1 a&fl nnfti 1 1ft EH m mm »if! II EHH1 I OO' \^' V O ■ % V > A° ^ V*' TREATISE ON LANGUAGE RELATION WHICH WORDS BEAR TO THINGS IN FOUR PARTS. BY A. B. JOHNSON. NEW YORK. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS. 1836. V 1* \ Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, by Harper & Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New- York. £7?^ HENRY W. REES, STEREOTYPE*., 45 GOLD STREET, NEW-YORK. U) PREFACE In 1828 the following work was first published, It was enti- tled " The Philosophy of Human Knowledge, or, A Treatise on Language ;" and was the first part of a series of experimental investigations which were to include language, physical actions, thoughts, and feelings. The publication of 1828 was limited to the investigation of language ; and as the present publication possesses the same limitation, and the other topicks, though in progress, may never be completed, the first half of the original title is omitted, and the present publication is designated A Treatise on Language. Except many gratifying letters received by me from strangers in various states of our Union, and one extensive review, the preceding edition of this work excited no attention. The edi- tion has, however, been long since absorbed spontaneously by the publick, and I have received repeated applications for further copies. The form of lectures to which the preceding work was sub- jected, has been retained as a means of lessening the natural wearisomeness of instruction. In other respects, the work -has been newly arranged and simplified. The present edition con- tains also much that is not in the former ; yet the lectures are still little more than heads of discourses. They are sufficient to indicate my views of language ; while persons who shall accord with me in these views, will readily discover new illus- trations of the rules which I have given, and new rules for IV PREFACE. verbal positions to which I have not adverted. Indeed, all that the book contains is the elucidation of but one precept : namely, to interpret language by nature. We reverse the rule and interpret nature by language. The precept itself which I have sought to illustrate, I profoundly respect ; but whether I have demonstrated its importance, the publick must deter- mine. Amid active and extensive employments, and with no external stimulus to literary pursuits, I shall be satisfied if the succeeding discourses shall commend the doctrine to the efforts of men whose understandings are more comprehensive than mine, and whose labours the world is accustomed to respect. As, however, the following sheets are the painful elaboration of many years, when my language or positions shall, in a casual perusal, seem absurd, (and such cases may be frequent,) I request the reader to seek some more creditable interpre- tation. The best which he can conceive should be assumed to be my intention : as on an escutcheon, when a figure resem- bles both an eagle and a buzzard, heraldry decides that the bird which is most creditable to the bearer, shall be deemed to be the one intended by the blazon. THE AUTHOR. V CONTENTS LECTURE I.— Introductory 33 Section 1. — To know the extent of our powers will save us from, impracticable pursuits . . . .... .33 Section 2. — We are in little danger from the pursuit of physical impracticabilities . . . . . . . . .33 Section 3. — We are in danger of wasting time in verbal investi- gations , , 34 Section 4. — To ascertain the capacity that language possesses for discoursing of external existences which our senses cannot discover, will enable us, more understanding^ than at present, to estimate theories 34 Section 5. — No knowledge is more important than a correct appreciation of language 34 Section 6. — Verbal discourse contains defects which have escaped detection 35 Section 7. — Significant verbal inquisition is not unlimited . . 35 Section 8. — Language may be formed into propositions whose results, though incontrovertible by logick, are irreconcileable with our senses ... 33 Section 9. — The verbal defects which these discourses will dis- cuss, are inseparable from language, and differ from any defects that you may anticipate 37 Section 12. — These discourses concern not the relative meaning which words bear to each other, but the relation which words bear to created existences 38 Section 13. — We translate sensible existences into words, instead of interpreting words by the information of our senses . . 38 Section 14. — We must make our senses the expositors of words, instead of making words the expositors of what our senses reveal 38 Section 15. — To understand these discourses, a slight perusal of detached parts, or of the whole, will be insufficient ... 39 VI CONTENTS, PART FIRST, OF LANGUAGE WITH REFERENCE TO EXISTENCES WHICH ARE EXTERNAL OF MAN. LECTURE II. — External sensible existences are susceptible OP A CLASSIFICATION WHICH SHALL REFER EACH EXISTENCE TO THE SENSE THROUGH WHOSE AGENCY WE ACQUIRE OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE . 43 Section 4. — To understand the relation which words bear to created existences, we must contemplate creation apart from words 43 Section 5. — The external universe may be divided into sights, sounds, tastes, feels, and smells 44 Section 6. — Sights, feels, &c, are presented to us by nature in certain groups 44 Section 7. — Sights and feels are the most frequently associated 44 Section 8. — Sights, feels, tastes, and smells, are frequently asso- ciated 45 Section 10. — Sights, sounds, tastes, feels, and smells, nature sometimes presents singly to us 45 Section 11. — We must discriminate between the extent and va- riety of creation and the paucity of language . . . .45 Section 13. — Tastes, smells, sounds, and feels, are seldom desig- nated specifically by names 46 Section 14. — We create names when we deem them useful . 46 Action 15. — The associations of nature are sometimes separable 47 Section 16.— Feels can also be separated from the sights with which they are naturally associated 47 Section 17. — Painting, slight of hand, natural magick, &c, con- sist in the separation, either artificially or spontaneously, of the sensible existences which nature usually associates . . .47 Section 18. — When we see a sight, experience alone induces us to expect that it is associated with a feel . . . . .48 Section 19. — When we perceive a feel, experience alone induces us to expect that it is associated with a sight . . . .49 Section 20. — Language refers to the groups which nature presents to us, and not to the individual phenomena of any group . . 49 Section 21. — Words are confounded with things . . . .50 Section 22. — We should endeavour to regard words as merely the names of things 50 LECTURE III. — Language implies a oneness to which nature CONFORMS NOT IN ALL CASES 52 Section 1. — The existence which we name a shadow, possesses more natural oneness than the existence which we name gold 52 CONTENTS. Vll Section 2. — The oneness of natural existences must not be inter- preted by their names, but by our senses 52 Section 3. — We must subordinate language to what we discover in nature 53 Section 4. — Verbally, the oneness of every existence is equally simple, but the natural oneness varies in different existences . 53 Section 5. — In all our speculations, we estimate created exist- ences by the oneness of their name 54 Section 6.— Because nature exhibits not the oneness which we find in language, we impute the discrepancy to a fallacy of nature, instead of knowing that it is simply a provision of language . 54 Section 7. — Instead of employing our experience to teach us that the oneness of language is fallacious, we employ it to show that the duality of nature is fallacious 55 Section 8. — We make language the expositor of nature, instead of making nature the expositor of language . . . .55 Section 9.— -We invent theories to reconcile the duality of nature to the oneness of language . . . . . . .55 Section 10. — To assert that distance is invisible, is only an enig- matical mode of relating the simple fact, that seeing cannot reveal to us a feel 57 Section 11. — Whether seeing can or not inform us of an external universe, depends on the meaning which we attach to the word external. The question relates to language, and not to nature 57 Section 12. — Estimating nature by the oneness of language is a fallacy \* hich enters deeply into every system of philosophy . 58 LECTURE IV. — The oneness implied by language affects not ONLY METAPHYSICAL DISQUISITIONS, BUT PHYSICAL SPECULATIONS . 59 Section 1. — When a word names the phenomena of two or more senses, the oneness of the name is peculiarly embarrassing 59 Section 3. — We seek in nature for a unit which exists in language only 59 Section 4. — Groups of natural existences and relations may be deemed units, but we must estimate their oneness by our sensi- ble experience, and not by the implication of language ; nature being no party to our language . . . . . . • 60 Section 5. — The oneness of nature is different in different cases, but the oneness which language implies is always complete . 60 Section 7. — The particulars which we can discover in nature, are all which truly pertain to nature 61 Section 9. — Medical science is probably embarrassed by our im- puting to diseases and their incidents, the oneness which per- tains to their names only 62 Section 11. — Our moral speculations also are embarrassed by imputing to nature the oneness which exists in language only 63 Vlll CONTENTS. Section 16. — Some units are a sensible aggregation, and some 3 verbal aggregation . . . . . . . . .84 Section 17. — We invent theories to supply the unit which we sup- pose must exist, but which we fail from finding in nature . 64 LECTURE V. — Language implies identities to which nature CONFORMS NOT ... 66 Section 2. — Language is a collection of general terms, but crea- tion is a congregation of individual existences . . . .66 Section 3. — We interpret the identity of existences by the iden- tity of their name 66 Section 4. — The identity which language implies has embarrassed medicine ... 67 Section 5.— Individuality is characteristick of nature . . .67 Section 7. — The identity which language implies is always com- plete, but nature approximates in various degrees only to a per- fect identity 68 Section 10. — We should not confound the verbal identity with the realities of nature 68 Section 11. — Failing to discover in nature the identity which language implies, but believing that it mus>t, exist somewhere in nature, we mistake it for a mysterious property of creation . 68 Section 12. — We transfer to nature the generalization which be- longs to language . • . 69 Section 13. — The diversity which we discover among natural objects, &c, that possess the same name, should teach us to correct the identity implied by their name ; but we employ the verbal identity to excite wonder at the natural diversity . . 69 Section 16. — Language, in its ability to designate individual exist- ences, is like colours in their ability to depict the variety of nature . 70 Section 19. — Verbal disquisitions will be erroneous till we cease from imputing to nature the identities which belong to language 71 Section 20. — The meaning of the word identity varies with the object to which it is applied 71 Section 21. — We subordinate nature to language, instead of sub- ordinating language to nature 72 Section 22. — No two existences are as identical in nature as in name 72 Section 23.— The identity which language implies is the expe- dient by which a finite language comprehends an infinitely diverse creation .72 Section 24. — Imputing to nature the identity which exists in lan- guage, causes much fallacious speculation ~ ■ . . . .73 Section 33. — Estimating nature by the identities of language misleads us in natural history, geography, &c. . . . .75 CONTENTS. IX Section 35. — Two men, who assent to the same general proposi- tion, may possess very diverse meanings 76 Section 36. — Our expressions are often identical, when our mean- ings are diverse . . . -'' 76 Section 37. — Estimating thoughts by the identity which their name implies, has prevented us from noting the natural diver- sity which thoughts exhibit 76 Section 38. — Thoughts are divisible into six different classes . 77 Section 39. — One class of thoughts are words . . . .77 Section 41. — In the production of verbal thoughts, an agency of the organs of speech is discoverable . . . .77 Section 42. — Verbal thoughts are limited, like audible words, to a consecutive formation . . . . ' . . . .78 Section 43. — The identity which exists between verbal thoughts and mere words, is closer than the generality of identities . 78 Section 44. — One class of thoughts is characteristically sights . 78 Section 45. — The remaining four classes of thoughts are cha- racteristically sounds, tastes, feels, and smells . . . .79 Section 46. — The thoughts which I class as smells, possess the limitation that pertains to the perception of odours . . .79 Section 47. — Tastes possess in thought the singleness which attends the reception of tastes . . 79 Section 48. — The recollection of sounds differs from the recollec- tion of articulations 79 Section 49. — We construe nature by the forms of language, instead of construing language by the revelations of nature . 80 Section 50. — Dumb mutes possess neither verbal thoughts nor auricular thoughts 80 Section 51. — To acquire a written language will not give the dumb verbal thoughts . 80 Section 52. — Infants possess no verbal thoughts . . . .81 Section 53. — A paralysis of the tongue impedes verbal thinking 81 Section 54. — Practically, we are well aware of the difference which exists in the nature of our thoughts . . . .81 LECTURE VI. — Words can be divested of signification, and still formed into propositions which will not be obviously futile 83 Section 1. — Words can be divested of their sensible signification 84 Section 7. — We are vigilant in detecting verbal contradictions, but we never detect the sensible contradiction which exists in affirming the presence of sensible existences, where none are discoverable by the senses . 85 Section 8.— Words, divested of signification^ may still be em- ployed in all the processes of logick 85 Section 13. — Words divested of signification may still be em- ployed in the problems and demonstrations of mathematicks . 87 2 X CONTENTS. Section 16. — The fallacy enters largely into the speculations of every department of philosophy 88 Section 20. — Theoretical causes are frequently nothing but words divested of their sensible signification .... 90 Section 22. — When we subtract from a word its sensible signifi- cation, the word returns, (so far as relates to the external uni- verse,) to the pristine insignificance which the word possessed, before it was applied to the purposes of language ... 90 Section 24. — The law of nature, which makes the word scarlet insignificant to the blind, makes all words insignificant when they attempt to name external existences which our senses cannot discover 91 Section 26. — We can no more subtract from an external exist- ence its sensible qualities, and leave a subsisting reality, than we can subtract all sensible qualities from an orange, and leave a fruit . 91 Section 27. — When the word cause is used significantly, it re- fers to a sensible existence 92 Section 29. — An ignorance of the limitation which nature has formed to the signification of language, is in no instance so productive of erroneous speculation, as in its application to the word cause 92 Section 36. — Theories are useful, but we need not confound them with the sensible realities of creation .... 94 Section 38. — The principles of this lecture are correct, though some of my illustrations may be deemed incorrect . . 95 LECTURE VII. — The meaning of a word varies with its appli- cation 96 Section 1. — Words may be compared to a mirror. It is natu- rally void, and varies its representations as you vary the object which is placed before it ....:... 96 Section 2. — Words signify the objects to which they are applied 97 Section 3. — Every word is a general term, and applies to a mul- titude of diverse existences 97 Section 4.— We attribute to nature the generality which belongs to language 98 Section 5. — Instead of qualifying the meaning of a word by the existence to which we apply the word, we estimate the exist- ence by the word 98 Section 7. — We must resort to our senses for the sensible mean- ing of a word, and not to a dictionary 100 Section 8. — We must discriminate between the question which relates to the appropriateness of a word, and its signification 100 Section 9. — Interpreting nature by language enables us to com- municate an artificial interest to scientifick experiments . 101 CONTENTS. XI Section 10.— -The language in which every experiment is an- nounced must be interpreted by the experiment. We must not interpret the experiment by the language . » ■. .101 Section 15. — Interpreting nature by language enables us to very insidiously excite admiration . .* . . . . 102 Section 17. — Interpreting nature by language enables us to both artificially exalt and degrade sensible information . . . 103 Section 20. — The sensible realities to which words refer, and which alone give words a sensible signification, are not affected by our phraseology 105 Section 21. — Philosophy often expends itself in a contest about phraseology, from not knowing that the meaning of words is controlled by the sensible existences to which the words refer 105 LECTURE VIIL— Every general proposition possesses as many SIGNIFICATIONS AS IT POSSESSES REFERENCE TO DIFFERENT PAR- TICULARS . . 107 Section 2. — Every proposition signifies some particular that the speaker refers to ; but the proposition is interpreted by some^- thing that the hearer refers to . * . . . . 107 Section 3. — One particular may constitute the meaning of nu- merous propositions 108 Section 4. — General propositions produce often an apparent con- flict of opinion where no disagreement exists . . .108 Section 5. — Propositions possess not always a determinate meaning . . . . » k . , . . » 108 Section 6. — We often involve our actions in general propositions 109 Section 8. — Universal gravitation signifies the particulars only to which it refers 109 Section 9. — The sphericity and motions, &c, of the earth, sig- nify the phenomena only to which the propositions refer . 110 Section 10.— "Till we know the particulars to which a proposi- tion refers, its meaning is unknown to us . . . .111 Section 11. — Ignorance of the true method of interpreting pro- positions causes controversy * HI Section 12. — Medical science has suffered by a misconstruction . of general propositions » , . .112 Section 13. — The illustrations of a general proposition consti- tute often all its meaning . . .',-.'■. . . .112 Section 14. — Conflicting general propositions often harmonize when we know the particulars to which they refer . .112 Section 16. — No general proposition is significant of more than certain particulars .113 Section 18. — We should never contest general propositions, but the particulars to which the propositions refer. Men cannot be forced to adopt but one phraseology 114 XII CONTENTS. Section 20. — Nearly every proposition is true when interpreted as the speaker interprets it. This results from the nature of language, and not from conventional agreement . . .114 Section 22. — General propositions are unintelligible till resolved into some known particulars 115 Section 25. — Some writers commit a species of tautology, by involving in general propositions the facts which they subse- quently particularize . .116 Section 31. — General propositions bring often unmerited honour on their authors 118 Section 34. — We must interpret every general proposition by the particulars to which it refers ; and not interpret the par- ticulars by the general proposition 118 Section 36. — Some sensible particulars imply others, by virtue of our experience 119 LECTURE IX. — When the negation of a proposition refers TO NO PARTICULAR, THE NEGATION IS INSIGNIFICANT ; AND THE PRO- POSITION POSSESSES AN UNLIMITED AFFIRMATION, WHICH MAKES THE PROPOSITION SEEM TO SIGNIFY MORE THAN A LIMITED NUMBER OF PARTICULARS .......... 121 Section 1. — That the sensible signification of a general proposi- tion is limited to the sensible particulars to which the proposi- tion refers, proceeds from nature and not from convention . 121 Section 2. — Affirmative propositions possess a universal appli- cation, when the negation of their universality refers to no sensible particular ......... 121 Section 3. — Uninterrupted experience excites a feeling of ex- pectation which enters into the meaning of some propositions that allude to futurity 122 Section 4. — A universal proposition that speaks of futurity, cannot be invalidated by a negation that refers to no sensible particular * 122 Section 5. — If a negation refers to no sensible particular, the negation is insignificant 122 Section 6. — All affirmations and all negations refer for significa- tion to our experience 123 Section 7.— Propositions are neither significant nor insignificant, but as they refer to our sensible experience .... 123 Section 8. — Though the absence of a sensible negative will make an affirmative proposition universal in its meaning, yet the affirmative proposition will signify the sensible particulars only to which it refers 123 Section 9. — The universality of a proposition relates to the ab- sence of a sensible negative particular, and not the number of the affirmative particulars . . . . . . 124 CONTENTS. Xill Section 10. — Many scientific!?: propositions owe their propriety to the absence of a sensible negative 124 Section 12. — A doubt or salvo which refers to nothing sensible, is verbal only and sensibly insignificant 125 LECTURE X.— Language can effect no more than refer us to THE INFORMATION OF OUR SENSES ...... 126 Section 1.— Words can supply the place of no sense. They can simply refer us to what our senses have disclosed . . 127 Section 2. — No sight which I have not seen, can be revealed to me by words 127 Section 5. — Pictures can reveal no sight but themselves . . 128 Section 6. — No taste which I have not experienced, can be made known to me 129 Section 7. — No sound which I have not heard, can be made known to me 129 Section 8. — Brilliancy of imagination and acuteness of intellect cannot perform the office of any of our senses . . . 129 Section 9. — No feel which I have not felt, can be known to me 130 Section 10. — No muscular effort which I have not experienced, can be made known to me by language 130 Section 11. — Nearly every word possesses a verbal meaning as well as a sensible meaning 130 Section 12. — The sensible signification of a word nothing can reveal but our senses; — the verbal signification can be dis- closed by words . 131 Section 13. — We rarely discriminate between the verbal signifi- cation of a word and its sensible signification . . .131 Section 14. — Words and definitions can disclose only the verbal meaning of words 132 Section 18. — A knowledge of the two-fold character of words useful in the instruction of deaf mutes . . . . .133 XIV CONTENTS, PART SECOND. OF LANGUAGE WITH REFERENCE TO PHENOMENA INTERNAL OF MAN. LECTURE XL — To make all language refer to sensible in- formation, FORCES US TO ESTIMATE, AS SENSIBLE INFORMATION, SOME INTERNAL PHENOMENA "WHICH ENTER LARGELY INTO THE SIG- NIFICATION OF WORDS, AND ARE NOT USUALLY INCLUDED AMONG SENSIBLE INFORMATION. WORDS ALSO ENTER LARGELY INTO THE SIGNIFICATION OF OTHER WORDS . . . . . . .137 Section 1. — Language refers to our internal feelings . . . 137 Section 2. — Language would lose a large portion of its mean- ing, to a person destitute of internal feelings . . . 137 Section 3. — Internal feelings enter largely into the signification of words that relate to religion 138 Section 5. — Religious feelings seem a part of the human consti- tution, like hope, fear, &c ....... 138 Section 6. — Religion, from its connexion with our internal feel- ings, is but little affected by adverse logick . . . .139 Section 7. — Internal feelings enter largely into words that are not religious 139 Section 8. — The whole universe can be nominally analyzed into sights, sounds, tastes, feels, smells, internal feelings, thoughts, and words 139 Section 9. — Our analysis is artificial ; the universe can be cor- rectly expounded by itself alone ...... 140 Section 10. — Words that refer to our internal feelings are sub- ject to all the rules of interpretation which are enumerated in the preceding lectures 140 Section 11.— The identity of love is as fallacious as its oneness 141 Section 12. — We subject our internal feelings to fewer verbal distinctions than our sensible information .... 141 Section 13.— Language is significant of what our senses inform us of, what we are conscious of experiencing within ourselves, and of words . . . . . . . . . . 142 Section 14. — Words are significant of other words . . . 142 Section 15. — A word which at one time signifies a word, may, at another time, signify a sight, &c. ..... 143 Section 16. — Some words never signify any thing but other words 143 Section 17. — Some words of the above class, when connected with an internal feeling, are of the most sacred character . 143 CONTENTS. XV Section 19. — The present lecture is only introductory to suc- ceeding ones, which will show that speculative writers fail to discriminate between the verbal signification of a word, — its sensible signification, — and its signification with reference to our internal feelings. They deem the variety of meaning a duplicity of nature, instead of a property of language . . 144 LECTURE XII. — Much errour occurs in our speculations WHEN WE OMIT TO DISCRIMINATE BETWEEN THE VERBAL MEANING OF A WORD, ITS SENSIBLE MEANING, AND ITS MEANING THAT REFERS TO OUR INTERNAL CONSCIOUSNESS 145 Section 1. — We should discriminate between the verbal signifi- cation of a word, and the sensible signification . . . 145 Section 2. — The senses alone can reveal to us the sensible sig- nification of words 145 Section 3. — Words can yield us nothing but the verbal significa- tion of words : 146 Section 4. — We strangely confound the verbal signification of a word with the sensible signification 146 Section 5. — The sensible signification of a sentence is the sen- sible existence to which the sentence refers . . . .147 Section 6. — Phraseology is controlled by custom, but the sensi- ble signification of phrases is controlled by nature . . 147 Section 8. — We cannot transmute sights, feels, &c, into words 148 Section 10. — Logick relates to the verbal meaning of words, and its conclusions must not be confounded with sensible existences 148 Section 14. — We cannot enlarge our sensible knowledge by words 150 Section 15. — Sensible existences will not conform to our phrase- ology, but our phrases will signify the sensible existences to which the phrases refer 150 Section 16. — We must refer to the revelation of our senses for the meaning of words, and not refer to words for the meaning of what our senses reveal 151 Section 17. — All that my senses disclose, and all that I am con- scious of experiencing within myself, constitute the realities of nature. The rest of my knowledge is verbal . . . 151 Section 18. — As bank notes are the artificial representatives of specie, so words are the artificial representatives of natural phenomena 152 Section 19. — When words attempt more than a reference to the revelation of our senses, the words may possess a verbal meaning, but not a sensible meaning 152 Section 20. — The sensible signification of a theory is the sensi- ble phenomena to which the theory refers . . . .153 XVI CONTENTS. Section 21. — We confound theories with the realities of nature 154 Section 22. — Every theory possesses a verbal meaning- as well as a sensible 154 Section 23. — We cannot transmute sights, feels, &c, into words, though we strive after the transmutation with an entire un- consciousness that we are transmuting one sentence only into another . . . . 155 Section 25.— Words are sometimes the ultimate meaning of words 156 Section 26. — In all discussions, we should discriminate whether we are attempting to define a word, or to designate an exist- ence 156 Section 28. — We mistake for sensible investigations, what are only verbal deductions from artificial definitions . . . 157 Section 31. — We mistake words for things . . . .159 CONTENTS. XV11 PART THIRD. OF LANGUAGE WITH REFERENCE TO THE RELATION WHICH WORDS BEAR TO EACH OTHER. LECTURE XIII. — Language commands our assent to proposi- tions WHEN WE DISCOVER THAT THEIR PREMISES AFFIRM THEIR conclusions 163 Section 1. — Reasoning can effect no more than to show us that the conclusion is admitted by the premises .... 164 Section 14. — When our conclusions are not obviously admitted by our premises, we explain the premises so as to show that they embrace the conclusion. The explanation is sometimes in the form of proofs, and sometimes a definition . . . 166 Section 23. — Propositions are sophistical when the conclusion is only seemingly (not actually) included in the premises . 169 Section 24. — Sometimes the premises are made to admit very covertly the conclusion 169 Section 25. — Similar principles with the foregoing govern our assent to mathematical propositions 170 Section 29. — Are the foregoing principles of language conven- tional, or a dictate of our sensible experience with physical bodies? 171 LECTURE XIV. — Our assent to any proposition is founded on our sensible experience . 172 Section 1. — The incongruity and congruity of any two asser- tions are the result of our experience 173 Section 3. — The congruity and incongruity of any two asser- tions are not the results of the conventional meaning of words 173 Section 4. — The axioms of geometry are no otherwise authori- tative than as they refer to our sensible experience . . 174 Section 5. — A contrivance implies a contriver, because the* im- plication refers to our sensible experience .... 174 Section 6. — Existence implies a beginning, because the implica- tion refers to our experience .175 Section 7. — Time which is not present, must be either past or future, because the position is verified by our experience . 175 Section 8. — That ice cannot be hot is an experimental incon- gruity 176 Section 9. — All the implications of language, all its congruities and incongruities, must be interpreted by our sensible expe- rience. They signify nothing more . . 176 3 XV111 CONTENTS. LECTURE XV. — After sensible experience commands our as- sent to certain forms of speech, we apply the forms where no sensible phenomena are discoverable .... 178 Section 2. — The implications of language, and the congruities and incongruities of words to each other, though significant of nothing but our sensible experience, are applied often where nothing sensible is discoverable 178 Section 3. — The word created owes to our experience its predi- cability ; hence, its predicability is not significant beyond our experience 178 Section 6. — Words possess no inherent signification. Their signification must be interpreted by what we see, feel, taste, smell, and hear. Words possess, also, no inherent predica- bility. Their predicability must be interpreted by what we see, feel, taste, smell, and hear 179 Section 8.— We do not attribute sweetness to the sun, for the same reason that we do attribute a commencement to the sun. This alone may teach us that the attribution of either is signi- ficant of nothing that we know of the sun .... 180 Section 9.— A negation that refers to nothing is as insignifi- cant as an assertion that refers to nothing. Both must be interpreted by the sensible phenomena to which the words refer 181 Section 10. — Words are an invention of man to designate his operations and the revelations of his senses. The principle which makes words significant when they refer to these, makes words insignificant when they refer not to these. . 181 Section 13. — Verbal processes may usually be continued inter- minably ; hence they differ characteristically from sensible realities, which are always finite 182 Section 16. — That we are compelled to eventually abandon our verbal processes, should teach us their fallacy . . . 184 Section 20. — That our verbal processes, when pursued to their ultimate limits, lead to absurdities, should teach us that we are employing language insignificantly ...... 185 Section 21. — Creation is the interpreter of words, and words are not the interpreters of creation 186 Section 22. — Nothing can be sustained that is repugnant to reve- lation. Natural theology is founded on the same fallacy as Zeno's problem of the tortoise 186 Section 28.— My remarks on theology possess no object but to show that my views of language are compatible with revela- tion . ,,.,,«..,, 188 CONTENTS. XIX LECTURE XVI. — After sensible experience commands our ASSENT TO CERTAIN FORMS OF SPEECH, WE APPLY THE FORMS WHERE NO SENSIBLE PHENOMENA ARE DISCOVERABLE. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED, AND FURTHER EXEMPLIFIED BY AN INVESTIGATION OF VARIOUS SCIENTIFICK TENETS ....... 189 Section 1. — That an unsupported body will fall to the earth, is an experimental fact. The necessity is physical and not verbal. When the necessity is verbally implied, without re- ferring to any thing sensible, the words return to their original insignificance 189 Section 4.— To say that the earth is either supported or unsup- ported, is equally insignificant 190 Section 5. — The reason which renders the word shape signifi- cant when applied to a table, shows that the word is insignifi- cant when applied to the earth as a whole .... 190 Section 6. — The word shape, when applied to the earth, will signify any thing to which the word refers . . . .191 Section 7. — That the shape which we attribute to the earth must be some shape that experience has revealed to us, shows that the predication of any shape is significant of nothing but our experience . . ' . , 191 Section 8. — No verbal necessity is significant of any thing but the sensible information to which it refers .... 192 Section 10. — The forms of language cease from being signifi- cant when the phenomena to which the forms refer cease from being discoverable 192 Section 11. — We are correct in calling the earth a sphere, but we are incorrect when we deem the name an authority for attributing to the earth sensible properties which our senses cannot discover * . . ; 193 Section 12. — We are correct in saying that the arch of a circle can never coincide with a straight line ; but we are incorrect when we deem the assertion capable of either revealing to us physical facts which our senses cannot discover, or of contra- dicting physical facts which our senses can discover . . 