RESEARCH XVI

THE INNER MEANING OF SPEECH.

"What was't awakened first the untried ear

Of that sole man who was all of human kind?
Was it the gladsome welcome of the wind,
Stirring the leaves that never yet were sere?
The four mellifluous streams which flowed so near,
Their lulling murmurs all in one combined?
The note of bird unnamed? The startled hind
Bursting the brake, in wonder, not in fear,
Of her new lord? Or did the holy ground
Send forth mysterious melody to greet
The gracious pressure of immaculate feet?
Did viewless seraphs rustle all around,

Making sweet music out of air as sweet?
Or his own voice awake him with its sound?"

HARTLEY COLERIDGE, The Birth of Speech.

LANGUAGE is the proof, the sign, the expression, of intelligence and will. It is not produced by mere mechanical action of vocal organs. It is thought vocalized and symbolized. The truth and power of thought are measured by their conformity to the meanings of things; and this meaning is shown to be real and true by our universal reliance on the use of speech in the interpretation of nature, and in the expression of our own wants. The capacity of orderly speech gives a world-wide energy and meaning to man's power and wisdom; even as the all-pervading orderly capacity in nature binds the universe

to law, and testifies to the rule of universal Mind and Will.1

In rational language, an all-pervading purpose makes even the meanest part cohere with the whole; and as we use speech for twofold representation—that names may be representatives of things, and representative of our thought concerning those things-the meaning of all speech and its correctness indicate the accuracy of our knowledge; and what we think and will concerning that knowledge. In like manner, the universe in its various sounds and signs, which may be called the speech of the Almighty; and in its substance and energies, which are the acts of the Almighty; reveal the power, the will, the wisdom, the infinity, of the Eternal.

"Leaflets, now unpaged and scattered,

Time's great library receives;

When eternity shall bind them,

Golden volumes we shall find them,

God's light falling on the leaves."

Frances Ridley Havergal, The Ministry of Song.

To invent speech man must be man already: the need and the capacity in the mind preceded the outflow from the lips. All languages represent mainly the same intellectual art, the same essential principles: man's opinion of himself, of other men, of nature, and the things of nature.

It is easy to conceive how the power of thought and emotion-existing in Adam's mind, the vocal organs being adapted to his intellect―gave expression to that intellect; indicated the meanings with which he invested things, and put upon his own varied and many sensations. His definite reach and power of thought and act grasped, 1 "The Mystery of the Universe," theme v. p. 165.

shaped, handled objects; and speech was the sign of his conceptions, their relations to circumstances, the externalization of the inner man.1 Adam, being man, spoke as man. Wisest men know no more than this. We reasonably expect that speech will acquire greater depth and power, become more expressive of our growing intellectual and emotional wealth, and give more powerful expression to thoughts concerning the beauty and far-reaching purposes of Nature.

This seems likely, because language, by signs and sounds, is not only a means for expression of thought; but for that admixture and extension by which intelligence communes with intelligence. Thought, more expansive than language, becomes usefully definite in expressed meaning; the expression facilitates the intercourse of mind with mind, makes thought accurate, and more easily capable of verification. In telling how we interpret human nature, and nature generally, other lights mingle with and add to the power of our own light, and greatly advance our understanding and use of things.

Being composed of signs and sounds, language employs the material things of our physical system to give shape and permanence to thought. The material and mental, the natural and that which governs nature —the various ranges of supernature, are made to interpenetrate. We communicate our cultured applications of skill in physical science, our extension and invention of new processes, to thought; so that the stores and specialities of our great men enlarge and make accurate the common thought of society. Some truths, in conse"The Supernatural in Nature," study xvii. pp. 333-342.

1

quence of this, we already express in signs that are real, adequate, and indubitable.

These signs and symbols of mathematical and kindred truth which we cannot well put into words; show that the power of thought excelled our power of speech, and that the symbols of science, like the signs and symbols of nature, contain more than speech can utter. The grasp and elasticity of mind; the exquisite joys of emotion in art, in science, in religion; greatly excel our physical power of expression. Carried beyond ourselves we enter the far past, the limitless future, the infinite and eternal. Thus our intellectual and moral wealth expressed by symbols, physical and mental, limited by the life that is, we count as an inner fulness of the spirit which, gathered from knowledge of the past and prevision of the future, is in some respects an actual present possession of immortality.

Speech, the manifestation of very complex material and mental organization, also reveals yet greater things; as to which our intellectual and moral wealth is a drop from the ocean. Light, sound, matter, force, and whatever else we know of in Nature, are the language and interpretation of Nature; as our own speech and act are the language and interpretation of man. The inward sensation, idea, will, as they are the operation of Nature and accord with our speech; not less reflect Divine sensation, idea, will, than is the intelligible order of Nature a reflection of Divine power and wisdom. We thus learn that the Divine Mind, or Soul, or Spirit, is like our own; but infinitely greater. Our inner man is in communion with those realities, which are behind.

the world's phenomena. There is a revelation to the inner man that objects exist much grander than those we see; a life, better than that we now live, a beauty and a splendour surpassing all earthly scenes, even as the sheen of our sun is more brilliant than the gleam of a star.

Our highest thoughts are our best thoughts. The lower paths of the intellect, like the ways and highways of a densely populated city, are occupied with rushing temporal wants and tumults. To breathe freely, to rise above the stress and press, we ascend to the summit of our powers, where is plenty of room: high up there is plenty of room always. Not so much alone with ourselves as near to God, we find invisible relations and realities which have to do with every sense and sensation by which we correct the senses themselves. There are, besides, those true counterparts and invisible realities which are the source of all human thought. We do not create thought, or the sense of responsibility, or the fear of Judgment to come, or the hope of Heaven. Whatever is true rests on some invisible reality: not less true and lasting than the physical foundation of man's personal sensations.

Those who seek these heights are the world's benefactors. One of them, St. Paul, acquaints us with strange things; not only as to being in the body, and out of the body (2 Cor. xii. 2); but as to the passing away of present speech and knowledge, and the coming in of higher and better. "Whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away" (1 Cor. xiii. 8). The present is rudimentary and symbolic of those more glorious things, thoughts, words, which are the