"  If  we  have  all  been  practising  this  language,  ever  since  our
first  entrance  into  the  world,  it  doth  not  seem  to  me  at  all  strange
that  men  should  not  be  aware  they  had  learned  a  language  begun
so  early  and  practised  so  constantly.  And  if  we  also  consider
that  it  is  the  same  throughout  the  world,  and  not,  like  other  lan-
guages, differing  in  different  places,  it  will  not  seem  unaccoun-
table that  men  should  mistake  the  connection  between  the  proper
objects  of  sight  and  the  things  signified  by  them  to  be  founded
in  necessary  relation  or  likeness."

If  Berkeley  had  been  a  modern  zoologist,  he  would,  no  doubt,
have  made  this  assertion  still  stronger;    by  pointing   out   that   the


LOUIS  AGASSIZ  AND    GEORGE  BERKELEY  329

whole  history  of  life  is  a  history  of  the  acquisition  of  the  lan-
guage of  nature;  for  each  stimulus  to  a  vital  act  is  a  sign  with  a
significance;  and  we  have  seen,  page  63,  that  a  living  thing  is
a  being  which,  when  affected  by  a  stimulus,  prepares  itself  for
the  significance,  of  which,  in  course  of  nature,  it  is  the  sign.
Berkeley  himself  saw  clearly,  and  he  tells  us  in  many  places,
that  it  is  not  necessary  that  the  language  of  nature  be  intelli-
gently apprehended  in  order  to  be  instructive,  for  human  speech
is  often  used  to  warn  or  to  excite  or  to  please,  rather  than  to
call  up  mental  images ;  and  one  may  be  sure  that  all  living  things
respond  to  the  language  of  nature  to  their  advantage,  without
knowing  whether  they  consciously  apprehend  the  benefit  of  re-
sponse or  not.