195 Section 15. — That bodies are divisible into parts is a physical fact, which possesses no authority but our experience ; hence the fallacy of continuing the division verbally, beyond the authority of our senses, and even against their authority . 195 Section 16. — Conclusions respond verbally to premises, as a par- rot responds to questions which we may ask it. Whether the answer shall be significant or not, depends on something other than the parrot .195 Section 17. — The ultimate cogency of all reasoning refers to our sensible experience . .196 2 XX CONTENTS. Section 24. — The solicitude which philosophical writers usually evince for the establishment of names and definitions, arises from the verbal deductions which they intend to draw from the names . 19S LECTURE XVII. —Philosophical speculations are often no- thing BUT VERBAL DEDUCTIONS FROM NAMES AND DEFINITIONS . 199 Section 1. — "What we have experienced in an orange, we deem predicable of every thing that is called an orange; without reflecting that every word possesses as many meanings as it possesses applications to different objects .... 199 Section 3. — What we infer from given facts is not identical with what we discover by our senses 199 Section 5. — Phraseology is not important while we employ it (say the word Caesar) to designate any thing ; but phraseology is very important when we infer from the word Caesar, that an individual must be a Roman Emperor ..... 200 Section 10. — We should discriminate between theoretical agents and sensible agents. A sensible agent is something which our senses discover; but a theoretical agent is something which is only supposed to exist 202 Section 12. — Theoretical agents are of man's fabrication, and partake of the mutability of their creator .... 203 Section 13. — When we employ language for the purpose of deducing consequences from names, a change of phraseology is productive of a new system of philosophy ... 203 Section 17. — The choice of phraseology is conventional, and subject to the judgment and caprice of men ; but the realities of creation are unaffected by our phraseology . . . 204 LECTURE XVIII. — Of the agents which we employ in the CONSTRUCTION OF THEORIES 206 Section 1. — We can employ no theoretical agents, but such as experience has taught us can produce effects similar to those which we seek to account for. In a rude age, theoretical agents are rude ; in a refined age they are subtile . . . 206 Section 6. — Every discovery in the arts furnishes us with new theoretical agents : 207 Section 11.— All the words and concomitants of a theory refer to our sensible experience for their significance; hence the fallacy of the language when the sensible existences are not discoverable 209 Section 17. — When a theory, in some of its results, conflicts with our experience, the theory is usually abandoned . . 210 Section 19. — Every theory and theoretical agent are significant of the sensible information to which they refer . . .211 CONTENTS. XXI Section 24. — Theories enable us to connect with pleasing illu- sions what would be otherwise disconnected facts . . 212 Section 26. — Theories are human contrivances by which we artificially associate sensible realities, and by familiar pro- cesses, account for their production ..... 213 PART FOURTH. OF LANGUAGE WITH REFERENCE TO SOME OF THE USES TO WHICH WE APPLY IT. LECTURE XIX. — Every question which relates to the ex- ternal UNIVERSE IS INSIGNIFICANT, IF IT CANNOT BE ANSWERED BY OUR SENSES . 217 Section 1. — Questions have interrogated every thing but them- selves . . . . i ... . . . 217 Section 2. — All questions which relate to the external universe, must be directed to our senses 217 Section 3. — A question which the senses cannot answer, is insignificant . . . . 217 Section 4. — Our senses alone can answer questions. Words can only refer us to what our senses reveal . . . • . 218 Section 5. — When we attempt to use language for some other purpose than to refer to our sensible experience, we are like a blind man speaking of colours . " . . . . . 219 Section 6. — As colours can depict sights only, so words can converse of nothing external which is not sight, sound, taste, feel, or smell . 219 Section 8. — An external thing that is not sensible, is as incon- gruous a thing as an insensible elephant .... 220 Section 10. — Every question which relates to the external uni- verse, implies (as essential to its signification) that it seeks some sensible information 220 Section 11. — When we attempt to forsake sensible information, it is still present with us 221 Section 12. — Diminution is one of the means by which we attempt to conceal the absurdity of employing the names of sensible existences, where the existences are not discoverable 221 XXII CONTENTS. Section 13. — Subtilization is another means by which we at- tempt to conceal the fallacy of employing the names of sensi- ble existences, where the existences are not discoverable by our senses . . . . . . . . , . . 222 Section 14. — Insensibleness is as much a negation of external existence, as death is a negation of life, or absence a negation of presence ..■>...' 222 Section 15. — All that Providence has placed within our power, in relation to the external universe, is to note what our senses discover 223 Section 17. — Language cannot enable us to penetrate beyond the range of our senses . . 224 LECTURE XX. — Every question which relates to what is internal of man, is insignificant if it cannot be answered by our consciousness . . 225 Section 2. — We cannot readily designate by words the pheno- mena which constitute our internal consciousness . . 225 Section 3. — Every man recognises the items of his own con- sciousness, how unable soever he may be to designate them by words to other men . . . . . . . . 225 Section 4. — Every question which relates to our internal con- sciousness, is best answered by the mute revelations of con- sciousness itself . 226 Section 6. — In relation to the realities of nature which are not external of us, language possesses no signification but as it refers to our internal experience . . . . . 227 Section 7. — Questions are insignificant when they seek what consciousness cannot answer . ... 227 LECTURE XXI. — Inquiries after a theory we mistake for an investigation of nature . . . . . . . 228 Section 1. — The words cause and effect are, like all other words, insignificant when they refer to nothing ; and are never sen- sibly significant of any thing but the sensible particulars to which they refer 228 Section 2. — To invent a verbal cause that will make a unique operation of nature, congruous to operations with which we are familiar, is mistaken for a physical discovery . . . 229 Section 4. — Verbal causes may be predicated in infinitum ; hence they are characteristically distinguished from the realities of nature 229 Section 5. — The verbal causes which a theorist adopts, are usually selected with a reference to his own occupations . 230 CONTENTS. XX111 Section 6. — We must discriminate between inquiries after a theory, and inquiries after the realities of creation . . 230 Section 7. — Natural operations which are peculiar, we find diffi- cult to subject to a theory 230 Section 11. — A sensible cause is a sensible existence, and pro- duces a sensible effect ; but in a theoretical cause, nothing is sensible but the effect 232 Section 12. — While we employ verbal causes to account for a sensible effect, the process harmonizes with our experience ; but when we employ a verbal cause to produce verbal effects, the process leads us to manifest absurdities. The further we proceed in a catenation of such causes and effects, the more evidently we recede from the realities of nature . . . 233 Section 13. — Inquisition concerning the realities of the external universe is limited to the discoveries of our senses ; but verbal inquisition is boundless . . 233 Section 14. — In questions, also, which relate to our internal con- sciousness, we must discriminate whether the answer is to be a theory, or the revelation of consciousness .... 234 Section 15. — Theories are usually derived from our familiar physical operations ; hence, we cannot invent satisfactory theories for mental operations; — the two departments of creation not being sufficiently analogous .... 234 Section 19. — The silent revelations of experience can alone teach us the realities of our mental nature .... 236 LECTURE XXII. — Inquiries after the definition of words we MISTAKE FOR AN INVESTIGATION OF NATURE .... 238 Section 1. — We should discriminate between the verbal signifi- cation of a word and its sensible signification, if we would correctly appreciate either language or the sensible universe 238 Section 2. — Nothing is more common than to confound the verbal meaning of a word with the sensible .... 238 Section 3. — Before we can tell what an atom is, we must know whether the question refers to the verbal meaning of the word, or the sensible . . . . . . . 239 Section 5. — Every word which possesses a sensible meaning, possesses also a verbal meaning 240 Section 7.— The external sensible universe is very different from the verbal universe of philosophers . . . . . 240 Section 9.— The question How? refers usually to a theory, — the question What * to a definition : we mistake both for phy- sical inquiries 241 Section 11. — Every existence is its own best interpreter, and its own physical revealer 242 XXIV CONTENTS. Section 12. — The verbal meaning of a word is usually founded on some theory . . . . . . . . . 242 Section 13.— The process which deems words the ultimate ob- jects of inquiry, may, like all other verbal processes, be con- tinued without end 242 LECTURE XXIII. — In all inquiries which relate to the sen- sible UNIVERSE, WE MUST DISCRIMINATE THE SENSE TO WHOSE INFORMATION THE INQUIRY REFERS . 244 Section 1. — Distance names a sight and a feel ; hence the dupli- city of asking whether seeing can inform us of distance . 244 Section 2. — When we know that the word external is restricted to the information of feeling, we shall not wonder that hear- ing, tasting, smelling, and seeing, cannot reveal what we mean by the word external 244 Section 4. — Above and below name sights ; hence, hearing can- not inform us in relation to either above or below . . . 245 Section 6. — Before we can answer whether colour is connected with external objects, we must know the sense to which the word connected is intended to refer 246 Section 8. — Colour is not spread over the surface of bodies when we refer to feeling for the signification of the phrase ; but colour is spread over the surface of bodies when we refer to seeing for the signification of the phrase .... 246 Section 9.— Before we can tell whether greenness is in grass, we must know the sense to which the word is intended to refer 247 Section 10. — Before we can answer the question that inquires where colour is situated, we must decide on the sense to which the word " where" shall refer for signification . . 247 Section 12. — Before we can answer whether sweetness is in sugar, we must ascertain the sense to which the word in is intended to refer ........ . 247 Section 13. — The senses alone can answer questions which relate to the external universe, and we must designate the sense to whose authority we are appealing . . . . 248 LECTURE XXIY. — We interpret the information of our SENSES BY WORDS, INSTEAD OF INTERPRETING WORDS BY THE IN- FORMATION OF OUR SENSES . 249 Section 1. — The sensible signification of a word is as various as the objects to which the word is applied .... 249 Section 2. — Instead of interpreting words by sensible informa- tion, we interpret sensible information by words . . . 249 Section 3. — We mistake verbal criticism for an investigation of nature 25© CONTENTS. XXV Section 7. — To interpret nature by language causes frequently much amazement 251 Section 8. — Nature is no party to our phraseology . . . 252 Section 9* — Much of what is esteemed as profound philosophy, is nothing but a disputatious criticism on the meaning of words 252 Section 10. — We resort to language to explain the information of our senses, instead of resorting to our senses to explain the meaning of words 253 LECTURE XXV. — We often mistake the inapplicability of A WORD FOR AN ANOMALY OF NATURE 255 Section 1. — The word demonstrate may be restricted in its sig- nification so as to be inapplicable to colours .... 255 Section 3. — The word connexion may be restricted in its signi- fication so as to be inapplicable to the relation which is dis- coverable between a cause and its effect .... 256 Section 5. — The word connexion may be so restricted in its signification, as to be inapplicable to the relation which exists between colour and the body which is coloured . . . 256 Section 7. — The word know may be so restricted in its signifi- cation, as to become inapplicable to a large portion of our knowledge 257 Section 9. — Whether we can be certain that we shall die, de- pends on the meaning of the word certain. The question relates to language and not to nature 258 LECTURE XXVI. — We mistake the unintelligibility of a WORD OR PROPOSITION FOR A MYSTERY OF NATURE . . . 259 Section 1.— Language permits us to frame propositions which possess a very ambiguous meaning, and sometimes no mean- ing 259 Section 2. — The meaning of a word cannot exceed what man can know in relation to it 259 Section 4. — We impute to nature the ambiguities and unintelli- gibility which are produced by a misuse of language . . 260 LECTURE XXVII. — Language cannot be made significant be- yond OUR KNOWLEDGE . 262 Section 1. — The limitation of meaning which pertains to words, we mistake for a limitation of our faculties .... 262 Section 3. — We mistake the unintelligibility and insignificance of certain propositions for mysteries of nature . . . 263 Section 5. — Such propositions are formed by the employment of words divested of their sensible signification . . . 263 4 XXVI CONTENTS. LECTURE XXVIII. — We mistake the inapplicability of a PROCESS OF LANGUAGE FOR A DEFECT OR MYSTERY OF NATURE . 265 Section 1. — Whether we can or not prove the existence of an external universe, or our own existence, depends on the appli- cability to it of the verbal processes of logick, and not on nature 265 LECTURE XXIX. — We mistake words for the ultimate ob- jects OF knowledge, while the revelations of nature are properly the ultimate objects ...... 267 Section 1. — The phenomena of life are ultimate to the verbal question which inquires whether I live, though we mistakenly suppose the question to be ultimate to the phenomena . . 267 Section 2. — The revelations of nature are ultimate to the verbal question which inquires after the existence of an external universe ; though we mistakenly suppose the question to be ultimate to the revelations 267 Section 4.— -T)eaf mutes are exempt from the fallacy of esti- mating words as the ultimate objects of knowledge . . 268 Section 6. — We constantly mistake some verbal proposition for the ultimate object of our knowledge 269 Section 12. — When we deem words the ultimate objects of our knowledge, we invert the order of nature . . . . 271 CONCLUSION - . . 273 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE LECTURE I, INTRODUCTORY. § l.—To know the extent of our powers will save us from impracticable pursuits. Man exists in a world of his own creation. He cannot step, but on ground transformed by culture ; nor look, but on objects produced by art. The animals which constitute his food are unknown to nature, while trees, fruits, and herbs, are the trophies of his labour. In himself nearly every natural impulse is sup- pressed as vicious, and every mortification solicited as a virtue. His language, actions, sentiments, and desires, are nearly all factitious. Stupendous in achievement, he is boundless in attempt. Having subdued the earth's surface, he would explore its centre ; having vanquished diseases, he would subdue death. Unsatisfied with recording the past, he would anticipate the future. Uncontented with subjugating the ocean, he would traverse the air. Success but sharpens his avidity, and facility but augments his impatience. To know the extent of our powers is therefore important, that in our restlessness for further acquisitions we may neither dissipate strength in designs for which our faculties are unsuited, nor attempt practicabilities by incompetent methods. § 2. — We are in little danger from the pursuit of physical impracticabilities. What we can accomplish in physicks, may be safely left to the development of experiment ; for though alchymy and perpetual motion have occasioned some waste of time, tangible bodies 5 34 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [LECT. I. oppose so sturdily our errours when we attempt physical incon- gruities, that we lose little by such attempts. Even royalty, which seldom hears unsophisticated truths, is treated by phy sical bodies as unceremoniously as the commonalty. § 3. — We are in danger ofivasting time in verbal investigations. Speculative researches are accommodating to human weak- ness. From geology, which teaches us what exists in the centre of the earth, to astronomy, which reveals what is transpiring in the empyrean ; — and from physicks, which discourse about the body, to metaphysicks, which treat of the mind ; the mass of verbal doctrine assumes any shape which ingenuity strives to create : — like the pebbles of Rockaway, that change their posi- tion as every wave, rising on the ruins of its predecessor, rushes, (lord of the moment,) proudly over the beach. § 4. — To ascertain the capacity that language possesses for discoursing of external existences which our senses cannot discover, will enable us, more under standingly than at pre- sent, to estimate theories. To fix the fluctuating mass of theories, no man has suggested any other expedient than the construction of some new theory, to whose authority, (like to Johnson's orthography,) all persons shall submit. The remedy is constantly augmenting the disease. I shall not imitate so unsuccessful a procedure ; but as theories are the means by which we attempt to discourse of external existences that our senses cannot discover ; and as the desire for such discourse originates a large portion of our theories ; I will teach you the capacity of language for such an employment, and thereby enable you to judge more understandingly than you can at present, the utility of most theories, and the signifi- cation of all. § 5. — No knoivledge is more important than a correct appreciation of language. But not in theories only is a correct understanding desirable of the capacity of language. Words constitute a great part of iECT. I>] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 35 all our thoughts. An infusion of words is the means of nearly- all instruction, and an ability to repeat words is the substance of much of our learning. When a man is distressed, we admi- nister to him words for his consolation ; and when he rejoices, we proffer words to heighten his felicity. Even when medicine admits itself vanquished, — when wealth can no longer purchase a gratification, nor power excite ambition, — words not only maintain their influence, but their potency is augmented by the surrounding desolation. § 6. — Verbal discourse contains defects which have escaped detection. Language possessing this important relation to man, the duty is imperative of becoming acquainted with its defects ; espe- cially if it contain any which have hitherto escaped detection ; — and such it actually contains. $ 7. — Significant verbal inquisition is not unlimited. Language possesses also an illimitable power of interrogation, Nothing is too sacred to escape its inquiries, — nothing too remote, — nothing too minute. We employ it, if not without suspicion that it contains any latent incapacity for unlimited inquisition, with certainly a very indefinite apprehension of its limitations : — hence the importance of defining the limits, (if it possess any,) within which interrogatories are significant. I am prepared to show both that it possesses limited powers in these particulars, and to define the limits. § 8. — Language may be formed into propositions whose results, though incontrovertible by logick, are irreconcileable with our senses. Language is also mouldable into propositions that can neither he controverted by any known rules of logick, nor credited with- out violence to the evidence of our senses : — hence the import- ance of ascertaining whether language, when thus employed. 36 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [LECT. I. possesses not a covert signification that will save us from the alternative of either disbelieving our senses, or disbelieving the best demonstrated conclusions.- I will satisfy you that it pos- sesses such a signification, and I will teach you the signification of language that is thus sophistically employed. The proposi- tions to which I allude may be known from the following examples : — 1. Mathematicks assures us that the water which placidly flows in our canal, is nowhere level; — that the walls which constitute the sides of this chamber, are not parallel; — that a line no longer than an inch, is diminishable interminably. 2. Astronomy declares that we are whirled momentarily a thousand miles in one direction, and fifteen miles in another ; and in this giddy rotation, our heads travel faster and further than our bodies : — that a portion of mankind walk with their feet diametrically opposite to ours; — that the world is a ball, and assumes at a given distance the appearance of a star ; — that comets are hotter than red hot iron, and the sun a body of fire thirteen hundred thousand times larger than the earth; — that tides are caused by the attraction of the moon, and weight produced by the attraction of the earth. 3. Opticks assert that while I look around, and perceive distant hills, spacious streets, lofty buildings, and prosperous activity, I truly see neither spaciousness nor distance, but a miniature, not an inch in diameter, that is painted on the retina of my eyes. 4. Physiology affirms that a ray of light, though it seems colourless, is iridescent ; while roses are a mere blank apparatus, to display the tints which exist latently in light. Botany has, however, compensated the queen of flowers for this disparage- ment. Botany insists that plants eat, drink, sleep, and breathe ; — that they are male and female ; — that their fragrance is amorous sighs, and their motions nervous irritability. 5. Chymistry is peculiarly the science of enchantment. It asserts that water is principally composed of the most inflam- mable substance in nature; — that our flesh is but a combi- nation of disgustful gases, and diamonds but a preparation of charcoal. LECT. I.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 37 $ 9. — The verbal defects which these discourses will discuss, are inseparable from language, and differ from any defects that you may anticipate. You must not expect that I can, at present, make you under- stand the defects of the foregoing propositions. All that I shall say hereafter, I deem necessary to convey that information. Indeed, I can afford no better guide to lead you ultimately to a correct understanding of the defects of language, than to say, at a hazard, that I allude to no defects that you ever heard of or conceived. I also allude to none that can be obviated. The most that I hope to perform is to make them known ; as we erect a beacon, to denote the presence of a shoal which we cannot remove. § 10. — But though you know not the defects to which I refer, still, when you read the conclusions of astronomy that I have above adduced, the conclusions of opticks, of physiology, and chymistry, may you not infer, that if such doctrines are incon- testible by logick, the doctrines are more repugnant to reason, than the belief that some latent sophistry exists in the language by which the doctrines are expressed, or in the processes by which the doctrines are sustained ? §11 . — When you hear further, not as an item of revelation to which the judgment is bound to submit, but as a reality, elabo- rated proudly by the judgment itself, that all things were created out of nothing ; — that every existence had a beginning, except the first, which had no beginning ; — that every existence sprang from some cause, except the first, which is uncaused; — may we not catch some glimmering of a suspicion, that our words have lost their intelligence in these heights of speculation ? — as we read in a book of ingenious absurdities, that a man in a balloon ascended so high, that his hat, which he accidentally removed from his head, flew upwards, having lost its original gravity, and become attracted by the moon's. 38 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [LECT. I. § 12. — These discourses concern not the relative meaning which words bear to each other, but the relation ivhich words bear to created existences. I have gained my present object, if I have excited your attention to the succeeding discourses, and removed some pre- possessions that would have prevented you from discovering in language the defects to which I refer ; v for when I speak of defects in language, most persons suppose that I allude to the admitted ambiguity of speech. My remarks will not concern the relative meaning which words bear to each other, but the relation that words bear to the phenomena of the universe. § 13. — We translate sensible existences into words, instead of interpreting words by the information of our senses. When an Englishman is learning to read French, he learns to translate French words into English words. A French word he estimates as a mere representative of some English word. We translate creation much in the same way. Every natural existence we deem a mere representative of some word. Lan- guage usurps thus, to an astonishing extent, the dignity which truly belongs to creation. I know we usually say that words are signs of things. Practically, we make things the signs of words. § 14. — We must make our senses the expositors of words, instead, of making words the expositors of what our senses reveal. Our misuse of language may be illustrated by another simile: — we estimate creation by means of words, much in the same way as we estimate the gravity of bodies by means of weights. My lectures will endeavour to subordinate lan- guage to nature, — to make nature the expositor of words, instead of making words the expositors of nature. If I suc- ceed, the success will ultimately accomplish a great revolution in every branch of learning. LECT. I.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 39 $ 15. — To understand these discourses, a slight perusal of detached parts, or of the whole, will be insufficient. That language will eventually receive the construction for which I shall contend, I feel no doubt, though I may not possess the talent to introduce the reformation. Before we commence our discussions, I must warn you, that the perverted estimation of language is so habitual, that you will be constantly liable to misapprehend my remarks. Should a person, unacquainted with geometry, read Euclid's Elements, he may meet with no word for which he possesses not a definite signification ; yet, when he shall have read to the end of the volume, he will know but little of geometry. To understand geometry, it must be studied slowly and painfully. No effort of mine can indoctrinate you with the knowledge of language on any easier conditions. § 16. — I will labour intently to state my views as intelligibly as possible, and as concisely ; and as I am aware that in oral instruction to voluntary auditors, the speaker must conciliate his hearers, or be taught by the solitude which will soon environ him, that his labours are vain, I will endeavour to believe that Philosophy is not necessarily so frowning and sluggish a divinity as her ministers usually represent. Her limbs are masculine 1 admit, and her discourse is grave ; but her language may be tasteful, and her decorations gay. I pause at these promises, All the stimulation which you can yield will probably be neces- sary to my perseverance. If I stagnate in the midst of your kindest efforts, the result should disappoint my hopes, rather than your expectations. $ 17. — When fame has produced for an individual an elevation to which all eyes are continually directed ; — when his opinions are impatiently expected, and rapidly disseminated; — when they are applauded in anticipation, and their adoption secured by prepossessions; — the labour of composition assimilates to the progress through Spain of the Duke of Angouleme,* — a pro- gress in which every city was approached but to be entered * This discourse was pronounced in the winter of 1825. 40 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [lECT. I* with a bloodless triumph ; and every enemy pursued, but to be received by a resistless surrender — a progress whose labour is only the fatigue of pleasure, and whose dangers are merely the inebriation of success. § 18. — Startled at the difference between such a writer and me, I have more than once cast aside my pen as an insidious enemy, that lures me from the substantial pursuits of life. Even the consolation of yielding an amusement to you cannot well be expected ; and while I have been distracted in seeking a worthy motive for exertion, I have not been exempt from apprehensions that I may, unconsciously, be influenced by the demon who delights to revel in our infirmities : the demon who makes the taciturn exult at his own dulness, and the loquacious enamoured of his own frivolity ; who makes ill-timed gravity increase its frown, and incessant levity augment its laughter. § 19. — The demon at whose pernicious suggestions even moral deformities are heightened. Surgeons, thus induced, will boast of an insensibility that they cannot feel ; and libertines, of pro- fligacy that they never practised. The avaricious will falsely magnify his selfishness, and the prodigal his expenses. The liar will laugh at an exaggerated recital of his infamy, and the extortioner at an aggravated list of his oppressions. Nor escape personal deformities, the malice of this evil counsellor. Dwarfs, at his suggestion, endeavour to appear smaller than nature intended, and giants larger. The stammerer he urges to inces- sant conversation, and the freckled to an unnecessary nudity. § 20. — While I was reflecting on the eccentricities which pro- ceed from his persuasion, imagination presented him unexpect- edly before me. His language was harmonious, — his actions were profoundly respectful. Delight hung upon his lips, and conviction attended his communication. An unusual compla- cency expanded my breast. I extended my arms in the attitude of oratory, and prepared to welcome him with all the figures of rhetorick ; when suddenly, approaching the fiend, his eyes were averted, and his face Was distorted in ridicule. He dissolved into air, and, as he vanished, I discovered his name. Vanity, stamped upon his back. PART FIRST. OF LANGUAGE WITH REFERENCE TO EXISTENCES WHICH ARE EXTERNAL OF MAN. LECT. II.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 43 LECTURE II. EXTERNAL SENSIBLE EXISTENCES ARE SUSCEPTIBLE OF A CLASSI- FICATION WHICH SHALL REFER EACH EXISTENCE TO THE SENSE THROUGH WHOSE AGENCY WE ACQUIRE OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE. § 1. — Creation is boundless, whether we estimate its objects numerically, or its extent superficially. We cannot, by pene- trating the earth, discover a vacuity; — -we cannot exalt our vision beyond created objects; — we cannot fathom the fulness of the ocean. § 2. — To bring this immensity of existences within our definite comprehension, naturalists divide the whole into a vegetable kingdom, a mineral kingdom, and an animal kingdom : with various subdivisions of classes, orders, species, &c. § 3. — Chymists subject creation to a still more concise classi- fication. All objects are convertible, chymically, into about forty different substances ; and chymists classify objects with reference to the substances into which they are thus converti- ble : — hence, with chymists, the universe is reduced into about forty different substances. § 4. — To understand the relation ivhich words bear to created existences, we must contemplate creation apart from words. Creation is susceptible of a classification more definite, and even less multifarious, than that of chymistry. This classifica- tion will constitute the present discourse. You must understand it, because I cannot teach you the relation that words bear to created existences, till you can contemplate the existences apart from words. 44 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. § 5. — The external universe may be divided into sights, sounds, tastes, feels, and smells. The classification which I propose, refers to our senses. We derive from them our knowledge of the external universe ; hence, by marshalling under each of our five senses, all the information that the sense reveals to us ; our knowledge of the external universe becomes divided into five classes. Each class can be confounded with no other. A triangle is not more dis- tinguishable from a circle, than the information of one sense is distinguishable from the information of every other. To make each class as distinct in name, as in nature, every information that is revealed to me by hearing, I shall call a sound; — every information that is revealed to me by seeing, a sight; — every information that is revealed to me by feeling, a feel; — every information that is revealed to me by smelling, a smell; — and every information that is revealed to me by tasting, a taste. § 6. — Sights, feels, fyc, are 'presented to us by nature in certain groups. When considered with reference to our senses, and divested of names, the external universe is a mass of sights, sounds, tastes, feels, and smells. Nature presents these to us in certain groups. A sight and a feel that are invariably associated, we call fire. Another group, consisting of a certain sight, feel, taste, and smell, (associated in a manner peculiar to nature,) we call an orange. Another group, consisting of a certain sight, feel, and taste, we call bread. Another group, consisting wholly of sights, we call a rainbow. § 7. — Sights and feels are the most frequently associated. The associations which are most frequent in nature, are sights associated with feels. Of these associations, one sight and feel we call silver; another, gold; another, mahogany; another, marble ; and another, wool. LECT. II.