THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 1 75 



variations in the tones of the cries of animals and man, or by ob- 

 serving the changes in their features and forms of gesture, not only 

 to know what may be the dominant feeling at the time, but also 

 to form an estimate of the character and disposition of the individual. 

 Taken in its most extended meaning, language might include any 

 such signs by which one intelligence is enabled to interpret the 

 mental modes of another ; and this form of thought or rather feel- 

 ing expression is in fact often spoken of as absolute natural lan- 

 guage. 



In these cases, however, it will be observed that this visible 

 element or sign, by means of which is formed an estimate of the 

 present mental state, is not in any exact sense a representative sym- 

 bol of the invisible spiritual mood. It is in fact an essential result 

 -of the latter which experience has taught us to associate with it as an 

 ever present accompaniment. But beyond this there is another 

 •aspect in the communication of ideas, wherein the sign or symbolic 

 element cannot be said to have any necessary connection with the 

 communicated idea, but is simply an arbitrary or conventional sign 

 for the same. 



As an illustration of this distinction, we may suppose that 

 (leaving out of consideration national peculiarities) there would be 

 .an equal softening of the eye accompanying the ' zoe mou sas agapo ' 

 of the Greek, or the * Ich liebe dich ' of the German, to that no- 

 ticed in the like confession of our Saxon youth. In each of these, 

 however, we find a wide difference in the conventional elements. 



An explanation of these two forms of language may be found 

 in a consideration of the nature of knowledge. 



Feeling and thought are the primary or ultimate elements of 

 Tcnowledge. Feeling being a ' mental affection ' resulting from 

 •changes in the physical organism, and, in so far as it is pleasant or 

 painful, ' impelling to organic action,' it becomes evident that these 

 organic movements will furnish an index to the accompanying men- 

 tal state. 



Thought, on the other hand, being the ' apprehension of rela- 

 tions ' and objective in its nature, will lack these outward physical 

 expressions. It will thus require other means of communication, 

 which, for the same reason, must be of a conventional form. The 

 one then may be said to be the language of feeling, the other the 

 language of thought. 



