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.

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    of musical sounds and of music. The vocal or instru¬ mental repetition of sounds similar to those of a groan, a roar of defiance, a shriek, the “ come to me ” of the woodthrush, or the susurrus of an evening zephyr, induce in us emotions, faint or strong, according to our sensitive¬ ness, like those aroused by the original sounds in the original circumstances. The mind in one of its most con¬ stant phases thus becomes itself a musical instrument, upon which life plays the thousand tunes and symphonies of daily joys and sorrows. But the mind is the listener also, as well as the player, and sits silent behind the in¬ strument, to learn how others feel and what they think; the player also as well as the listener, to tell the others how it is with this one soul. That in music there is this more or less accurate interchange and perfect interpreta¬ tion, every one will admit. My thesis is that in linguistics, and especially in phonol¬ ogy, in language qua language, there is a correspondence hitherto unrecognized, almost an identity, with the musical fact of psychic expression, and with musical significance, interpretation, and progress. In the language itself, and not only in what the words mean, there is a reflex of the creating mind of the race. A language is a musical or an art product, and as surely as any other will tell of the char¬ acter of the artist. That the artist is a millionfold person¬ ality instead of one individual does not change the law. A Gothic cathedral that required a peculiar people, myriad hands and a thousand years to create, speaks no more pecu¬ liarly and distinctively of the 1/^77 of its builders than does a Gothic language. Indeed, one may say the stones speak far less clearly and precisely, because the language is im¬ material. I would believe that this truth extends to the veriest details, to the mutations of the forms of single words, and to the nuances of pronunciation themselves. Every dialect, every patois, especially our American Negro language, is incontestable proof of this, and no better could be desired than English pronouns. Pronouns are the most
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