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 45 § 8. — Sights, feels, tastes, and smells, are frequently associated. The associations which are next in frequency, are composed of a sight, feel, taste, and smell. The word lemon names an association of this description, and the words brandy, apple, brass, sulphur, oil, tar, tobacco, cheese, beef, cinnamon, &c. § 9. — Sights, feels, and tastes, are found in frequent asso- ciation. To some of the associations we apply the words salt, sugar, water, honey, milk, wheat, chalk, &c. § 10. — Sights, sounds, tastes, feels, and smells, nature sometimes presents singly to us. In some cases, sights, sounds, tastes, feels, and smells, are presented to us disjunctively. One sight, which is thus pre- sented to us, we call moon. Another sight we call light ; and another, aurora borealis, meteor, ignis fatuus, &c. A certain unassociated feel, we call air. Another feel, we call wind ; and another, cold. A certain unassociated sound, we call echo. Thunder can hardly be designated as an unassociated sound, for it is usually associated with a sight which we call lightning. Tastes and smells are never presented to us, unless in associa- tion with some other existence. I recollect only one exception, and we designate it, when it occurs, by saying, we have an unpleasant taste in our mouths. § 11. — We must discriminate betiveen the extent and variety of creation, and the paucity of language. The number of unassociated sights is very small, if we esti- mate them by the number of words which name such sights. They are, however, far more numerous than this mode of esti- mating them will imply. The word star, for instance, names an unassociated sight, (a sight not associated with any feel, &c. ;) but the word which thus seems to name but one sight, names a great number of sights, that differ in magnitude, 46 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. brilliancy, colour, shape, &c. I state this, to enable you to perceive, that verbal designations are an inadequate means of estimating the variety and number of natural existences. § 12. — The sights which are presented to us in association with feels, &c, are also far more numerous and various than language implies. Colours alone are almost infinite in variety, while our names for them are comparatively a few words. But a large portion of sights we never attempt to designate by spe- cifick appellations. When I look at a chair, I discern a different sight from what I see when I look at fire ; still, for the sight alone of neither the chair nor the fire, language possesses no name. The words chair and fire apply severally to an asso- ciated sight and feel. When we speak of the sight alone, we employ a periphrasis, and say the appearance of the fire, the appearance of the chair, &c. § 13. — Tastes, smells, sounds, and feels, are seldom designated specifically by names. Men have been more sparing of names to tastes, smells, sounds, and feels, than even to sights. Fragrant, fetid, and a few other words, are all that we have deigned to appropriate to the information of the sense of smelling. Hot, cold, pain, &c, are all which we have appropriated to specifick feels, though nature presents them to us in boundless variety. When I touch iron, I realize a different feel from what I experience when I touch wood, silk, wool, linen, &c. ; but to none of these feels is a name appropriated. The word iron names an associated sight and feel. The same may be said of the words wood, silk, wool, linen, &c. § 14. — We create names when we deem them useful. But not only numerous sights, sounds, tastes, feels, and smells, possess separately no name ; many associations of them possess no name. We name such associations only as utility requires us to designate. A certain associated sight and feel we designate by the word square, and others we name round, flat, &c. ; but LECT. II ] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 47 a hundred shapes which may be assumed by a piece of glass, on its accidental fracture, we have not designated by any name. $ 15. — The associations of nature are sometimes separable. If a piece of gold is held in front of a mirror, the mirror will exhibit the sight, gold, separated from the feel. In many other instances, art can separate the sights and feels which nature associates. If you thrust a stick into water, and leave a part unimmersed, the stick will exhibit the sight, crooked, without the feel, crooked. If you look at a candle, and press with your finger against the external angle of one of your eyes, you will experience the sight, two candles, unaccompanied by the feel, two. If you look at the sun, and then close your eyes ; or, without looking at the sun, if you press for a moment rather painfully against either of your eyes ; you will see various colours, unaccompanied by any of the feels with which colours are generally associated. If you whirl your body, and produce dizziness, every object on which you look will exhibit the sight, rotation, unaccompanied by the feel. § 16. — Feels can also be separated from the sights with which they are naturally associated. If you cross the third and fourth fingers of your right hand, and rest the tips of the crossed fingers on a bullet, you will experience the feel, two bullets, unaccompanied by the sight, two. I have seen a wheel whirl so rapidly and evenly, as to present the feel, motion, without the sight. Blindness and darkness effectually separate all feels from their associated sights. To the blind, iron is a feel only, fire a feel only, sunshine a feel only. § 17. — Painting, slight of hand, natural magick, <£c, consist in the separation, either artificially or spontaneously, of the sensible existences which nature usually associates. The art of painting consists principally in producing sights separated from their usually attendant feels: — the sight, pro- 48 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. minence, without the feel, — the sight, distance, without the feel, — the sight, shape, without the feel. Perfumery consists in separating the smell, rose, jessamine, &c, from the sights and feels with which the smells are naturally associated Ven- triloquism and mimickry consist in separating sounds from the sights and feels with which the sounds are naturally associated. Slight of hand and natural magick are either the apparent or actual separation of phenomena which nature generally asso ciates : — usually some sight separated from its associated feel If a wine glass be half filled with cotton wool, and immersed, (in an inverted position,) in a bowl of water, the cotton will exhibit the sight, wet, as you slowly emerge the wine glass. To the feel, the cotton will be dry. Sights are far more fre- quently and easily separated from their associated feels, than feels are from their associated sights. § 18. — When we see a sight, experience alone induces us to expect that it is associated with a feel. An ignis fatuus is the sight, fire, without the feel. Our sur- prise at the phenomenon, and the alarm of the ignorant, is not occasioned by the sight, but at the absence of any associated feel. We forget that experience is all the warrant which we possess, in any case, for expecting a feel, where we discover a sight. We erroneously deem the sight a proof that a feel exists, and hence we suspect no possibility of mistake when we predicate tangibility of the sun, moon, and stars. We suppose that we can see their tangibility ; a supposition which involves the absurdity that we can feel with our sight. When we look at space, and know that our hand will encounter no resistance in passing through it ; and when we look at glass, and know that our hand will encounter resistance in passing through it ; the knowledge in both cases is experimental, and no part of the sight of either the glass or space. That a fog is not tangible, and that a stone wall is ; that the moon cannot be reached by our hand, and that the table can be ; are all revelations of feeling, and not revelations of vision. LECT. II,] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 49 ^ 19, — When we perceive a feel, experience alone induces us to expect that it is associated with a sight. Should we feel a violent external pressure, and discover no accompanying sight, we should be alarmed at the invisible annoyance; — still, experience alone induces us to expect a visible accompaniment, when we experience a feel : and hence, an external pressure produced by a gust of wind, disconcerts no person by its invisibility. External feels, unassociated with a sight, are very few. The wind is such an existence ; and tem- perature, both hot and cold, is another. A person unaccus- tomed to the experiment, to whom you should exhibit a bladder inflated with air, would expect its contents to be visible, as strongly as he would were the bladder filled with stone : — he would in both cases believe that the feel of the bladder testified to a visible contents : — a belief that involves the absurdity, that we can feel visibility. In the dark, when we place our hand on a window, and know that what we feel is visible ; and when, at the same time, we feel a current of wind rushing through a broken window, and know that what we feel is invisible ; the knowledge in both cases is experimental, and no part of the feel of either the window or the wind : — the knowledge is a revela- tion of vision, and not of feeling. § 20. — Language refers to the groups which nature presents to us, and not to the individual phenomena of any group. I shall not pursue these remarks, as they belong more pro perly to the future physical investigations referred to in my preface. I introduced them here with no object but to enable you, amid the groups of sensible existences which compose the external universe, to discriminate the separate existences of each group. The discrimination is peculiarly important, lan- guage referring to the groups, and seldom regarding the individual phenomena which compose any group. All the incidents which I have stated are mere illustrations of the proposed discri-. mination, and probably I need not burthen you with further examples. 3 50 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE, [PART I § 21. — Words are confounded with things. The benefits which you are to derive from the discrimination will be gradually disclosed in our progress ; but the first benefit is to enable you to contemplate created existences apart from their names. The names are at present so identified and con- founded with the external existences, that we cannot discover the subordination which language bears to the realities of nature, but are continually, (as I shall show hereafter,) imputing to nature limitations, classifications, ambiguities, imperfections, and properties, of various kinds, which truly belong to language alone. A child comprehends with difficulty, that in France, the people eat apples, and still know not the meaning of the word apple. We smile at the child, but we all conform more nearly to the child than we imagine, in our identification of language with the existences to which we apply it. § 22. — We should endeavour to regard words as merely the names of things. Should a person point to an object, and ask me what it is, I might answer, it is a sight and a feel. My children are so accustomed to such answers from me, that they never address me as above. They ask me to tell them the name of the object. This question keeps the name distinct from the object, and gives language its proper subordination to created existences. § 23. — Besides, by answering that the object is a sight and a feel, I direct your attention, not to the name, but to the group of existences, to which the name refers. Examine it, and discover the sight. Handle the object, and discover the feel. Elicit all the sights and feels which it presents. Try if it possesses a taste and smell. This category conduces to physical knowl- edge, and at least separates distinctly physical existences from language. $ 24. — For the same purposes, when a child reverses the inquiry, and asks me what is a rose ; I reply, it is a word with LECT. II.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 51 which we name an associated sight, feel, and smell. For the sensible existence itself, I refer him to his senses, as alone able to communicate the information: — words being unable to per- form the functions of our senses. Words can refer us to sensible information which we have experienced ; but they cannot reveal to us what we have not experienced. § 25. — If you have succeeded in catching my analysis, you no longer see in the heavens, light, clouds, sun, galaxy, moon, stars, meteors, space, vacuity, distance, shape, &c. ; but you see various sights, to which the above words are names. You no longer feel, in a knife, iron, hardness, weight, matter, sub- stance, impenetrability, external, cold, edge, sharpness, &c. ; but you experience various feels, to which Englishmen apply the above words, and Frenchmen apply other words, and unedu- cated mutes no words. § 26. — To investigate the sights, sounds, feels, tastes, and smells, which separately, and in various associations, constitute the external universe, is not my present object ; nor shall I dis- cuss whether sights, sounds, tastes, feels, and smells, are words which appropriately designate external existences. I adopt the phraseology, as a means of investigating the nature of language ; and if I shall establish the utility of the adoption, I trust you will tolerate the expressions, how much so ever they may offend against euphony and custom. 52 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. LECTURE III. LANGUAGE IMPLIES A ONENESS TO WHICH NATURE CONFORMS NOT IN ALL CASES. § 1. — The existence which we name a shadow, possesses more natural oneness, than the existence which we name gold. Having, in my last discourse, divided the sensible universe into sights, sounds, tastes, feels, and smells ; the analysis shows that language implies a oneness to which nature conforms not in all cases : — for instance, the word shadow implies a unit. If we refer to nature for the meaning of the word shadow, we discover a sight. Here language implies a unit, and nature presents one. But the word gold implies a unit also ; and if we refer to nature for the meaning of the word gold, we discover a sight and a feel : — two distinct existences. § 2.- — The oneness of natural existences must not be interpreted by their names, but by our senses. Each of our senses is known to be so peculiar, that its loss is irremediable by the others. That no sense but seeing can inform me of sights, — that no sense but hearing can inform me of sounds, — that no sense but feeling can inform me of feels, &c.— are obvious truths. Still, the obviousness exists only while we use the words sights, sounds, feels, &c. ; for if I assert that no sense but seeing can reveal to you gold, I shall be told that feeling can reveal it as well as seeing. The one- ness of the information exists, however, in language only. A man void of sight, and another void of feeling, (if we may imagine such a man,) could possess a definite meaning for the word gold, without possessing in common any sensible knowl- edge of gold. To the blind man, the word would name a feel LECT. III.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 53 only ; and to the other, a sight only. The knowledge which they might seem to possess in common, would be verbal and not physical. $ 3. — We must subordinate language to what we discover in nature. You may ask whether I mean to assert that gold is not a unit ? It is a unit, but its oneness must be interpreted by what our senses reveal. In all the uses of language, to thus subor- dinate it to nature, is the object of all my lectures. Language has usurped over nature a superiority which is so inveterate and unsuspected, that we constantly appeal to words for the inter- pretation of natural existences, instead of appealing to natural existences for the interpretation of words. § 4. — Verbally, the oneness of every existences is equally simple, but the natural oneness varies in different existences. The English language contains but a few thousand words, while the objects to which we apply the words are innumerable. To effect these infinite appliances, every word receives many meanings : snow is white, paper is white, silver is white, the air is white, glass is white, you are white, and the floor is white; hence, after you are satisfied of the propriety of calling an object white, I shall know but little of its appearance, without I take an actual view of the object. The word white names, you per- ceive, certain general characteristicks, and disregards less obvious individualities. The generality of language is an irremediable defect in its structure ; for were we to invent a separate name for every sight which we now denominate white, language would be too voluminous for utility, and perhaps for our memory. The same remarks apply to every word. To know, therefore, the sensible meaning of the word unit in any given case, our senses must examine the case, and we shall find that the oneness of a shadow differs from the oneness of gold ; the oneness of gold differs from the oneness of water ; and the oneness of water differs from the oneness of an orange. Imagine, for instance, four men so misformed, that- each possesses only one sense. 54 A TREA.TISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. Let the senses which they possess be seeing, tasting, feeling, and smelling. To one of the men, the word orange will name a sight; to another, a taste; to another, a smell; and to the other, a feel : four dissimilar existences. An orange is, how- ever, one existence, as appropriately as a shadow ; but we must interpret the oneness by what we discover in the orange, and not interpret what we discover in the orange by the word one. Such a misinterpretation is common, and it has exceedingly perplexed speculative inquiries. § 5. — In all our speculations, we estimate created existences by the oneness of their name. Bishop Berkeley perceived that the word roundness signifies a sight and a feel. He knew not that the duality of nature controls the oneness of the name. He supposed that the oneness of the name proves the duality of nature to be fallacious ; and that either the sight is the true roundness, or the feel. He decided in favour of the feel, and hence he proclaimed roundness to be invisible : — invisible, because he restricted the name to the feel ! § 6. — Because nature exhibits not the oneness ivhich we find in language, we impute the discrepancy to a fallacy of nature, instead of knowing that it is simply a provision of language. When we look at roundness, we know the feel with which nature has associated the sight. This knowledge is derived from experience, for seeing cannot inform us of a feel ; but Ave need not mysterize a truth which is founded on the organization of our senses, and is applicable to all their information. Saint Pierre states that a philosopher who lost his sight by gazing too intently at the sun, imagined that the darkness which ensued, proceeded from a sudden extinction of the sun. This ingenious sarcasm is frequently applicable to human conclusions, and thus Berkeley never imagined that invisibility was predicable of roundness by means of our restricting the name to the feel ; but he accused vision with the production of a fallacy. LECT. III.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 55 § 7. — Instead of employing our experience to teach us that the oneness of language is fallacious, we employ it to show that the duality of nature is fallacious. Rees's Cyclopedia* records a sudden acquisition of sight by a person who had been always blind, " When he had learned to distinguish bodies by their appearance, he was surprised that the apparent prominences of a picture were level to the touch." The experience of this person is adduced by the Cyclopedia to show that the senses are fallacious, hence the person is made to ask which sense deceived him. Neither sense, however, deceived him. The sight prominence, and the feel prominence, are so generally associated, that we expect the feel when we see the sight ; but they are distinct phenomena, and may be separated, as the picture evinces. If we assume that the sight and the feel are invariably associated, the mistake is in our inexperience, and not in our senses, nor in nature. A deaf mute, when he should first observe, in either a picture or a mirror, the sight prominence separated from the feel, would be as much disappointed as we ; but he would immediately learn the duality of nature, and be satisfied. But we contrast the duality of nature with the oneness of the word prominence ; and instead of employing the discrepancy to show that the oneness of language is fallacious, we employ it to show that the duality of nature is fallacious. The delusion is extraordinary by which we thus exalt language above nature: — making language the expositor of nature, instead of making nature the expositor of language. § 8. — We make language the expositor of nature, instead of making nature the expositor of language. In the Gentleman's Magazine of July, 1796, published in London, another blind person testifies that figure is not visible. " When he first acquired vision, he knew not one shape from another." We are prepared to hear him announce, that he * Title, Philosophy. 56 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. knows not the name of colours ; but a different ignorance seems implied by an inability to determine by sight a globe from a plain. Our surprise proceeds less from any practical ignorance of the duality of nature, than from unsuspicion of the fallacious one- ness of language ; an unsuspicion which induces us to believe that when a blind man knows globes and plains by the feel, he knows the same units that he subsequently may be made to see. But I introduced the above quotation to show that the blind man's experience is not employed to expose the fallacious one- ness of the word shape, but to convict either nature or our senses of a fallacy in not exhibiting the same oneness that the word shape implies. We assume that language is the expositor of nature ; and as language implies that shape is a unit, we restrict the word to the feel, and announce (not as a conven- tional provision of language, but as a detected fallacy of nature,) that figure is invisible :— invisible, because we restrict the name to the feel. § 9.— We invent theories to reconcile the duality of nature to the oneness of language. • "When I look at a book," says Professor Reid, « it seems to possess thickness, as well as length and breadth; but we are certain that the visible appearance possesses no thickness, for it can be represented exactly on a piece of flat canvass." The painting exhibits the sight thickness without the feel. If we had always supposed thickness a unit, this experiment ought to have undeceived us. But we are not accustomed to subordinate language to the revelation of our senses ; hence we invent theo- ries to reconcile the revelation of our senses with the implica- tions of language. The theory in the above case consists in restricting the word thickness to the feel, and pronouncing the sight a delusion. That seeing cannot acquaint us with the feel thickness, is an interesting item of experimental knowledge We need not give it an artificial piquancy by limiting the signi- fication of the word thickness to the feel, and asserting that thickness is invisible. The feel thickness and the sight are equally realities of the external universe ;- equally entitled to honour ;-equally inconvertible. We may, if we choose LECT. III.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 57 restrict the word to the sight, and assert that the feel is a fallacy ; but nature is no party to our philology. She exhibits her phe- nomena just as our senses discover, unaffected by our theories, and unchanged by our phraseology. ^ 10 m — To assert that distance is invisible, is only an enigmatical mode of relating the simple fact, that seeing cannot reveal to us a feel. When I look at a picture, one part appears remote, and another near. To the feeling the parts are equi-distant. From the frequency with which the sight distance and the feel distance are associated, we suppose them identical ; but pictures would always have taught us the contrary, if we had not deemed the authority of language, which calls the sight and feel a unit, superior to the authority of experience, which teaches us that they are not a unit. A restored blind man, who should see distance for the first time, would no more expect that it was associated with the feel distance, than he could tell, by looking at a red hot iron, the feel with which that appearance is asso- ciated. We may, if we please, restrict the word distance to the feel, and assert that distance is invisible ; but this is only an enigmatical mode of relating the simple and undisputed fact, that seeing cannot reveal to us a feel. § 11. — Whether seeing can or not inform us of an external universe, depends on the meaning which we attach to the word external. The question relates to language, and not to nature. That seeing, tasting, smelling, and hearing, can yield us no intimation of an external universe, is another puzzling tenet of speculative philosophy, founded on the errour of estimating sensible existences by the oneness of their name, instead of estimating the name by the duality of nature. The word external names usually a sight and a feel. If I look at this table, I dis- cover the sight external ; if I touch the table, I realize the feel external. When we speak of external, we should therefore explain to which we allude, — the sight or the feel. This ambi- 58 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE [PART I. guity was discovered by Locke, but he knew no alternative but to select whether the feel is the real external, or the sight. He selected the feel, and succeeding philosophers have obeyed his decision. Seeing, therefore, cannot reveal to us an external universe, because we restrict the signification of the word external to the feel. § 12. — Estimating nature by the oneness of language is a fal- lacy which enters deeply into every system of philosophy. I hope you are now convinced that language implies a one- ness to which nature conforms not. The discrepancy has greatly perplexed philosophy, and produced some of its most enigmatical speculations. A few of these I have discussed, not to subvert them, but to elucidate the errour on which they are founded. I might pursue the discussion inimitably, for the errour enters deeply into every system of philosophy ; but I shall have gained my object if I have stated examples enough to teach you the latent sophistry of language to which I have alluded. LECT. IV. J A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 59 LECTURE IV. THE ONENESS IMPLIED BY LANGUAGE AFFECTS NOT ONLY META- PHYSICAL DISQUISITIONS, BUT PHYSICAL SPECULATIONS. § 1. — When a word names the phenomena of two or more senses, the oneness of the name is peculiarly embarrassing. In my last discourse, I showed that sensible existences are pre- sented to us variously grouped, and that we estimate the oneness of each group by the oneness of its name, and not by the reve- lation of our senses. The errour is peculiarly embarrassing when the group consists of existences (like figure, magnitude, distance, &c.) that are revealed to us by two or more senses ; because the imputed oneness of the group seems to manifest that two or more senses reveal to us the same information ; a position which contradicts the known limitation of our senses. § 2. — The errour affects principally metaphysical disquisitions, and the examples which I adduced were extracted from the ab- struse speculations of Locke, Hume, Descartes, Berkeley, Reid, and kindred writers. But in many other cases, and of a nature quite different, language implies a oneness, and we credit the implication, to the vitiation of our most familiar speculations and pursuits. To an exposition of the evil in this new guise, the present discourse will be directed. § 3. — We seek in nature for a unit which exists in language only. I am speaking, I am standing, several persons are present. Each of these assertions is a truth ; but if we seek among these truths for truth itself, believing it to be a unit, we are seeking in nature for what is merely a contrivance of language. " What is truth?" said Pilate. He supposed it a unit, and hence the 60 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. difficulty of the question. All things that we call truths, pos- sess certain general characteristicks ; just as snow, salt, silver, and glass, possess certain characteristicks, which entitle them all to the designation of white : but if we wish to ascertain the meaning of the word white in any given case, we must examine the object to which it is applied ; and if we wish to know the meaning of the word truth in any given case, we must examine the circumstances to. which the word is applied. The oneness of a thousand whites is verbal ; and the oneness of a thousand truths is verbal. The unit is a creation of language ; hence the fallacy, ambiguity, and difficulty, when we seek in nature for a corresponding unit. § 4. — Groups of natural existences and relations may be deemed units, but io e must estimate their oneness by our sensible experience, and not by the implication of language ; nature being no party to our language. Temperature is hot, cold, tepid, freezing, melting, burning, &c. Temperature seems a unit, but these examples exhibit it multiform. Shall we interpret the oneness of temperature by the multiformity of nature, or shall we estimate hot, cold, tepid, freezing, &c, by the oneness of the word temperature ? We choose the latter course, and fallaciously perplex ourselves to discover in hot, cold, tepid, &c., the unit which exists in lan- guage only. Hot, cold, tepid, &c, may be deemed a unit ; but we must estimate their oneness by what we discover in nature, and not by the implication of language. The oneness of the name is a contrivance of language. The oneness of the phe- nomena is the similarity which induces us to class them under one name. § 5. — The oneness of nature is different in different cases, but the oneness which language implies is always complete. The health of a country is as much a unit in language as the health of Thomas. In nature, the oneness of the two cases is dissimilar. Even Thomas's general health during a year, is LECT. IV.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 61 less a unit in nature, than his health at the present moment. The oneness which language implies is always entire ; while nature presents but different approximations to a simple oneness. The saltness of the ocean is a unit in language, and the saltness of any given drop of the ocean is another unit ; but the oneness is more unique in the drop than in the ocean. The oneness of an army is as much a unit in language as the oneness of Napo- leon who commands it ; while in nature their oneness is very dissimilar. § 6. — In these cases, experience neutralizes the implied one- ness ; but the delusion is subtle, where we cannot obviously compare the multiformity of nature with the oneness of lan- guage ; — for instance, wisdom is as much a unit in language as the moon. The countless actions, &c, which are denomi- nated wisdom, possess a homogeneity which makes one name applicable to them all ; but to impute to these countless actions the oneness of the name, is to commit the errour that I am anxious to display : — it is to interpret nature by language, when we ought to interpret language by nature. § 7. — The particulars which we can discover in nature, are all which truly pertain to nature. The main delusion of alchymy consisted in assuming that the colour, weight, fixedness, malleability, &c, of gold, are append- ages of a mysterious unit. To discover this unit, constituted alchymy. The alchymist never supposed that the above qualities and others are the unit of which he was in search. He disre- garded these, and sought for some unit that would agree in one- ness with the oneness of the word gold. He sought in nature for what exists in language only. We laugh at the exploded labours of alchymy, but we laugh more from having abandoned the search in despair, than from having discovered the fallacy on which the search is founded. Kindred researches are still com- mon. Magnetism is sought as a unit, and gravity, electricity, repulsion, aurora borealis, vitality, impregnation, animality, power, causation, &c. 62 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. § 8. — In nature, we find magnet A, that will suspend a weight of twenty pounds, and magnet B, that will suspend but an ounce. We find the polarity of a magnetick needle, with its variations, its wanderings, and its dip, &c. ; and while we apply correctly the word magnetism to these and as many other phenomena as we deem sufficiently homogeneous to be included under a com- mon name, we gain nothing but delusion in attributing to them a oneness like that which is implied by the name. Their true oneness is the homogeneity that we discover in them, and which induces us to call them all magnetism. . The verbal oneness is a property of our own creation. « § 9. — Medical science is probably embarrassed by our imputing to diseases and their incidents, the oneness which pertains to their names only. The medical question of contagion is embarrassed by not discriminating the oneness of language from the plurality of nature. The contagiousness of cholera generally is less a unit than the contagiousness of a single case. Even the contagious- ness of a single case, during its whole continuance, is less a unit than its contagiousness on any given moment : — hence, to investigate the contagiousness of cholera, and to proceed by supposing that the contagiousness possesses the oneness which the word contagion imports, is like seeking for magnetism as a unit among the numerous magnetic phenomena. It is seeking in nature for a unit that exists in language only. § 10. — But cholera itself is not a unit. Whether medical science suffers not by the implied oneness of each disease, merits the consideration of physicians. Many medical theories seem to owe their origin to this errour. But not only is cholera in general not a unit, the particular cholera of Thomas is not a unit. It consists of many feels, sights, and other phenomena. I admit the propriety of combining them under one name ; but if we would escape delusion, we must construe their oneness by nature, and not by the oneness of their name. LECT. IV.