304 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Oct. 9, 1885. 



the precise working of our drugs, our dieting, our nursing. 

 Tliere is always room for the unseen and unknown and 

 unsearchable. There is no check on the freedom of 

 earnest prayer, however scientific may be the process 

 which the healing art shall prescribe. 



The religious student, over and above his sense of the 

 dignity of his subject, will have further the sense that in 

 a very marked degree he approaches to the spii'itual 

 world, and to Him who made and rules it. He will 

 realise that he is dealing with what is not physical only, 

 and this will give to all his researches a thoughtful, 

 reverent, self controlled character which will show itself 



The very purpose of the profession is to alleviate 

 liuman suffering. Sj-mpathy with suffering is the 

 characteristic and the essence of the profession. The 

 physician and the surgeon ought to be — how very often 

 they are — the tenderest, the most merciful, the most 

 sympathising of men. 



It is, no doubt, often necessary in the practice of medi- 

 cine to inflict pain in order to save life, or in order to 

 jirevent still greater pain which is seen to be approaching. 

 It may, perhaps, be necessary, in the investigation of 

 medical science, to inflict severe pain on the lower animals 

 while searching into the nature of their bodily powers in 

 order to compare them with our own. But in every case 

 the true physician or surgeon, remembering the supreme 

 purpose for which he lives, will insist on retaining his 

 own tenderness of feeling, will inflict no severe pain that 

 he can by any possibility avoid, will make what pain he 

 inflicts as brief (if it may be so, as instantaneous) as he 

 can possibly make it, will never repeat pain for the mere 

 purpose of the greater certainty of his conclusions, will 

 refuse altogether to inflict pain even for the highest 

 scientific ends if the degree of it be so excessive as to 

 make him feel that nothing would ever induce him to 

 submit to it himseK or make him think it just that a 

 stronger being than he should inflict it on him. Nothing 

 can justify him in ceasing to be a man in order to become 

 a more effective scientific instrument of research, nor can 

 the religious investigator surrender that sympathy with 

 all suffering which is his highest title to the respect of 

 himself and fellows. 



THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE. 



By Ada S. Ballin. 

 xvirr. 



IN a former article, treating of the origin of the 

 various signs current among different nations, 

 as expressions of negation and afiirmation,* I showed 

 how natural signs had, by abbreviation, become con- 

 ventional. I have again alluded to it for the purpose 

 of pointing out that the same process which influences 

 the gesture language, is one of the chief causes of change 

 in verbal language at large. All words are more or less 

 traceable to a sensuous origin. Even words apparently so 

 purely symbolic as the isronouns are found to be mutilated 

 forms of concejjtual words. Thus the relative pronoun 

 in Chinese was once a substantive meaning place; and 

 the Hebrew ashei; which signifies as, that, or which, is 

 related to athar in Aramaic, which means a place; in 

 Assyrian, asru. The Assyrian mala, as many as, is really 

 a substantive meaning fulness, connected with the Hebrew 

 maleh, full. The Ethiopia lali and cli/a, which, com- 

 bined with sufl&xes, express the nominative and accusative 

 of the personal pronoun, formerly signified 



ctitrails. The Malay itlun, I, in Lampong still means 

 a man ; and in Kawi I and a man are represented by the 

 same word ngwang. In Japanese the same word may 

 serve for all three persons, and was originally a sub- 

 stantive meaning servant, worshipper, or something 

 similar. In Chinese for I it is only polite to say ts'il ; 

 the thief, and mine and thine are respectively tsidn, lad, 

 and ling, nohle. In Greek, 6lt 6 ai>'ip, this inan here, is 

 an equivalent for I. 



Words from constant use get worn down, like coins, 

 and their original meanings become effaced ; they 

 dwindle into mere enclitics — " empty words," as the 

 Chinese call them, and are attached as prefixes or 

 suffixes to other words, the meaning of which they serve 

 to modify. Thus the Hebrew Let, house, abbreviated, 

 becomes the prefix b, meaning in. It is thus that what 

 the ancients called secondary words were derived from 

 the primary. 



Although the processes of phonetic decay were not 

 dreamed of until quite modem times, the principle was 

 clearly understood many centuries ago. This is evident 

 from the "Dialogue Cratylus,' in which Plato shows a true 

 grasp of the nature of language and mastery of the sub- 

 ject as far as the knowledge of one language — Greek- 

 could enable the philosopher to infer anything about 

 language ia general. In this marvellous work three 

 distinct theories of language, which were probably 

 current in the various schools of the time, are set forth. 

 These may be called— 1, the Divine; 2, the conven- 

 tional ; and 3, the natural. Thus Cratylus is represented 

 as believing that a superhuman power gave things their 

 first names, which are, therefore, necessarily their true 

 names. On the other hand, Hermogenes maintains that 

 names are given purely by convention and the habits of 

 the users, and in support of this argument instances the 

 fact that in different cities and countries different names 

 are used for the same things. While Socrates holds that 

 language is natural and also conventional, a position in 

 which he is strengthened by all the facts of modern 

 linguistic science. 



Just as natural signs by abbreviation and other 

 changes, brought about by carelessness in their per- 

 formance, may become conventional ; so by phonetic 

 change may the origin of words be obscured, and what 

 may be called natural words become conventiunal. 



In his interesting commentary on this " Dialogue," 

 Jowett remarks : — " In a sense, Cratylus is right in saying 

 that things have by nature names, for nature is not opposed 

 either to art or law. But vocal imitation, like any other 

 copy, may be imperfectly executed, and in this way an 

 element of chance or convention enters in. There is 

 much which is accidental or exceptional in language. 

 Some words have their original meaning so obscured that 

 they require to be heljjed out bj- convention. But, still, 

 the true name is that which has a natural meaning. 

 Thus nature, art, chance, all combine in the formation of 

 language ; and the three views respectively propounded 

 by Hermogenes, Socrates, and Cratylus, may be described 

 as the conventional, the artificial or rational, and the 

 natural. And this view of Socrates is the meeting-point 

 of the other two, just as conceistualLsm is the meeting- 

 point of nominalism and realism."* 



The great stumbling-block in the way of the progress 

 of the science of language, as it has been in so many other 

 sciences, is the endeavour to simplify in theory to an 

 extent not warranted by the facts at hand. Thus various 

 schools of philologists have maintained different theories 



♦ " Dialogues of Plato," Vol. I., p. 622-3. 



