The Silesian Horseherd. Questions of the Hour

Of all this, of course, when we learn to speak as children, we have no suspicion. We learn the language made by others who came before us, and proceed from words to ideas, not from ideas to words. Whether the relation between ideas and words was a succession, it is hard to say, because no idea exists without a word, any more than a word without an idea. Word and idea exist through each other, beside each other, with each other; they are inseparable. We could as easily try to speak without thinking, as to think without speaking. It is at first difficult to grasp this. We are so accustomed to think silently, before speaking aloud, that we actually believe that the same is true, even of the first formation of ideas and words. Our so-called thinking before speaking, however, refers simply to reflection, or deliberation. It is something quite different, and occurs only with the aid of silent words that are in us, even if they are not uttered. Every person, particularly in his youth, believes that he cherishes within himself inexpressible feelings, or even thoughts. These are chiefly obscure feelings, and the expression of feelings has always been the most difficult task to be performed by language, because they must first pass through a phase of conception. If, however, they are actually ideas, they are such as have an old expression that is felt to be inconvenient, or inadequate, and must be replaced by a new one. We cannot do enough to rid ourselves of the old error, that thought is possible without words. We can, of course, repeat words without meaning; but that is not speaking, only making a noise. If any one, however, tells us that he can think quite well without words, let this silent thinker be suddenly interrupted, ask him of what he has thought in silence, and he will have to admit that it was of a dog, a horse, or a man—in short, of something that has a name. He need not utter these words—that has never been maintained, but he must have the ideas and their signs, otherwise there are not, and there cannot be for him, either ideas or things. How often we see children move their lips while they are thinking, that is, speaking without articulation. We can, of course, in case of necessity, use other signs; we can hold a dog on high and show him, but if we ask what is shown, we shall find that the actual dog is only a substitute for the abstract word “dog,” not the reverse, for a dog that is neither a spaniel, poodle, dachshund, etc., is nowhere to be found, in rerum natura, or in domestic life. These things, that give us so much trouble, were often quite clear to the ancient Hindus, for their usual word for “thing” is padârtha; that is, meaning or purpose of the word. But men persist that they are able to think without speaking aloud, or in silence. They persist that thought comes first, and then speech; they persist that they can speak without thinking,—and that is often quite true,—and that they can also think without speaking, which must first be proved. Consider only what is necessary to form so simple a word as “white.” The idea of white must be formed at the same time, and this can only be done by dropping everything but the colour from the sense-perceptions of such things as snow, snowdrop, cloud, chalk, or sugar, then marking this colour, and, by means of a sign (in this case a vocal one), elevating it to a comprehensible idea, and at the same time to a word. How this vocal token originates it is often difficult, often quite impossible, to say. The simplest mode is, for example, if there be a word for snow, to take this and to generalise it, and then to call sugar, for instance, snow, or snowy, or snow-white. But the prior question, how snow was named, only recedes for a while, and must of course be answered for itself. Given a word for snow, it can easily be generalised. But how did we name snow? I believe that snow, which forms into balls in melting and coheres, was named nix nivis, from a root snigh or snu, denoting everything which melted and yet stuck together or cohered. But these are mere possibilities that may be true or false; yet their truth or falsity leave undisturbed the fundamental truth, that each individual perception, as, for example, this snow or this ice, first had to be brought under a general conception, before it could be clearly marked, or elevated to a word. In such a case men formed, by living and working together, a general conception and a root, for an oft-repeated action, such as forming into balls; and under this general concept they then conceived an individual impression like snow; that is, that which is formed into a ball, so that they had the sign, and with the sign the concept of snow, both inseparable in reality, distinguishable as they are in their origin. Having this, they could extend the concept in the vocal sign for snow, and speak of snowy things, just as they spoke of rosy cheeks. Only we must not imagine that it will ever be possible to make the origin of root sounds perfectly clear. This goes back to times that are entirely withdrawn from our observation. It goes back to times in which the first general ideas were formed, and thereby the first steps were taken in the development of the human mind. How is it possible that any recollection should have remained of such early times, or even any understanding of these mental processes? We may settle many things, but in the end nothing is left but to say: It is so, and remains so, whether we can explain it or not. The first general concept may no doubt have been, as Noiré affirmed, an often repeated action, such as striking, going, rubbing, chewing—acts that spontaneously present themselves to consciousness, as manifold and yet single, that is, as continually repeated, in which the mind consequently found the first natural stimulus to the formation of concepts. Why, however, rub was denoted by mar, eat by ad, go by ga, strike by tud, we may perhaps apprehend by feeling, but we could not account for or even conceive it. Here we must be content with the facts, especially as in other families of languages we find entirely different vocal signs. No doubt there was a reason for all of them; but this reason, even if we could prove it historically, would always remain incomprehensible to us, and only as fact would it have any significance for science.