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 63 § 11. — Our moral speculations also are embarrassed by imputing to nature the oneness which exists in language only. Is a man a unit, as strictly as language implies ? Should I attempt to discover wherein his oneness consists, (and volumes have been written on the subject,) I might seem to discuss humanity very profoundly, but I should discuss it very igno- rantly. I should seek in nature for what is merely a contrivance of language : — for instance, amputate one of Peter's arms, will the remainder of Peter be a man ? How much excision of his body must occur, before the remainder will cease to be a man ? Such questions are not deemed trifling. We interpret nature by the oneness of the word man, instead of interpreting the oneness of the word man by the exhibitions of nature. The errour seems to me so gross, that I should doubt its existence, were not the evidence too explicit to be mistaken. § 12. — In what consists the consciousness of a man ? in what consists his identity ? have been debated, and they are still debated, with the most surprising ignorance of the delusion which gives to the questions their perplexity. Consciousness is supposed to possess as much natural oneness as it possesses verbal oneness ; while, in truth, the consciousness of a man is the many phenomena to which the word refers, — -precisely as the wealth of a man is the various items of his property to which the word wealth refers. § 13. — What governs the will? — how acts volition on our limbs ? — how is the soul united to the body? — and how mind acts on matter, and matter on mind? — are questions which derive their perplexity from severally implying the existence of some unit. The search after the unit is the delusion. § 14. — Gravity, which effects so much in astronomical theo- ries, — which has displaced Atlas, and equals him in oneness, — is still, so far as relates to its oneness, but a delusion of language. The word gravity names many interesting and important pheno- mena ; but if, in addition to these, we look for gravity itself, 64 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. we act as ignorantly as the child at the opera, who, after listen- ing with impatience to the musick, singing, and dancing, said, " I am tired of these ; I want the opera." § 15. — The delusion by which we look for the unit gravity among the various phenomena of which gravity is the name, and for the unit man among the various parts of our formation, is analogous to the ancient puzzle denominated sorites: — A heap of wheat is exhibited to a person, and you proceed with him among the individual grains, to look for the heap itself. You take up a grain, and ask him if that is the heap. You proceed thus with every grain, till the whole will be exhausted without finding the heap. § 16. — Some units are a sensible aggregation, and some a verbal aggregation. The word heap signifies a sight and a feel, and hence possesses an existence and a oneness without reference to the separate grains of which the heap is composed; — while the unit gravity possesses in nature no existence independently of its constituent parts. Gravity, as a unit, is a verbal aggregation ; while the heap, as a unit, is a sensible aggregation. This distinction is highly deserving of consideration. Language disregards the distinction; the verbal oneness being equally complete in both cases. § 17. — We invent theories to supply the unit which we suppose must exist, but which we fail from finding in nature. To the mistake by which we transfer to nature the oneness that exists in language, we owe a large portion of our theories. The theories supply the unit that we vainly seek in nature, but which we erroneously suppose must exist: — for instance, the unit magnetism is alleged to be some subtile and invisible ema- nation or fluid; — the unit temperature is another radiating and insensible fluid; — gravity another. The unit vitality is an irri- tability of fibre, and the unit sound is a vibration of the atmo- sphere. The unit is sometimes deemed an undiscoverable LECT. IV.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 65 essence ; sometimes an agitation of the brain ; sometimes an insensible repulsion of insensible parts ; sometimes an internal combustion ; and sometimes an external explosion. § 18. — So far as theories are useful, they are of course de- sirable. I wish to merely show that we attribute to nature the oneness which exists in language ; and that we usually invent a theory to supply the exigency created by our mistaken appre hensions of nature. The practice will continue till we shall learn to interpret and qualify words by the revelation of our senses ; instead of interpreting and qualifying the revelation of our senses by the implied oneness of words. 66 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. LECTURE V. LANGUAGE IMPLIES IDENTITIES TO WHICH NATURE CONFORMS NOT. § 1. — Having, in my last two lectures, shown that we impute to nature a oneness which belongs to language only, I shall now show that we impute to nature an identity which belongs to language only. § 2. — Language is a collection of general terms, but creation is a congregation of individual existences. Nine hundred and ninety-seven millions of beings exist, to whom we apply the word man. Amid the varieties of their complexion, stature, hair, features, age, sex, structure, habits, and knowledge, enough similarities are discoverable to make the word man appropriate to all. No two are, perhaps, iden- tical in their general appearance, nor in the appearance of any particular part. They differ, also, individually from each other, in many qualities besides the appearance. The word man, therefore, refers to a mass of dissimilar indi- viduals. Every word is equally general in its signification. By means of their generality, a few thousand words comprehend all created existences. Nature is a congregation of individual existences, and language a collection of general terms. § 3. — We interpret the identity of existences by the identity of their name. "When we wish to disparage Napoleon, we say, he was but a man ; and when we wish to exalt a simpleton, we say, he is a man as well as Napoleon. The alleged identity is correct, if we interpret it by the similarities that we discover in the compared individuals; but the identity is alleged to imply a similarity LECT. V.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 67 beyond what we discover in the two individuals, and even to control the differences that they exhibit. This is an insidious errour, and it constitutes the subject of the present discourse. We disregard the individuality of nature, and substitute for it a generality which belongs to language. § 4. — The identity which language implies has embarrassed medicine. Medical science long suffered by the delusion which we are investigating. It still suffers measurably. Diseases possess sufficient resemblances to be classed under general names ; hence we possess the words peripneumony, pleurisy, rheuma- tism, &c. I censure not physicians for constructing the names, nor for deciding that Thomas and Henry are severally afflicted with pleurisy ; but their diseases are not as identical in nature as in language. § 5. — Individuality is characteristick of nature. The identity which language implies is responded to by nature very nearly, or we could possess no medical science ; but the most skilful physician is often defeated by the individualities of nature. Physicians have long detected these individualities, and deemed them anomalies of nature. The anomaly is, however, in language, which unites under one name, as identities, what is only partially identical. Individuality is no anomaly of nature. It is nature's regular production, and boundless richness. § 6.— No two parcels of calomel possess the perfect identity which the sameness of their name implies. No two men pos- sess the perfect identity which the sameness of their manhood implies ; nor possesses any one man, at all times, and under all circumstances, the complete identity with which language invests his individuality. 68 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. $ 7. — The identity which language implies is always complete, but nature approximates in various degrees only to a perfect identity. Language implies always a perfect identity ; nature exhibits, in some cases, a greater approximation to identity than in other cases. For instance: — in two flakes of snow, the snow pre- sents an identity which is almost complete ; but in a whale and anchovy, the fish of both animals presents a very incomplete identity. The fish of the whale and anchovy is, however, as identical verbally, as the snow of the two flakes. § 8. — Again, a polypus and an elephant are animals, and the animahty of both is identical in language ; in nature, the identity is less than even the identity of the fish. § 9. — Iron is matter — a sunbeam is matter. Their mate- riality is identical in language, while in nature we discover in it less identity than we discover in even the animality of the polypus and elephant. § 10. — We should not confound the verbal identity with the realities of nature. I complain not of language for its implied identities. We can construct a language on no other principle. A whale and an anchovy present sufficient similarities to render the word fish appropriate to both : still we need not confound the verbal iden- tity with the realities of nature. In nature, the identity is just as we discover it to be. It must not be measured by names, but ascertained by observation. We reverse this rule : we interpret the natural identity by the verbal. § 11. — Failing to discover in nature the identity which lan- guage implies, but believing thai it must exist somewhere in nature, we mistake it for a mysterious property of creation. No man observes so superficially as not to discover in natural productions an endless diversity. Children say, that no two LECT. V.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 69 blades of grass are alike. Still, the difference in the blades we estimate as not effecting their identity as grass. But what is the identity of grass, beyond the sensible resemblance, &c, of the different blades ? Nothing but the name grass. We deem the identity a hidden property of nature, while it is only a pro- perty of language. $ 12. — We transfer to nature a generalization which belongs to language. Botanists say, that oats, barley, and wheat, are ' also grass ; and when we become botanists, we see that the name is appro- priate. We are, however, deceived, if we suppose that in these different existences some property exists, which is as identical as the identity of the word grass. We are transferring to nature a generalization of language. § 13.— The diversity which we discover among natural objects, <$-c, that possess the same name, should teach us to correct the identity implied by their name ; but we employ the verbal identity to excite wonder at the natural diversity. The question is deemed profound which asks how the soul is united to the body; — how the movements of a man's limbs are united to his volition; — how heat and light are united in flame; — how coldness and hardness are united in ice. The union, in these cases, is deemed identical with the union of the arm to the shoulder; and hence the wonder and the fallacy. Should a man ask how the arm is united to the shoulder, we could show him the ligatures, &c, and he would be satisfied. He would be equally satisfied with what he discovers of light and heat in flame, did he not believe that the word union, as applied to the light and heat, meant the same as the word union when applied to my arm and shoulder. The diversity which he finds in nature between the two unions, fails to teach him that the verbal identity is fallacious. He employs the verbal identity to show that the natural diversity is mysterious. § 14. — Light passes through solid crystal. This many per- sons deem a standing miracle. What we see excites no sur- 70 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. prise. The passage through the solid crystal is the marvel. We know the difficulty which would attend the passage of our hand through the crystal, and we deem the passage of the light identical with the passage of the hand. Nothing is more falla- cious than thus to construe the word passage in these different uses of it. The two operations possess the requisite analogy to make the word passage applicable to both, but its meaning in each application is what our senses reveal, and not what the identity of the word implies. The passage of the light through crystal is a sight only ; the passage of my hand is a sight and a feel. § 15. — A spark causes gunpowder to explode. This is curious. But speculation wonders not at the explosion, but that we cannot discover the connexion which exists between the touch of the spark and the explosion. Mankind would not have attached the word connexion to the spark and explosion, if the word was not appropriate ; but if we infer that the con- nexion is identical with the connexion exhibited by two links of a chain, and seek in nature for such a link, we are deluded. Nature is boundlessly diverse ; and all that we can accomplish is, to group the diversities under such general terms as alone can compose a finite language. § 16. — Language, in its ability to designate individual exist- ences, is like colours in their ability to depict the variety of nature. When a painter undertakes to represent nature, he finds an infinity of natural tints, while he possesses only a finite number of artificial colours with which to effect the representation. So, when he undertakes to discourse of nature, he finds an infinity of phenomena, while he possesses only a finite number of words with which to form his discourse. § 17. — The colour which on one occasion the painter employs to portray the moon, he, on another occasion, employs to repre- sent water; — so the word which on one occasion a speaker employs to designate the relation that exists between two links 1ECT. V*] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 71 of a chain, he employs on another occasion to designate the relation that exists between a spark and an explosion. § 18. — The painter and the speaker act from a kindred prin- ciple ; the painter discovers in the moon and the water an analogy which makes one colour appropriate to both ; and the speaker discovers in the links, and the spark, and explosion, an analogy which makes the word connexion appropriate to both. § 19. — Verbal disquisitions will be erroneous till we cease from imputing to nature the identities which belong to language. But in one point the painter differs from the speaker. The painter knows that the identity of colour [between the water and the moon], exists only in the imperfection of his materials ; while the speaker knows not that the identity of " connexion " [between the links of a chain, and the spark and explosion], exists only in the imperfection of language. Yet this truth must be learnt before we can extricate ourselves from the errours in which nearly all verbal disquisitions are involved. § 20. — The meaning of the word identity varies with the object to which it is applied. The word identity itself is merely a general term, expressive of a multitude of varying existences and relations. A man who is blind from his birth, knows roundness by the feel. Should he attain sight and see a ball, he will not recognise it as the round object of his former amusement. When, however, he shall have learnt roundness by the sight, he may inquire how the visible ball and the tangible are identical. Their identity is different from the identity of his person now, and his person a few moments previously. The identity of John when an infant, and the same John when a decrepid old man, differs from both the other identities. The identity which exists between an acorn and the oak from which it originated, differs from all the other identities. To seek in each of these cases for something that is common to them all, and as similar in all as the similarity 72 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. of the word identity which we apply to them all, is to seek in nature for what is only a contrivance of language. § 21. — We subordinate nature to language, instead of subordi- nating language to nature. To ask how the visible ball and the tangible are identical, displays the perverse manner in which we interpret language. Instead of asking language how the two phenomena are iden- tical, we should ask our senses what the verbal identity signifies. We apply the word identical to many dissimilar phenomena ; and instead of imputing the verbal identity to a necessary stratagem of language, we impute the natural diversity to a mystery of nature. The visible ball and the tangible ex hibit not what some other identities exhibit ; hence we are per plexed. Nothing but a long habit of subordinating nature to language can account for our not discovering, in the diverse applications of the word identical, that the alleged identity is a mere license of language, and the discoverable diversity but the ordinary individuality of nature. § 22. — No two existences are as identical in nature as in name. After an assayer pronounces two bars to be gold, I shall not know correctly what even their identity signifies, till he shows me the phenomena to which his decision refers. Their identity possesses not the unqualified sameness which exists in the name gold. § 23. — The identity which language implies is the expedient by which a finite language comprehends an infinitely diverse creation. Men agree on the standard which decides whether two bars are gold, but a like agreement exists not in every alleged iden- tity. One man will deem no two things identical, unless they exhibit the phenomena which constitute his personal identity. He knows not that the natural identity of any two objects is only what the objects display ; and that the complete identity LECT. V.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 73 which is implied by the sameness of their name is merely a human contrivance, by which an infinitely diverse creation is comprehended by a finite vocabulary : comprehended as well as we can, in groups of much similarity, under the word gold ; in groups of less similarity under the word metal ; and in groups of but little similarity, under the word mineral. § 24. — Imputing to nature the identity which exists in lan- guage, causes much fallacious speculation. Heat, whether solar or culinary, chemical or animal, is deemed as identical in nature as in language. So far the fallacy is free from much absurdity. But the prepossession which induces us to deem all heats identical, induces us to deem their causes equally identical ; hence, solar heat is considered either chemi- cal or igneous. An alternative is pleasant, but philosophers are almost unanimous that the sun is fire. Even the years are numbered which must elapse before its combustible parts will be exhausted. Whether this continues the scientific romance of the day, I know not, and care not. The theory may be changed, but the errour which originated it remains. Pursuing the verbal identity of solar and terrestrial fire, astronomers find that some planets, by approaching the sun, become periodically hotter than iron in fusion ; and comets accumulate heat enough to retain, after a century's absence, a sufficiency for comfort § 25. — These are the calculations of men with whom I pre- sume not to contend, except where they delusively impute to nature the identity which exists only in language — a delusion which has been indulged by astronomers, till they have fabri- cated wilder romances than ever fiction created intentionally. § 26. — Again, stone is matter ; air, light, water, man, earth, and sun, are severally matter. That matter is as identical in nature as in name, is believed with all the simplicity of an undisturbed prepossession in favour of the errour. Creation displays in vain its diversities. The variety only augments our admiration at the implied identity. 4 74 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART 1. § 27. — So far, however, the absurdity is moderate compared with the chimeras which we produce, when, in pursuance of the implied identity of matter, we invest a sunbeam with hard- ness, bulk, particles, resistance, and every other essential pro- perty of stone. We are then taught to admire that light, so constituted, can fall with a velocity almost inconceivable, and from a height almost inexpressible, and not merely leave our houses unbattered, but leave us unconscious of the blows which are inflicted on even our eyes. § 28. — Light moves from the sun to the earth, and a coach moves from Utica to Albany. The word motion is proper in both phrases ; but when we deem the motions as identical in nature as in language, we are transferring to nature what is simply a property of language. The mistake is unimportant. till, by virtue of the supposed identity, we attribute to the motion of light the concomitants of the coach's motion. Proceeding thus, we calculate that during one vibration of a clock's pendu- lum, light moves, as consecutively as the coach, one hundred and sixty thousand miles. § 29. — I lately saw a little book* which teaches children occult doctrines. The child's curiosity is excited by the inform- ation that he and stones possess many properties in common : — colour, form, substance, hardness, bulk, resistance, mobility, &c. § 30. — That the child and the stone are identical in some particulars, is the marvel and the fallacy. So far as the identity is verbal, the child knows the identity. So far as you impute to nature the identity which exists in the words, you are deluding him. In the same way, youth are taught that male and female, when applied to plants, are identical in meaning with male and female when applied to animals ; and thus we obtain from youth an interest for botany at the cost of their understanding. § 31. — We teach a child that certain stars are suns. We court his belief that the identity is as complete naturally as * The Child's Book on the Soul. LECT. V.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 75 verbally. Beyond all ordinary visibility and all telescopic, other suns, we say, exist ; still wishing him to believe that the identity of language and of nature are one. This verbal delusion, to which teachers and scholars are usually alike victims, exalts, we say, creation. Miserable compliment ! Creation needs not romance for its exaltation, nor the perversion of reason for its glory. § 32. — We tell a pupil that the earth travels with various velocities, and various motions, wishing him to believe that the motions and velocities are identical in nature with the motions and velocities of a steamboat. This errour is so monstrous and so general, that it presents a wonderful example of the delusion by which we transfer to nature the identity of language. The motions and velocities of the earth are a good theory ; but that they are more than our senses reveal, and especially that they should be deemed identical with the motions and velocities of a steamboat, are neither necessary to the theory, nor useful That men have invented laws and calculations, whose results coin- cide with the sensible phenomena of the heavenly bodies, is creditable to human knowledge, and useful to human pursuits ; but we need not vitiate our knowledge, and sully its glory, by interpreting astronomical theories by the identities of language, instead of the revelation of our senses § 33. — Estimating nature by the identities of language misleads us in natural history, geography, $c. Natural history suffer by the implied identity of its objects. Eagles are discussed as identical, men as identical, whales as identical, lions as identical. So far as we can speak of proper- ties that are discoverable in every lion, a general account is not delusive ; but we are prone to attribute to every lion the pro- perty of each, misled by an identity among them which exists no where completely but in their name. To discourse of groups of animals as identities is probably the only method by which we can possess any natural history ; but we need not aggravate the evil by deeming their verbal identity a property of nature. 76 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. §. 34. — To read Captain Parry's narrative of his Arctic expe- dition, seems to make my knowledge identical with his ; but he acquired new sights, and new phenomena of every sense ; while his narrative gives me new combinations of words only — or any way, a knowledge different from his, how identical soever may be the words with which we speak of it. § 35. — Two men, who assent to the same general proposition, may possess very diverse meanings. In the use of general propositions, much misunderstanding occurs from the identity of language and the diversity of nature. If I assert that George is good, you may assent. Under this verbal identity, I may refer to actions of George that are un- known to you ; and you may refer to actions unknown to me. Nay, the actions to which I refer might cause you to reprobate George. § 36. — Out expressions are often identical, when our meanings are diverse. You and I may^e well acquainted with Thomas ; still, when we see his portrait, y^u may deem the likeness excellent, while I may call it execrable. While we speak of the appearance of Thomas, our knowledge sterns identical ; but our different estimations of the portrait proxe that our knowledge is diverse. When we view Thomas, we take hot necessarily the same view. I may habitually contemplate his profile, and you his bust ; I may notice his chin, and you his forehead. § 37. — Estimating thoughts by the identity which their name implies, has prevented us from noting the natural diversity which thoughts exhibit. I will burden you with only one further illustration of the difference between the identity which language implies, and the diversity which nature possesses. The illustration possesses, however, an importance which makes it merit your attention. LECT. V.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 77 § 38. — Thoughts are divisible into six different classes. We can think of the appearance of the moon, and we can think of the word moon. In both cases we are said to think of the moon ; but, in nature, the two thoughts differ from each other, as much as a sight differs from a word. Instead of possessing the identity which the name implies, thoughts are divisible into six different classes. A disregard of this diversity- produces much of the mystery with which thinking is usually invested in our discussions of it. § 39. — One class of thoughts are words. Professor Stewart says,* " some men, even in their private speculations, not only use words as an instrument of thought, but form the words into sentences. ,, § 40. — What is thus alleged, is true of all men ; but the remark attaches to only one class of thoughts. Think the word million. The thought is a word. When we pronounce million audibly, it is a word ; when we pronounce it inaudibly, it is a thought. § 41. — In the production of verbal thoughts, an agency of the organs of speech is discoverable. If you repeat in thought the alphabet, you may employ your organs of speech so forcibly, that the thoughts will require but a little more energy to become audible words. Endeavour to avoid an agency of the tongue, lips, and breath, you will detect a slight agency, and of the tongue especially. The more freely we permit the tongue's movements, the more distinctly we can think the alphabet. If you stand before a mirror and protrude your tongue, you will see it either dilate or thicken, as each letter is pronounced in thought. The experiment must be made with letters whose articulation is lingual. * On the Mind, Vol. I, p. 36. 78 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. § 42. — Verbal thoughts are limited, like audible words, to a consecutive formation. We cannot think the word George, while we are speaking the word Thomas ; nor can we pronounce Thomas, while we are thinking George. Speech is limited to an utterance of suc- cessive syllables. Verbal thoughts require a similar succession of syllables. The phrase " our father," we can no more con- dense into one thought, than we can pronounce the words in one articulation. From long attention to these coincidences, my verbal thoughts are as evidently the production of my organs of speech, and located in my mouth, as words are. § 43. — The identity which exists between verbal thoughts and mere words, is closer than the generality of identities. We do not think of words as our theories lead us to say, but we think words themselves. A Frenchman thinks French words, and an Englishman, English. An uneducated man thinks ungrammatical sentences, and a rude man, vulgar sen- tences. Professor Blair was more literally correct than he supposed, when he said, " that a person who is learning to arrange his words correctly, is learning to think correctly." § 44. — One class of thoughts is characteristically sights. But verbal thoughts are only one class of the six classes into which thoughts are divisible. We can think the word moon, as I have stated, which will be a verbal thought ; and we can think the appearance of the moon, which is a visual thought. Visual thoughts possess the evanescence of vision. They flash and vanish. They possess also the comprehensiveness of vision. We comprehend in one gaze the whole starry firmament, and our thought of the firmament is as capacious as the gaze, and apparently as remote from our contact. LECT. V.J A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 79 § 45. — The remaining four classes of thoughts are charac- teristically sounds, tastes, feels, and smells. The remaining four classes of thoughts are characteristically sounds, tastes, feels, and smells. Each class conforms to the peculiarities of the sense with whose phenomena it is conna- tural. The last pressure of an absent friend, when it recurs to me in thought, rests seemingly upon my hand with the contaction which pertains to the sense of feeling, § 46. — The thoughts which I class as smells, possess the limit- ation that pertains to the perception of -odours. The thoughts which I class as smells, possess the limitation that pertains to the perception of odours. We can no more combine in one thought the distinct fragrance of a rose, and the fetor of assafcetida, than we can realize them separately in one inspiration. § 47. — Tastes possess in thought the singleness which attends the reception of tastes. Tastes also possess in thought the singleness which attends the reception of tastes. Vinegar and water yield not their tastes separately when placed together on our tongue, but com- bine to form a single taste. Thought also cannot present us the two tastes simultaneously. § 48. — The recollection of sounds differs from the recollection of articulations. To think of sounds conforms so nearly to actual hearing, that I have heard a musician require silence from his auditors when he was recollecting a tune. Many voices, uttered confusedly together, are recollected in one clamour, as we heard them. In this, the recollection of sounds differs characteristically from the recollection of words. 80 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. Words can be thought of in only the syllabick succession of oral utterance.* § 49. — We construe nature by the forms of language, instead of construing language by the revelations of nature. If you cannot catch my meaning by a few hints, you will not by a tedious detail. To me, the fact is evident, that the identity which is implied by the word thought, is not responded to by nature with any like identity, but by six classes of dissimilar phenomena. That this obvious truth has escaped detection by all the acute men who have investigated thought, is imputable to the inveterate prepossession which makes us construe nature by the forms of language, instead of construing language by the revelations of nature. > § 50.- — Dumb mutes possess neither verbal thoughts nor auricular thoughts. A knowledge of the preceding classification is exceedingly useful : for instance, what thoughts have the dumb ? Their defect of utterance prevents the formation of verbal thoughts, and the defect of hearing prevents auricular thoughts.! The dumb, therefore, are deficient of all thoughts that consist of words, and of all thoughts that consist of sounds. They pos- sess but four classes of thought, while we possess six. $ 51. — To acquire a written language ivill not give the dumb verbal thoughts. When the dumb acquire a written language, their misfortune is remedied less effectively than is usually supposed ; for a * We can think of words as sounds, but they are usually thought of as words, by a very palpable agency of our organs of speech. f Words are sounds to the hearer, but to the speaker they are certain movements of his organs of speech ; hence verbal thoughts are more characteristically feels than sounds. LECT. V.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 81 written word, when thought of by the dumb, constitutes but a visual thought, possessing all the evanescence of vision. When we think oral words, the thoughts possess the stability of speech. § 52. — Infants possess no verbal thoughts. While language is unknown, infants can possess no verbal thoughts. Sights, sounds, feels, tastes, and smells, they can think, to the extent of their experience. Children obtain not early a facility of thinking inaudibly. They usually think aloud the few words which they first acquire ; and hence the constant repetition of words by infants. § 53. — A paralysis of the tongue impedes verbal thinking. Whether madness uniformly attacks all classes of the ma- niack's thoughts, may be worth the examination of physicians. A paralysis of the organs of speech affects verbal thinking nearly as much as it affects speaking ; while the other classes of thought are unimpaired. The paralytick recognises, by sight, his friends, but he cannot recollect their names. He also recals, in visual thought, his absent friends, with a like inability of recollecting their names. § 54.