Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1887-1895, 1891-06-15

HIS WOIuS anu not nlmSeH GQaG Is De1nR
attended to; he says what he wishes to
have believed, and all the while the
other is perceiving and believing quite
another matter, and although his judg-
ment may be astray, it is nevertheless
different from what he first intends and
supposes it to be. Hence arise absurd
Misunderstanding and cross purposes,
and the proverb becomes literally true,
that speech is given to us to conceal
our emotions and sentiments In
short, speech is a failure. It cannot
convey what it means to convey, even
when it means to convey the truth; if it
means to convey what is not the truth,
it succeeds only in SO far as it may be-
wilder the hearers true intuition; that
is, the nearer will not believe the par
ticular lie which the speaker is trying
to put forward, but it is by that lie
prevented from divining the actual
truth.
Now the survival among intelligent
beings of an anomaly of this kind is a
curious fact; 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 interchange of thoughts, and COM
munication of feelings; and when that,
time comes, speech, as we now know it,
will be laid aside. It was poor make.
shift at best, and has been growing:
more and more inadequate as the re-,
quirements and complexities of life in
creased. It is, indeed, a complete an.
achronism 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
devise any suitable remedy. The eff.
forts to invent q universal language are
ludicrously beside the mark. A spoken
language that everybody "under-
stands" is just as far from what is
wanted as language only understood
by two persons. The point is that no.
body does, or ever can understand"
any spoken language whatever. No;
the form must be instituted on another
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
background
In the first place, we want a language
that shall be almost infinitely more
rapid in it's 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 communlcation-shou
not keep pace with thought. What is
needed is means of throwing the whole
of the speakers mind bodily into that of
the istener-of conveying to your in
terlocuter by a single impulseyour own
I1nr0nT1finT1 IF pAorSnoe
quires but q moment for the eye to take
in the whole sweep of a landscape
which 1t would need hours or days to
describe in words. Now, If our minds
were open or could be opened to one an
others mental vision, it 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 an
other for precisely what we are. In
our present moral and social condition,
this would not be agreeable to the ma
jority of us, and that is doubtless the
reason why we have chung so desper-
ately 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 a way to complete
an adequate self-revelation. It will
probably be discovered that such revela-
ton is not nearly so abstruse and ardu-
GUS problem as it might now appear.
Two methods at once suggest them
selves, one physical, the other meta
physical The former is related to the
sign language, a coarse and primitive
version of which is practiced by savages
and uneducated persons. But the true
sign language is far more subtle and
comprehensive thing than the most
q1ick-witted Indian or italian ever
dreamed of. The signs must be made,
not by gestures. of arms, hands, Shout
ders-not in short, by muscular move
ments, but by the finest, most delicate
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 trans
parent indicators they were intended to
be, that we have almost entirely lost
control of these exquisite nerves. But
| we may still observe their working in
infants and young children, and may
imagine what they might become were
they educated through several genera
tions. By the face, eyes and mouth,
and by almost insensible notifications
Of the pose of the body, a language could
be developed which to the eyes edu-
Gated to read it would be as
swift and comprehensive as light
itself, and, of course, entire
ly independent Of the nation
atty of the communicates. Nor would it
fail to express anything that required
| expression, for, as the human mind be-
comes deeper and loftier, it will cease
to occupy itself with numberless unim-
portant and life1ess trivialities that now
| distract and confuse it, and all thought
will be based upon emotion, and will
have respect to ends of life and use.
The metaphysical method is, Of
course, what we have begun to call
telepathy or thought transference. The