us. The question is not, How do their forms and ways appeal to
us? but, How did those forms, and ways, achieve their underlying
objects, and what was the _thought_ behind them?

Life is action, and without activity whatever powers lie within any
conscious being are only potential. Activity is the bridge between the
inner man and the outer world, by which he impresses his thought, in
forms, on chaos or the atoms about him, receiving in return increased
knowledge and experience of all he touches, and knowledge of himself
through the results of his own actions; and it is the bridge between man
and man. For this reason the verb, the word of action, is the most
important and most developed part of speech. The three hypostases of
life, as of language, are the self, activity, and the world; and it is
for the expression of all the possible varied relations between these
three, that all the forms of any language come into being. And from the
way in which these forms are developed, and the relative importance
which is given to this or that form of thought or activity, the
character of the people, their grasp of nature, and their own conception
of themselves and their relation to the world, can be seen.[49-*] Some
languages have the strong impress of impersonality, without any loss of
virility; others are strongly egotistic and self-assertive, with perhaps
the braggart's lack of genuine strength. Each spoken language that we
know has its own color and tone, to which our thought must respond, if
we would know and use it well. To speak good Swedish, for instance,
requires clear thinking to an exceptional degree. To show this, the form
"come here," which is the ordinary English expression, is simply _bad
grammar_ in Swedish; the use of "come _hither_" (_kom hit_, instead of
_kom haer_) is imperative. We have the "hither" in English, but it has
become stilted, and the linguistic distinction lost. Compare also the
use of _fa_, as a common auxiliary; nor are these exceptions, but, on
the contrary, characteristic examples. Also to enunciate the language
rightly one must hold the back and neck erect and the muscles firm.

In some languages the speaker thinks of himself and his completed action
as inseparable, as a single idea, as the Latin _edi_ for I have eaten;
in others he thinks of himself subconsciously as possessing the results
of his action, as our _I have eaten_; and in others, as among the Irish
peasantry, he separates himself an