Suggestions to medical writers / by George M. Gould.

  • George M. Gould
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Suggestions to medical writers / by George M. Gould. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    162/196 page 158
    language is by logical necessity a highly imaginative and,, moreover, a conscious act. There is a somewhat silly at¬ tempt of many evolutionists to ignore and belittle the part of consciousness in the development of biologic phenomena,, and especially those of homo sapiens, and in linguistics it is particularly fallacious. The process of language-making never began and never ends; it is going on all the time. It is partly conscious, partly unconscious. Of course it is absurd to speak of the individual consciousness, or any number of such, as only in the smallest degree contribu- tive, in changes such as those represented by Grimm’s law, extending over many centuries and a dozen races. And the discussion as to whether the people as a whole, or only their intellectual leaders originate the changes, is also futile, because, as we see about us every day, both function in this way. There is a continuous mutation going on in language just as there is in the human spirit, an interaction of conscious and unconscious, of the thoughtless people and the purposive intelligent leaders. M. Breal who has written an excellent book on Linguistics, thinks the doc¬ tors of language are powerless and yet with delightful self- contradiction he says that “for many centuries the culti¬ vated Englishman spoke French, and left his own tongue to the people, and since it is the province of culture to retard the development of a language, English adapted itself to the common want without the impediment of an imperious tradition.” The reconciliation of the different views as to peo¬ ple and cultivated, consciousness and unconsciousness, would appear to be in the thought of the larger psychic personality of the race; perception and consciousness are indeed indistinct in the populace, but rise to clarity in the leaders; this permits the creative impetus and changeful spirit to be first grasped and recommended by the clearer-headed initiative of the intellectuals ; but the advice is accepted, rejected, or modified, by the less articulate, yet still not nonexistent consciousness of the common people. It must not, dare not, be forgotten that
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image