— -Practically, we are well aware of the difference which exists in the nature of our thoughts. I heard a gentleman refuse to look on his deceased friend, because he wished to think of his friend in no other way than as he appeared when alive. The remark surprised no one. It is founded on our experience of the limitation of visual thoughts. With verbal thoughts he can think of the deceased in any state of decay that language can express, whether he view him or not. To create a new verbal thought, and to construct a new sentence, are similar operations, except that the new sentence is articulated, and the new thought is inarticulate. 82 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. § 55. — These observations on thought are simply to show that the identity which language implies is not responded to by nature with an equal identity. We measure the natural identity by the verbal, instead of interpreting the verbal by the natural. I am anxious to free you from this errour ; and if I have suc- ceeded, the tediousness of an abstruse discourse may well be endured. &ECT. VI.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 83 LECTURE VI. WORDS CAN BE DIVESTED OF SIGNIFICATION, AND STILL FORM- ED INTO PROPOSITIONS WHICH WILL NOT BE OBVIOUSLY UN- MEANING. In the natural world, the objects which are most abundant are those that are most necessary to the preservation of life. Air .and water, for instance, are so common, as to be pecuniarily valueless. In the moral world, also, the qualities which are most preva- lent, are those that are most essential to the preservation of society. Forbearance from homicide is so common a virtue, that it possesses not even a name. By a like principle, objects, of both the natural and moral world, exist in rareness, just in proportion as they are unessen- tial to the common ends of life. The exalted integrity, for instance, that spurns the slightest indirection, — and the scrupu- lous truth, that bends to no expediency, — compare in rareness with the diamond that sparkles on the breast of wealth only, and with the plate which loads the sideboards of the conspi- cuous few. In the intellectual world, a kindred dispensation is discov- erable. The knowledge which is sufficient to procure the necessaries of life, is discoverable in the most uneducated individual ; while a knowledge either of the latent subtility of language, or of the muscular motions necessary to produce the portraits of Stuart, is as rare as it is unessential to the pre- servation of society. Although, then, we may, without the information that I de- liver, remain qualified for the stations in which Providence has placed us, yet all who would correctly understand speculative learning, can in no way so effectually secure the object as by acquiring a knowledge of the latent properties of language. 84 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. § 1. — Words can be divested of their sensible signification. William and Thomas, when spoken with reference to two men, are significant appellations ; but if I apply the names to nullity, the words partake immediately of the nothingness to which I apply them. This principle, how obvious soever it may seem, has escaped the vigilance of the most acute, and supplied speculation with its most perplexing doctrines. § 2. — The word weight names a fee-l. The feel is discovera- ble in a feather, in a piece of lead, and in nearly every object. The word possessed no significancy before its introduction into language, and it now possesses* none apart from the feel that it designates. § 3. — Admit, then, that weight names a feel, and observe how speciously I can employ the word after I divest it of significa- tion : thus, " many objects are too small to be seen with the unassisted eye ; and some, the most powerful microscope can render but just visible ; we may therefore well believe that numerous atoms are so small that no microscope can reveal them : still, each must possess colour, shape, and weight." § 4. — Now observe, if weight names a feel, how has the word any signification when we predicate it of an atom, in which confessedly the feel cannot be experienced ? What feel is that which cannot be felt ? We have subtracted from the word its significancy, and left a vacated sound. It becomes weight minus weight. § 5. — Again: take the word atom — what is it? The name of a sight and a feel. Its sensible meaning I can teach you only by showing you, or permitting you to feel, some object, of which thereafter atom will be a name. I can show that a microscope enables us to see objects where vision unassisted can discover nothing. These sights, also, I can inform you are atoms. But when I say atoms exist which cannot be seen or LECT. VI.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 85 felt, I divest the word of signification. We may apply the word atom to a taste, sound, or smell, and speak of an atom of taste, or an atom of sound, or smell ; but when we use the word where nothing is discoverable, it designates nothing, and is nothing but the sound of which it is constituted. § 6. — Again: colour is an attribute of the atoms that we have been considering. Colour names a sight ; but in the above proposition, it is used for what is invisible : hence the word is divested of signification, and nothing remains but a vacated sound. A man that can neither be seen nor felt, is not a greater nullity than an invisible colour. The defect is similar in both cases : — the words are divested of signification. § 7. — We are vigilant in detecting verbal contradictions, but toe never detect the sensible contradiction which exists in affirming the presence of sensible existences, where none are discoverable by the senses. We may learn from even this slight investigation, that words can be deprived of intelligence, and still formed into proposi- tions which will not be obviously futile. We are vigilant to detect any verbal contradiction in a proposition, but we never notice the latent contradiction which arises from predicating sensible phenomena where they are confessedly undiscoverable : thus, should you affirm that an object is heavy and not heavy, or visible and invisible, all persons would ridicule the affirma- tion : but no essential difference exists between such proposi- tions and those which speak of a weight that cannot be felt, and of a colour that cannot be seen. § 8. — Words, divested of signification, may still be employed in all the processes of logick. Zeno's paradox respecting motion is an example of the inanity to which we may arrive by the foregoing misuse of language, even when we pursue the most logical deductions. Thus, say that a tortoise is a mile before Achilles, and that Achilles runs a hundred times faster than the tortoise, yet he will never over- 86 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. take it " because, says Zeno, when Achilles has run the mile, the tortoise will have moved forward the hundredth part of a mile ; and while Achilles runs the said hundredth part of a mile, the tortoise has moved forward the ten thousandth part of a mile ; so that it is not yet overtaken. In the same manner, whilst Achilles passes over the ten thousandth part of a mile, the tortoise moves on the millionth part of a mile, and is not yet overtaken ; and so on, ad infinitum. § 9. — Though the proposition is palpably preposterous, the defect of its reasoning has never been explained ; nor is it explicable on any other principle, than that its words become insignificant the moment they are used where nothing sensible is discoverable : for instance, " while Achilles passes over the hundredth part of a mile, the tortoise moves on the ten thou- sandth part of a mile." The ten thousandth part of a mile is between six and seven inches. It names a sight and a feel ; hence the tortoise is not yet overtaken : — but the proposition proceeds, — " Whilst Achilles passes over this ten thousandth part of a mile, the tortoise moves on the millionth part of a mile." The millionth part of a mile leaves them asunder about the fifteenth part of an inch, which names a sight and a feel ; hence the tortoise is not yet overtaken. But the next step is a quibble. It affirms, that whilst Achilles passes over this millionth part of a mile, the tortoise moves on the hundred millionth part of a mile. This is a name without any corre- sponding existence in nature, hence the sophistry and quibble. The last step is absurd, not from any defect of logick, but because the words are become divested of signification.* § 10. — The new Edinburgh Encyclopedia says, "it would not be easy to solve this quibble were we to measure motion by space merely, without taking in the idea of time." This explication is only the substitution of a new quibble. The tortoise will not be overtaken so long as it is a minute the start of Achilles ; but when the time which separates them is the * The words retain a verbal signification, which is discussed hereafter : see also Lectures XV, and XXII. LECT. VI.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 87 hundred millionth part of a minute, the words will have no archetype among sensible phenomena, and will be divested of signification. §11 . — Verbally, no limit exists to the divisibility of matter ; for every thing possesses two halves, and when you have divided it, each half becomes immediately a whole endued with halves ; and so in infinitum. The conclusion is irrefragable. It is also true practically, while the words possess any sensible significa- tion ; but after a certain number of divisions, the word half will refer to neither a sight nor a feel, and become as insignificant as the hundred millionth part of a mile which separates Achilles from the tortoise. The words in both cases become divested of meaning, hence the defect is alike in both propositions ; but so little understood is the principle which creates the defect, that the infinite divisibility of matter is treasured among the truths of philosophy ; while Zeno's kindred problem, (from interfering more grossly with our experience,) excites our ridicule. $ 12. — I have heard intelligent persons deliberate gravely on the infinite divisibility of a drop of water; half of a drop is water, for the division alters not chemically the nature of water, but diminishes the quantity merely. But the half may be again divided, and the residue will be still water ; and so in infinitum. The conclusion is regularly deduced from the premises, but during the process the word water loses its signification. Water is a sight, a feel, and a taste. A water in which these are not discoverable, is water minus water — a vacated sound. § 13. — Words divested of signification may still be employed in the problems and demonstrations of mathematicks. We may imagine a circle that shall be larger than the orbit described by the earth in its annual revolutions. Still, no part of the circumference can be equal to a straight line ; for no proposition in mathematicks is more satisfactory, than that a straight line can never constitute a circle ; hence we arrive at the conclusion, that a curve may expand in infinitum without 88 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. becoming straight, though at every expansion it approximates towards straightness. § 14. — In view of this mathematical process, Hume says, " the demonstration seems as unexceptionable as that which proves the three angles of a triangle to be equal to two right angles ; though the latter opinion is natural and easy, and the former big with contradiction and absurdity. Reason here seems thrown into a kind of amazement, which, without the suggestion of any skeptick, gives her a diffidence of herself, and of the ground on which she treads. She sees a full light, but it borders upon the most profound darkness. Between them she is so dazzled and confounded, that she can scarcely pro- nounce with certainty concerning any object." § 15.— But the difficulty vanishes if we consider the words circle and curve as names of sights and feels. Mathematicians are correct so long as the words refer to sensible existences ; but when they speak of a curve which can neither be seen nor felt, it is a curve minus curve, and the proposition is like the problem of Zeno. § 16.— -The fallacy enters largely into the speculations of every department of philosophy. Because a cubick inch of air weighs the third part of a grain, we calculate the number of cubick inches of air which rest on a man in a column of forty or fifty miles in altitude ; and by call- ing every inch the third part of a grain, we conclude that every man supports fourteen tons weight of air. Is not this divesting the phrase fourteen tons of its signification? Weight, (and especially fourteen tons,) is the name of a feel; and to use the word where no feel is discoverable, is like talking of a tooth- ache which cannot be felt, or of an inaudible melody. § 17. — I met lately with the following speculation : "A small piece of sugar will sweeten a pint of water; consequently, every drop of the water will contain some sugar." So far, the speculation is sensible ; the sugar which every drop of water is LECT. VI.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 89 said to contain, refers to the sweetness that is discoverable in the water. But the theory proceeds : — " If we add a farther pint of water, we shall discover that the taste is gone ; there- fore, the last pint caused a farther division of the sugar, or some part of the water would continue sweet." § 18. — We find as yet no sophistry, but the next step is de- lusive. The writer continues : — " Have the particles of sugar been divided to the extent of their divisibility \ If they have, the indivisibility must proceed from a want of power in water to effect a farther division, and not from a want of matter to be divided ; because the last water could not have so divided the particles that each will not be larger than the half of it. But why shall we suppose that the power of water to divide ceases at the moment when our sense can no longer discover the effects of a division ? We may as well suppose, that time ceases when we sleep. More philosophical is the supposition that the smaller the particles of sugar become by division, the more easily they will be affected by the water ; and that the water continues to divide the particles so long as particles remain. But we have shown that particles will always remain ; hence, no quantity of water can be added without causing a further division of the sugar. How infinitely divided must the sugar at length become, when a small piece is cast into a river ! And if every soluble thing which is thrown into the ocean divides, so that every drop of the ocean contains some part of the dissolved substance, what a variety of particles must a drop of the ocean contain ! " § 19. — In the above we find no weakness of argument. The defect lies in a misuse of language. The words particle and sugar are names of sensible existences; and to use the words where the existences are not discoverable, is to speak of invisi- ble sights, or any other contradiction. Such a use of language is like the trick of a juggler, who, having adroitly conveyed a shilling from under a candlestick, talks of the money as still under the candlestick. 90 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. fPART I. § 20. — Theoretical causes are frequently nothing but words divested of their sensible signification. If two billiard balls strike, they rebound. Till lately philo- sophers inculcated, that when the balls strike, a dent is produced in each ball ; and the dent resuming instantly its rotundity, causes the balls to fly asunder. § 21. — A dent is a sight and a feel. But the dent which is here assumed, can be neither seen nor felt ; hence the cause, in this case, is a word divested of its signification. A dent which our senses cannot perceive, differs but in sound from a house which our senses cannot perceive : both are names of sensible existences, and both are unmeaning terms when they are used where nothing sensible can be discovered. % § 22. — When we subtract from a word its sensible signification , the word returns, (so far as relates to the external universe,) to the pristine insignificance which the word possessed, be- fore it was applied to the purposes of language. / ■ In relation to the motion of billiard balls, Professor Stewart says, " Some of the ablest philosophers in Europe are now satisfied that the effects which are commonly referred to impulse, arise from a power of repulsion, extending to a small and imper- ceptible distance round every element of matter." § 23. — A repulsion is, however, a sight or a feel, or both; but in the present case, we can neither see the repulsion, nor feel it ; nor is it discoverable by any of our senses. It is a repulsion minus repulsion. It operates also at an imperceptible distance. This is the distance that for ever prevented Achilles from overtaking the tortoise. But distance is a sight and a feel ; and when Professor Stewart subtracts these, the word returns to the pristine insignificance which it possessed before it was applied to the purposes of language. LECT. VI.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 91 § 24.— The law of nature, which makes the word scarlet insig- nificant to the blind, makes all words insignificant when they attempt to name external existences which our senses cannot discover. Let us consider, says Locke, how bodies produce ideas in us. " Colour and smell are produced by insensible particles ope- rating on our senses." The word particles names, however, existences which can generally be both seen and felt. It may be applied intelligibly to a sound, taste, or smell ; but to employ the word as a name of some external existence, which none of our senses can discover, is a use that language cannot sustain and retain any significance. § 25. — If particles were known in the way only in which they are employed by Locke, you could never disclose their meaning to any person. You may as well attempt to instruct the blind in the import of scarlet, as teach another person the signification of particles when they refer to no sight, feel, taste, smell, or sound. The disability of the blind proceeds from a destitution of the sense which is conversant with scarlet ; and a disability arising from a similar cause is experienced by us in the word particles when it signifies something that our senses cannot discover. § 26. — We can no more subtract from an external existence its sensible qualities, and leave a subsisting reality, than we can subtract all sensible qualities from an orange, and leave a fruit. " Let us now suppose," continues Locke, " that a violet, by the impulse of such insensible particles, of peculiar figures and bulks, and by different degrees and modifications of their mo- tions, causes the blue colour and sweet scent of that flower to be produced in our mind." The smell and colour of a violet are therefore imputed by Locke to an impulse which can neither be seen nor felt ; and the objects impelled are undiscoverable parti- tides that possess invisible and intactible figures and bulks, and 92 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I move with various degrees of an insensible motion. "We need not wonder that the study of metaphysicks is difficult, and that common sense has long ridiculed it. You can no more subtract from a particle its sensible qualities, and leave an entity, than you can subtract them from an orange and leave a fruit. § 27. — When the word cause is used significantly, it refers to a sensible existence. If I release my hold of a stone, it will fall to the earth. Natural Philosophy asks why the stone descends. Philoso- phers answer that the descent is caused by an attraction which exists in the earth. § 28. — We think we have gained much information. Nee- dles rush to a magnet by virtue of its attraction, and we have only to suppose a similar power in the earth, and the descent of the stone is accounted for. An essential difference exists, however, in the two cases. The word attraction, when predi- cated of the magnet, refers to a sight and a feel. The attrac- tion can be seen in the needle's uniform attendance on the movements of a magnet ; or it can be felt in the effort that is necessary to detach a needle from a magnet. But attraction, when predicated of the earth, is cognizable by none of our senses : hence the word is divested of its signification. It becomes attraction minus attraction. § 29. — An ignorance of the limitation which nature has formed to the signification of language, is in no instance so pro- ductive of erroneous speculation, as in its application to the word cause. Doctor Darwin attributes all the phenomena of chymistry to a specifick attraction and a specifick repulsion, which belong to the sides and angles of the insensible particles of bodies. When the repulsions predominate, they cause the diffusion of light and odours, the explosion of some bodies, and the slow decomposition of others : but when the attractions predominate, they cause crystallization and solidity. LECT. VI.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 93 § 30. — Attraction, repulsion, sides, and angles, are names of sensible phenomena ; independently of which, the words are as insignificant as any that can be made by throwing promiscuously together the letters of the alphabet. We find, however, in Doctor Darwin's speculation, that words alone are made the cause of odours, sounds, fluidity, and explosion. The proposi- tion is an instance as glaring as any that -can be adduced of the absurdities into which even the wisest men fall when they inves- tigate causation without knowing that the word cause (like every other word) is insignificant, when it relates to the external uni- verse, and refers to no sensible existence. § 31. — If I look at this piece of silk, I discover the sight which we call red. The sight is caused by the silk. If you desire to know what I mean by asserting that the silk causes the sight, I can remove the silk, and show you that the sight will cease. § 32. — But opticians carry the inquiry further, and ask what causes the silk to produce the sight which we name red. They answer, that light is composed of red and other coloured rays. That the silk absorbs from light all its rays but the red, and that the red rays are reflected from the silk to our eyes. §33.— The phrase red rays, when used significantly, refers to a sight. It may be discoverable in a prismatick spectrum ; but here the rays can be neither seen nor felt ; nor are they dis- coverable by any of our senses. They are rays minus rays — a word divested of its signification. Red rays which cannot be seen, are as gross an incongruity as a pain which cannot be felt. The errour in both cases is the same. Still, this phrase, divested thus of its signification, is made the cause of redness. § 34. — The inquiry is carried further, and we are asked how the reflection of red rays to our eyes enables us to see redness. The answer is, that the red rays converge on the retina of our eyes, and form there a very small picture of the piece of silk. This picture is what the mind perceives, though we ignorantly imagine it is the distant silk. 94 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I, § 35. — The word picture names a sight and a feel ; but here it designates neither. You would in vain endeavour to teach a person the signification of the word, by referring him to what is exhibited on the retina of his eye. The word picture, when thus used, becomes nullified. It is nothing but the sound of which it is composed. In a dissected eye, a miniature of exter- nal objects may be discovered : hence the term is significant when thus applied ; but to apply the word to a living eye, where no such phenomenon can be discovered, is to act less signifi- cantly than children ; for when they say that a stick shall be a ship, or a lady, they give a wrong name only to their playthings ; but when we apply the word picture where no existence is discoverable, we " give to airy nothing a local habitation and a § 36. — Theories are useful, but we need not confound them with the sensible realities of creation. Let me not be understood as decrying the theories to which I advert, or the sciences that are erected on them ; but we need not confound the theories of men with the realities of nature. We can award to Prometheus the credit of sculpturing a well proportioned statue, without straining our admiration to the belief that he endued it with animation. 37. — My remarks are only illustrations of the general princi- ple, that words can be divested of signification, and still formed into propositions which will not be obviously futile. That words are insignificant when they are employed to signify ex- ternal existences, but refer to nothing which the senses can discover, the present lecture assumes. Of this assumption I shall speak hereafter,* and I trust make its truth manifest, if so obvious a position be not self-evident. * See Lecture X. LECT. VI.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 95 § 38. — The principles of this lecture are correct, though some of my illustrations may be deemed incorrect. I would add in conclusion, that the principle of this lecture should be separated from the examples* with which I have sought to illustrate it. Some of the examples may be unskil- fully adduced, and not obnoxious to the charges which I have brought against them ; but the principle is true in every case in which it properly applies. * For an explanation of some of the examples, see Lecture VII, § 1. 96 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. LECTURE VII. THE MEANING OF A WORD VARIES WITH ITS APPLICATION. When we survey society, and discover the labourer bending beneath his toil ; the merchant, sedentary at a scanty desk ; and the scholar, wasting in the contemplation of a few propositions ; we can scarcely believe that they are beings, to whom nothing is naturally more delightful than to roam without a limit, and to expatiate without a rule. Such, however, are some of the trans- formations of civilization. In condescension to human infirmity, every new enterprise may be preceded by a relaxation, and every new investigation by an excursion of fancy. But these indul- gences must be brief. The sinews of the artisan must again be strung to toil, and the thoughts of the student contracted to a point. Leaving, then, the above pleasant field of imaginative specu- lation, we also must return to the slow exploration of a single avenue of knowledge. My former lectures contained . truths which are simple, yet highly important. They have singularly escaped the scrutiny of metaphysicians, while, practically, they have been admitted by all persons. We are prone to disregard what is obvious, and to believe, with an ancient philosopher, that truth lies at the bottom of a well. The contrary is uni- formly a safer conclusion. I now beg your attention to another fundamental, yet simple principle of language. § 1. — Wo?'ds may be compared to a mirror. It is naturally void, and varies its representations as you vary the object which is placed before it. In my last lecture I endeavoured to show that words which name sensible existences, are often divested of signification, and still formed into propositions which are not obviously futile. LECT. VII.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 97 We seem not to know that when we employ the word water where no sensible existence is discoverable, the word partakes immediately of the nothingness to which we apply it. Words are in some respects like a mirror. When you remove all objects from before it, the mirror no longer reflects any image, but becomes void ; and when you remove from a word all refer- ence to sensible existences, the word no longer signifies any sensible existence, but becomes void. We seldom, however, use a word without referring to something for its signification. This remark applies to even several of the instances adduced in my last lecture ; hence those instances will not strictly illus- trate the errour which the lecture sought to illustrate : — for example, the picture which is alleged to be on the retina of your eye, I denounced as a word divested of signification. This is not strictly true. The picture refers to certain experiments which can be made with a dissected eye ; and it refers also to various other sensible illustrations which belong to the theory of which the picture is a part. § 2. — Words signify the objects to which they are applied. Words possess another analogy to mirrors. A mirror which, at one moment, reflects the image of a man, may, at another moment, reflect the image of a chair, a cat, or a, canary bird. The mirror conforms to the object which is placed before it, and, in like manner, every word conforms in signification to the object to which it is applied. The word William, when applied to a child, signifies the child ; and when applied to a flower, signifies the flower. This estimation of words consti- tutes the topick of the present lecture. § 3. — Every word is a general term, and applies to a multitude of diverse existences. After we find, by examination, that an object is a unit, red, hard, solid; we must examine the object further, to learn the meaning of the words unit, red, hard, and solid : — for the mean- ing of a word varies with every different application of it. My hand is red, blood is red, hair is often red, the moon is some- 5 98 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. times red, fire is red, and Indians are red. These objects pos- sess a congruity of appearance that entitles them all to the appellation of red; but the precise meaning of the word in each application is the sight itself which the object exhibits. Whether an object shall or not be called red is a question which relates to the propriety of phraseology, and with which nature has no concern ; but the meaning of the word red in each application, is a question which relates solely to nature, and with which language has no concern: — at least, language pos- sesses over it no control. § 4. — We attribute to nature the generality which belongs to language. Should we attend to the minute discriminations that can be discovered in the sights which we now denominate red, and instead of calling them all red, give a separate name to each sight ; language would be too copious for memory, and no ade- quate benefit would result from our prolixity. We should still be forced to resort to nature when we wished to know the sen- sible meaning of each word. The necessity which prompts us to employ the word red as a general name to a mass of varying individual appearances, prompts us to employ nearly every other word in a manner equally general. The infinity of objects and relations about which language discourses, can in no other way be comprehended by the few thousand words that compose language. A curious inattention, however, to the nature of language, induces us to measure the sameness of different sights by the sameness of their name (red) ; instead of qualifying the sameness of the name by the diverse appearance of the different sights. A like errour exists in the use to which we apply every word. $ 5. — Instead of qualifying the meaning of a word by the existence to which we apply the word, we estimate the exist- ence by the word. In a preceding discourse, we have discussed so much of our present lecture as relates to the sensible diversity which exists 1EGT. VII.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 99 in objects that are nominally identical. Dismissing, therefore, that topick, I shall proceed to show that in the use of language generally, we invert the order of nature ; and instead of quali- fying the meaning of a word by the existence to which we apply the word, we estimate the existence by the word :* — for instance, after a moment's exposure, a drop of the otto of roses will fill with odour many rooms, while the drop will exhibit no diminution of size. This phenomenon is too common to excite admiration, but much may be excited if you exhibit the experi- ment to teach a person the expansiveness of matter. He will now snuff. the odour with astonishment. Bless me ! how won- derfully a little matter may be expanded ! A dozen rooms are full of it ! The person is evidently interpreting the smell by the phrase " expansiveness of matter." He knows not that the phrase should be interpreted by the smell. § 6. — But if he is astonished at the preceding, what will he say of the particles of light ? They fall, says natural philosophy, millions of miles, and with a velocity so wonderful, as to accom- plish the descent in an instant ; still they hurt not the eye though they alight immediately on that susceptible organ. A man, grown old under the rays of the sun, may be astonished at this recital. The astonishment is produced by the language, and not by light. He interprets the words fall and particles, not by what his senses discover in light ; but he interprets what his senses discover in light, by the words particles and fall : hence, when he is informed further, that philosophers have in vain endeavoured, with the nicest balances, to discover weight in sunbeams, (even when the number of particles thrown into a scale has been multipled by a powerful lens,) the experiment increases his wonder at the smallness of the particles ; though it ought to teach him that the mystery is nothing but a latent * When men first attempted to spell, they resolved every word into such letters as would best express the sound of the word. The sound was the standard, and the letters approximated to it as well as they could. In our day, however, the pro- cess is reversed. The letters are the standard, (in our country at least,) of the sound of the word ; and very awkwardly sounding words the superficially learned (who adopt this unnatural standard) occasionally make. Thus to subordinate oral words to the letters into which orthography resolves the words, is a species of retri- bution on words for the authority that words have usurped over natural existences. 