Art and Science 



as the lowest forms of life nevertheless present 

 us with all the essential characteristics of living- 

 ness, and are as much alive in their own humble 

 way as the most highly developed organisms, 

 so the rudest intentional and effectual com- 

 munication between two minds through the 

 instrumentality of a concerted symbol is as 

 much language as the most finished oratory 

 of Mr. Gladstone. I demur therefore to the 

 assertion that the lower animals have no lan- 

 guage, inasmuch as they cannot themselves 

 articulate a grammatical sentence. I do not 

 indeed pretend that when the cat calls upon 

 the tiles it uses what it consciously and intro- 

 spectively recognises as language ; it says what 

 it has to say without introspection, and in 

 the ordinary course of business, as one of the 

 common forms of courtship. It no more 

 knows that it has been using language than 

 M. Jourdain knew he had been speaking prose, 

 but M. Jourdain's knowing or not knowing 

 was neither here nor there. 



Anything which can be made to hitch on 

 invariably to a definite idea that can carry 

 some distance say an inch at the least, and 



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