Kralikori Sporias Directory 05Only the best Kralikori Sporias efforts make the grade. | |
Kralikori Sporias Directory 05A piece of music, again, without any words at all, or a song with words that have nothing in the world to do with the ideas which it is nevertheless made to convey, is often very effectual language. Much lying, and all irony depends on tampering with covenanted symbols, and making those that are usually associated with one set of ideas convey by a sleight of mind others of a different nature. That is why irony is intolerably fatiguing unless very sparingly used. Take the song which Blondel sang under the window of King Richard's prison. There was not one syllable in it to say that Blondel was there, and was going to help the king to get out of prison. It was about some silly love affair, but it was a letter all the same, and the king made language of what would otherwise have been no language, by guessing the meaning, that is to say by perceiving that he was expected to enter then and there into a new covenant as to the meaning of the symbols that were presented to him, understanding what this covenant was to be, and acquiescing in it. If all that Professor Max Muller means to say is, that no animal but man commands an articulate language, with verbs and nouns, or is ever likely to command one (and I question whether in reality he means much more than this), no one will differ from him. No dog or elephant has one word for bread, another for meat, and another for water. Yet, when we watch a cat or dog dreaming, as they often evidently do, can we doubt that the dream is accompanied by a mental image of the thing that is dreamed of, much like what we experience in dreams ourselves, and much doubtless like the mental images which must have passed through the mind of my deaf and dumb waiter? If they have mental images in sleep, can we doubt that waking, also, they picture things before their mind's eyes, and see them much as we do--too vaguely indeed to admit of our thinking that we actually see the objects themselves, but definitely enough for us to be able to recognise the idea or object of which we are thinking, and to connect it with any other idea, object, or sign that we may think appropriate? | |
|
[ Sec 05 Part 07 ] [ Sec 05 Part 08 ] [ Sec 05 Part 09 ] [ Sec 05 Part 10 ] [ Sec 05 Part 11 ] [ Sec 05 Part 12 ] This page is Copyright © Kralikori Sporias and all rights are reserved. Please don't copy without proper authorization. References to other Web sites are not endorsements. Kralikori Sporias provides no guarantees concerning the quality or content of other sites that Kralikori links to. Links, not being endorsements, should not be confused with special recommendations or endorsements. Links are only provided for fun, reference, or as a convenience. | |