100 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I, sophistry of language. The word particle when applied to light, means the existence only to which it is applied. It names a sight. When applied to stone, it names a feel as well as a sight. To wonder that the eye cannot feel the particles of light, is to wonder that it cannot feel a sight. We may as well wonder that we cannot taste sounds, and hear smells. § 7. — We must resort to our senses for the sensible meaning of a word, and not to a dictionary. We cast into a tub of water a small piece of indigo, and the water becomes tinged with blue ; we cast into another tub of water a lump of sugar, and the water becomes sweet ; we open our shutters, and light becomes perceptible throughout our room ; we ignite a few sticks of wood, and the mercury will rise in a distant thermometer : — these results possess a cer- tain congruity, hence we say, the indigo and sugar are diffused through the water ; — the light and heat are diffused through the room. If, however, we wish to discover the sensible mean- ing of the word diffused, in these several uses, we must resort to our senses, and not to our dictionaries. The sensible meaning is so diverse in the above different applications of the word diffused, that a blind man will possess no conception of the diffusion that refers to the light and indigo ; while a man who never possessed tasting, will possess no conception of the diffusion which refers to the sugar. § 8. — We must discriminate between the question which relates to the appropriateness of a word, and its signification. Every word refers for signification as scrupulously to the existence to which it is applied, as a pronoun refers for signifi- cation to the substantive whose place it supplies. I may say that two sounds look alike. Whether the expression is appro- priate or not depends on custom ; but whether the expression is significant or not, and what it signifies, depend on nature : — the expression will signify any sensible revelation to which it refers ; and if it refers to nothing, it will signify nothing. LECT. VII.] A. TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 101 § 9. — Interpreting nature by language enables us to communi- cate an artificial interest to scientifick experiments. When you exhibit the passage of light through a prism, you may assert, that the light which enters on one side of the prism is composed of the gorgeous colours that are emitted from the other side. This language gives to the experiment an interest which the exhibition alone will not excite. The spectator will not interpret your language by what he is beholding ; but he will interpret what he is beholding by your language. You may, however, say, that the prismatic experiment is not all that you refer to when you say light is composed of the prismatic colours. This impairs not my position. If you refer to other experiments, they will constitute a part of the meaning of the phrase. The phrase will mean every sensible revelation to which it refers, but nothing more : — so long as you confine its signification to the realities of the external universe. § 10. — The language in which every experiment is announced must be interpreted by the experiment. We must not inter- pret the experiment by the language. The experimenter may tell you, that as you have seen a ray of light untwisted by the prism, and split into its constituent threads ; he will collect the filaments, and retwist them into their original form. With this preface, he will cause the coloured rays to pass through a lens which will converge them to a focus of light in its usual colour. The experiment is interesting. I wish not to depreciate it, but it constitutes all the sensible signification that the experimenter's language pos- sesses. We must interpret the language by the experiment, and not interpret the experiment by the language. A dumb mute who may witness the exhibition will possess all the knowl- edge on the subject which we possess. If the language which we apply to the experiment tends in the least to increase, diminish, or alter the information that we receive from seeing the experiment, the dumb mute will estimate it more correctly than we. 102 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART U §11 . — In a small book on natural philosophy, after explaining the prismatick phenomena, the writer states, grass is green, be- cause it absorbs all rays of light but the green ; roses are red, because they absorb all but the red rays ; snow is white, because it reflects the whole ray, &c. " You can never see objects," says the book, "without light. Light is composed of colours ; therefore every object, though it is black in the dark, becomes coloured as soon as it is visible. It is visible by the coloured rays which it reflects : hence we can see it only when it is coloured." § 12. — This doctrine is delivered in a dialogue between an instructress and a female pupil. The pupil replies with emo- tion, " All you say seems true, and I know not what to object ; yet it appears incredible : what ! when in the dark, are we all as black as negroes ? The thought makes me shudder !" § 13. — Who has not experienced that in the dark no discrimi- nation exists between the colour of a negro and a European? The astonishment is produced by the supposition that the black- ness, which is attributed to us in the dark, is not to be inter- preted by the event to which it refers ; but that the event is to be interpreted by the word blackness, according to its meaning when it refers to negroes. x \ 14. — When a chymist ignites a stream of hydrogen gas and oxygen, and permits the flame to pass through a glass tube, we find the inside of the tube become suffused with water. The interest of the experiment is usually heightened by the surprising announcement, that water is nothing but a union of the two gases. Instead of interpreting the announcement by the experiment, we interpret the experiment by the announce- ment, and hence the surprise. § 15. — Interpreting nature by language enables us to very insidiously excite admiration. " That light, itself a body, should," says Professor Brown, " pass freely through solid crystal, is regarded by us as a phy- LECT. VII. 1 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 103 sical wonder." Why ? No man was ever surprised at finding light enter his room when he threw open his window shutters. Wonder is produced only when we interpret the occurrence by the language in which the occurrence is expressed : — when we suppose the passage of light through crystal to be the same as the passage of my hand through crystal. But when we know that the language is to be interpreted by the fact to which it refers, — (that it means only what crystal and light are continually exhi- biting,) — our surprise vanishes with the delusion that created it. § 16. — Observe, also, in the above extract, how insidiously language enables us to infer that light ought to encounter oppo- sition in its passage through crystal. If Mr. Brown had merely- stated that light passes through crystal, no reason would have appeared why it should not pass through. But the addition of one word implies that the passage of light through the crystal is as wonderful, if not as miraculous, as the passage of Moses through the Red sea. I allude to the word body, — the wonder is that light, "itself a body," should pass through crystal. Body is generally the name of a feel : hence, when we say that light is a body, we know not that the signification of the word body is governed by the object to which it is applied. We suppose rather, that the character of light is determined by the word body. The wonder is produced, not by the sight which we experience, but by something else: — a something which is a delusion of language. § 17. — Interpreting nature by language enables us to both artificially exalt and degrade sensible information. An ignorance of the simple fact, that every word or phrase possesses as many sensible significations as it possesses a reference to different sensible phenomena, enables philosophers to encircle their experiments and speculations with an artificial importance, as I have just exemplified ; and also with an artifi- cial degradation, as will appear by the following examples : — Professor Brown* says, "power is a word of much seeming * Philosophy of the Mind, Lecture VII. 104 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. mystery ; yet all which is mysterious in it vanishes, when it is regarded as only a general term, expressive of invariable ante- cedence ; or, in other words, of what cannot exist without being followed immediately by a definite event, which we denominate an effect. To express shortly," he continues, " the only intelli- gible meaning of the three most important words in physicks, power, cause, and effect, we may say that power is immediate invariable antecedence ; — a cause is the immediate invariable antecedent in any sequence ; — and an effect is the immediate invariable consequent." § 18. — We may now think, that power, cause, and effect, are vastly more simple than we had supposed : — a cause is nothing but " an immediate invariable antecedent." But what is the sensible signification of an immediate invariable antecedent? The sensible existence to which we apply the phrase. When we become acquainted with the sensible existence, we may call it either a cause, or an immediate invariable antecedent : our meaning will be the same in both cases. Mr. Brown's phrase can simplify causation only when we seek the meaning of the phrase from some other source than the revelation of our senses ; — and hence seek a fallacious meaning. § 19. — But the most curious of simplifications relates to chy- mistry. Chymistry analyzes bodies, and out of water produces oxygen gas and hydrogen ; out of glass, sand, alkali, &c. Now, says Mr. Brown,* " these processes of chymistry enable us only to discover what are always before our eyes, but our sight is not keen enough to see them." This greatly dissipates our admiration of chymistry. To produce oxygen from water, and sand from glass, is but little meritorious, if the operation enables us to see what only the weakness of our eyes prevented us from seeing. Unfortunately, however, the means which ordinarily assist vision, aid not chymists. With the most powerful micro- scope they are unable to discover, in water, the gases ; or in glass, the sand. * Philosophy of the Mind, Lecture IX. LECT. VII.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 105 ^ 20. — The sensible realities to which words refer, and which alone give ivords a sensible signification, are not affected by our phraseology. If we inquire soberly into the meaning of Mr. Brown, we shall find that the simplicity which his description affords, arises from an ignorance of the fact, that the sensible meaning of words is the sensible phenomena to which the words refer. That the sand is present in glass, and would be visible were our eyes sufficiently acute, means not the same as when I say this table is present. The word present, as used by Mr. Brown, means the ability to reproduce sand by an analysis of glass. We can arrange words into such propositions as we please, but the sensible realities to which words refer, and which alone give words a sensible signification, are not affected by our phrase- ology. To these realities, as revealed by our senses, we must refer for the signification of language. To refer to words for the signification of what our senses reveal, is to err as grossly as to refer to a picture of the moon for the purpose of ascer- taining whether the moon, which we see in the horizon, pos- sesses its true colour, shape, and other appearances. § 21. — Philosophy often expends itself in a contest about phra- seology, from not knowing that the meaning of words is controlled by the sensible existences to which the words refer. "When a spark," says the same philosopher, "falls on gun- powder, and kindles it into explosion, every person ascribes to the spark the power of kindling the inflammable mass. But," continues he, " let any person ask himself what he means by the power which he imputes to the spark ; and without con- tenting himself with a few phrases which signify nothing, let him" — What? Shall he content himself with no phrase, but deem the word power significant of precisely what his senses discover in the spark and explosion? No: — he must content himself with some phrases which Mr. Brown prescribes. Such has always been the advice of philosophers, and such will be their advice, till they know that the sensible signification of 106 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. every word is neither more nor less than the sensible existence to which the word refers. Every philosopher gives us a new phrase, and like a quack with a new nostrum, desires us to be content with no other. In the present case, Mr. Brown advises the person to answer, that by the power imputed to the spark, he means only, " that in all similar circumstances, an explosion of gunpowder will be the immediate and uniform consequence of the application of a spark." § 22. — Admit that the person shall answer thus, what is the sensible signification of the answer ? — precisely what our senses reveal to us in the spark and explosion : — precisely what the word power refers to. You may suppose that the occurrence is vastly simplified by the new phraseology, but the supposition is founded on the errour of employing the phrase to interpret a revelation of your senses, instead of employing the revelation of your senses to interpret the phrase. LECT. VIII.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 107 LECTURE VIII EVERY GENERAL PROPOSITION POSSESSES AS MANY SIGNIFICATIONS AS IT POSSESSES REFERENCE TO DIFFERENT PARTICULARS. Naturalists assert, that the oak, with its towering trunk, its gigantick limbs, and its diffusive roots, is originally compressed within an acorn. They make this discovery by vision, and trace in microscopick lineaments the sylvan monarch. So an author can indite a few propositions, which shall comprehend a system of philosophy; but knowledge, thus compressed, is as undis- coverable to every understanding except the author's, as the oak is undiscernible to every eye but the naturalist's. In detail then we must proceed. The oak must be suffered to issue from its imagined nucleus, to enlarge gradually its stem, to protrude successively its branches, and to indurate by alter- nate suns and tempests, before it can serve any useful purpose ; so an author must be permitted to unfold gradually his premises, frame his propositions, accumulate examples, and evolve slowly his conclusions, before his labours can impart any beneficial instruction. Patience, then, must be your characteristick and my motto. § 1. — In our last lecture, I endeavoured to show that every word possesses as many significations as it possesses references to different phenomena. The same rule applies to propositions. Every proposition possesses as many significations as it pos- sesses references to different particulars. § 2. — Every proposition signifies some particular that the speaker refers to ; but the proposition is interpreted by something that the hearer refers to. We are, however, constantly prone to errour in the interpre- tation of propositions. I lately heard a gentleman exclaim that 108 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. his situation was unhappy. Another rebuked the speaker, and insisted that his situation was peculiarly happy. In these conflicting propositions, each speaker alluded to dif- ferent particulars ; and if he had stated them, no disagreement would have occurred; the first speaker would probably have admitted that he was desirably situated in the cases enumerated by the second, and the second would have admitted that unhap- piness existed in the particulars enumerated by the first. § 3. — One particular may constitute the meaning of numerous propositions. If I have been hurt by riding a vicious horse, I may construct numerous propositions, for which I may possess no signification but the above accident : thus, things which are very valuable when good, are frequently worse than worthless when they are not good. Brute animals are so destitute of gratitude, that the more you pamper them, the more inclined they will become to injure you. What in animals we call a vicious practice, is probably per- formed without any vicious intention. § 4. — General propositions produce often an apparent conflict of opinion where no disagreement exists. To a person who is ignorant of the accident to which I refer, the propositions will be applied to other particulars. Such an application may induce a denial of my last position ; he may insist that animals are conscious when they perform a vicious action. He alludes to his dog, who, after killing a sheep, exhi- bited symptoms of fear. Mv proposition was not intended to controvert this. I meant only that starting at his shadow, a practice by which mv horse threw me from his back, was per- formed without any intention of dismounting his rider. § 5. — Propositions possess not always a determinate meaning. But suppose I assert that " infancy is a state of dependance." I may refer to no particular infant, nor any determinate acts of LECT. VIII.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 109 dependance. This will arise from my familiarity with the propo- sition. When I used it first, I referred to some particular case ; but now, I employ it without thinking of any ; and were you to demand of me some example, I should state one which I did not think of when I uttered the declaration. § 6. — We often involve our actions in general propositions. The Scripture says, "judge not lest you be judged." Our mode of framing propositions furnishes this text with a popular construction, which implies that the judgments we pronounce are frequently an enunciation of our own practices ; thus, I may say, "no man is proof against all temptations." I mean no more than a particular case in which I was vanquished. If the hearer can recollect no occasion in which he was overpowered, he will not assent to my position ; and if he can recollect an instance in which he resisted a strong temptation, he may form a new proposition : " some persons are proof against every temptation." § 7. — A man who picked up a dollar which he saw fall from a traveller, went to a tavern, and in conversation with the land- lord, made this proposition : " Men are more honest in great matters than in small." He meant that he acted dishonestly in not restoring the dollar, whilst in his more extensive intercourse with mankind he was honest. The innkeeper (who had a week previously found in one of his chambers a pocketbook with bank notes, which he intended to keep, though he frequently corrected errours when his guests gave inadvertently some trifle too much) replied, that he thought " men were more honest in small matters than in great." § 8. — Universal gravitation signifies the particulars only to which it refers* Most of the phenomena which are adduced in proof of uni- versal gravitation, were discovered after the establishment by Newton of the proposition. Of these subsequent discoveries * See Lecture IX, § 10. 110 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. we may enumerate the experiment of Dr. Maskelyn in Perth- shire, which, by ascertaining that a mountain would so attract a plummet as to prevent the plummet from falling perpendicu- larly, confirmed, says the Encyclopedia, " beyond all doubt, the doctrine of universal gravitation." " But," says the writer, " in establishing a law of nature, we should multiply experiments :" accordingly, he relates an experiment made with two leaden balls in 1788, by Mr. Cavendish. "The facts thus adduced, combined with the former, prove," says the Encyclopedia, — what? The phenomena exhibited? No — " they prove," says the writer, "that every particle of matter gravitates to every other particle." And this is correct ; for the proposition, how general soever, signifies the experiments only to which it refers. Tra- dition says, that the law was originally suggested to Newton by the fall of an apple from a tree ; and if he alluded to no other phenomenon, the proposition meant originally no more than that simple occurrence. I mean not to enumerate the phenomena to which the proposition refers, nor to restrict its application ; I wish to show only the qualities which render propositions signi- ficant, and which limit their significancy. § 9. — The sphericity and motions ', $>c, of the earth, signify the phenomena only to which the propositions refer* To say that the earth is a sphere, that it revolves round the sun, and round its own axis, and that we possess antipodes, are truths so long as we consider the expressions significant of cer- tain phenomena to which the propositions refer. If you inquire of an astronomer whether the earth is a sphere, he will desire you to notice what he terms the earth's shadow in an eclipse of the moon, the gradual disappearance of a ship as it recedes from the shore, &c. After hearing all that he can adduce in proof of the earth's sphericity, consider the proposition significant of these proofs. If you deem it significant beyond them, you are deceived by the forms of language. * See Lecture IX, § 10. LECT. VIII.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. Ill § 10. — Till we know the particulars to which a proposition refers, its meaning is unknown to us. " Nature," says an astronomer, " has drawn an impenetrable curtain between the inhabitants of the sun and the worlds which circulate around them. She has doomed them to the most soli- tary dwelling in creation, and has marked them as either unfit to enjoy the noble privileges of intelligent beings, or as un- worthy. The planets and the stars are invisible from the sur- face of the sun, unless a transient glance is obtained through an accidental opening in the solar atmosphere. From the year 1676 to 1684, no such opening occurred; consequently, the inhabitants of the sun never, during eight successive years, obtained a view of the starry firmament." Not to waste our commiseration at this tale of wo, the writer has happily furnished us with his meaning. It is very simple : " from the year 1676 to 1684, not a single spot was discoverable in the sun's atmosphere." § 11. — Ignorance of the true method of interpreting proposi- tions causes controversy. The knowledge possessed of the sun by the learned, differs not essentially from that enjoyed by the illiterate. The learned are acquainted with more telescopical appearances than the illi- terate ; but the principal phenomena are known to both, and appear alike to all. The sun has been successively called a demon, a heated stone, a body of glass, a mass of fire, and an inhabited globe. At any period, if a philosopher had enume- rated the sensible revelations which constituted the meaning of his language, no skepticism would have been exhibited ; but the employment of such language, without this explanation, has ever encountered opposition. This alone ought to have made philosophers suspect either that some defect existed in their speculations, or in the interpretation which was applied to them. 112 . A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. § 12. — Medical science has suffered by a misconstruction of general propositions. The science of medicine has suffered more than any other, by an ignorance of the nature of general propositions. Physi- cians can seldom see the seat of a disease, or apply direct remedies to it. They are but little more favoured than a clock- maker, who should be bound to discover the defects of a clock, and to repair them by operating through the keyhole. Embar- rassed thus by nature, they augment every difficulty by speaking in general propositions. Doctor Parry in his Elements of Pa- thology says, " the sanguiferous system is the source of almost all diseases, partly in consequence of the natural constitution of the body, and partly from the habits of civilized society." Dis- eases proceed generally, he supposes, from an excess either in the quantity or momentum of the blood. § 13. — The illustrations of a general proposition constitute often all its meaning. The above speculation refers undoubtedly to some sensible particulars ; but, as I know them not, the language is to me insignificant. Still, if Dr. Parry had adduced the particulars to which he alludes, the difficulty would yet exist ; for his disciples would estimate particulars as the mere explanation of his propo- sitions, and suppose that the propositions had a meaning inde- pendent of the particulars. § 14. — Conflicting general propositions often harmonize when we know the particulars to ivhich they refer. Cullen asserts, that when an external cause produces in us a morbid action, nature exerts an opposite process to counteract the evil : thus, an excessive load of food forced into the stomach possesses a tendency to destroy life, but the stomach resists the evil, and disgorges its contents. Some medical writers assert a conflicting proposition. They say, that every morbid change which occurs in our system is essentially injurious, and must be LECT. VIII.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 113 opposed by medicine ; if the stomach is discharging its contents, the physician must endeavour to prevent the discharge. § 15. — Two physicians, who should severally enforce the above propositions, would employ opposite remedies. But to act thus proceeds from an erroneous belief that the propositions are significant of more than certain particulars. A person who knows the particulars to which each proposition alludes, will probably find that both positions are correct. $ 16. — No general proposition is significant of more than cer- tain particulars. A father said once, "my son, in water exists a principle which is destructive of life, and in brandy a principle preservative of life." The father meant, that immersion in water would produce death, and that a small quantity of brandy was occasionally salutary. The proposition was correct while confined to the particulars to which the father alluded ; but the son, supposing its applica- tion universal, refrained from the use of water, and substituted brandy. We all err in a similar manner, though not always in a like degree, when we consider any proposition significant of more than certain particulars ; and if those who promulge general propositions, will not announce the particulars to which they refer, we have still every thing to learn. § 17. — Physicians have employed much controversy on the origin of yellow fever, some asserting that it is indigenous, and others exotic. Were each partisan to detail the particulars to which he refers, no disagreement would probably exist ; but while he deems his proposition significant of more than certain particulars, endless controversy ensues. Each thinks justly that the other errs, for the same ignorance of the nature of language misleads both. 114 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. § 18. — We should never contest general propositions, but the particulars to which the propositions refer. Men cannot be forced to adopt but one phraseology. " Suppose," says Dr. Francis, " A to be ill of dysentery in a small confined apartment, his person neglected, the atmosphere around him impure and offensive ; B visits him, and becomes sick with the same disease. Doctor Bailey, and others who adopt the doctrine of infection, as opposed to contagion, insist that the disorder of B proceeds from the impure air of A's chamber, and not from any thing emanating from the body of A ; but," says Doctor Francis, " as we may without hazard visit an equally filthy chamber where C lies ill of a broken limb, I ascribe the disease of B to a peculiar virus generated in the system of A by the disease under which he labours, and com municated by his excretions to the surrounding atmosphere." § 19. — Now, what is the controversy between Doctors Francis and Bailey ? Whether the disorder of B proceeds from a pecu- liar virus generated in the system of A, or from the impurity of A's chamber. They brandish at one another these propositions, without knowing that no proposition is significant of more than certain particulars. The moment they appreciate this fact, they will discover, that instead of contesting each other's general pro- positions, they should contest the particulars to which the propo- sitions refer. For instance, let Doctor Francis say that B will not become diseased if he visits the impure chamber of C, who lies ill of a broken limb. If Doctor Bailey denies this assertion,, the controversy becomes a question of fact, which is terminable by an experiment, and not by debate. § 20. — Nearly every proposition is true when interpreted as the speaker interprets it. This results from the nature of language, and not from conventional agreement. To compel all men to employ the same collocation of words is impracticable. The attempt has filled the world with contro- versy, and not brought us to the desired uniformity. We, how- LECT. VIII.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 115 ever, greatly aggravate the difficulty by not knowing that every proposition possesses as many different meanings as it refers to different particulars. This arises from no conventional law of language, but from its natural dependance for all its sensible signification on the sensible particulars to which it refers. Two men may employ different propositions, while the speakers refer to the same fact ; and they may employ the same proposition, while they refer to different and even opposing facts. I am so confident that nearly every declaration is true, in the manner intended by the speaker, that I rarely contradict. If a man tells me in the middle of a delightful day, that the air feels as if we are shortly to have rain, I conclude that his assertion announces something unknown to me — perhaps the recognition of a feel which he once experienced antecedently to rain : hence, his prediction is true in the manner that he intends ; and a denial he would construe into an assertion that he does not experience {he feel which constitutes the meaning of his prediction. § 21. — I heard a man contend that no degree of heat could melt diamonds ; whilst another was positive that they would melt. He who asserted their fusibility, referred to nothing but an article which he had read in a Cyclopedia; and he who maintained their infusibility, referred to an assertion of his father. Both persons were positive, because they intended no more than the above facts. If, however, each had discovered the other's meaning, the controversy would probably not have terminated. It* would unconsciously have changed to another question, whether the Cyclopedia was entitled to more credence than the father ; the discussion of which would have produced an altercation as virulent as the former, and with as little under- standing by each disputant of the facts referred to by the other. § 22. — General propositions are unintelligible till resolved into some known particulars. General propositions are often found in books, unaccompanied with any explanatory particulars. Such propositions are unin- telligible, unless we apply some particular to them. For in- stance : " We are," says Professor Stewart, " enabled, by our 116 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. instinctive anticipations of physical events, to accommodate our conduct to what we perceive is to happen." This is followed by no example ; hence, it will be insignificant to every person who cannot attach to it some incident. The event which it caused me to think of, was the falling of a tree. Instinctive anticipation would enable me to perceive, that I should be crushed if I did not accommodate my conduct to what was to happen; that is, if I did not change my position. Probably Mr. Stewart thought of something different. The event to which I allude may never have occurred to his observation.* § 23. — Plato explained the gradual decay of the human sys- tem by saying, " matter was first converted by Deity into bodies of triangular shapes. Of these the elements were constituted, and they assumed regular geometrical figures. Fire became a pyramid, the earth a cube, the air an octahedron, and water an icosahedron. The human frame is composed of these elements, and as their angles become by time blunted, and unable to retain their hold, the fabrick gradually dissolves." § 24. — This is the laboured production of a wise man. He doubtless had some particulars to which his propositions re- ferred ; but as we know them not, his language is as insignifi- cant as the disconnected prattle of infancy. § 25. — Some writers commit a species of tautology, by involv- ing in general propositions the facts which they subsequently particularize. Other writers avoid the above errour. If they involve any fact in a general proposition, they subjoin the fact by way of example, though it truly constitutes all the meaning of their proposition : thus, " the more," says St. Pierre, " temples are multiplied in a state, the more is religion enfeebled." * The inexperience of children tends to make general propositions unintelligible to them ; hence, books intended for children should speak of individual incidents, and avoid general propositions. LECT. VIII.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 117 ^ 26. — What did St. Pierre mean ? You will find in his suc- ceeding paragraph. " Look," says he, " at Italy, covered with churches, yet Constantinople is crowded with Italian renega- does ; while the Jews, who had but one temple, are so strongly attached to their religion, that the loss of their temple excites, to this day, their regret." § 27. — His general proposition means but the above particu- lars, therefore you need not controvert the position, and show that in your country the increase of temples increases the num- ber and zeal of worshippers. If you argue with St. Pierre, blame him for using words in a way which you do not approve, but not for denying facts to which he never alluded. § 28. — Malebranch, in accounting for the phenomena of me- mory, says, "in childhood the fibres of the brain are soft and flexible ; but time dries and hardens them, so that in old age they are gross and inflexible." § 29. — Malebranch is not enumerating any phenomena dis- coverable by inspection of the brain. What then does he mean? It follows in his own words : "flesh hardens by time, and a young partridge is more tender than an old one." You may wonder how this concerns memory. I know not. It, however, concerns his theory, and probably constitutes all he means by the hardness and inflexibility which he makes age inflict upon the brain. § 30. — Mr. Hawkesbee asserts that the aurora borealis is the efTect of electricity on a vacuum. What does he mean ? He states subsequently as follows : " the excitation of electri- city in an exhausted Florence flask produced a light which re- sembled the aurora." Another person who shall find that all the phenomena of the aurora borealis cannot be thus imitated, will insist that Mr. Hawkesbee is wrong ; but in truth both are right, for they mean severally no more than the facts to which each refers. The difference between them is in their language, apart from which they will agree. 