mutual understanding is the only tie which connects it with that idea. It is a sign which each one has acquired from without, from the usage of others; and each has learned the art of intimating by such signs the internal acts of his mind. Mutual intelligibility, we have seen, is the only quality which makes the unity of a spoken tongue; the necessity of mutual intelligibility is the only force which keeps it one; and the desire of mutual intelligibility is the impulse which called out speech. Man speaks, then, primarily, not in order to think, but in order to impart his thought. His social needs, his social instincts, force him to expression. A solitary man would never frame a language. Let a child grow up in utter seclusion, and, however rich and suggestive might be the nature around him, however full and appreciative his sense of that which lay without and his consciousness of that which went on within him, he would all his life remain a mute. On the other hand, let two children grow up together, wholly untaught to speak, and they would inevitably devise, step by step, some means of expression for the purpose of communication; how rudimentary, of what slow growth, we cannot tell,-and, however interesting and instructive it would be to test the matter by experiment, humanity forbids us ever to hope or desire to do so: doubtless the character of the speech produced would vary with difference of capacity, with natural or accidental difference of circumstances; but it is inconceivable that human beings should abide long in each other's society without efforts, and successful efforts, at intelligent interchange of thought. Again, let one who had grown up even to manhood among his fellows, in full and free communication with them, be long separated from them and forced to live in solitude, and he would unlearn his native speech by degrees through mere disuse, and be found at last unable to converse at all, or otherwise than lamely, until he had recovered by new practice his former facility of expression. While a Swiss Family Robinson keep up their language, and enrich it with names for all the new and strange places and products with which their novel circumstances bring them in contact, a Robinson Crusoe almost loses his for lack of a companion with whom to employ it. We need not, however, rely for this conclusion upon imaginary cases alone. It is a wellknown fact that children who are deprived of hearing even at the age of four or five years, after they have learned to speak readily and well, and who are thus cut off from vocal communication with those around them, usually forget all they had learned, and become as mute as if they had never acquired the power of clothing their thoughts in words. The internal impulse to expression is there, but it is impotent to develop itself and produce speech exclusion from the ordinary intercourse of man with man not only thwarts its progress, but renders it unable to maintain itself upon the stage at which it had already arrived. Language, then, is the spoken means whereby thought is communicated; and it is only that. Language is not thought, nor is thought language; nor is there a mysterious and indissoluble connection between the two, as there is between soul and body, so that the one cannot exist and manifest itself without the other. There can hardly be a greater and more pernicious error, in linguis tics or in metaphysics, than the doctrine that language and thought are identical. It is, unfortunately, an error often committed, both by linguists and by metaphysicians. "Man speaks because he thinks," is the dictum out of which more than one scholar has proceeded to develop his system of linguistic philosophy. The assertion, indeed, is not only true, but a truism; no one can presume to claim that man would speak if he did not think; but no fair logical process can derive any momentous conclusions from so loose a premise. So man would not wear clothes if he had not a body; he would not build spinning mules and jennies if cotton did not grow on bushes, or wool on sheep's backs: yet the body is more than raiment, nor do cottonbushes and sheep necessitate wheels and water-power. The body would be neither comfortable nor comely, if not clad; cotton and wool would be of little use, but for machinery making quick and cheap their conversion into cloth; and, in a truly analogous way, thought would be awkward, feeble, and indistinct, without the dress, the apparatus, which is afforded it in language. Our denial of the identity of thought with its expression does not compel us to abate one jot or tittle of the exceeding value of speech to thought: it only puts that value upon its proper basis. That thought and speech are not the same is a direct and necessary inference, I believe, from more than one of the truths respecting language which our discussions have already established; but the high importance attaching to a right understanding of the point will justify us in a brief review of those truths in their application to it. In the first place, we have often had our attention directed to the imperfection of language as a full representation of thought. Words and phrases are but the skeleton of expression, hints of meaning, light touches of a skilful sketcher's pencil, to which the appreciative sense and sympathetic mind must supply the filling up and coloring. Our own mental acts and states we can review in our consciousness in minute detail, but we can never perfectly disclose them to another by speech; nor will words alone, with whatever sincerity and candor they may be uttered, put us in pos session of another's consciousness. In anything but the most objective scientific description, or the dryest reasoning on subjects the most plain and obvious, we want more or less knowledge of the individuality of the speaker or writer, ere we can understand him intimately, his style of thought and sentiment must be gathered from the totality of our intercourse with him, to make us sure that we penetrate to the central meaning of any word he utters; and such study may enable us to find deeper and deeper significance in expressions that once seemed trivial or commonplace. A look or tone often sheds more light upon character or intent than a flood of words could do. Humor, banter, irony, are illustrations of what tone, or style, or perceived incongruity can accomplish in the way of impressing upon words a different meaning from that which they of themselves would wear. That language is impotent to express our feelings, though often, perhaps, pleaded as a form merely, is also a frequent genuine experience; nor is it for our feelings alone that the ordinary conventional phrases, weakened in their force by insincere and hyperbolical use, are found insufficient: apprehensions, distinctions, opinions, of every kind, elude our efforts at description, definition, intimation. How often must we labor, by painful circumlocution, by gradual approach and limitation, to place before the minds of others a conception which is clearly present to our own consciousness! How often, when we have the expression nearly complete, we miss a single word that we need, and must search for it, in our memories or our dictionaries, perhaps not finding it in either! How different is the capacity of ready and distinct expression in men whose power of thought is not unlike! he whose grasp of mind is the greatest, whose review of the circumstances that should lead to a judgment is most comprehensive and thorough, whose skill of in ference is most unerring, may be, much more than another of far weaker gifts, awkward and clumsy of speech. How often we understand what one says better than he himself says it, and correct his expression, to his own gratification and acceptance! And if all the resources of expression are not equally at the command of all men of equal mental force and training, so neither are they, at their best, adequate to the wealth of conception of him who wields. them that would be but a poorly-stored and infertile mind which did not sometimes feel the limited capacity of language and long for fuller means of expression. : A DECLARATION OF LOVE. W. D. HOWELLS. [To understand the following scene, which we extract from "The Rise of Silas Lapham," one of the most characteristic of Howells's novels, some preliminary remarks are needed. Silas Lapham, a rich, honest, but unrefined paint-manufacturer, is desirous of gaining an entrance for himself, his wife, and his two daughters into the aristocratic circles of Boston society. Mainly for this purpose he takes into his employment a youthful member of the bluest blood of Boston, with whom both the daughters at once fall in love, though one of them closely conceals this fact. The other, the beauty of the family, makes no secret of her feelings, and has every reason to believe that the young man is paying his addresses to her. But he is really in love with the plain and witty sister, and astounds her with a declaration of his affection in the scene which we give below. Her strange behavior is in anticipation of the awkward family complication which she foresees, and of which her lover has no prevision.] He took the chair she gave him, and looked across at her, where she sat on the other side of the hearth, in a chair lower than his, with her hands dropped in her lap, |