At any rate, we can now understand in what manner language offers us really historical documents of the oldest stages which we can reach in the development of the human mind. I say, “which we can reach,” for what lies beyond language does not exist for us. Nothing remains of the history of homo alalus. But every word represents a deed, an acquisition of the mind. If we take such a word as the Vedic deva, there may have been many older words for god, but let us not imagine that a fetish or totem, whose etymology is or should be known, belongs to them. But at all events we know from deva and the Latin deus, that even before the Aryan separation a root dyu or div had been formed, as well as the conception “shine.” If this root was first used actively for the act of shedding light, of striking a spark, of shining, it was a step farther to transfer this originally active root to the image which the sky produces in us, and to call it a “shiner,” dyu (nom. dyaus), and then with a new upward tendency to call all bright and shining beings, deva, deus. Man started, therefore, from a generalisation, or an idea, and then under this idea grouped other single presentations, such as sun, moon, and stars, from which “shining” had been withdrawn, or abstracted, and thus obtained as a mental acquisition a sign for the idea “shine,” and further formations such as Dyaus (shiner) and deva (shining). Now observe how Dyaus, as “shiner,” at the same time assumed the significance of an otherwise unknown agent or author of light, and developed into the ancient Dyaus, into Zeus and Jove; that is, into the oldest personal God of the still united Aryans. These are the true stages of the development of the human mind, which are susceptible of documentary proof in the archives of language.

All this occurred, of course, on exclusively Aryan ground, while the Semitic and other branches went their own way in the formation of ideas, and of sounds for their ideas. Physiologically all these branches may have one and the same origin, but linguistically they have various beginnings, and have not, at least as far as scientific proof is possible, sprung from one and the same source. The common origin of all languages is not impossible, but it is and remains undemonstrable, and to science that is enough, sapienti sat. If we analyse the Semitic and other languages, we shall find in them as many ancient documents of the development of the human mind as in the Aryan. And just as we can clearly and plainly trace back the French dieu, the Latin deus, the Sanskrit deva, divine, to the physical idea div, “shine,” so we can with thousands of other words, of which each indicates an act of will, and each gives us an insight into the development of our mind. Whether the Aryans were in possession of other ideas and sounds for “shine,” etc., before the formation of div, Dyaus, and deva, must be left uncertain; at all events we see how naturally the first consciousness of God developed in them, how the idea conditioned the language, and the language the idea, and both originated and continued inseparable one from the other.

If we take any root of the Aryan language, we shall be astonished at the enormous number of its derivatives and the shades in their meaning. Here we see very plainly how thought has climbed forward upon words. We find, for instance, in the list of Sanskrit roots, the root bhar with the simple meaning to bear. This we see plainly in bharâmi, in bibharmi, in bibharti (I bear, he bears), also in bháras or bhartár (a bearer), and bhârás (load) and bhárman and bhartí (bearing), etc.

But these forms, with all their cases and persons and tenses, give us no idea of the fruitfulness of a root, especially if we follow its ramifications in the cognate languages. In Greek we have φέρω, in Latin fero, in Gothic bairan, in English to bear. The principal meanings which this root assumes are, to carry, carry hither, carry away, carry in, to support, to maintain, to bring forth, etc. We find simple derivatives such as the German Bahre, English bier (French bière, borrowed), and also φέρετρον and feretrum, as well as ferculum (a litter). On the other hand there is φόρετρον (a porter's wages), and φaρέτρa (quiver). And barrow in wheel-barrow has the same origin. Burden is that which is borne, then a load, as, for instance, the burden of years. A step farther takes us to φερτός (bearable) and ἄφερτος (unbearable). We also find in Greek δύσφορος, which corresponds exactly to the Sanskrit durbhara, with the meaning “heavy to bear.” In Latin, however, fertus signifies fruitful, like fertilis, ferax. We say, “The earth bears” (trägt), and Getreide (grain) meant originally that borne (getragen) by the earth (hence in Middle High German Geträgede). So we have also far, the oldest corn grown by the Romans, derived from fero, and along with it fārina (flour), if it stands for farrina. Far may originally, however, have also meant food, maintenance, and the Anglo-Saxon bere, the English barley, are again related to it. Of course we have the same root in derivatives, such as lucifer, frugifer, in Greek καρποφόρος or φερέκαρπος. In German it becomes a mere suffix, as fruchtbar, dankbar, scheinbar, urbar. Like φόρος, φορά means also what is carried or brought, hence specially tribute, duty, tax. To bear a child was used in the sense of to bring forth, and from this we have many derivatives such as birth, born, and Gothic berusjos (parents), parentes and barn (the child), like the Greek φέρμα.

