Part 33 (1/2)
”But he can think about it.”
”No; unless he has already constructed previous impressions into word-meanings of his own, he can not think about it at all. Words, whether spoken or unspoken, underlie all ideas. Try, if you believe I am mistaken, try to think of any subject outside of words?”
I sat a moment, and mentally attempted the task, and shook my head.
”Then,” said the old man, ”how can I use words with established meanings to convey to your senses an entirely new idea? If I use new sounds, strung together, they are not words to you, and convey no meaning; if I use words familiar, they reach backward as well as forward. Thus it is possible to instruct you, by a laborious course of reasoning, concerning a phenomenon that is connected with phenomena already understood by you, for your word-language can be thrust out from the parent stalk, and can thus follow the outreaching branches. However, in the case of phenomena that exist on other planes, or are separated from any known material, or force, as is the true conception that envelops the word eternity, there being neither connecting materials, forces, nor words to unite the outside with the inside, the known with the unknown, how can I tell you more than I have done? You are word-bound.”
”Nevertheless, I still believe that I can think outside of words.”
”Well, perhaps after you attempt to do so, and fail again and again, you will appreciate that a truth is a truth, humiliating as it may be to acknowledge the fact.”
”A Digger Indian has scarcely a word-language,” I a.s.serted, loth to relinquish the argument.
”You can go farther back if you desire, back to primitive man; man without language at all, and with ideas as circ.u.mscribed as those of the brutes, and still you have not strengthened your argument concerning civilized man. But you are tired, I see.”
”Yes; tired of endeavoring to combat your a.s.sertions. You invariably lead me into the realms of speculation, and then throw me upon the defensive by asking me to prove my own theories, or with apparent sincerity, you advance an unreasonable hypothesis, and then, before I am aware of your purpose, force me to acquiesce because I can not find facts to confute you. You very artfully throw the burden of proof on me in all cases, for either by physical comparisons that I can not make, I must demonstrate the falsity of your metaphysical a.s.sertions, or by abstract reasonings disprove statements you a.s.sert to be facts.”
”You are peevish and exhausted, or you would perceive that I have generally allowed you to make the issue, and more than once have endeavored to dissuade you from doing so. Besides, did I not several times in the past bring experimental proof to dispel your incredulity?
Have I not been courteous?”
”Yes,” I petulantly admitted; ”yes.”
Then I determined to imitate his artful methods, and throw him upon the defensive as often as he had done with me. I had finally become familiar with his process of arguing a question, for, instead of coming immediately to his subject, he invariably led by circuitous route to the matter under discussion. Before reaching the point he would manage to commit me to his own side of the subject, or place me in a defenseless position. So with covert aim I began:
”I believe that friction is one method of producing heat.”
”Yes.”
”I have been told that the North American Indians make fires by rubbing together two pieces of dry wood.”
”True.”
”I have understood that the light of a shooting star results from the heat of friction, producing combustion of its particles.”
”Partly,” he answered.
”That when the meteoric fragment of s.p.a.ce dust strikes the air, the friction resulting from its velocity heats it to redness, fuses its surface, or even burns its very substance into ashes.”
”Yes.”
”I have seen the spindle of a wheel charred by friction.”
”Yes.”
”I have drawn a wire rapidly through a handkerchief tightly grasped in my hands, and have warmed the wire considerably in doing so.”
”Yes.”
I felt that I had him committed to my side of the question, and I prepared to force him to disprove the possibility of one a.s.sertion that he had made concerning his journey.