The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-06-07

IS trying to put forward, but is by that lie
prevented from divining the actual truth.
Now, the survival among intelligent be-
ings OF an anomaly of this kind IS q Curl
Gus TACT; and with the elevation of the
race We may fairly expect that it will not
survive forever. The time will come
when human beings will desire a real in
terchange of thoughts and communica-
ton OF feelings, and when that time comes.
speech, as we know II, will be laid aside.
1t was poor makeshift at best, and has
been growing more and more inadequate
as the requirements and complexities Of
life Increased. II is, indeed, complete
anachronIsm already; less than any other
thing has IT partaken of the general adj
vance OF intelligence. We feel this at
every turn, but We persistently fail to de-
wise any suitable remedy. The efforts to
invent universal language are ludic-
rousiy beside the mark A spoken lam
guage that. everyb OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES" is Just
as far from what is wanted as q language
only understood by two persons. The
point is that nobody does. or ever can sun
derstand any spoken language whatever.
No, the reform must be Instituted on an
other plane altogether; the whole point of
view must be changed. We must form
our new language out of those elements
and on those principles which have
hitherto been kept studiously in the back
ground.
In the first place we want a language
that shall be almost more infinitely rapid
In Its operation than the present one.
Everybody has noticed how much swifter
thought is than speech. Yet there is no
necessary reason why speech-or at least
communication-should not keep pace
with thought What is needed is q
means of throwing the whole of the speak
er's mind into that of the listener-of con-
veying TO your interlocutor by single i'm
pulse your own perception of your own
meaning. 1t requires but a moment for
the eye to take in the whole sweep of a
landscape which it would need hours or
days to describe in words. Now, if our
minds were open or could be opened to
one another's mental vision, il is evident
that there would no longer be any vocal
speech. Of course, such a revelation
would dispose forever of the possibility of
concealment or deception; the world would
become palace of truth, and We should
be inevitably known to one another
for precisely what we are. In our
present moral and social condition, this
would not be agreeable to the majority of
us, and that is doubtless the reason why
We have chung so desperately to audible
words. But If man Is to be perfected he
will no longer have anything to conceal:
and then he will set himself TO find way
TO complete an adequate self-revelation.
1t will probably be discovered that such
revelation is not nearly so abstruse and
arduouS a problem as il might now appear.
Two methods at once suggest themselves,
one physical, the other metaphysical. The
former is related TO the sign language,
coarse and primitive version of which is
practiced by savages and uneduCated per-
sons. But the true sign language is far
more subtle and comprehensive thing than
the most quick-wItted Indian or Italian
ever dreamed of. The signs must be made,
not by gestures of arms, hands, shoulders
mot, in short, by muscular move
ments-but by the finest, most deli
cate pulsations and contractions OF
the nerves of the face, especially
those surrounding the eyes and
mouth. Our faces are now SO stiff and
rigid, thanks to long training with view
to making them opaque marks instead of
the transparent indicators they were IN
tended to be, that we have almost entirely
we may still observe their working in in
fants and young children, and may imagine
what they might become were they edu-
Gated through several generations. By
the face, eyes and mouth, and by almost
insensible notifications of the pose of the
body, language could be developed,
which, to the eyes educated to read it,
would be as swift and comprehensive as
light itself, and, of course, entirely inde-
pendent of the nationality of the commu-
nicants Nor would it fail to express
anything that required expression, for, as
the human mind becomes deeper and
loftier it will cease to occupy itself with
numberless unimportant and lifeless
triyialities that now distract and confuse
il, and all thought will be based upon emo
ton, and will have respect TO ends OF life
and use.
The metaphysical method is, of course,
what we have begun to call telepathy or
Al - eff "a rTl0 ~
observation-disclosures seems pretty well es-
tablished; and, if it really be fact, there
are no apparent limits to its future devel-
opment. One person may, at Will and to
all intents and purposes. become another,
so far as what he is thinking and feeling
are concerned; and distance in space need
be no bar to ntercommunlcatlon. But
this language-if language it can be called
seems almost too immediate and direct
for general use; it is agreeable 10 use
medium, however fine; and | am disposed
to think that the face language, as above
indicated, will be the language of the
future. JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
PROFESSOR PRICE DISCUSSES THE LANGUAGE
OF THE FACE.
Mr. Hawthorne's essay is thoughtful
and eloquent. And so far as l can see, the
remedies that he proposes for evils that
we all feel to be real are either inadequate
or else far worse than these evils them
selves. For that Language of the face,
which, within Its limits, is so beautiful, IS
filter for expressing emotion than intel
lectuaI conceptions; and, moreover, as We
see by the example of great actors, 1t is
even more capable of producing deception
than the language of words. And the
process of telepathy, or thought-transfer-
ence. even il the process be a real one, is
10 the human personality, holding its own
thoughts in spiritual reserve and noble
modesty, an intolerable wrong and indig-
pity. To be exposed by it to having ones
own thoughts betrayed to other people is
hardly less dreadful than it would be to
have our own minds inundated and pol
luted by the thoughts and emotions of
Others. Such extravaganza of enforced
intimacy would make human life utterly
vulgar and odious. The true advance of
the human race must be, | think, on other
lines. partly in so leavening the use of lam
guage as to make it far more adequate
means of expression than it is now, and
partIy in cultivating such habits OF noble
truthfulness and courageous thinking as
will make lies less common and less useful.
THOMAS K. PRICE,
Professor of Philology, Columbia College,
New York.
TWENTY YEARS"