Facts like these tend to show that man might still have been, as the root of the word “man” implies in Sanskrit, “a thinking being,” though he had never been a “speech-dividing” being; but it is evident that his range of thought would have been exceedingly narrow, and that his mightiest triumphs over nature would have been impossible. While it may be true, as Tennyson says, that
“Thought leapt out to wed with thought, Ere thought could wed itself to speech,”
yet there is an intimate relation between _ratio_ and _oratio_, and it may well be doubted whether, without _some_ signs, verbal or of another sort, thought, except of the simplest kind, would not have been beyond man’s power. Long use has so familiarized us with language, we employ it so readily, and without conscious effort, that we are apt to regard it as a matter of course, and become blind to its mystery and deep significance. We rarely think of the long and changeful history through which each word we utter has passed,--of the many changes in form and changes in signification it has undergone,--and of the time and toil spent in its invention and elaboration by successive generations of thinkers and speakers. Still less do we think how different man’s history would have been, how comparatively useless would have been all his other endowments, had God not given him the faculties “which, out of the shrieks of birds in the forest, the roar of beasts, the murmur of rushing waters, the sighing of the wind, and his own impulsive ejaculations, have constructed the great instrument that Demosthenes, and Shakespeare, and Massillon wielded, the instrument by which the laws of the universe are unfolded, and the subtle workings of the human heart brought to light.” Language is not only a means of communication between man and man, but it has other functions hardly less important. It is only by its aid that we are able to analyze our complex impressions, to preserve the results of the analysis, and to abbreviate the processes of thought.
Were we content with the bare reception of visual impressions, we could to some extent dispense with words; but as the mind does not receive its impressions passively, but reflects upon them, decomposes them into their parts, and compares them with notions already stored up, it becomes necessary to give to each of these elements a name. By virtue of these names we are able to keep them apart in the mind, and to recall them with precision and facility, just as the chemist by the labels on his jars, or the gardener by those on his flower-pots, is enabled to identify the substances these vessels contain. Thus reflections which when past might have been dissipated forever, are by their connection with language brought always within reach. Who can estimate the amount of investigation and thought which are represented by such words as _gravitation_, _chemical affinity_, _atomic weight_, _capital_, _inverse proportion_, _polarity_, and _inertia_,--words which are each the quintessence and final result of an infinite number of anterior mental processes, and which may be compared to the paper money, or bills of exchange, by which the world’s wealth may be inclosed in envelopes and sent swiftly to the farthest centres of commerce? Who can estimate the inconvenience that would result, and the degree in which mental activity would be arrested, were we compelled to do without these comprehensive words which epitomize theories, sum up the labors of the past, and facilitate and abridge future mental processes? The effect would be to restrict all scientific discovery as effectually as commerce and exchange would be restricted, if all transactions had to be carried on with iron or copper as the sole medium of mercantile intercourse.