TABLE OF CONTENTS. The Influence of Language on Thought. By C. A. Vince Leaves from a Tourist's Note Book. By John Ryley Robinson, LL.D. ... IX. Leghorn-The Maremma-Civita Vecchia-Rome 125, 372, 378 Astronomy. By the Rev. T. W. Webb, M.A., F.R.A.S. Biology. By Prof. W. R. McNab, M.D. Technology. By Chas. W. Vincent, F.R.S.E., F.C.S. 62, 127, 190, 255, 319, 382 The History of King Harold's Church at Waltham Holy Cross. By William The Christian Home. By the Rev. J. Baldwin Brown, B.A. Skull Superstitions. By William Andrews, F.R.Hist. Soc. Crossing the Estrella. A Reminiscence of Travel in Portugal. By the ... Over the Snow. A Sketch in New Brunswick. By Mrs. Leith Adams 344 Foreign Missionaries—Married or Single. By the Rev. John S. Moffat, of The Sentinel at Gibraltar. By John Ryley Robinson, LL.D. The Argonaut. THE INFLUENCE OF LANGUAGE ON THOUGHT. By C. A. VINCE. HEN Shelley tells us that Prometheus " gave men speech, and speech created thought," he is adding to the Eschylean myth, which represents with singular truth the triumph of man by art, a false idea which the clear Greek intellect would instinctively have avoided. To such a metaphor no true meaning can be assigned. Language is not the creator, but the creature of thought. Primeval man must have thought and reasoned before he spoke; he may have tried and rejected other means of representing and communicating his ideas before he hit on the now universal method of speech. In every sense thought is prior to language. The true relation of the two seems to be this. Language is not the "mirror of thought," not the external and sensible sign necessarily and exactly corresponding to a mental conception within; it is simply a method-not the only method, not by any means a perfect method, though the best we know-of communicating to others the thoughts that are born in our own minds. Any more intimate connection than this we have no right to assume. Yet true as it is that language is primarily the creation, the subject, the servant of thought, the tyrannical influence which it exercises over thought is an undeniable and most dangerous characteristic of our intellectual life. "Let us consider," says Bacon, "the false appearances that are imposed on us by words, which are |