436 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



existing materials, or to give to current words a new meaning. He 

 usually chose the latter, thus laying himself liable to be misunderstood 

 at every turn. His followers were, therefore, in the position of the 

 shorter animals that try to feed on branches as far from the ground as 

 the giraffe does. The result is that although his works have been 

 studied and commented upon for more than twenty centuries, we are 

 still told by some of his enthusiastic devotees, that the master is not 

 fully understood. There is probably a good deal of truth in the asser- 

 tion, for the reason that our psychic experiences are not only conditioned 

 by our environment, but also by our mental structure. As the former 

 can not be reproduced and as minds of like caliber are a prodigy we 

 probably do not fully comprehend what the ancient thinker meant in 

 not a few passages. The truth of this statement may be made evident 

 by a simple illustration. We hear a certain individual say : " I am 

 happy." Upon inquiry we find that his state of mind is the result of 

 his having plenty of food and drink of a kind exactly suited to his 

 tastes and that he cares for nothing else. Another person uses the same 

 expression whose highest ambition is to possess the means to shine in 

 society, but who is relatively indifferent to food and drink. A third 

 person is a North American Indian, who has after long watching and 

 waiting got into his power a mortal enemy whom he can now torture 

 to his heart's content. With these let us now compare the ecstatic 

 feelings of a Copernicus when after long years of study and reflection 

 he had at last become fully convinced of the truth of the heliocentric 

 system. Although all four have employed exactly the same sentence 

 their meaning was wide, very wide apart. But even in less profound 

 matters we can not fully understand a language unless we are thor- 

 oughly familiar with the conditions where it has been developed. In 

 some of its aspects German is German the world over. But what dif- 

 ferent feelings come into our minds when we take up Schiller's " Tell " 

 in north Germany, or in a foreign land, or among the scenes where 

 the drama is laid ! The Platt-Deutsch of the northern plains seems 

 strangely out of place in the mountain region of the south. The con- 

 verse is equally true. And what a feeble imitation of the real thing 

 is the colloquial German of the United States or the French of Canada ! 

 The ancients were aware of this. Herodotus tells us that when the 

 messenger of Cambyses came to Psammeticus, the dethroned king of 

 Egypt, to ask him why he did not shed a tear nor utter a cry when he 

 saw his daughter brought to shame and his son on his way to death, 

 but gave those marks of honor to a beggar, replied : " son of Cyrus, 

 my own misfortunes were too great for tears," and by inference, too 

 great for words. Similarly Malcolm says " Give sorrow words : the 

 grief that doth not speak, Whispers to the o'erfraught heart and bids 

 it break." And again : " Grief that is expressed in words Is slight 

 indeed." Byron also speaks of the " suffocating sense of woe." When 



