CHAP. XXII.l TO HUMAN INTELLIGENCE. 417 



manifestations are rigorously determined by social Statics, i.e. the 

 state of the Social Organism at the time being, which they in their 

 turn determine. The Language we think in and the conceptions 

 we employ, the attitude of our minds, and the means of investiga- 

 tion, are social products determined by the activities of the 

 Collective Life. The laws of intellectual progress are to be read 

 in History, not in the individual experience. We breathe the 

 social air: since what we think greatly depends on what others 

 have thought." 



The power of Language in aiding cerebral development 

 and thinking processes, although it must have been great 

 from the first, and ever tending to increase, did not reveal 

 itself so forcibly till means had been adopted for the 

 preservation and communication of human experience 

 and thought from generation to generation, by means 

 either of Hieroglyphics or more modern forms of Writing. 

 When these came into common use, and when, more espe- 

 cially, Printing had been adopted and books began to 

 circulate, then at last Language began to exercise its full 

 influence as an aid to and developer of Thought. For 

 although oral tradition is vastly better than no means at 

 all, for communicating ' experience ' and Thoughts from 

 one generation to another, it is poor indeed compared 

 with the facilities afforded by printing and the common 

 distribution of Books. With these latter means in exist- 

 ence, the Thoughts of man may go on accumulating from 

 age to age, forming a record of his complex relations to 

 nature generally, to his fellows, and to that Social Organ- 

 ism, in particular, of which he and they form parts. 



Language is, however, indispensable not merely to the 

 communication, but to the formation of Thought, since it 

 favours the birth of Concepts or General Notions, and is 

 essential both for their ' preservation * and familiar ' use.* 



In his "Prolegomena Logica " (pp. 19, 20, 29-31), 

 Mansel says : 



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