Essays on Life 



comparatively few in number, and that they 

 have been mainly coined as the result of con- 

 nections so far-fetched and fanciful as to 

 amount practically to no connection at all. 

 Once chosen, however, they were adhered to 

 for a considerable time among the dwellers in 

 any given place, so as to become acknowledged 

 as the vulgar tongue, and raise readily in the 

 mind of the inhabitants of that place the ideas 

 with which they had been artificially associated. 

 As regards our being able to think and 

 reason without words, the Duke of Argyll 

 has put the matter as soundly as I have yet 

 seen it stated. " It seems to me," he wrote, 

 " quite certain that we can and do constantly 

 think of things without thinking of any sound 

 or word as designating them. Language 

 seems to me to be necessary for the progress 

 of thought, but not at all for the mere act of 

 thinking. It is a product of thought, an ex- 

 pression of it, a vehicle for the communication 

 of it, and an embodiment which is essential to 

 its growth and continuity ; but it seems to 

 me altogether erroneous to regard it as an 



inseparable part of cogitation." 



230 