118 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. § 31.— General propositions bring often unmerited honour on their authors. We are prone to award unmerited commendation to the au- thors of general propositions : thus, the assertion attributed to Pythagoras, that the earth revolves round the sun, is supposed to imply a knowledge by him of the Newtonian theory ; while probably no feature of it was ever imagined by Pythagoras. He may have intended some particulars that have long been exploded from science. § 32. — Lord Bacon asserts that reason is supposed to govern the words of men, but that words often possess power to react upon reason. " This aphorism," says Professor Stewart, " may be considered the text of the most valuable part of Locke's Essays, the part which relates to the imperfections and abuse of words ; but till within the last twenty years, its depth and importance were not perceived in their full extent." § 33. — Mr. Stewart alludes to what has been written since the time of Bacon, by Mr. Prevost and Mr. Degerando; but Bacon is no more entitled to credit for the observations which have subsequently been marshalled under his aphorism, than the man who first formed the word Napoleon is entitled to the renown that has lately been connected with that appellation. The aphorism, when invented by Lord Bacon, was significant, as we find by a reference to it in his Novum Organum. What he intended, he there expressed, and further than this the propo- sition possessed probably no signification in his understanding. § 34. — We must interpret every general proposition by the particulars to which it refers ; and not interpret the particu- lars by the general proposition. We are informed by phrenologists, that various prominences on the skull conform to certain protuberances which exist in the brain; and that a man's piety, courage, memory, endurance, with all his other moral qualities which either exalt the inch- LECT. VIII.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 119 vidual or degrade, conform, in their degree, to the magnitude of the said protuberances. No person can read Spurzheim's trea- tise on phrenology without discovering that the above assertions refer to many interesting particulars, which hence constitute the meaning of the assertions. To believe, however, that the assertions signify more than all the sensible particulars to which they refer, is to interpret our experience by the language that we apply to it; instead of interpreting our language by the revelations of nature. Such an interpretation subordinates na- ture to language, instead of subordinating language to nature. § 35. — We are told that the tides are caused by the influence of the sun and moon. If you would know the external meaning of the proposition, (the meaning which relates to the realities of the external universe,) you must ascertain all the sensible information to which the proposition refers. The sensible par- ticulars prove not themselves, and, in addition, that the tides are caused by the sun and moon ; but they signify all that the proposition means. I intend not to say that the proposition is improper, but I wish to designate its meaning. The proposi- tion is usually deemed far more important than all the particu- lars to which it refers. The particulars are estimated as the mere indications by which the sagacity of Newton was enabled to discover the more comprehensive truth that is involved in the general proposition. § 36. — Same sensible particulars imply others, by virtue of our experience. When a jury pronounces Thomas guilty of murder, they may possess no other particulars than that the cry of murder pro- ceeded from a house out of which Thomas, covered with blood, was seen to issue. On entering the house, a man, recently killed, was lying on the floor, with the sword of Thomas in his breast. You may ask whether the verdict of the jury, which pronounces Thomas guilty, must not signify the above particu- lars, and also, that Thomas was the perpetrator ? Yes, but this result is included in the particulars which are proved. The particulars testified to are experimentally connected with the 120 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. further fact, that Thomas was the perpetrator ; precisely as I know that a piece of gold is round, when you tell me that mea sure it where I please, from the centre to the extremity, the length is just an inch. The implied roundness is a result of my experience with round bodies ; and the implied agency of Thomas, is a result of our experience with men, their motives, and actions, &c. In both cases, therefore, we refer to sensible particulars, which are as comprehensive as the general propo- § 37. — Finally, then, if we would appreciate the nature of general propositions, we must remember that each possesses as many sensible significations as it possesses a reference to differ- ent sensible particulars ; that no general proposition possesses any significance, if it refers to no particular ; and that no propo- sition can signify more than the particulars to which it refers. * See Lecture IX. LECT. IX.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 121 LECTURE IX. WHEN THE NEGATION OF A PROPOSITION REFERS TO NO PAR- TICULAR, THE NEGATION IS INSIGNIFICANT; AND THE PRO- POSITION POSSESSES AN UNLIMITED AFFIRMATION, WHICH MAKES THE PROPOSITION SEEM TO SIGNIFY MORE THAN A LIMITED NUMBER OF PARTICULARS. § 1. — That the sensible signification of a general proposition is limited to the sensible particulars to which the proposition refers, proceeds from nature and not from convention. In my last discourse, I attempted to show that the sensible signification of every proposition is limited to the sensible par- ticulars to which the proposition refers. The limitation pro- ceeds from the nature of language, — every word being a sound inherently insignificant. The principle seems to be controverted by positions which assert that all men must die; — that every unsupported stone will fall towards the earth, &c. ; for if a pro- position is significant of nothing but the particulars to which it refers, the proposition that all men must die seems equivalent only to the proposition that all men have died. § 2. — Affirmative propositions possess a universal application, when the negation of their universality refers to no sensible particular. The position that all men will die, possesses a universal ap- plication for the reason that to say, some men will not die, refers to no sensible particular, and hence is insignificant.* * See Lectures VIII and X. 6 122 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART J, § 3. — Uninterrupted experience excites a feeling of expectation which enters into the meaning of some propositions that allude to futurity. To assert that the sun will rise to-morrow and daily for ever, — that the moon will continue to wax and wane, — that the seasons will continue to alternate, — that the winds will continue changeable, — are highly significant propositions. You may say that the assertions, (so far as they are prospective,) refer to nothing. This is not true. They refer to an internal feeling of expectation, which is excited in us naturally by our uniform experience. But the assertions are especially significant ini- mitably, from the fact, that though they can be denied verbally, the negation will refer to no sensible experience, and hence will possess no sensible signification.* § 4. — A universal proposition that speaks of futurity, cannot be invalidated by a negation that refers to no sensible par- ticular. To assert that food will not always be necessary to support life, refers to no sensible experience ; hence, it cannot invali- date the significant proposition that food will always be neces- sary to sustain life. A universal proposition, when it speaks of futurity, may therefore be significant, from the mere fact that a negation of the proposition is insignificant. § 5. — If a negation refers to no sensible particular, the nega- tion is insignificant. When I assert that every unsupported stone possesses a ten- dency to fall towards the earth, you may say that millions of stones exist with which the experiment has never been tried, and that they may not possess any tendency towards the earth. The difficulty with this potential objection is, that as it refers to no sensible experience, it possesses no sensible signification. * See Lectures VIII and X. LECT. IX.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 12& J 6, — All affirmations and all negations refer for signification to our experience. That light and darkness succeed each other over the whole earth within every twenty-four hours, and that every stone pos- sesses a tendency to fall towards the earth, are positions equally consonant to all my experience. Still, a negation is significant when applied to the first position, but insignificant when applied to the second position ; because the negation of the first position refers to the sensible experience of many men, while a negation of the second position refers to no experience. § 7. — -Propositions are neither significant nor insignificant, hut as they refer to our sensible experience. Thousands of human beings exist who never heard that light and darkness intermit their daily alternations ; hence I may insist that your belief in the universal gravitation of stones may arise from only a like defect of experience. " The cavil, however, refers to no sensible particular, and therefore possesses no sen- sible signification. I may as well talk of the possibility of hot ice and cold fire. The assertions are insignificant, because they refer to no sensible particular. § 8. — Though the absence of a sensible negative will make an affirmative proposition universal in its meaning, yet the affirmative proposition will signify the sensible particulars only to which it refers. To an uninformed man within the tropicks, no proposition can be more universal in its application, than that which affirms a diurnal succession of light and darkness ; yet we know that the proposition is significant of nothing but the experience of the uninformed man. The universality of the proposition depends upon his unacquaintance with any sensible exception ; but his inexperience cannot enlarge the signification of the proposition. It will still signify the sensible particulars only to which it refers when he employs it. 124 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. § 9. — The universality of a proposition relates to the absence of a sensible negative particular, and not to the number of the affirmative particulars. I have heard of a child in England, who had seen but two negroes, and each of those happened to possess but one arm. The child was heard to speak of negroes, and among their pe- culiarities he enumerated that negroes possess only one hand. The universality of the proposition was true according to the knowledge of the speaker, and hence* we see that the univer- sality of a proposition relates not to the number of particulars to which the proposition refers, but to the absence of a negative instance. In like manner, the small number of comets which we have seen or heard of, disenables us not from applying universal propositions to comets. § 10. — Many scientific^ propositions owe their propriety to the absence of a sensible negative. The roundness of the earth, its diurnal and annual motions, &c., refer for signification to numerous sensible particulars, which constitute all the sensible signification that the assertions possess. Still, if any person chooses to say that the earth is not round, — that it possesses no motion, &c, — the negations will possess but little if any sensible signification. The nega- tions may mean that I cannot feel the motion as I can feel the motion of a coach ; — that I cannot feel the roundness as I can feel the roundness of an artificial globe. But the affirmative propositions do not include within their signification that the roundness and motions can be felt; hence the roundness and motions which are affirmed, remain without a sensible negative. § 1 1 . — Similar to the foregoing are the assertions that the moon and sun cause the tides ; that every fixed star is a sun, and the centre of a planetary system; that beyond all teles- copick vision other stars exist, which also are the centres of more remote systems ; that the earth appears like a star to the inhabitants of the planets, &c. These assertions are all signi- LECT. IX.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 125 ficant of some observations, some calculations, or of at least some thing; whilst a negation of them may refer to nothing, and hence be insignificant. The propositions, instead of being negatived, require to be limited in their signification to the sensible particulars to which they refer. § 12. — A doubt or salvo which refers to nothing sensible, is verbal only and sensibly insignificant. An Esquimaux Indian will be as positive that water every where freezes during the winter, as I am that a piece of gold will everywhere exhibit the sight round, and the feel round, when the piece is so formed that a line drawn any where from the centre of it to the surface, will measure just one inch. Now, I know that the Esquimaux is mistaken. Countries exist in which water never freezes, and why may not some countries exist in which the principles of nature are so different from those with which I am acquainted, that a piece of gold may possess the proportions that I have stated, and still not be round ? The two cases are radically different. That countries exist in which water never freezes, is a significant declaration, for it refers to the sensible experience of many credible wit- nesses ; but the doubt in relation to the gold is merely verbal. It refers to no sensible experience, and hence is as sensibly insig- nificant as any story of giants or fairies that amuses infancy. § 13. — That the dead exhibit neither sensation nor conscious- ness, &c, is all we mean when we assert that the dead are void of feeling and consciousness. We cannot know experimentally that the dead suffer no pain on a funeral pyre, or under the knife of an anatomical demonstrator, or under the process of decompo- sition. You may deem this reflection full of horrour, and depre- cate for the dead some attention to the possibility of their latent sensibilities. But you will deprecate in vain. The anatomical demonstrator will proceed in his operations as unconcernedly as before. He may not be able to state why he disregards your remarks ; but the reason lies in his practical acquaintance with the nature of language. Your remarks refer to nothing sensible, hence he knows them to be sensibly insignificant. 126 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. LECTURE X. LANGUAGE CAN EFFECT NO MORE THAN REFER US TO THE INFORMATION OF OUR SENSES. The earth possesses gradations of temperature, from the fri- gidity of a polar winter to the intensity of an equatorial summer. With the Esquimaux we may dwell in houses of undissolving ice, repose on ledges of everlasting snow, and pierce the huge walrus amid an accumulated frost of ages : or with the Ethio- pian we may bask in a tropick sun, repose in scorching groves, and press the gushing lusciousness of spontaneous fruits. We may avoid both extremes. We may enjoy a sky that never clouds, a herbage that never fades, a cold and heat so attem- pered that the thought of either is unnatural. This is poetry, but not fiction. It is the romance of nature : yet, with this diversity before him, and sensitive to its effects, man scarcely ever changes his location with a view to climate. As a tree falls it lies ; and where Providence decrees our birth, we also are stationary. This trait in the human character may be heightened if we reflect on the power of our appetites, and the turbulence of our passions. To satiate his appetites, a man will dissipate suddenly the labours of his ancestors ; and to gratify his passions, he will renounce reputation and hazard existence. Still, no luxury exists of flood, field, or air, but in some regions it is the banquet of peasants ; and no passion is so irregular, but in some countries its object is lawful enjoyment. But again these temptations fail to allure. The most rigid moral discipline, and the coarsest of nature's caterings, remove not even the sensual from the land of their nativity. A similar inconsistency is apparent when we select our occu- pations. We should determine theoretically that when a man possesses no higher object than a subsistence, he would select the least offensive employment that will compass his object ; still the most laborious pursuits, and the most noxious, are supplied LECT. X.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE 127 with followers as readily as the most easy and healthful, and with- out the poor consideration of being more pecuniarily profitable. Literature presents the same peculiarity. We might reason- ably imagine that a man who devotes his life to literature, (a devotion in itself perverse,) would select subjects in which the playfulness of fancy, or the vivacity of wit, would relieve the irksomeness of composition ; at least, that he would avoid the labyrinths of metaphysicks, and the straits of logick : toils which seldom can supply even the consolation that a French authoress extracted from an assimilation of herself with a lamp ; that she consumes to enlighten others. Yet in literature also the rugged walks are voluntarily thronged equally with the most agreeable. This thought is gloomy, but it happily suggests the subject of our lecture. § 1. — Words can supply the place of no sense. They can simply refer us to what our senses have disclosed. I have heretofore stated several fundamental principles of language. A principle as fundamental as any of the former, and more essential than all of them to a just apprehension of human knowledge, is this, — language can effect no more than refer us to the information of our senses.* The most forcible language, and the most fluent utterance, are inadequate to infuse into the blind a knowledge of colours. Why ? Because colours are sights, and nothing can reveal to us sights but seeing. We may apply the same conclusion to every other item of our knowl- edge. Words can supply the place of no sense; — they can simply refer us to what our senses have disclosed. § 2. — No sight which I have not seen, can be revealed to me by words. Truth possesses generally two aspects — one so gross that every person sees it ; the other so subtile that the most acute pass it unnoticed. For instance, that words cannot reveal co- lours to the blind, is obvious ; while the kindred fact, that no * See Lecture XL 128 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. sight which a person has not seen can be known to him, has been denied by even the sagacious Hume. He says, " suppose a man is acquainted with every colour except a particular shade of blue. Let now all the shades of blue, except the above, be placed before him in an order de- scending gradually from the deepest blue to the highest ; will he not be able, by his imagination, to acquire a knowledge of the absent shade ?" § 3. — Hume asserts that he can. He is wrong. The absent shade is a sight, and nothing can reveal it but his eyes. The law which prevents blind men from knowing any colour, disen- ables him from knowing the absent shade. § 4. — But, if we cannot thus learn a new appearance, can we not by some mental elaboration commix known sights, and dis- cover the effects ? No. A change of appearance is a new sight, and irremediably unknown till disclosed by our eyes. When a milliner wishes to know how a riband which lies before her will appear on a hat, she trusts not her ability to compound ideas ; but, from a practical acquaintance with the limitation of her faculties, applies the riband to the hat. § 5. — Pictures can reveal no sight but themselves. From the known inadequacy of words to reveal new sights, we employ pictures. But a person who never saw the original, will receive from its representative no sight except that of the painting. Let a youth study geography, and be competent to designate on a map or globe every kingdom, and to tell its lati- tude, climate, soil, productions, and appearance ; his knowledge is precisely what he displays : various appearances on maps, globes, and pictures, together with words and phrases which he has learnt to associate with them. If he thinks he knows any sight which he never experienced, a visit to the countries he has been taught to speak of will undeceive him. He may recog- nise names of places, names of customs, and names of natural productions ; but the sights will be new. All the ingenuity of man, assisted by painting, sculpture, and eloquence, cannot LECT. X.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 129 teach the brightest understanding the exact appearance of even a pin, except by presenting to his eyes what will produce a sight that in every respect is a pin. § 6.—- No taste which I have not experienced, can be made known to me. I shall not press this point. That language can reveal to me no sight that seeing has not informed me of, is a physical truth which experience will substantiate. But the position is equally true of the information furnished by our other senses. Let an epicure prescribe some unusual mixture of known ingredients, and after his imagination has feasted on the compound, let him present it to his taste, and he will discover the inefficacy of his foreknowledge. § 7. — No sound which I have not heard, can be made known to me. If I have never heard a cataract, you may inform me what the sound is like ; and if I have heard a similar sound, I shall be instructed ; but language can effect no more than such an approximation. Should you wish to acquaint a child with the sound of a cataract, his conception of it will probably be very erroneous ; not because his faculties are less acute than yours, or language less operative on him than on you ; but because his experience is less than yours, and language can be significant to him of his experience only. If he has heard no sound more consonant, you must refer to even the lowing of an ox. You may qualify the comparison, by saying the cataract is awfully louder ; but if he has heard nothing louder, the qualification will not add to his instruction, except that it may teach him he is still ignorant of the correct sound of a cataract. § 8. — Brilliancy of imagination and acuteness of intellect can- not perform the office of any of our senses. But cannot the letters of the alphabet be combined so that by looking at the combination, seeing can teach me a sound that hearing has never informed me of ? I may combine letters so as 17 130 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. to denote a new sound ; but the sound, so far as it is new, will be unknown to me, till my organs of speech have read the com- bination, and thus made my hearing acquainted with it. Seeing the letters can of itself teach us a new sound, no more than it can teach a deaf mute. The same inability is common to all ; nor let any person suppose that he can compound known sounds, and thus acquire a sound which he never heard. Brilliancy of imagination, and acuteness of intellect, cannot pass the barriers erected by nature. The most practised musician can, no more than the most unskilful, know the sound which will be produced by a new combination of familiar notes. So far as the combi- nation will produce a sound that he never heard, so far the effect of the combination must be unknown to him. $ 9. — No feel which I have not felt, can be known to me. A person who has never felt pain, (if we can conceive such a being,) will possess no correct meaning of the word; and he who has felt no greater pain than a toothache, may be told of the superior agonies of the gout, but he will not be able to divine the feeling. Language cannot perform the office of any of his senses. It can record phenomena, but not reveal them. § 10.-— No muscular effort which I have not experienced, can be made known to me by language. From the inadequacy of language to effect more than a refer- ence to our experience, arises the inefficacy of verbal instruction. A writing master may direct a child how to make a perpen- dicular mark ; but in every particular in which the directions refer to some motion which the pupil has never produced, or to some muscular effort that he has never made, the directions are as impotent as a discourse on colours is to the blind. $ 1 1 . — Nearly every word possesses a verbal meaning as well as a sensible meaning. That the significancy of a man's language is limited to his sensible experience would be readily admitted, were we not LECT. X.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 131 embarrassed with one difficulty. Bonfire names a sight, and melody a sound. If these words possessed no other significa- tion, we should immediately understand that the import of bonfire must ever be unknown to the blind, and the import of melody unknown to the deaf. But these words, and nearly all others, possess a further signification : they name words also. This is an important distinction, and till you understand it, you will be liable to delusion. § 12. — The sensible signification of a word nothing can reveal but our senses ; — the verbal signification can be disclosed by words. Recollect, then, that nearly every word possesses a signifi- cation which refers to our senses, and another which refers to words. The sensible signification is the sight, sound, taste, feel, and smell, to which the word refers ; therefore, nothing but our senses can reveal to us this signification ; but the verbal signification of a word may be known to any person who pos- sesses hearing, and even to those who are void of hearing, if they have acquired the art of reading. § 13. — We rarely discriminate between the verbal signification of a word and its sensible signification. When Locke says that the meaning of rainbow can be re- vealed to a person who never saw one, provided he has seen red, violet, green, &c, Locke is alluding to the verbal meaning of rainbow. This meaning can be known to the blind, and I once saw a company surprised when a blind youth was exhib- iting what was esteemed a triumph of education over natural defects, by giving an explanation of the appearance of rain- bows. The company knew not that rainbow possesses two significations ; — one a sight which nothing can reveal but seeing, and the other words that can be learnt by hearing. 132 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART I. § 14. — Words and definitions can disclose only the verbal meaning of words. You may suppose that wo differ from the blind ; and that an enumeration of the colours of a rainbow, and of their figure, size, position, and arrangement, to us who know the sights which the words signify severally, would reveal to us a rainbow, not verbally merely, but visibly. $ 15. — The premises are, however, impossible. No person can have experienced the colours which compose a rainbow, and their figure, position, and arrangement, without having seen a rainbow. Take any one of the colours, say red : it names not one sight only, but numerous sights. Fire is red, blood is red, my hand is red, bricks are red, and an Indian is red; — which of these is he to imagine, when you speak of the red of a rainbow ? The same remark will apply to the other colours, and to their figure, position, and arrangement. § 16. — But admit that a person who has never seen a rain- bow, shall still have seen all its colours. Admit further, that when you enumerate the colours, he shall guess the precise red, orange, yellow, &c, to which you refer ; yet, for the person to know how the colours will look when they are combined, will be impossible ; much less, how they will appear when drawn into the shape, size, and position, of a rainbow. If he has seen such a combination, he has seen a rainbow ; but if he has not seen the combination, language is inadequate to reveal it. After the most copious definition, and the most familiar acquaintance with the sights separately that are referred to by the defining words, a person will be conscious of a new sight the moment he sees a rainbow. § 17. — The opinion that definitions can teach us more than the verbal signification of words, has descended from antiquity. The ancients, however, thought that definitions are applicable to all words ; while the moderns see that this involves an ad- mission, that we can acquire a knowledge of sights without the LECT. X.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 133 agency of seeing, &c. Hence, the moderns exclude from the power of definition all such words as white, loud, &c, that sig- nify sensible information only. They perceive not that other words are definable only because they possess a verbal signifi- cation ; and that so far as the object of a definition is to reveal a new sight, taste, feel, smell, &c, all words must be equally undefinable. § 18. — A knowledge of the two-fold character of words useful in the instruction of deaf mutes. If the instructors of the deaf will study the difference that has now been stated between the verbal signification of a word and the sensible signification, they will find the discrimination important : for instance, suppose they wish to teach a deaf mute the signification of joy, they must teach him two significations ; the verbal signification, and the sensible. The verbal is easily taught, after you determine the form of words into which joy shall be resolvable. The sensible signification no words can teach — it is a feel, and can be disclosed only by making the mute know (by any method you can) the feel to which the word alludes. Every mute should be taught this difference in the character of words, and his knowledge will be definite, and his progress in learning agreeable. PART SECOND OF LANGUAGE WITH REFERENCE TO PHENOMENA INTERNAL OF MAN. X,£CT, XI J A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 137 LECTURE XI. TO MAKE ALL LANGUAGE REFER TO SENSIBLE INFORMATION, FORCES US TO ESTIMATE, AS SENSIBLE INFORMATION, SOME INTERNAL PHENOMENA WHICH ENTER LARGELY INTO THE SIGNIFICATION OF WORDS, AND ARE NOT USUALLY INCLUDED AMONG SENSIBLE INFORMATION. WORDS ALSO ENTER LARGE- LY INTO THE, SIGNIFICATION OF OTHER WORDS. § 1. — Language refers to our internal feelings. In my last discourse, I state that language can effect no more than refer us to the information of our senses. Language, how- ever, refers to a large class of existences, which are not usually deemed the objects of our senses: — for instance, the pheno- mena that we designate by the words love, anger, joy, hope, faith, hunger, pity, sympathy, judgment, reverie, &c. These I call internal feelings ; hence, I class them among the inform- ation that we derive from our senses. I will not defend the propriety of this classification. The sense of feeling is usually restricted to external information ; but I adopt the term internal feelings, as it will probably indicate the phenomena which I wish to designate. § 2. — Language would lose a large portion of its meaning, to a person destitute of internal feelings. To a person who should be destitute of internal feelings, love, hope, fear, &c, would be words of very little meaning ; as also joy, sorrow, anger, anticipation, expectation, jealousy, hunger thirst, sleepy, weary, health, vigour, lassitude, &c. The words would not be destitute of meaning to him, because nearly every such word includes within its signification some external action or appearance, which enables us to determine by looking at a 18 138 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART II* man, that he is sleepy, faint, angry, jealous, envious, hungry, &c. By means of these external exhibitions, a man who should be void of internal feelings, might discourse about love, anger, envy, &c. ; as a man who should be void of the sense of taste, could talk of the deliciousness of peaches, oranges, grapes, &c. — his words referring to the appearance of the fruits. s § 3. — Internal feelings enter largely into the signification of ivords that relate to religion. The words eternity, heaven, hell, angel, redemption, resurrec- tion, faith, and many other words of sacred import, are con- nected, in religious men, with certain internal feelings which give to the words a pungency and unction. "With irreligious men, the words are connected with no such feelings, and are perhaps deemed significant of nothing but certain verbal defini- tions. An inattention to this difference in men produces much of the disagreement which exists on religious subjects. § 4. — The words Jupiter, Juno, Mars, &c, were associated with feelings which probably made the names awful to the Greeks and Romans ; while, to us, the words are significant of nothing but historical narratives, or connected with feelings of derision. The word Jehovah was connected with such feelings in the ancient Jews, as made them refuse to utter it under any inducement. I am told, it is still thus esteemed by existing Jews. § 5. — Religious feelings seem a part of the human constitution, like hope, fear, tyc. Religious feelings seem as much a part of the human consti- tution as sympathy, hope, fear, doubt, uncertainty, confidence, &c. Religion may change its modes of worship, and the nomi- nal objects of its worship ; but the internal feelings which alone give urgency and vitality to the worship, must always make every man liable to religion; — though he may not be always religious, any more than he is always under the influence of love, sympathy, hope, fear, doubt, &c. LECT. XI.