If δίφρος (carriage) stands for διφόρος, it means originally a carriage for two persons, just as ἀμφορεύς, Latin amphora, was a vessel with two handles. We should scarcely believe that the same root is concealed in the German Zuber (tub) and Eimer (bucket). But Zuber was originally Zwiber, a vessel with two handles, and Eimer was Einber, a bucket with one bail. We may compare manubrium (handle) and derivatives like candelebrum, lugubris, as well as luctifer. If bhartri meant bearer and then husband, as bhâry[~a] meant wife, i.e. the one to be maintained, we are probably justified in seeing in bhrâtar (brother) the original meaning of helper, protector. Although the wife is to be maintained and sustained, she, too, brings something to the household, and that is the φέρνω (dowry). The Middle Latin expression paraphernalia is properly dowry, though it has now assumed an entirely different meaning. “To be carried” easily takes the meaning of being torn away, s'emporter, and this we find in the Greek represented by φέρεσθαι, in the Sanskrit in the secondary form bhur (to hasten), yielding bhuranyú, bhúrni (hasty, violent), and other derivatives.

We have already seen how φόρος and φορά signified that which is contributed, then duty, tribute. This is the Gothic gabaur, that is, gebühr (due), and consequently all things that are proper or becoming.

Offerre (bring before) leads to Opfer (sacrifice) and to the simpler offrir, as sufferre to souffrir (suffer).

It has been usual to derive Fors, Fortuna, from ferre,50 the goddess who brings, although she takes away as well. The ancients had no doubts of this derivation, and τὸ φέρον (fate) and τὸ φερόμενον (chance) seem to substantiate it. But the old divine character of Fors, Fortuna (as related to Harit), points to other sources, which had already entirely vanished from the consciousness of the ancients. Yet the expression, es trägt sich zu (it happens), the old gaburjan, Anglo-Saxon gebyrian, and kipuri (zufällig, casual), must be taken into account, and forms such as forte, forsan, fortassis (forte an si vis), fortuitus, are very remote from their supposed mythological meaning. If ferre were the root, we should have further proof of the immeasurable fertility to which we owe such words as fortune and misfortune.

It would lead us too far if we tried to collect all the meanings which our roots had in the various ancient Aryan tongues in combination with prepositions. It must suffice to select a small number from a modern language such as French, which give us an idea of the endless modifications to which every root is more or less adapted. Thus from circumferre we have circonférence, also périphérie, from conferre, conférence and also confortable, from deferre déférence, from differre différence, from praeferre préférence, from proferre proférer, from referre référence, each word again with numerous offshoots. We are not at the end yet, and still less when we keep in view also the parallel formations tuli and latum, or portare. We then see what a root in this language has to signify, whether considered as a concrete word or as a mere abstraction. This is prolific of contention and has been much disputed; the main thing is to know the facts. From these we may infer how in all this multiplicity the unity of the root element can be best explained.

I do not say that all ideas can be so clearly traced to their origin as in this root. In some the intermediate forms have been lost, and the etymologies become uncertain, often impossible. But the result on the whole remains the same. Wherever we can see clearly, we see that what we call mind and thought consists in this, that man has the power not only to receive presentations like an animal, but to discover something general in them. This element he can eliminate and fix by means of vocal signs; and he can further classify single presentations under the same general concepts, and mark them by the same vocal signs. What we call derivative forms, such as deva besides div, are originally varieties in the formation of words, that in time proved useful, and through repeated employment obtained their special application. Often, too, there are real compounds, just as the German bar in fruchtbar, furchtbar, etc., was originally the same word that we have in Bahre (bier), but was very different from bar in Nachbar (neighbour), which in spite of the similarity in sound comes from an entirely different root, seen in bauen (build), bebauen (cultivate), bauer (peasant), and in the English neighbour.

