of the Universal Self, Spirit, or Consciousnessare infinite; the world-process which endeavours to express them is infinite. One main idea ( others being subordinate ) is expressed by one individual, or one race, in any one time and space, beauty ', 'strength,’ 'comfort, ‘peace,’ 'war, 'science,’ law, duty ' ‘right,’ ‘piety, ’ ‘devotion.’ &c. &c. The various members of a race, which is the embodiment and exponent of any one such main idea, have to use means of communication with each other to intensify that exposition, to make their lives fuller and deeper. This means during the present cycle of evolution, is sound . language. In other cycles it may be sight-language, or touch. language, or smell-language, &c. &c. This sound-language is made up of single sounds, which, as said before, are in accordance with the body, the physical constitution, of the race, which, again, is in accordance with its spirit, its ruling idea. A race embodying sweetness and gentleness would unconsciously select the soft and sweet sounds for its language; another manifesting martial strength and spirit, the harsher and more definite ones.
The Samskrit language, embodying Dharma, law and order, the instrument of a civilisation whose characteristics are systematisation, rounded comprehensiveness and completeness, an ordered arrangement of life from beginning to end, and in all departments, is therefore itself systematic. It uses fourteen vowels and thirty-five consonants, a total of seven sevens, Some put the nasal and the aspirate sounds anusvara and visarga-amongst the vowels, and so count them as sixteen and the consonants thirty-three. They are arranged systematically, according to the regions of the vocal apparatus whence they proceed, as gutturals, linguce-radicals, palatals, cerebrals, dentals,
