Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/32

10 view of the historical development of the art of writing.

The method which we shall follow will be, as much as possible, the analytic rather than the synthetic, the inquiring rather than the dogmatic. We shall strive, above all things, after clearness, and shall proceed always from that which is well-known or obvious to that which is more recondite and obscure, establishing principles by induction from facts which lie within the cognizance of every well-educated person. For this reason, our examples, whether typical or illustrative, will be especially sought among the phenomena of our own familiar idiom; since every living and growing language has that within it which exemplifies the essential facts and principles belonging to all human speech. We shall also avoid, as far as is practicable, the use of figurative, metaphysical, or technical phraseology, endeavouring to talk the language of plain and homely fact. Not a little of the mystery and obscurity which, in the minds of many, invest the whole subject of language, is due to the common employment respecting it of terms founded on analogies instead of facts, and calling up the things they represent surrounded and dimmed by a halo of fancy, instead of presenting sharply cut outlines and distinct lineaments.

The whole subject of linguistic investigation may be conveniently summed up in the single inquiry, "Why do we speak as we do?" The essential character of the study of language, as distinguished from the study of languages, lies in this, that it seeks everywhere, not the facts, but the reasons of them; it asks, not how we speak, or should speak, but for what reason; pursuing its search for reasons back to the very ultimate facts of human history, and down into the very depths of human nature. To cover the whole ground of investigation by this inquiry, it needs to be proposed in more than one sense; as the most fitting introduction to our whole discussion, let us put it first in its plainest and most restricted meaning: namely, why do we ourselves speak the English as our mother-tongue, or native language, instead of any other of the thousand varying forms of speech current among men? It is indeed a simple question, but to