LANGUAGE AND LOGIC 495 



much like the products of the mind in dreaming where it is not under 

 the control of the intellect and the will. I find no difficulty in the com- 

 prehension of mathematical formulae, or in grasping the idea of time 

 and space, or of the persistence of force, or of the indestructibility of 

 matter, apart from the terms in which they are stated; but these are 

 propositions quite beyond the mental reach of the child. The theory 

 that we use words as supports just as a lame man uses crutches until 

 he is healed, breaks down before the fact that children do not need 

 verbal crutches and are able to walk, figuratively speaking, without 

 them. It is probable that every normal child born in a civilized com- 

 munity is endowed by nature with certain hereditary capacities which 

 are then spontaneously developed up to a certain point under the influ- 

 ence of its environment. If the development is to be carried farther, 

 the child's environment must become aggressive and begin a course of 

 training. In fact, what we call culture or civilization is the result of 

 an effort exerted continuously by a small part of the community under 

 pressure of the state upon the whole. There is no doubt that men 

 existed in South Africa as early as in northeast Africa; yet in the 

 former region they never got far enough from the primitive stage to con- 

 struct a government in the modern sense of the term. When in the 

 course of time this small minority loses its efficiency, the disintegrating 

 forces gain the upper hand and the state falls to pieces. This was the 

 fate of all the pre-christian commonwealths and may be the ultimate 

 fate of all that exists at the present time. The educational agencies of 

 a culture-state are engaged in the endless task of rolling a stone up the 

 hill of progress with more or less success. But as soon as the propelling 

 force is relaxed it will probably begin to roll down. With each genera- 

 tion the work has to be done over again almost from the foundation ; in 

 other words, there is a constantly oncoming crop of young savages to 

 be tamed and trained. The reason why the Mesopotamian and the 

 Egyptian kingdoms, the Greek and Eoman governments, decayed was 

 that the intelligent minority was overslaughed and eventually de- 

 stroyed by the atavistic agencies that had at no time ceased their ac- 

 tivities. The state had foes within and foes without. It was able to 

 withstand both for centuries, but not for ages. They had simply been 

 kept in cbeck. Heroes, as Carlyle would call them, endowed with vary- 

 ing degrees of efficiency built up states and their successors maintained 

 them. The process was partly spontaneous, partly purposive. In 

 like manner language is a spontaneous growth up to a certain point. 

 It never passes beyond this point unless it becomes the object of mental 

 effort. But even effort is powerless beyond a certain stage. No amount 

 of education can make a great writer, or a great poet, or a great orator, 

 notwithstanding Quintillian's dictum that the orator is made. Neither 

 is any government sufficiently powerful to force a language upon a re- 



