know what he was about

while the onlookers would know it also, and thus a sound

repeated by him while so acting might generate a term to

denote such action, which term would be understood by him

and by those who saw and heard him. But for this it must

have been necessary to have the mental conception of what

was being done, that is, an abstract idea. If the man acting

and the onlookers only uttered the sound accidentally, with-

out will and intention, and then repeated it automatically, and

not as a sign deliberately meant, such sounds (articulate or not)

could be no form of speech. It is evident none of them could

understand or apply it except by first acquiring the idea or

conception itself. Therefore the doctrine " Speech begot

reason " cannot be maintained, for speech cannot exist

without the existence with it of that intellectual activity

of which it is the external expression. As well might the

concavities of a curved line be supposed to exist without

its convexities, as the spoken word be supposed to have

arisen prior to the idea which it represents. Experience

shows us, as we have already observed, that it is new

thoughts which generate new words, and not the reverse.

As the deaf-mutes teach us, rational conceptions can

exist without words. The intellect is the common root from

which both thought and language (whether of word or

gesture) spring.

This radical distinction between sounds denoting abstract

ideas and sounds which are but the expression of emotional

feeling is the distinction between the language (whether