272 ELEMENTS OF SCIENCE 



still, for, as before said,* we cannot even think without 

 some imagination of things noted by the senses, and 

 especially of words, as spoken, heard or read, or of 

 gestures as seen in reality, or in pictures, or as felt. 

 We almost always think in words, though we may 

 think by the aid of objects or actions pictured by 

 the imagination. 



We have to consider language, in the ordinary sense of 

 that term, as a medium for expressing ideas and inten- 

 tions, asking questions, stating facts, and carrying on 

 conversation. Since then by " language " we ordinarily 

 mean spoken articulate sounds, serving for intellectual 

 intercourse, we will begin by examining some very 

 simple expressions of the kind. Let us suppose two 

 men to be standing under an oak tree, and that this 

 tree begins suddenly to show signs of falling, they will 

 fly from the danger, and they may utter cries of alarm, 

 and by their cries and gestures they may give rise to 

 sympathetic feelings of alarm in persons who happen to 

 be near the spot. In so far as they do no more than 

 this, their language (whether vocal or of gesture) is but 

 of the same kind as the language of emotion in the 

 lower animals. 



They may, however, cry out " That oak is falling," 

 that is, they may give utterance to intellectual language ; 

 for those four words express and embody much more 

 than any mere feelings or emotions. They express and 

 signify abstract ideas. 



(1) The word oak is a conventional sign for the idea, 

 or conception, of that kind of tree, and is an abstract 

 term applicable to every actual or possible oak. 



(2) The word that is one which serves to separate off, 



* See ante, p. 257. 



