Page:Ralcy H. Bell - The Mystery of Words (1924).pdf/132

 tongue, and epoch. Social laws and their effects on language have been traced far back by linguistic palæntology to social and other types. At last all this is confronted by a wall behind which no man has seen.

Consciousness and order and the faculty of speech! these are the abiding mysteries. They thrill our words with something akin to life. A creative will dwells in the faculty of speech; words issue from its inscrutable power. Intelligence is one phase of consciousness, order is another. Personality is incidental. Law undulates through consciousness and order as waves travel through the ether. Waves beat upon the mind—the reaction we call intelligence. One series of waves we term light, another we call law—mere figure of speech. Through light the mind perceives orderly relationship in three-dimensional space and in many dimensional tone and color. Through law the mind perceives orderly relationship in multi-dimensional if not infinite domains: one of these we call linguistics.