mind to another as much
as though it had been addressed to another person.

We see, therefore, that the nature of the outward and visible sign to
which the inward and spiritual idea of language is attached does not
matter. It may be the firing of a gun; it may be an old semaphore
telegraph; it may be the movements of a needle; a look, a gesture, the
breaking of a twig by an Indian to tell some one that he has passed that
way: a twig broken designedly with this end in view is a letter addressed
to whomsoever it may concern, as much as though it had been written out
in full on bark or paper. It does not matter one straw what it is,
provided it is agreed upon in concert, and stuck to. Just as the lowest
forms of life nevertheless present us with all the essential
characteristics of livingness, and are as much alive in their own humble
way as the most highly developed organisms, so the rudest intentional and
effectual communication between two minds through the instrumentality of
a concerted symbol is as much language as the most finished oratory of
Mr. Gladstone. I demur therefore to the assertion that the lower animals
have no language, inasmuch as they cannot themselves articulate a
grammatical sentence. I do not indeed pretend that when the cat calls
upon the tiles it uses what it consciously and introspectively recognises
as language; it says what it has to say without introspection, and in the
ordinary course of business, as one of the common forms of courtship. It
no more knows that it has been using language than M. Jourdain knew he
had been speaking prose, but M. Jourdain's knowing or not knowing was
neither here nor there.

Anything which can be made to hitch on invariably to a definite idea that
can carry some distance--say an inch at the least, and which can be
repeated at pleasure, can be pressed into the service of language. Mrs.
Bentley, wife of the famous Dr. Bentley of Trinity College, Cambridge,
used to send her snuff-box to the college buttery when she wanted beer,
instead of a written order. If the snuff-box came the beer was sent, but
if there was no snuff-box there was no beer. Wherein did the snuff-box
differ more from a written order, than a written order differs from a
spoken one? The snuff-box was for the time being language. It sounds
strange to say that one might take a pinch of snuff out of a sentence,
but if the servant had helped him or herself to a pinch while carrying it
to the b