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ne. It is by no means useless, for instance, to those who have to deal with texts. It is useful to the historian, among others, to be able to see the commonest forms of different phenomena, whether phonetic, morphological or other, and how language lives, carries on and changes over time. More generally, it is evident that language plays such a considerable role in human societies, and is a factor of such importance both for the individual human being and human society, that we cannot suppose that the study of such a substantial part of human nature should remain simply and solely the business of a few specialists; everyone, it would seem, is called upon to form as correct an idea as possible of what this particular aspect of human behaviour amounts to in general. All the more so inasmuch as really rational, acceptable ideas about it, the conception that linguistics has eventually reached, by no means coincides with what at first sight seems to be the case. There is no sphere in which more fantastic and absurd ideas have arisen than in the study of languages. Language is an object which gives rise to all kinds of mirage. Most interesting of all, from a psychological point of view, are the errors language produces. Everyone, left to his own devices, forms an idea about what goes on in language which is very far from the truth. Thus it is equally legitimate in that respect for linguistics today to Claim to be able to put many ideas right, to throw light on areas where the general run of scholars would be very liable to go wrong and make very serious mistakes. I have left on one side the question of languages and language in order to discuss the object of linguistics and its possible utility. [4 November 1910] Main sections of the course: 1) Languages 2) The language 3) The language faculty and its use by the individual. Without for the moment distinguishing terminologically between languages and language, where do we find the linguistic phenomenon in its concrete, complete, integral form? That is: where do we find the object we have to confront? With all its characteristics as yet contained within it and unanalysed? This is a difficulty which does not arise in many other disciplines - not having your subject matter there in front of you. It would be a mistake to believe that this integral, complete object can be grasped by picking out whatever is most general. The operation of generalisation presupposes that we have already investigated the object under scrutiny in such a way as to be able to pronounce upon what its general features are. What is general in language will not be what we are looking for; that is, the object immediately given. But nor must we focus on what is only part of it. Thus, it is clear that the vocal apparatus has an importance which may monopolise our attention, and when we have studied this articulatory aspect of languages we shall soon realise that there is a corresponding acoustic aspect. But even that does not go beyond purely material considerations. It does not take us as far as the word, the combination of the idea and the articulatory product; but if we take the combination of the idea and the vocal sign, we must ask if this is to be studied in the individual or in a society, a corporate body: we still seem to be left with something which is incomplete. Proceeding thus, we see that in catching hold of the language by one end at random we are far from being able to grasp the whole phenomenon. It may s