Ossian Collection > Gaelic concepts of life and death

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lects long ages before. We are apt to let ex-
pressions regarding time slip off the tongue
and through the ear without any clear appre-
hension. Let us put it in this way. We have
all of us, say, that we know, or have known
our parents, and I am sure not all of us our
grand-parents, and very few indeed our great-
grand-parents — although I am greatly thank-
ful that I have on one side both of them, and
one on the other for some years. Beyond that all
is blank, so far as the human realisation of
living feeling is concerned. This only means
a hundred years, or a hundred and fifty at the
outside, but the language of our people speaks
to us out of the utter darkness of thousands
of years beyond — and it speaks infallible
truth. It is the only truth. It is the crystal-
lized life essence of millenniums, after being
filtered through the ages.
The Language.
Let us think of this for a moment. What is
language? Where does it come from? How
does it grow? How does it live and remain?
I have just now said a strange thing. I
have said that language is the only truth,
and I wish you to keep your mind's eye upon
the expression to see if I am right or wrong.
Language has grown from the beginning
exactly as it is gi'owing now, and in no other
way. To the mind comes an idea or a con-
cept as I prefer to call it. No one knows
where it comes from. It comes out of the
unknown. Our infinite environment of land
and sea and sky generates it in us. We are
growing. This thought when it comes is a step
in our evolution. We need a word for it. The
word comes or is made, and it starts out on its
travel in the history of the world — perhaps
for all time. The human concept is embodied