But when the Professor says that
there can be no reason, or thought, without language, his opponents
contend, as it seems to me, with greater force, that thought, though
infinitely aided, extended and rendered definite through the
invention of words, nevertheless existed so fully as to deserve no
other name thousands, if not millions of years before words had
entered into it at all. Words, they say, are a comparatively recent
invention, for the fuller expression of something that was already
in existence.
Children, they urge, are often evidently thinking and reasoning,
though they can neither think nor speak in words. If you ask me to
define reason, I answer as before that this can no more be done than
thought, truth or motion can be defined. Who has answered the
question, "What is truth?" Man cannot see God and live. We cannot
go so far back upon ourselves as to undermine our own foundations;
if we try to do we topple over, and lose that very reason about
which we vainly try to reason. If we let the foundations be, we
know well enough that they are there, and we can build upon them in
all security. We cannot, then, define reason nor crib, cabin and
confine it within a thus-far-shalt-thou-go-and-no-further. Who can
define heat or cold, or night or day? Yet, so long as we hold fast
by current consent, our chances of error for want of better
definition are so small that no sensible person will consider them.
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