If we have the ideas and the words, the process of thought, as Hobbes has taught us, is nothing but an addition and subtraction of ideas. We add when we say, A is B; when we say, for instance, man, or Caius, is mortal, adding Caius, or man, to all that we call mortal; we subtract when we say, A is not B; that is, when we abstract Enoch from all that we call mortal. Everything that man has ever thought, humiliating as it may sound, consists in these two operations; just as the most abstruse operations of mathematics go back in the end to addition and subtraction. To what else could they go back? Whether these mental operations are true or false, is another question, with which the method of the thinker has nothing to do; any more than formal logic inquires whether all men are mortal, but only infers on the basis of these premises that Caius, because he is a man, is also mortal.

We see, therefore, how language and thought go hand in hand; where there is as yet no word, there is not yet an idea. The thinking capacity of the mind has its source in language, lives in language, and develops continuously in language. The human mind is human language, and as animals possess no language, they do not ipso facto possess what philosophers understand by mind. We need not for this reason ascribe any special faculty to men. Speech and thought are only a wider development of the faculty of presentation such as an animal may have; but in an animal it never develops any farther, for an animal has no general ideas; it remains at the individual, and never attains unity in plurality. It knows, as Plato would say, a horse, but not “horsedom.” If we wish to say that the perceiving self is present in animals as in men, there is no objection, though in all such, questions relating to animals we are always groping in the dark. But the fact remains that the step, whether small or vast, that leads from the individual to the general, from the concrete to the abstract, from perceiving (that is, being acted upon) to conceiving, thinking, speaking, that is, to acting, is for the animal impossible. An animal might speak, but it cannot; a stone might grow, but it cannot; a tree might walk, but it cannot. Why not? Because there are natural boundaries that are apparently easy to pass, and yet impassable. The tree grows up a tree, the animal an animal, but no farther, just as man never surpasses the human, and therefore can never think except through language, which often is very imperfect.

In one sense, therefore, the Horseherd is quite right. The mind is a development, an eternal, ceaseless development; but when he calls it a function possessed by all living organisms, even a goose and a chicken, he goes far beyond the facts. No goose speaks, although it cackles, and although by cackling it apprised the Romans of the important fact that their Capitol was in danger. How much a dog could tell us if he could speak! As if this capacity or incapacity is not as much the result of intention as every other capacity and incapacity in nature! If we translate this ability by facultas, that is facilitas, we need not for that reason assume in man a faculty, or as the Horseherd calls it, a phantom, but the thing remains the same. We can speak, and an animal cannot; we can think, and an animal cannot.

But it must not be supposed that because we deny thought and speech to animals, we wish to degrade them. Everything that has been told us of the ingenious tricks of animals, even the most incredible, we shall gladly believe, only not that bos locutus est, or that an actual utterance lies hidden in the bark of a dog. A man who sees no difference between language and communication will of course continue to say that a dog speaks, and explain in how many dialects he barks, when he is hungry, when he wants to go out with his master, when he hears burglars in the house, or when he has been whipped and whines. It would be more natural if scientists confined themselves to facts, without asking for reasons, and primarily to the great fact that no animal, with the exception of man, speaks, or ever has spoken. The next duty of the observer is to ask: Why is this? There is no physical impossibility. A parrot can imitate all words. There must therefore be a non-physical cause why there has never been a parrot or dog language. Is that true or false? And if we now call that non-physical cause mind, or still better the Logos, namely, the gatherer of the many into the one, comprehending, conceiving, is our argument so erroneous if we seek the distinction between man and animal in the Logos, in speech and thought, or in mind? This mind is no ghost, as the Horseherd asserts, nor is it a mere phantom of the brain as is imagined by so many scientists. It is something real, for we see its effects. It is born, like everything that belongs to our ego, of the self-conscious Self, which alone really and eternally exists and abides.

So far I hope to have answered the second objection of the Horseherd or Horseherds, that the mind is a function possessed also by a goose or a chicken. Mind is language, and language is mind, the one the sine qua non of the other, and so far no goose has yet spoken, but only cackled.