They cannot say "bread," "meat," or "water,"
but there are many that readily learn what ideas they ought to
attach to these symbols when they are presented to them. It is idle
to say that a cat does not know what the cat's-meat man means when
he says "meat." The cat knows just as well, neither better nor
worse than the cat's-meat man does, and a great deal better than I
myself understand much that is said by some very clever people at
Oxford or Cambridge. There is more true employment of language,
more bona fide currency of speech, between a sayer and a sayee who
understand each other, though neither of them can speak a word, than
between a sayer who can speak with the tongues of men and of angels
without being clear about his own meaning, and a sayee who can
himself utter the same words, but who is only in imperfect agreement
with the sayer as to the ideas which the words or symbols that he
utters are intended to convey. The nature of the symbols counts for
nothing; the gist of the matter is in the perfect harmony between
sayer and sayee as to the significance that is to be associated with
them.
Professor Max Muller admits that we share with the lower animals
what he calls an emotional language, and continues that we may call
their interjections and imitations language if we like, as we speak
of the language of the eyes or the eloquence of mute nature, but he
warns us against mistaking metaphor for fact.
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