LANGUAGE On p. 52 the different stocks of languages have been discussed when considered as a means of classifying the varieties of the human race. We turn in the present section to language in its general sense as a motive power in the development of society, and shall consider the influence it wields over the destiny of nations.
this sense language is not confined to vocal utterance. It includes all means by which emotions are evoked and ideas commu nicated. This may be by signs or speech, and speech may be inarticulate or articulate ; it may be of "winged words" or it may be in written records ; and either of these may in turn take the form of the measured and intoned lines which we call poetry or the plainer and colder garb of prose. As a nation cultivates one or another of these with assiduity, its character is revealed and its position in the world's history is fixed.
Language among the Lower this broad meaning lan guage is not confined to man. Many of the lower animals possess some means of communicating- information to each other, and some of them to a degree which it puzzles naturalists to explain. Every one has heard
anecdotes to this effect of dogs and birds. The chirps and songs of the latter serve to warn the flock of approaching danger, to call their mates, to cheer their young, and the like. The story of the dog who, having had his own broken leg bandaged by a kind-hearted surgeon, came the next day bringing a canine friend suffering from a similar accident, is authentic. In some way the first dog communicated a considerable amount of information to his friend in the transaction. It seems improb able that communities so well organized as those of bees and ants could be carried on without rather extended means of imparting knowledge.
With the human species language is an essential bond of society, and no political organization of importance could have come into being until men had learned to talk.