ABSTRACT
Locke thought of language as something like the mind's space-a sphere or realm which, however abstract or ideal, allowed the mind to assemble ideas, relate them to each other, move them with ease, and thus create a partial map of the world, the map of human understanding. His followers went further, concluding that all thought rising above brute levels took place in that mental space called language. In conceiving the history of language in accordance with these principles, late eighteenth-century thinkers provided an additional important development. Assuming much that Locke and his followers implied about the endless possibilities that the mind's interactions with the world created through language, they revived one of the most common space-related concepts of all, the journey. They used this commonplace, however, in novel ways and with profound implications. Rather than viewing humanity's journey to understand language, the theme of much of this book, they viewed languages themselves as branching journeys by which, as nations progressed through time and place, they fashioned their separate mental destinies.
