He is thus less realistic than Mr. Spencer in one respect, while in his assertion that the felt is indeed the real, he approximates to the philosophy here advocated, i.e., to the philosophy of Aristotle.

It is impossible, in a single chapter, to do more than Recapitula glance at a few points in the great controversy tion. respecting the validity of our ordinary conceptions of external nature. Enough, it is trusted, has however here been said to justify our proceeding henceforth to treat of the external world as an existence known to us in the way, and to the extent, ordinarily supposed. Grounding all our assertions upon the positive dicta of our intellect, we may affirm that we are conscious that in knowing things we really know them, and not an amalgam made up of a mixture of things with ourselves; and also that we know other existences to be both real and certain.

If idealism be true, then to each of us there can be but one existence the certainty of which can be ever confidently asserted, namely, our own; and yet our reason asserts unmistakably that there really are many other creatures of various kinds, rational and irrational, about us. Again, if the properties of objects, such as their colour, &c., do not appertain to persisting objects, they must themselves be, as Mr. Lewes says, the persisting objects-the things in themselves the true substances. In that case a change in any accidental quality is equivalent to a substantial change in objects themselves, and a substance dyed another colour is no longer the same substance as before-a conclusion our reason vehemently rejects.

that we may

In conclusion, our reason affirms to us that we not only Conclusion, know our own existence, and that of other beings, securely re- but that the qualities we attribute to them are declarations really theirs, not ours; and that if intelligences, as to the ex- equal to or greater than our own, can know such

pose on the

of our senses

istence and

external ob

jects.

properties of objects without the aid of sensitive organs, such intelligences would know, apart from sense, that things are the very things which our senses declare them to

be, although it is conceivable that the number of other properties they might also recognise would indefinitely exceed in number such properties as we are able to know by our intellect acting through our sensitive organs. Our perceptions might be added to, but not contradicted.

If what has been here brought forward is correct-if the criticisms by which it has been sought to overthrow the cavils of those who would bid us distrust our faculties and the plain declarations of our intellect be just-it follows that the third lesson we may draw from nature is that we may repose securely in our spontaneous trust in the truthfulness of our natural faculties when matured and simultaneously employed in the quest of real and objective truth. In other words, that we may be certain that an external world really exists, and that its various parts really possess those very powers and properties which our senses and our reason combine to declare to us such objects do in fact possess.

5

CHAPTER IV.

LANGUAGE.

"Rational language is a bond of connexion between the mental and material world which is absolutely peculiar to man.”

Language

the bond be.

and matter.

In the last chapter, an endeavour was made to justify our spontaneous belief in a real external world, postween mind sessing the properties we attribute to it in addition to our spontaneous belief in our own continued mental existence-in other words, a belief in the reality of the material world as well as the reality of the world of mind. We shall be following a natural order, therefore, if we now consider that which is the special bond and connexion between these two worlds, material and mental-that by which our feelings, memories, thoughts, and volitions are made manifest to the senses of other men, and that by which we ourselves come to learn other men's feelings, memories, thoughts, and volitions. I mean language.

Language

emotional

But the word "language" denotes two very different things It denotes the expression of the mere feelings or and rational. emotions-emotional language, and it also denotes the expression of thoughts-rational language. It is the latter only which especially merits our attention here, as the language of mere feeling cannot by itself be said to be a bond of union between external nature and mind as revealed in the self-consciousness we are interrogating.

Rational speech is evidently made up of the union of two distinct factors-the one mental, the other corporealthe one the idea conceived by the mind, the other the bodily

bodily.

action which gives expression to that idea. As in the overwhelming majority of instances that bodily action Rational is vocal, these two component parts of speech have mental and been distinguished respectively as the verbum mentale and the verbum oris; but as such bodily expression is not exclusively vocal, they might, perhaps, be better distinguished as the verbum mentale and the verbum corporis. The essence of rational language is mental—a primary intellectual power and activity; while the secondary part, the external expression (the verbum corporis), follows the intellectual activity, as is made evident by our constant process of inventing fresh terms in each science to denote new or better-defined expressions.

categories of

Great ambiguity and confusion, however, exists as to the different senses in which the term language may be Different used, and as to the different kinds of activity language. evoked by it. As has been just said, Rational expression is not exclusively oral, nor is all articulate speech rational. We may altogether distinguish six different kinds of language:

1. Sounds which are neither articulate nor rational, such as cries of pain, or the murmur of a mother to her infant.

2. Sounds which are articulate but not rational, such as the talk of parrots, or of certain idiots, who will repeat, without comprehending, every phrase they hear. 3. Sounds which are rational but not articulate, such as the inarticulate ejaculations by which we sometimes express assent to or dissent from given propositions. 4. Sounds which are both rational and articulate constituting true "speech."

5. Gestures which do not answer to rational conceptions, but are merely the manifestations of emotions and feelings.

6. Gestures which do answer to rational conceptions, and are therefore "external" but not "oral" manifestations of the verbum mentale. Such are many of the

gestures of deaf mutes, who, being incapable of articulating words, have invented or acquired a true gesturelanguage.

The clear understanding of these distinctions is an indispensable preliminary to the study of language, in the widest sense of that term; it may be well, therefore, to recapitulate the characters of the actions which respectively belong to the above six categories, that they may be as clearly distinguished as possible.

The sounds emitted by brutes, however complicated or prolonged, which denote merely emotions and bodily sensations, belong to the first category. Mere articulate sounds, without concomitant intellectual activity, such as those emitted by trained parrots or jackdaws (and which, of course, are not "speech"), belong to the second category. The third category comprises inarticulate ejaculations and sounds which we sometimes make use of to express our approval or disapproval, our agreement or our disagreement with anything said to us. Articulate expressions of mental conceptions, or true speech, belong only to the fourth category. Gestures which are merely the manifestations of emotions and feelings are not the equivalents of speech, and belong to the fifth category. But gestures without sound may be rational external manifestations of internal thoughts, and, therefore, the real equivalents of words. Such may serve to call attention to objects, their agreements or their differences, and may express approval and assent, or the reverse, to observations. made to us by others. All such belong to the sixth category. Thus it is plainly conceivable that a brute might manifest its feelings and emotions not only by gestures, but also by articulate sounds, without for all that possessing even the germ of real language. Similarly it is evident that a paraExternal ex- lysed man might have essentially the power of speech (verbum mentale), though accidentally hindered from externally manifesting that inner power by means of the verbum oris. Normally, the external and internal powers exist inseparably. Once that the

pression a necessary accompani

ment of rational animality.