Without speech no reason, without reason no speech. It is curious to observe the unwillingness with which many philosophers admit this, and the attempts they make to escape from this conclusion, all owing to the very influence of language which, in most modern dialects, has produced two words, one for language, the other for reason; thus leading the speaker to suppose that there is a substantial difference between the two, and not a mere formal difference. Thus Brown says: "To be without language, spoken or written, is almost to be without thought."1 But he qualifies this almost by what follows: " That man can reason without language of any kind, and consequently without general terms, though the opposite opinion is maintained by many very eminent philosophers, seems to me not to admit of any reasonable doubt, or, if it required any proof, to be sufficiently shown by the very invention of language which involves these general terms, and still more sensibly by the conduct of the uninstructed deaf and dumb,2- to which also the evident marks of reasoning in the other animals — of reasoning which I cannot but think as unquestionable as the instincts that mingle with it—may be said to furnish a very striking additional argument from analogy."

The uninstructed deaf and dumb, I believe, have never given any signs of reason, in the true sense of the word, though to a certain extent all the deaf and dumb people that live in the society of other men catch something of the rational behavior of their neighbors. When instructed, the deaf and dumb certainly acquire general ideas without being able in 1 Works, i. p. 475. 2 l. c., ii. p. 446.

every case to utter distinctly the phonetic exponents or embodiments of these ideas which we call words. But this is no objection to our general argument. The deaf and dumb are taught by those who possess both these general ideas and their phonetic embodiments, elaborated by successive generations of rational men. They are taught to think the thoughts of others, and if they cannot pronounce their words, they lay hold of these thoughts by other signs, and particularly by signs that appeal to their sense of sight, in the same manner as words appeal to our sense of hearing. These signs, however, are not the signs of things or their conceptions, as words are: they are the signs of signs, just as written language is not an image of our thoughts, but an image of the phonetic embodiment of thought. Alphabetical writing is the image of the sound of language, hieroglyphic writing the image of language or thought.

The same supposition that it is possible to reason without signs, that we can form mental conceptions, nay, even mental propositions, without words, runs through the whole of Locke's philosophy.1 He maintains over and over again, that words are signs added to our conceptions, and added arbitrarily. He imagines a state " in which man, though possessed of a great variety of thoughts, and such from which. others, as well as himself, might receive profit and delight, was unable to make these thoughts appear. The comfort and advantage of society, however, not being to be had without communication of thoughts, it was necessary that man should find out some external sensible signs, whereby those in1 Locke, On the Human Understanding, iii. 2, 1.

visible ideas of which his thoughts are made up might be made known to others. For this purpose, nothing was so fit, either for plenty or quickness, as those articulate sounds, which, with so much ease and variety, he found himself able to make. Thus we may conceive how words, which were by nature so well adapted to that purpose, came to be made use of by men as the signs of their ideas; not by any natural connection there is between particular articulate sounds and certain ideas,—for then there would be but one language amongst all men, -but by a voluntary composition, whereby such a word is made arbitrarily the mark of such an idea."

Locke admits, indeed, that it is almost unavoidable, in treating of mental propositions, to make use of words. "Most men, if not all," he says, (and who are they that are here exempted?) "in their thinking and reasoning within themselves, make use of words, instead of ideas, at least when the subject of their meditation contains in it complex ideas.” 1 But this is in reality an altogether different question; it is the question whether, after our notions have once been realized in words, it is possible to use words without reasoning, and not whether it is possible to reason without words. This is clear from the instances given by Locke. "Some confused or obscure notions," he says, "have served their turns; and many who talk very much of religion and conscience, of church and faith, of power and right, of obstructions and humors, melancholy and choler, would, perhaps, have little left in their thoughts and

1 l. c., iv. 5, 4.

meditations, if one should desire them to think only of the things themselves, and lay by those words, with which they so often confound others, and not seldom themselves also." 1

In all this there is, no doubt, great truth; yet, strictly speaking, it is as impossible to use words' without thought as to think without words. Even those who talk vaguely about religion, conscience, &c., have at least a vague notion of the meaning of the words they use; and if they ceased to connect any ideas, however incomplete and false, with the words they utter, they could no longer be said to speak, but only to make noises. The same applies if we invert our proposition. It is possible, without language, to see, to perceive, to stare at, to dream about things; but, without words, not even such simple ideas as white or black can for a moment be realized.

We cannot be careful enough in the use of our words. If reasoning is used synonymously with knowing or thinking, with mental activity in general, it is clear that we cannot deny it either to the uninstructed deaf and dumb, or to infants and animals. A child knows as certainly before it can speak the difference between sweet and bitter (i. e. that sweet is not bitter), as it knows afterwards (when it comes to speak) that wormwood and sugar-plums are not the same thing.? A child receives the sensation of sweetness; it enjoys it, it recollects it, it desires it again; but it does not know what sweet is; it is absorbed in its sensations, its pleasures, its recollections; it cannot look at them from above, it can1 l. c., iv. 5, 4. 2 l. c., i. 2, 15.

not reason on them, it cannot tell of them.1 This is well expressed by Schelling. "Without language," he says, "it is impossible to conceive philosophical, nay, even any human consciousness: and hence the foundations of language could not have been laid consciously. Nevertheless, the more we analyze language, the more clearly we see that it transcends in depth the most conscious productions of the mind. It is with language as with all organic beings; we imagine they spring into being blindly, and yet we cannot deny the intentional wisdom in the formation of every one of them.” 2

Hegel speaks more simply and more boldly. "It is in names," he says, "that we think." 8

It may be possible, however, by another kind of argument, less metaphysical, perhaps, but more convincing, to show clearly that reason cannot become real without speech. Let us take any word, for instance, experiment. It is derived from experior. Perior, like Greek perân,1 would mean to go through. Peritus is a man who has gone through many things; periculum, something to go through, a danger. Experior is to go through and come out (the Sanskrit, vyutpad); hence experience and experiment. The Gothic faran, the English to fare, are the same words as perân; hence the German Erfahrung, experience, and Gefahr, periculum; Wohlfahrt, welfare,

1 A child certainly knows that a stranger is not its mother; that its sucking-bottle is not the rod, long before he knows that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be. - Locke, On the Human Understanding, iv. 7, 9.

2 Einleitung in die Philosophie der Mythologie, p. 52; Pott, Etymologische Forschungen, ii. 261.

8 Carrière, Die Kunst im Zusammenhang der Culturentwickelung, p. 11. 4 Curtius, G. E., i. 237.