Part 6

It is silly in man to assume that all he sees is but the effect of law. It is more sensible to assume that there is an intelligence behind law and matter. The intelligence shown in plants cannot be denied. Take, for instance, the aquatic plants. They will travel long distances over walls and other impediments before they will stop their growth.

That animals have a moral sense is evidenced in the fact of the prominence in their natures of the attributes of reason, memory, invention, motive, ingenuity, will and gratitude. Granting these premises, and grant them you must from the proofs which I have submitted to you, and which have come under my own observation, you must admit that animals reason and think and give the same evidence of free intelligence observable in human nature.

That dogs, Cats, horses, elephants, birds and even pigs can be taught to do most wonderful things, millions of people can attest from personal observation, and you have the proof in your own minds, to show free intellectual ability on the part of wild and tame animals.

In my love for the Cat and my preference for that beautiful animal above all others, I do not stand alone. Nearly all men of note among the learned, as well as others, both in ancient and modern times, have signified their preference for the Cat in the strongest terms. Mahomet almost worshipped the Cat, and declared that his own should have a prominent place in his heaven. Richelieu possessed a house full of Cats, with twenty favorites, whom he cherished with great care and fed with his own hands. Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Moore, Talleyrand, Edgar Allen Poe, Chateaubriand, Robert Southey, Dr. Johnson, Benjamin Franklin, Julius Caesar, Thomas Gray, Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Walter Raleigh, Cardinal Wolsey, Rousseau, Lord Chesterfield, Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, Plutarch, and thousands of others, have expressed their admiration of my favorite. Ancient history tells us of more than one nation that sainted the Cat, while others still hold the animal in high veneration. Certainly it must be admitted that the Cat possesses some wonderful attributes the evidence of which prompts its distinction. I claim for the Cat a higher order of intellect than exists in any other animal. While I love the dog, and claim for him a greater degree of intelligence than may be accorded to the horse, I class the Cat and the dog to be as distinct in their individuality and with as much difference as you see existing between man and woman. The organism of the Cat is of a very delicate nature, and, therefore, more susceptible to all influences. They are quicker of perception than any other animal, and, therefore, they more readily acquire knowledge.

By an extended series of experiments I have demonstrated this fact, and would give the results of my labor were I not positive that my readers have made a comparison of the dog and the Cat, and arrived at the same conclusion without anything more than a casual observation. In experimenting, however, my attention was directed with more particularity to the manner of communication of ideas between Cats, and what was my surprise to discover that they have a language of their own, embracing not only words but, in a large degree, signs. You may the better understand me when I call attention to the fact that there are few words, comparatively, in the French language, but there is, among Frenchmen, a sign language; as, for instance, there is no word to express the meaning of our shrug of the shoulders and the extending of the hand and forearms. Words cannot express the feelings of the heart when men and women of every nativity bow their heads before their God. Because of this predominance of signs in the language of the Cat, it will be difficult for me to describe their mode of idea-communication; but I will make the attempt, and endeavor to bring it as clearly as possible to your minds, in order that you may comprehend it as distinctly as it presents itself to mine.

XI.

SIGNS AND SOUNDS.

Language signifies the expression of ideas by sounds and by certain articulate sounds which are used as the signs or the ideas, sounds being regarded as mere aids and of secondary importance to signs, which are, primarily, of the greatest importance in language.

By articulate sounds I mean those modulations of the simple voice or of sounds emitted from the thorax, formed by means of the mouth and its several organs, namely, the teeth, the tongue and the palate. When we give a name to anything harsh or boisterous we, of course, use a harsh or boisterous sound, the better to describe our meaning. By the use of such words as express such sounds we convey the ideas intended to be expressed. It is purely natural to imitate, by the sound of the voice, the quality of the sound or noise which any external object makes, and to form its name accordingly. In every language will be found a multitude of words constructed upon this principle. We call a certain bird a cuckoo because of the peculiar sound which he emits. Regard the fact that in English one kind of bird is said to "whistle," another to "chirp," a serpent to "hiss," a fly to "buzz," a bee to "hum," falling timber to "crash," a stream to "flow," hail to "rattle," rain to "patter," a bell to "tinkle" or "jingle," or "toll," or to "clash" with another, a board to "creak," thunder to "roll," lightning to "flash" and a cataract to "roar." In these instances the analogy between the word and the thing expressed is most plainly discernible to the ear. Notice, also, if you please, that in the names of objects which address the sight only, when neither noise nor motion are concerned, and still more in the term applied to moral ideas, this analogy appears to fail. This shows a superiority of signs over sounds, and is one reason for according to signs, over sounds, a primary importance. I have noticed, however, that many learned men have been of the opinion that though in such cases the meaning becomes more obscure, yet it is not altogether lost, but that throughout the radical words of all languages there may be traced some degree of correspondence with the object signified.

Perhaps no language is so peculiar a mixture as your own, by which I mean the English, which is neither pure nor indigenous. The rule applies to other languages to a far less degree, but still it applies. As the multitude of names increases in every nation and the immense field of language is filled up--if it ever gets filled up--words by the thousands, fanciful and irregular methods of derivation and composition, come to deviate widely from the primitive character of their roots and lose all analogy or resemblance to sound in the thing signified. It is in such a heterogeneous state that we find words of sound-signs in language.

Nature taught the members of the animal kingdom to communicate their feelings, one to another, by those expressive cries and gestures which are so descriptive. Afterward, names of objects were invented by slow degrees, in aid of signs. This mode of speaking by natural signs could not be all at once applied, for language, in its infancy, must have been extremely crude, and there certainly was a period in the history of all rude nations when conversation was carried on by the use of a very few words, intermixed with a multitude of exclamations and earnest gestures significant of the meaning intended to be conveyed.

