Art and Science 



the other hand, it takes longer to learn the 

 rules so as to be able to apply them with ease 

 and security, and even then they cannot be 

 applied so quickly and easily as those attaching 

 to spoken symbols. Moreover, the spoken 

 symbol admits of a hundred quick and subtle 

 adjuncts by way of action, tone and expres- 

 sion, so that no one will use written symbols 

 unless either for the special advantages of per- 

 manence and travelling power, or because he 

 is incapacitated from using spoken ones. This, 

 however, is hardly to the point ; the point is 

 that these two conventional combinations of 

 symbols, that are as unlike one another as the 

 Hallelujah Chorus is to St. Paul's Cathedral, 

 are the one as much language as the other ; 

 and we therefore inquire what this very patent 

 fact reveals to us about the more essential 

 characteristics of language itself. What is 

 the common bond that unites these two 

 classes of symbols that seem at first sight to 

 have nothing in common, and makes the one 

 raise the idea of language in our minds as 

 readily as the other ? The bond lies in the 



fact that both are a set of conventional tokens 



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