Page:Essays on the Chinese Language (1889).djvu/127

Rh not fully represent the spoken language so this latter does not fully express the mind. Speech is, indeed, classed with seeing and hearing, but as it is not the material organ which sees or hears, so also it is not the mouth which speaks. It is the spiritual principle by some called hsing (姓) and by some li (理), which goes through all the body, seeing in the eye, hearing in the ear, and speaking in the mouth. In the Great Plan which Heaven gave to Yü, the second division was on the "Reverent use of the five faculties" (敬用五事), or, as LeggLegge [sic] translates, "The Reverent Practice of the Five Businesses." These were demeanour, speech, seeing, hearing, and thinking. These five, another philosopher tells us, are all natural to man, but they need education to keep them right. Without this, by which man acquires li (禮), he is little better than the beasts which want discourse of reason, and he may even be found to lack the faculty of speech. Thus we read of tribes who did not know language (不知言), and the "black slaves," once much used by rich Cantonese, are said to have understood human speech, but to have been unable to talk. This, however, probably only meant that they could not speak Chinese.

Now, though the faculty of speech developed itself in primeval man without conscious action or reflection on his part, the first language must have been poor and rude. But even in its earliest stage this language began to receive enlargement and cultivation from the higher intellects of the time. Hence human speech as we now know it has a twofold origin, in the muddy source whence man emerges into existence with all the myriad creatures of the world, and in the mind—the spiritual principle which he alone knows to cultivate and develope. From the former spring cries of fear and calls for food, shouts of joy and notes of alarm, and much of that stock of speech which is common property. From the mind proceeded such terms as those for Filial Piety, Justice, Law, Humanity. Man must have always had some idea