we to say, then, that this most active, amiable and intelligent fellow could neither think nor reason?  One day I had had my dinner and had left the hotel.  A friend came in, and the waiter saw him look for me in the place I generally occupied.  He instantly came up to my friend and moved his two forefingers in a way that suggested two people going about together, this meant “your friend”; he then moved his forefingers horizontally across his eyes, this meant, “who wears divided spectacles”; he made two fierce marks over the sockets of his eyes, this meant, “with the heavy eyebrows”; he pulled his chin, and then touched his white shirt, to say that my beard was white.  Having thus identified me as a friend of the person he was speaking to, and as having a white beard, heavy eyebrows, and wearing divided spectacles, he made a munching movement with his jaws to say that I had had my dinner; and finally, by making two fingers imitate walking on the table, he explained that I had gone away.  My friend, however, wanted to know how long I had been gone, so he pulled out his watch and looked inquiringly.  The man at once slapped himself on the back, and held up the five fingers of one hand, to say it was five minutes ago.  All this was done as rapidly as though it had been said in words; and my friend, who knew the man well, understood without a moment’s hesitation.  Are we to say that this man had no thought, nor reason, nor language, merely because he had not a single word of any kind in his head, which I am assured he had not; for, as I have said, he could not speak with his fingers?  Is it possible to deny that a dialogue—­ an intelligent conversation—­had passed between the two men?  And if conversation, then surely it is technical and pedantic to deny that all the essential elements of language were present.  The signs and tokens used by this poor fellow were as rude an instrument of expression, in comparison with ordinary language, as going on one’s hands and knees is in comparison with walking, or as walking compared with going by train; but it is as great an abuse of words to limit the word “language” to mere words written or spoken, as it would be to limit the idea of a locomotive to a railway engine.  This may indeed pass in ordinary conversation, where so much must be suppressed if talk is to be got through at all, but it is intolerable when we are inquiring about the relations between thought and words.  To do so is to let words become as it were the masters of thought, on the ground that the fact of their being only its servants and appendages is so obvious that it is generally allowed to go without saying.