Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/319

 held to be good; the latter (der Brauch) refers more to living practice.

33. The German language forms for the concept of custom in its application to the meanings of words, the special word Sprachgebrauch. In it we are thinking less of tradition than of actual usage, though of course it is also conditioned to a large extent by the former and this is sometimes emphasised by the expression herkömmlicher Sprachgebrauch (traditional use of language). That the use of language, like other customs, has also a subjective side is obvious with so psychical an act as that of speech; and yet the object is so far intellectual that deviations and errors ought not to excite ill-will. Still, in every linguist there is another kind of dissatisfaction, or at any rate dissent, which makes itself felt, often only as at something ludicrous, and in less marked cases simply as the judgment which denies something as false, and as the wish to correct. But that the actual usage, by which the individual is guided, and which every one recognises as “decisive” for the meaning of words, is based upon something like a general and consentaneous will, may be seen again from the fact that we are accustomed to speak of language as a “property,” a “national inheritance,” a “sacred possession,” attacks upon which have often led and still lead to hot combats of speech and weapons. “We will speak our language”: what does that mean if not “we will use these signs with these meanings”? The willing of the usage involves the willing of the meanings, and that these are not thought of as included in the will is due to grounds already indicated. Will is not recognised in habit (though in language we may find traces of this recognition, which is lacking to Psychology. Think of the Greek word εθέλω, where the identity is directly indicated, and the corresponding Germen pflegen, where it is indirectly indicated), though it declares itself strongly enough, especially as resistance. There is always dimly before us the argument (true enough in itself) “if this were taking place by my (our) will, then my (our) will could at any moment change or annul it”. What is not true is only the tacit assumption that the (individual or social) will is something which can come into being at any moment without sufficient cause. The real fact is, that the more deeply rooted a habit is, the more improbable and difficult is its counteraction by our own or another will.

34. It is through Volksgewohnheit, or custom, that the social forms arise and grow which touch the life of the individual most profoundly, and which we call “law” (G. Recht); legislation brings consistency into these manifold forms, and