ayer who can speak with the tongues of men
and of angels without being clear about his own meaning, and a sayee who
can himself utter the same words, but who is only in imperfect agreement
with the sayer as to the ideas which the words or symbols that he utters
are intended to convey. The nature of the symbols counts for nothing;
the gist of the matter is in the perfect harmony between sayer and sayee
as to the significance that is to be associated with them.

Professor Max Muller admits that we share with the lower animals what he
calls an emotional language, and continues that we may call their
interjections and imitations language if we like, as we speak of the
language of the eyes or the eloquence of mute nature, but he warns us
against mistaking metaphor for fact. It is indeed mere metaphor to talk
of the eloquence of mute nature, or the language of winds and waves.
There is no intercommunion of mind with mind by means of a covenanted
symbol; but it is only an apparent, not a real, metaphor to say that two
pairs of eyes have spoken when they have signalled to one another
something which they both understand. A schoolboy at home for the
holidays wants another plate of pudding, and does not like to apply
officially for more. He catches the servant's eye and looks at the
pudding; the servant understands, takes his plate without a word, and
gets him some. Is it metaphor to say that the boy asked the servant to
do this, or is it not rather pedantry to insist on the letter of a bond
and deny its spirit, by denying that language passed, on the ground that
the symbols covenanted upon and assented to by both were uttered and
received by eyes and not by mouth and ears? When the lady drank to the
gentleman only with her eyes, and he pledged with his, was there no
conversation because there was neither noun nor verb? Eyes are verbs,
and glasses of wine are good nouns enough as between those who understand
one another. Whether the ideas underlying them are expressed and
conveyed by eyeage or by tonguage is a detail that matters nothing.

But everything we say is metaphorical if we choose to be captious.
Scratch the simplest expressions, and you will find the metaphor. Written
words are handage, inkage and paperage; it is only by metaphor, or
substitution and transposition of ideas, that we can call them language.
They are indeed potential language, and the symbols employed presuppose
nouns, verbs, and the other parts o