Page:Oriental Religions - China.djvu/439

Rh different uses of the same word for noun and verb: as in pronouncing the phrase, with réason do we reàson thus; or for noun and adverb thus, he does wéll who opens a wēll; or for infinitive, imperative, and indicative, as in learn how to leárn, by resolving that you will leàrn. The English also indicates by position whether a noun is subject or object in a sentence.

It is a law familiar to grammarians that the inflectional stage of language is transient, and develops into another in which the structure of a sentence depends no longer on the mere forms of words, but on the logical relations of the ideas which they represent. Thus, in the later English, inflection has been reduced to a minimum: a word is invariable, its special meaning and force being shown by its position, according to the natural syntax of the idea of which it forms a part. This structure, which so closely resembles the Chinese, is in modern languages the sign of advanced intellectual growth; and, as a result of the adaptation of speech to the growing demands of civilization, it enables us to comprehend how large a scope of expression may be secured by the uninflected syllables of that apparently inorganic tongue. We may easily exaggerate the importance of inflection in the expression of the relations of thought. Some agglutinative languages, like the Quichua, are said to accomplish this by means of particles simply added to words, with more precision and compactness than the inflected European. Even the gesture-language of deaf-mutes, which has no "grammar," conveys ideas of relation with surprising ease. Speech is everywhere but the instrument of a force beyond itself, and all grammatical forms hasten, as if gifted with insight, to subserve the spiritual demands for communion and growth, of which they are the product.

The Chinese has special auxiliary words that mark its