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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 24

Extract from Dr. Roget—language an Instrument of Thought

page 12

Extract from Dr. Roget—language an Instrument of Thought.

Of the value of language for the purposes of thought, as well as of expression, and its influence upon human affairs and habits, Dr. Roget, in his preface to that most interesting and useful work—" The Thesaurus af the English Language," makes the following pregnant remarks:—

"The use of language is not confined to its being the medium through which we communicate our ideas to one another; it fulfills a no less important a function as an instrument of thought; not being merely its vehicle, but giving it wings for flight. Metaphysicians are agreed that scarcely any of our intellectual operations could be carried on to any considerable extent without the agency of words. None but those who are conversant with the philosophy of mental phenomena can be aware of the immense influence that is exercised by language in promoting the development of our ideas, in fixing them in the mind, and in detaining them for steady contemplation. Into every process of reasoning, language enters as an essential element. Words are the instruments by which we form all our abstractions, by which we fashion and embody our ideas, and by which we are enabled to glide along a series of premises and conclusions with a rapidity so great as to leave in the memory no trace of the successive steps of the process; and we remain unconscious how much we owe to this potent auxiliary of the reasoning faculty.