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 139 § 6. — Religion, from its connexion with our internal feelings, is but little affected by adverse logick. Infidels, when they seek to subvert Christianity, deem nothing necessary but to refute logically the tenets of revelation. Lo- gick can, however, effect nothing, till it can prevent the Scrip- tures from exciting religious feelings. You may endeavour to convince a man that his wife is neither handsome nor lovely ; but if she produce in him the feelings of love, your logick can effect but little, though he may be unable to refute it, or to dis- cover that your arguments are untrue* § 7. — Internal feelings enter largely into words that are not religious. Ghost, witch, spectre, fairy, sorcerer, and a multitude of other words, derive their principal signification from the internal feel- ings with which they are associated. In children often, and in adults frequently, such words are highly significant and terrible. § 8. — The whole universe can be nominally analyzed into sights, sounds, tastes, feels, sm,ells, internal feelings,, thoughts, and tvords. In our second lecture, when I resolved external existences into sights, sounds, tastes, feels, and smells, I avoided any refer- ence to existences which are not external, because I feared that they would complex a classification which was already abstruse. I should else have said, that all existences which are not ex- ternal can be characteristically designated as internal feelings* thoughts, and words : — hence, that the whole universe can be nominally analyzed into sights, sounds, tastes, feels, smells, internal feelings, thoughts, and words. * Many men, as well as children, may be speculatively convinced that a corps! js harmless, and yet be prevented by fear from remaining alone with it at midnight- 140 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART II. § 9. — Our analysis is artificial; the universe can be correctly expounded by itself alone. You must remember that the object of my analysis is to teach you to subordinate language to nature. To effect this instruc- tion, I must possess some mode of referring to natural exist- ences ; but if you desire to know what the universe truly is, you must dismiss my names, as well as all others, and contemplate the universe externally with your senses, and internally with your consciousness. The information thus obtained is the universe. The moment this information is clothed in language, either ar- ticulately or in thought, you are wandering from the substance of the universe to the shadow, — from the realities of creation to the artificial and conventional terms by which men commu- nicate with each other ; and you will infallibly become entan- gled and confused with the sophistries and errours which have been created by a long habit of estimating nature by language. § 10. — Words that refer to our internal feelings are subject to all the rules of interpretation which are enumerated in the preceding lectures. All that has been said in relation to the oneness and identity of external existences (as compared with the oneness and iden- tity of their names), applies even more violently to internal feelings than to sights, sounds, tastes, feels, and smells. In treatises, for instance, which have been written on our passions, appetites, emotions, &c, the internal feelings, &c, which give significancy to the word love, are enumerated not as the mean- ing of the word love, but as the acts and propensities of a mysterious unit love, who holds his seat in the heart. Wisdom, reason, judgment, conscience, instinct, and numerous kindred units, are crowded into the head, where, on invisible tripods, they sit, and hold divided dominion over the conduct, thoughts^ and feelings of the man in whom they are situated. LECT. XI.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 141 § 11. — The identity of love is as fallacious as its oneness, I love my dog, horse, children, property, country, &c. In each of these applications of the word love, it refers to a feeling which I experience ; but the feelings that are thus referred to are not as identical in nature as in name. They possess a suf- ficient homogeneity to make the word love appropriate to them all ; just as I discover in a whale, an anchovy, and an eel, a sufficient homogeneity to make the word fish appropriate to them. In both cases we should estimate the verbal identity by the revelations of nature ; but we reverse this principle, and in both cases make the verbal identity authoritative over the natural diversity. § 12. — We subject our internal feelings to fewer verbal dis- tinctions than our sensible information. The remarks which I have made on the identity of love and its oneness, apply to pity, and every other word that refers to internal feelings. Indeed, the identity which we impute to the internal feelings that are designated by one name, is responded to by nature with less strictness than the identity which we impute to the external existences that we designate by one name. If, for instance, your child should hurt itself grievously, you will be said to pity it ; and if you see a wounded fly, you may pity the fly. The two feelings in you will differ much ; yet, from the difficulty which men experience in indicating to each other, the precise internal feeling that any event excites, we apply the word pity to both the above cases, and to a multi- tude of other varying cases. "We are more definite with exter- nal differences. The words scarlet, red, pink, crimson, &c, designate sights which vary less from each other, than the pity which you felt for your child varies from the pity which you felt for the fly. The divisions to which we have subjected our internal feelings are gross and general. They are like the divi- sion of external objects into fish, birds, and insects ; rather than like the nicer discrimination to which we refer by the words whale, grampus, porpoise, &c. 142 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART II. § 13. — Language is significant of what our senses inform us of what we are conscious of eocperiencing within ourselves, and of words, I have now shown that words derive their signification from external existences and internal consciousness. An item of either will render a word significant, and the item will consti- tute the signification of the word. I stated also in my last discourse, that words themselves constitute another source of signification to words. We are so accustomed to a captious verbal philosophy, which interprets creation by words, instead of interpreting words by the realities of creation, that some per- son may show language to be significant of many objects, &c, which cannot be embraced by my classification. I cannot avoid this difficulty ; for should I adopt his classification, another per- son may show still further omissions. No power exists to make all men employ the same language, and contention will continue in relation to phraseology, till men shall know that the meaning of a phrase is to be sought in the revelations of nature ; and, that no diversity of phraseology is important, (except philo- logically,) so long as we can ascertain the natural phenomena, &c, to which the phraseology is intended to refer. Language is significant of every thing that we discover it to be signi- ficant of; but a description so general as this would fail in enabling you to individuate the signification of words to the extent which my design renders necessary. § 14. — Words are significant of other words. We find by our dictionaries that every word may be resolved into other words. Words often possess no signification but as representatives of other words. When an Englishman first learns the French word oui, its signification consists in its representing the English word yes. A portion of the words wliich every man uses is significant on the above principle only. LECT. XI.] A TEATISE ON LANGUAGE. 143 § 15. — A word which at one time signifies a word, may, at another time, signify a sight, §c. Decapitate signifies to me nothing but the phrase " to cut off a head." Should I unfortunately see a person guillotined, the word decapitate might thereafter signify the sight. To circum- navigate the globe, possesses with me no meaning but certain words and phrases ; but with Anson or Cook, the meaning con- sisted of the revelations of their senses. The word gout, which to one man is significant of words only, is to another significant of excruciating feels, &c. § 16. — Some words never signify any thing but other words. We possess words which never signify any thing but other words. Infinity, eternity, are of this class, and antediluvian, millenium, fairy, and Mahomet. When I read a treatise on eternity, the whole treatise becomes in a manner the significa- tion of the word eternity. What I read in the Holy Scriptures in relation to it, becomes also a part of the meaning of the word. § 17. — Some words of the above class, when connected with an internal feeling, are of the most sacred character. God, heaven, hell, immortality, angels, and many other words of the most awful import, are principally significant of scrip- tural declarations, and of various other words, sentences, and treatises ; except that they are significant of certain internal feelings also, which constitute a vivifying and essential part of their signification to persons who happily possess such feelings in association with the words. § 18. — Much errour occurs in our speculations from our not discriminating whether we allude to the verbal meaning of a word, to its sensible meaning, or to its meaning with reference to our internal feelings. The malignity of the errour is in- creased when the diversity of meaning is deemed an ambiguity of nature, instead of an ambiguity of language. This topick 144 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART II. deserves a separate elucidation, hence I shall defer it till our next meeting. § 19. — The present lecture is only introductory to succeeding ones, which will show that speculative writers fail to discri- minate between the verbal signification of a word, — its sen- sible signification, — and its signification with reference to our internal feelings. They deem the variety of meaning a duplicity of nature, instead of a property of language. From even the rapid glance which we have taken, we may readily apprehend the confusion which must occur in philoso- phical and all other verbal speculations, if a writer fails to discri- minate between the verbal signification of a word, — its sensible signification, — and its signification with reference to our internal feelings ; and especially if he deem the variety of meaning an ambiguity of nature, instead of a property of language. This topick is important, and the present discourse is merely a neces- sary introduction to it. I shall however defer entering on the subject till our next meeting. LECT. XII.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 145 LECTURE XII. MUCH ERROUR OCCURS IN OUR SPECULATIONS WHEN WE OMIT TO DISCRIMINATE BETWEEN THE VERBAL MEANING OF A WORD, ITS SENSIBLE MEANING, AND ITS MEANING THAT REFERS TO OUR INTERNAL CONSCIOUSNESS. § 1. — We should discriminate between the verbal signification of a wordy and the sensible signification. Professor Brown says, " power is nothing but invariable ante- cedence." Is it nothing but those words 1 If he is speaking of the verbal signification of power, it may be what he says. The sensible signification I will designate algebraically, (as an unknown quantity,) by the letter x. Power is, therefore, a?. But Mr. Brown says it is invariable antecedence ; therefore, invariable antecedence is the same x. The like may be said of every phrase into which you may resolve the word power. The sensible signification (x) remains independent of our lan- guage, and unaffected by it. It is known alike by the savage and the philosopher. They differ widely in their theories, and verbal signification of power ; but when their senses reveal to them x, their sensible knowledge is identical. A deaf mute may possess the sensible signification of power as fully as either of them. § 2. — The senses alone can reveal to us the sensible significa* tion of words. What then is x ? Your senses alone can yield the answer. Words may direct my attention to what I should not have other- wise noted in x, but they cannot reveal to me any part of x, — they cannot perform the office of the senses. A philosopher may write a volume in simplifying power, or in complexing it ; but his treatise will (however he may intend) constitute nothing 146 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART II. but the verbal signification of power. A boy who fires a squib to show you that a spark possesses power to ignite gunpowder, differs verbally only from Professor Brown, who insists thajt what the boy calls power in the spark, is only an invariable antecedence. All that is sensible is alike to both, and all that is not sensible is verbal only ; and cannot be thought of even, except in words. $ 3.: — Words can yield us nothing but the verbal signification of words. "What we denominate form is nothing separate from the elementary atoms of a mass, and merely the relation of a num- ber of atoms coexisting in apparent contact." Thus speaks Professor Brown. We may ask, however, whether form is merely the above words. Something is ulterior to the words, if we are alluding to the sensible realities of the universe. The words can yield us but the verbal meaning of form. The sen- sible reality is x. The girl who in rolling up her handkerchief tells you she is forming a doll, and Professor Brown with his elaborate definition, mean the same x, if they refer to the sen- sible signification of the word form. The professor may laugh at the simplicity of the child, and she may laugh at the abstruse- ness of the professor, but they differ only verbally; — and the child is probably less in errour than he. § 4. — We strangely confound the verbal signification of a word with the sensible signification. Professor Brown speaks also of a statue ; thus, " the sculptor alters the form of a block of marble, not by communicating to it any new qualities, but by detaching from it a number of the corpuscles, which were included in our conception of the whole." Are these words the process by which the sculptor produces the statue ? The words are but a narrative of the process. The sensible process is x. The same to which another person may refer by saying that the sculptor, by elaboration, produces the statue out of a block of marble. One expression may be more descriptive than another, and more appropriate ; but nature, LECT. XII,] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 147 sturdy and unaffected by our phraseology, is known as fully to a deaf mute who has seen a statue sculptured, as to Professor Brown. Hence, we need not be surprised when Professor Brown adds, that the sculptor, " after he has given the last deli- cate touches that finish the Jupiters, the Venus, or Apollo, — the divine form which we admire, (as if it had assumed a new existence beneath the artist's hands,) is still the same quiescent mass that slumbered for ages in the quarry. § 5. — The sensible signification of a sentence is the sensible existence to which the sentence refers. Is the Apollo the same quiescent mass that slumbered for ages in the quarry ? This is the verbal account of its same- ness. The sensible sameness is x. The same to which I may refer by saying, that the statue is transformed from what it was in the quarry. We may debate the propriety of our respective phraseology, but let us not confound verbal disquisition with the realities of creation. The sensible reality is just as we disco- ver ; and when we divest it of all names, we shall understand it better than by the most laboured verbal description. § 6. — Phraseology is controlled by custom, but the sensible sig- nification of phrases is controlled by nature. " Ice," says the same philosopher, " differs from water only in this, — the particles which formerly were easily separable, now resist separation with a considerable force." Is the differ- ence between ice and water nothing but the above words ? The words may constitute the verbal difference, but a difference exists which is independent of words. The sensible difference is x. We may refer to it by the words of Professor Brown, or by the words of some other philosopher, who may deem that he is greatly improving philosophy by the introduction of some new phrase ; but if we would truly understand nature, we must turn from words to the mute revelation of our senses. § 7. — What is lightning ? An old dictionary says, " it is the flash which attends thunder." The moderns laugh at this sim- 148 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART II. pie explanation of lightning. They call it a discharge of elec trick fluid. But would we know the sensible signification of the word, we must dismiss both of the verbal meanings. The modern may be better chan the ancient ; but neither is lightning, except in the verbal signification of the term. Lightning, in its sensible signification, is x. The sensible signification is known to a deaf mute, as fully as to persons who can repeat a defini- tion. The revelation of our senses can alone teach us the sensible signification of words. § 8. — We cannot transmute sights, feels, and not on nature. Perhaps nothing which philosophy has debated is so myste* rious as the assertion that we cannot prove the existence of an external universe ;— *- nay, that we cannot prove the existence of ourselves. Descartes supposed that he had accomplished the proof of his own existence at least. He says, " I think, there* fore I am." " But," replies Doctor Reid, " how do you prove that you think ? If you assume this without proof, you may as well assume your own existence without proof." Doctor Reid admits that to prove these facts is impossible, but that we are bound to believe them, for they constitute a part of our con* sciousness. "But," says a subsequent writer, "how do you ^rove the existence of the consciousness of which you speak V* § 2.— You perceive the difficulty lies in our inability to prove the facts adverted to. That the facts exist, all men are practi* cally satisfied ; but that the facts are incapable of proof, is the marvel and the fallacy. We can prove that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles ; but we cannot prove that a triangle actually exists in the external universe, or that we exist who employ the process of mathematicks. "What a marvel ! 12 266 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART IT, § 3. — But what is the proof about which we are thus soli- citous, and the absence of which is deemed so portentous and mysterious ? It is a process of language ; — an artificial process of human ingenuity. I have heretofore stated* that argumenta- tion and logick consist in showing certain verbal conclusions to be admitted by certain verbal premises. All demonstration and proof proceed on the same principle. You must admit certain verbal axioms and definitions ; and when the proposition is shown to be embraced verbally by these admissions, the proposition is demonstrated. The process is verbal. It be- longs to language, and apart from language the process pos- sesses neither signification nor application. To say, therefore, that we cannot demonstrate our own existence, without first assuming it, is merely to state the nature of the process. The sensible realities of creation are not implicated or affected by our ability or inability to apply to them our verbal processes of demonstration and proof, any more than the air is implicated in our ability or inability to represent it with colours on canvass. Instead, however, of knowing that our inability to prove verbally our own existence, (without first assuming it,) is a property of language, we suppose it to be a curiosity of nature, or a portentous mystery. I am acquainted with no errour which shows so monstrously as the above, the superiority that lan- guage has acquired over the realities of the universe ; and the curious inversion by which we estimate nature by language, instead of estimating language by nature. * Lecture XIII LECT. XXIX.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 267 LECTURE XXIX. [A FRAGMENT.] WE MISTAKE WORDS FOR THE ULTIMATE OBJECTS OF KNOWL- EDGE, WHILE THE REVELATIONS OF NATURE ARE PROPERLY THE ULTIMATE OBJECTS. § 1. — The phenomena of life are ultimate to the verbal ques- tion which inquires whether I live, though we mistakenly suppose the question to be ultimate to the phenomena. " I think," said Descartes, " therefore I exist." He invented this enthymeme for the purpose of proving his own existence ; for we must assume nothing. " Every thing must be proved," he said. The phenomena of life, of which he was momen- tarily conscious, and the phenomena of thinking, were not deemed the ultimate objects of human knowledge. He sought for something beyond ; and by his reposing when he arrived at the above enthymeme, we can discover what he deemed the ultimate objects of human knowledge : — some process of words. § 2. — The revelations of nature are ultimate to the verbal question which inquires after the existence of an external universe ; though we mistakenly suppose the question to be ultimate to the revelations. Some philosophers have affirmed the non-existence of an external universe; "for," say they,, "we know nothing of external existences but what our senses inform us of, and pos- sibly nothing exists but the sensations. Whether the senses are actually excited by extrinsic objects or not, will," say these philosophers, " affect not our knowledge, so long as we expe- rience the sensations." The revelations of nature are, you 268 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART IT, perceive, not satisfactory to these philosophers. They are seeking for some ulterior knowledge, for some knowledge more authoritative and explanatory. In truth they are inverting the order of nature. They are seeking words as the ultimate objects of human knowledge, while the revelations of nature are deemed secondary and debatable. § 3. — How mysterious is death! What can it be? Our senses in vain yield us their information; we are not accus- tomed to deem the revelations of nature as the ultimate objects of our knowledge. We are accustomed to deem language the ultimate object, and thus most perversely subordinate creation to an artificial contrivance of our own. As Descartes was not satisfied with the reality of his own existence, till language had echoed it in an enthymeme, so we are not satisfied with the revelations of nature in relation to death, till language vents on it some sentences. $ 4. — Deaf mutes are exempt from the fallacy of estimating words as the ultimate objects of knowledge. Deaf mutes are exempt from the errour of seeking some information ulterior to the revelations of nature ; while we, from infancy to the termination of life, are led by the forms of language and by the unsuspected labours of speculative philo- sophy, to deem words the ultimate objects of knowledge. What is death ? what is an earthquake ? what is the sun ? A man would be laughed at, who should answer these questions by referring us to nature's revelations in relation to them. We desire something ulterior; some theory, or a process of lan- guage in some other form. § 5. — What supports this candle ? The candlestick. And what supports the candlestick? The table. And what sup- ports the table ? The floor. And what supports the house ? The earth. And what supports the earth? We are arrived at the end of our sensible knowledge, but this prevents us not from pursuing the process verbally, for we know not that the revelations of nature are the ultimate objects of our knowledge. LECT. XXIX.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 269 A verbal termination of the inquiry is far more congenial to our habits of philosophising than the termination which is produced by nature. § 6. — We constantly mistake some verbal proposition for the ultimate object of our knowledge. We are told by some philosophers, that consciousness proves that we exist. The proposition is deemed ultimate to the con- sciousness, while, in truth, the proposition possesses no signifi- cation but the consciousness. To feel pain, proves that I am a sentient being. The feeling seems to be secondary to the pro- position, though it constitutes its ultimate meaning. To taste sugar proves it to be sweet. The taste seems to prove not itself, but something ultimate, which we announce by the word sweet. You perceive that we constantly deem some verbal proposition to be the ultimate object of our knowledge. All our controversies in relation to the existence of an external universe are founded on this errour. No disagreement exists about the revelations of nature, but we deem them not the ultimate objects of our knowledge ; hence we dispute whether or not these revelations prove an external universe. The pro- position is deemed the most consequential part of our knowl- edge, while it is the mere mode in which we speak of the revelations of nature. \ 7. — " I cannot help believing," says Doctor ' Reid, " that those things really happened, which I remember to have hap- pened." The verbal proposition, " I cannot help believing," &c, seems to be something ultimate from the natural revela- tion which constitutes the remembrance ; but all that is con- sequential, and belongs to the realities of nature, is the revelation. We may speak of it as we please. We may say with Doctor Reid, that we cannot help believing, &c. ; or we may say that we can help believing ; but so far as the realities of nature are implicated, the revelation of nature is our ultimate knowledge on the subject, though we perversely mistake the phrase as the ultimate knowledge, and exhaust ourselves in verbal controversy. 270 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART IT. § 8. — The sun is now believed to be a body of fire. At one time it was called a heated stone. Some say it is inhabited, and others that it is uninhabitable. The controversy involved at no time any disagreement as to the discoverable revelations of nature. Were these deemed the ultimate objects of our knowledge, we should readily discover the unimportance of such controversies ; but when we deem our verbal propositions the ultimate objects of our knowledge, the errour yields a sufficient reason for controversy. $ 9. — Does the earth revolve on its axis from the west to the east, or do the heavens revolve on their axis from the east to the west ? Does either event occur, or is the motion a mere contrivance of our own to reconcile the discoverable phenomena to our notions of causation? We may estimate these ques- tions as very important, and they may be important so far as they affect our theories ; but nature is not necessarily connected with them. All that truly belongs to nature are her discovera- ble revelations ; and if these are alike to all men, we should not mistake our verbal controversies for a disagreement about the realities of nature. We, however, are not accustomed to thus subordinate language to nature. We deem language the ulti- mate boundaries of our knowledge ; hence the undue impor- tance which we attach to our verbal disagreements. $ 10. — What is the colour of sunshine? Nearly every per- son will perceive that our ultimate knowledge in this matter is what we discover in nature, and that the name by which we designate the colour is subordinate to the natural revelation. Some persons, however, may, even in this case, not discover the errour which I am striving to illustrate. They may dispute whether the colour is white or orient, &c, and deem the deci- sion the ultimate object of our knowledge. § 11. — Some of the ablest philosophers of Europe are now satisfied, that motion proceeds in no case from any impulse produced by the contact of two bodies ; such a contact is impossible, owing to the repulsive nature of material bodies. The motion is produced by repulsion, which makes bodies M2CT. XXIX.] A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 271 rebound from each other before they arrive at an actual contact. The philosophers who make this discovery receive from nature the same revelation as is received by other philosophers who admit the actual contact of bodies. No disagreement exists as to the sensible revelations of nature, but the revelations are not deemed the ultimate objects of knowledge ; hence the contro- versy in relation to the language that is to be employed. § 12. — When we deem words the ultimate objects of our knowledge, we invert the order of nature. I may not have succeeded in becoming intelligible in the above remarks ; but to me no speculative position is more important, and no truth more evident, than that we mistakenly invert the order of nature, and deem words the ultimate objects of our knowledge, while we ought to deem the revelations of nature our ultimate knowledge. Are all things material, or are some spiritual ? How virulently would this proposition be debated ! If the controversy involves any question of fact as to what the Scriptures have declared on the subject, or as to any phenomenon internal or external which we experience, the controversy may be important; but if the disputants are ac- quainted with the same revelations of nature, and the same revelations of Scripture, their controversy relates not to the ultimate objects of human knowledge, but to the employment of words. To a deaf mute the controversy would be as un- meaning as the chattering of magpies is unmeaning to us. Nature evolves before us her phenomena. These are impor- tant, whether we note them or not, or discuss them or not ; and we are acted on and act in this evolution of realities without the slightest deference to our speculations, though in our dis- cussions we seem to suppose that the evolutions of nature are controlled by our verbal decisions. Our errour is analogous to the halhicinations of the philosopher referred to in Johnson's Rasselas, who believed that the winds and rains were controlled by his diagrams and volitions ; and that a mistake in his calcu- lations would either deluge the earth, or involve it in tempests. Doctor Franklin has left us the soliloquies of an ephemera. It notices the gradual declination of the sun, and asserts that phi- 272 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART IT. losophers are generally agreed that a period will arrive, when the sun will entirely disappear at the western extremity of the horizon, and that the whole race of the ephemera will be de- stroyed with even the mighty leaf on which so many nations exist, &c. Our speculations are like these. So far as our speculations refer to the revelations of creation, they are signifi- cant of the realities of creation; but we must estimate these revelations as the ultimate objects of our knowledge of creation. Every animal may possibly possess a language and a train of verbal speculations ; but nature moves forward and flows onward with no more natural connection or affinity to the language of one animal than to the language of another. The bird that carols in a forest, and the philosopher who speculates in a closet, are alike employed in the formation and combination of sounds with which the realities of the universe possess no affinity or connexion but such as is produced by an artificial reference of the sounds to the realities referred to. A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. 273 CONCLUSION § 1.— Instead of contemplating creation through the medium of words, men should contemplate creation itself. They should estimate what their senses disclose, and the phenomena which they experience internally, as a dumb mute estimates them. Language was designed for a communication between man and man, and not for a communication between nature and man. In passing through a forest, I may see something which I never saw before. I can communicate the sight to you in no way but by words ; while the sight itself is the only correct reve- lation to myself. We are not in the practice of thus con- templating sleep, death, magnetism, light, fire, men, women, thoughts, sun, moon, anger, hope, and all the other phenomena which our senses disclose, or our internal consciousness reveals. We talk to ourselves about them, and thus contemplate them through the defective medium of language which was designed as a mere substitute for our senses, &c, in our intercourse with one another. § 2. — By the above errour we interpret creation by words, and, as a consequence thereof, we fail from seeing that words should be interpreted by the revelations of creation. When you utter a number of sentences to tell me what death is, I know not that your sentences must be interpreted by the reve- lations of my senses, &c. ; and that, apart from these revela- tions, the words are sensibly insignificant. § 3. — To illustrate the foregoing positions is the design of all that I have stated. Theoretically, the positions may be ad- mitted by every person, and may be deemed already known ; but practically they are violated by all men, and understood by none. That language will eventually receive the interpreta- 274 A TREATISE ON LANGUAGE. [PART IV. tion for which I contend, I cannot doubt ; but that I possess the ability to make existing errours perceived even, I much question. § 4. — I might have inserted an indefinite number of further illustrations of the great principles which I desire to inculcate ; but if what I have already presented shall be understood in the manner in which I understand them, enough has been said to excite towards the subject the efforts of men to whom Provi- dence has awarded more leisure and more talents than I pos- sess ; while, if I shall not be understood, I have expended already too much effort on a fruitless undertaking. $ 5.— -Our misapprehension of the nature of language has occasioned a greater waste of time, and effort, and genius, than all the other mistakes and delusions with which humanity has been afflicted. It has retarded immeasurably our physical - knowledge of every kind, and vitiated what it could not retard. The misapprehension exists still in unmitigated virulence ; and though metaphysicks, a rank branch of the errour, is fallen into disrepute, it is abandoned like a mine which will not repay the expense of working, rather than like a process of mining which we have discovered to be constitutionally incapable of producing gold. § 6. — Finally, while I dismiss this book, I entreat for it a close investigation at least. It is the painful production of much labour ; and though I am aware of the delusion of self- love, I cannot believe that the principles which I have endea- voured to display are wholly undeserving of publick attention. THE END. INTERESTING WORKS PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, In 3 vols. 18mo., with Engravings, Maps, &c, THE HISTORY OP THE JEWS. From the earliest Period to the Present Time. By the Rev. H. H. MILMAN. In 2 vols. 18mo., with Portraits, THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. By J. G. LOCKHART, Esq. 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