ABSTRACT
If language is a direct emanation of the mind, or an organic product, a sort of excretion of the bodily organs, so that a word, in any one’s mouth, is an entity having a natural and necessary significance, (…) than one set of opinions on all theoretic points in linguistics will follow; but another and a very different one, if words are only signs for ideas, instruments with which the mind works, and every language therefore an institution, of historic growth.
