ABSTRACT
Language, in its every facet, embodies or reflects fundamental traits of the human mind and so makes them manifest. For example, the mind does not (at least at first) have real or full knowledge of any object in nature, but only of some character or aspect of it, which first impresses the mind; and accordingly language expresses a character or aspect and not the object. When the mind is simple, whether in early man or modern child, the total of these ‘figures’ or references is small, and they increase slowly. But there is also a retarding, controlling and organizing factor in the growth of language: a new ‘figure of speech’ must meet with the approval and acceptance of a community before it can become a permanent part of the language as the symbol of a class of things or actions.
