313 
independent of, although stimulated by, the external world, are 
capable alike of advance and of degradation, indicate a future 
unity, possessed a pristine simplicity, are based upon the unseen 
and immaterial, postulate thought human and superhuman, are 
always associated with a spirit of propagandism more or less 
pronounced, necessitate each other, and approximate each other 
in proportion to the perfection of the individual existence. 
Lastly, language is a great fact, a mighty truth ; and is it 
reasonable to say that religion is less ? He who is the beginning 
and end of religion, has significantly declared that he is at once 
Alpha and Omega. 
2. Language, what. 
What is signified by the term 44 language ” in its wide and 
true meaning ? It is chiefly, no doubt, a way of expressing the 
unseen and immaterial by an articulation of air;* * * § but the 
Archbishop of York has defined it with accurate generality as 
44 a mode of expressing our thoughts by means of motions of the 
organs of the body.”f This mode of thought-expression is 
addressed either to the sensation of feeling, to the eye, or to the 
ear of another. Mr, George Harris observes, 44 Taste and smell 
have not, as far as I am aware, ever been availed of for the 
purposes of mutual intercourse,”^: among men. This, however, 
is far from certain, as e.g., we find that 46 the Hill Tribes of 
Chittagong do not say 4 Kiss me,’ but 4 Smell me.’ ”§ Language, 
as thus defined, addresses the sensation of feeling by touch, the 
eye by gesture and pictorial representation (which latter includes 
writing, the daughter of drawing), and the ear by sound, in- 
voluntary (simple ejaculations), articulate or musical. Hence, 
in considering any of the problems connected with language, we 
must start from as broad a basis as possible ; and make, at least 
to some extent, a comparative study of the facts and principles 
of touch, gesture, delineation (drawing and writing), natural 
involuntary sound, articulate speech, and artificial harmony. 
Articulate speech divides into dialects and groups or families of 
languages ; but articulate speech itself is only a division of the 
original subject. Thus we observe the vastness of the study of 
language, and the immense difficulty of the various questions 
and intricate problems connected with it ; nor can we forbear 
* Canon Farrar, Chaps, on Lang., 92. 
f Outline of the Laws of Thought, 27. 
I The Nature and Constitution of Man, 1876, ii. 239. 
§ Lewin, Hill Tribes of Chittagong, apud Sir John Lubbock, Pre-historic 
Times, 3rd edit., p. 563. 
