Of All Social Institutions Language Is Least

Nearly All Institutions, It Might Be Said, Are Based On Signs, But These Signs Do Not Directly Evoke Things.

Written Forms Obscure Our View Of Language. They Are Not So Much A Garment As A Disguise.

The First Of These Phases Is That Of Grammar, Invented By The Greeks And Carried On Unchanged By The French. It Never Had Any Philosophical View Of A Language As Such.

The Ultimate Law Of Language Is, Dare We Say, That Nothing Can Ever Reside In A Single Term. This Is A Direct Consequence Of The Fact That Linguistic Signs Are Unrelated To What They Designate And That, Therefore, 'a' Cannot Designate Anything Without The The Aid Of 'b' And Vice Versa, Or, In Other Words, That Both Have Value Only By The Difference Between Them.

Language Furnishes The Best Proof That A Law Accepted By A Community Is A Thing That Is Tolerated And Not A Rule To Which All Freely Consent.