FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS 9 



It is not that any open hostility exists to their adoption. They are not 

 introduced into the speech because they are not needed. The circle 

 of knowledge and of thought being small, the existing stock of terms 

 is amply sufficient to meet all the demands which are made upon it. 

 Consequently the vocabulary suffers little enlargement, and indeed 

 may remain practically stationary for an indefinite period, though it 

 is of course liable to be added to whenever the desire for a new word 

 to express something previously unknown cannot be satisfied by any 

 new meaning which can be attached to an old word or to a combin- 

 ation of old words. 



But in the case of the grammatical structure the reverse of this is 

 apt to be true. It is not so necessarily, indeed, but there is no counter- 

 acting agency powerful enough of itself to prevent its being so. The 

 one great object of speech which every man, educated or illiterate, 

 sets always before his eyes is to make himself understood. Now if the 

 speaker in an uncultivated tongue succeeds in effecting this, he has 

 secured all that he cares for. In so doing he may discard old forms, 

 old inflections; or he may unconsciously develop new ones; or he 

 may confuse with one another those which already exist. He may 

 vary his expression essentially from the construction which he himself 

 has been wont to use as well as those he is addressing. But about 

 none of these things does he trouble himself, if he can succeed in 

 making himself comprehended. There is no one to find fault with 

 him; or if such a person could be supposed to exist, the violator of 

 usage does not feel himself under the least obligation to heed the 

 censure he receives. All this implies that in uncultivated speech there 

 is nowhere a standard of authority of any sort which any one feels 

 bound to respect. Consequently changes in grammar are effected 

 easily, if they are effected at all. If outside agencies ever operate 

 upon the users of such a speech, if these are subjected to conquest, 

 if they are brought in frequent contact with the speakers of another 

 tongue, and are under the necessity of communicating with them con- 

 stantly, modifications of the grammatical structure are likely to take 

 place on a grand scale, though the vocabulary may be affected but 

 slightly. There is no better illustration of this principle than that 

 which has actually happened in the history of our own speech. For 

 more than two hundred years after the Norman Conquest the English 

 added scarcely anything to their stock of words from the language of 

 the men of the race to whom they had become subject, though with 

 them they came into constant contact. On the other hand, during this 

 same period the grammatical structure underwent violent and 

 extensive alteration. 



Such are the principles which control the development of unlet- 

 tered speech. In exceptional circumstances these may undergo 

 modification, and perhaps in some instances reversal; but their 



