Section 59.
Wherever we turn we face the absolute importance of language
for our work. Whatever we hear or read concerning a crime is
expressed in words, and everything perceived with the eye, or any
other sense, must be clothed in words before it can be put to use.
That the criminalist must know this first and most important means
of understanding, completely and in all its refinements, is
self-evident. But still more is required of him. He must first of all
undertake a careful investigation of the essence of language itself.
A glance over literature shows how the earliest scholars have aimed
to study language with regard to its origins and character. Yet,
who needs this knowledge? The lawyer. Other disciplines can find
in it only a scientific interest, but it is practically and absolutely
valuable only for us lawyers, who must, by means of language,
take evidence, remember it, and variously interpret it. A failure in
a proper understanding of language may give rise to false conceptions
and the most serious of mistakes. Hence, nobody is so bound
as the criminal lawyer to study the general character of language,
and to familiarize himself with its force, nature, and development.
Without this knowledge the lawyer may be able to make use of
language, but failing to understand it, will slip up before the slightest
difficulty. There is an exceedingly rich literature open to
everybody.[1]
[[ id="n59.1"]]
Cf. Darwin: Descent of Man.
Jakob Grimm: Über den Ursprung der Sprache.
E. Renan: De l'Origine du Language, etc., etc.
