We may speak to a dog or horse, but not
to a stone. If we make pretence of doing so we are in reality only
talking to ourselves. The person or animal spoken to is half the
battle--a half, moreover, which is essential to there being any
battle at all. It takes two people to say a thing--a sayee as well
as a sayer. The one is as essential to any true saying as the
other. A. may have spoken, but if B. has not heard there has been
nothing said, and he must speak again. True, the belief on A.'s
part that he had a bona fide sayee in B., saves his speech qua him,
but it has been barren and left no fertile issue. It has failed to
fulfil the conditions of true speech, which involve not only that A.
should speak, but also that B. should hear. True, again, we often
speak of loose, incoherent, indefinite language; but by doing so we
imply, and rightly, that we are calling that language which is not
true language at all. People, again, sometimes talk to themselves
without intending that any other person should hear them, but this
is not well done, and does harm to those who practise it.
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