The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 10. October, 1880Various
Religion
The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 10. October, 1880
Various
Religion and science -- Periodicals
When we see a constant increase in the number of persons or things in an
undeviating ratio, with the aid of mathematics we can pass back to the
first of the series, to the first man living at the base of the human
series. Ever remember that there can not be a series without a unit
lying at its base.
Why do the life-long deaf never talk? You answer: All Adam's children
learn to talk by hearing others talk, and as those deaf ones never
heard, so they never learned to talk. Very well. The first man, at the
beginning of the series of humanity, had no powers or faculties which
his descendants do not possess, and as they all have been under the
necessity of learning to talk by hearing others talk, will you
unbelievers and skeptics tell us, if you can, how that first man became
a talker? Can the life-long deaf talk as well as those whose ears are
perfect? No. Well, then, the difficulty rests upon you. That you may
remember it, I will repeat it once more, it is this: who did the first
man hear in order to learn the talker's trade?
WHERE DID LANGUAGE COME FROM?
Do you tell us that society made language? Then society must be older
than language, for the maker is always, of necessity, older than the
thing made. But without language there could be no interchange of ideas,
and without this society could not exist. Where there is no intelligent
communication of ideas we never think of society. Society does not exist
where there is no intelligent communication of ideas between persons.
The trees in the grove are never spoken of as a society. They are not
and can not be in the social state. Neither are the brutes around us.
Man is the only being upon earth capable of becoming a constituent
element or part of society. Mr. Blair says, in his lectures on
Belleslettres, "It would be extremely difficult to conceive how society
could exist without language." Now, as society can not exist without
language, it is certain that society could not be the author of
language, for the author must be older than his production. But Mr.
Blair springs another difficulty. It is in these words: "It would be
equally difficult to conceive how language could exist without society."
A moment's reflection will satisfy all reasonable persons that language
can not exist without society, and that which can not exist without the
other can not be the maker--author--of the other, for the maker must be
older than the thing made. Then, as neither of these could exist without
the other, neither could be the author of the other. So language and
society are both effects, and their cause is outside of or antecedent to
both, for every effect has an antecedent cause.
WHO, OR WHAT, IS THAT CAUSE?
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