LANGUAGE AND LOGIC 491 



LANGUAGE AND LOGIC 



Bt Db. CHARLES W. SUPER 



ATHENS, O. 



WHETHER language is coordinate with thought and merely a 

 phase of it ; whether it may be used with a very slight admix- 

 ture of thought; or whether thought is possible without language, are 

 problems that have engaged the attention of thinkers from the dawn of 

 philosophy. That articulate speech is possible without thought, at 

 least to a limited extent, is evident from the lingual activities of chil- 

 dren. They talk almost incessantly during their waking hours either 

 to themselves or to others. That thought precedes speech seems to have 

 been the general belief until comparatively recent times. That this was 

 the view of the writer of Genesis, who probably followed an older, per- 

 haps a much older tradition, is evident from the words " and whatever 

 the man (or Adam) called every living thing, that was the name 

 thereof." The author of this statement clearly believed that the first 

 man was fully endowed with the rational faculty and that speech was 

 merely the utterance of a regulated mental activity. The close con- 

 nection that was supposed to exist between words and thoughts and 

 their potency in the realm of matter is also shown in the account of 

 creation when the different objects were called into existence by the 

 words of the Lord. Probably few persons of the many millions who 

 have read the first chapter of Genesis have taken note of the naivete of 

 the record. No living being existed except God ; yet he is conceived as 

 uttering his purpose every time he performs a new act of creation. He 

 can therefore have talked only to himself. So we have the oft re- 

 peated, " And God said." To what extent our common modes of 

 speech are dominated by the spoken word is evident from such expres- 

 sions as: "What does the book say?" "What does the law say?" 

 *' The newspaper says nothing about it." " He can't tell the difference 

 between black and white," " The heavens are telling." " My con- 

 science tells me." " Money talks " and many more. In one of the 

 South African languages " to think " is expressed by " to talk in one's 

 belly." In this primitive way of looking at the problem the utterance 

 of a thought is taken to be of more importance than its genesis. The 

 Logos doctrine that was so fully elaborated by the later Greek and the 

 earlier Christian philosophers is clearly related to the same underlying 

 conception. " In the beginning was the Logos " are the first words of 

 John's Gospel, by which he means the divine reason. This idea is 

 dwelt upon by Goethe in his Faust. When the hero begins to read he 

 says : " In the beginning was the Word, 



