96 The Influence of Language and Environment upon the 



ment of the powers of the mind, and powerfully influences the 

 development of character. Both of these, indeed, would be 

 impossible were it not for the influence and media of social tra- 

 dition, language, and associations. A few moments' reflection 

 upon the effect of diet and exercise, social intercourse, and the 

 various requirements of ordinary life, together with the develop- 

 ment of the arts and sciences, will establish the truth of this. 

 An interesting point to be considered here, and ever home in 

 mind, is that instinct, as it is generally understood, in man has 

 neither the force nor the duration of that possessed by animals. 

 From the early period of infancy man's instinct is gradually 

 efi"aced, rubbed out, as it were, by the quickly-developing powers 

 of the mind, and it can be readily understood how low in the 

 scale of being the human animal would sink, were the beneficial 

 effects of mental and moral training denied to him. While the 

 influences of language and environment cannot well be severed, 

 for they reign simultaneously, and the power of one is mani- 

 fested and exerted by means of the other, it is important to 

 consider the part that language plays in the education of man- 

 kind. It must be considered, too, not merely as the instrumeat 

 necessary to the reception and transmission of ideas, but also 

 as a means by which the operations of the brain are facilitated 

 and energized. In order to establish this it will be necessary to 

 ask you to consider some general data. These we will endeavour 

 to set before you as concisely as possible, without entering into 

 the field of ideology. The phenomena of impressionability 

 and innervation are the result of the operations of the nervous 

 organism ; they correspond to three orders of excitations, and 

 are fed from three distinct sources. These are the visceral 

 excitants, which take their origin in internal organs, and may 

 be named affective or ganglio-cerebral ; the excitants which 

 depend upon the physical world through the organs of sense, 

 which may be named sensorial or physico-cerebral ; and the 

 excitants which are under the influence of the moral and in- 

 tellectual world through the intervention of the spirit, and 

 may be called spiritual or psycho-cerebral. These are equal 