In the early days, the small stock of words which were in use, rendered signs absolutely necessary for explaining the conceptions and rude, uncultivated beings, not having signs at hand, with the few words which they knew it was naturally labor to make themselves understood by varying their tones of voice and accompanying their voices with the most significant gesticulations they could make.

The primitive search was for signs and sounds which bore an analogy to the thing signified. The pronunciation of the earliest sounds of the languages was accompanied with more gesticulations and with more and greater inflections of the voice than we now use. Certainly there was more action in it, and it was conducted upon more of a crying or a singing tone. Necessity first gave rise to this primitive yet admirable way of speaking, and it may be said of it that it was action explanatory of meaning.

Inflections of voice are so natural that to some nations it has appeared easier to express different ideas by varying the tones in which they pronounce the same word than to contrive words for all of their ideas. I instance the Chinese in particular. The number of words in their language is not great, but in speaking they vary each of their words by not less than five different tones, by which they make the same word signify five different things. This gives the appearance of singing, or music, to their speech, so noticeable in their conversation, for these inflections of voice, which, in the infancy of language, were no more than harsh or disconsonant cries, must, as language gradually becomes more polished, pass into smoother and more musical sounds. Hence is formed what is styled the prosody of language.

It is remarkable and deserves attention that both in the Greek and the Roman languages this musical and gesticulating pronunciation was retained in a very high degree. The Greeks, it is well known, were a more musical people than the Romans, and carried their attention to the tone and pronunciation much farther in every public exhibition. Aristotle, in his poetics, considers the music of tragedy one of its chief and essential parts. The case was more than parallel in regard to gestures, for strong tones and animated gestures always go together. At last gesture came to engross the stage wholly, for under the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius the favorite entertainment of the public was pantomime, carried on entirely by gesticulations.

XII.

DESCRIPTIVE LANGUAGES.

A Frenchman both varies his accents and gesticulates while he speaks much more than an Englishman, and an Italian a great deal more than either. Musical pronunciations and expressive gesture are, to this day, the distinction of Italy, and this combination of sign and its aid, sound, the latter being notes for its music, make the sweetest and most liquid language in existence. The want of a proper name for every object, obliged them to use one name for many objects, and, of course, to express themselves by comparisons, metaphors, allusions and all those substantive forms of speech which render language figurative.

Poetry is more ancient than prose, and here we have a remarkable order of speech, such as "fruit give me." I, therefore, conclude, as the first fundamental principle in the organization and procession of word-signs, that this would be the order in which words should be most commonly arranged at the beginning of language, and accordingly, we find, in fact, that in this order words are arranged in most of the ancient tongues--the Russian, Slavonic, Gaelic, and many others. In the Latin the arrangement which most commonly obtains is to place first in the sentence that word which expresses the principal object, together with its circumstance, and afterward the person or thing which acts upon it.

I desire to impress most particularly upon the reader the value of signs and sounds in the language, for he would be a fool, indeed, who would not mark the significance of a tone or a gesture.

The word-signs in the English language number thirty-eight thousands. This includes, of course, not only the radical words, but all the derivatives, except the preterites and participles of verbs, to which must be added some few terms which, though set down in your dictionary, are either obsolete or have never ceased to be considered foreign. They have been introduced into your Noah Webster, "unabridged," together with many thousands of conjunctive and scientific words, for the sole purpose of making a big book and claiming that there are one hundred thousand word-signs in the English language. Of the thirty-eight thousands about twenty-three thousands are of Anglo-Saxon origin. The majority of the remainder, in what exact proportion I cannot say, are Latin and Greek, but the largest share is Latin. The names of the greater part of the objects of sense, in other words, the terms which occur most frequently in discourse, or which recall the most vivid conceptions, in the English vocabulary, are Anglo-Saxon. The names of the most striking objects in visible nature, of the chief agencies at work and of the changes which pass over it, are Anglo-Saxon.

This language has given names to the heavenly bodies, namely, the sun, the moon and the stars, to three out of every four elements, namely, earth, fire and water; to three out of every four seasons, namely, spring, summer and winter, and, indeed, to all the natural divisions of time, except one, as day, night, morning, evening, twilight, noon, midday, midnight, sunrise, sunset, some of which are among the most poetical terms in the language.

To the same language we are indebted for the names of light, heat, cold, frost, rain, snow, hail, sleet, thunder, lightning, as well as almost all those objects which form the component parts of the beautiful and external scenery as seen in land, hill and dale, wood and stream. It is from this language you derive the word most expressive of the earliest and dearest connections and the strongest and most powerful feelings of nature, and which are, consequently, invested with your oldest and most complicated associations. In this language we find the names of father, mother, husband, wife, brother, sister, son, daughter, child, home, kindred, friends. It has furnished the greater part of those metonymies and other figurative expressions by which is represented to the imagination, and that in a single word the reciprocal duties and enjoyments of hospitality, friendship or love. Such are hearth, roof and fireside. The chief emotions of which we are susceptible, as love, hope, fear, sorrow, shame, and what is of more consequence to the orator and the poet, as well as in common life, the outward signs by which emotion is indicated, are almost all Anglo-Saxon. Such are tear, smile, blush, to laugh, to weep, to sigh, to groan.

Most of those objects about which the practical reason of man is employed in common life receive their names from the Anglo-Saxon.

XIII.

LANGUAGE OF DIVINE ORIGIN.

One of our greatest poets says,

"'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense, The sound must seem an echo of the sense."