Fundamental Principles Of Language Part II

It would be absurd and ridiculous to suppose that any person, however

great, or learned, or wise, could employ language correctly without a

knowledge of the things expressed by that language. No matter how chaste

his words, how lofty his phrases, how sweet the intonations, or mellow

the accents. It would avail him nothing if ideas were not represented

thereby. It would all be an unknown tongue to the hearer or reader. It

would not be like the loud rolling thunder, for that tells the wondrous

power of God. It would not be like the soft zephyrs of evening, the

radiance of the sun, the twinkling of the stars; for they speak the

intelligible language of sublimity itself, and tell of the kindness and

protection of our Father who is in heaven. It would not be like the

sweet notes of the choral songsters of the grove, for they warble hymns

of gratitude to God; not like the boding of the distant owl, for that

tells the profound solemnity of night; not like the hungry lion roaring

for his prey, for that tells of death and plunder; not like the distant

notes of the clarion, for that tells of blood and carnage, of tears and

anguish, of widowhood and orphanage. It can be compared to nothing but a

Babel of confusion in which their own folly is worse confounded. And

yet, I am sorry to say it, the languages of all ages and nations have

been too frequently perverted, and compiled into a heterogeneous mass

of abstruse, metaphysical volumes, whose only recommendation is the

elegant bindings in which they are enclosed.

And grammars themselves, whose pretended object is to teach the rules of

speaking and writing correctly, form but a miserable exception to this

sweeping remark. I defy any grammarian, author, or teacher of the

numberless systems, which come, like the frogs of Egypt, all of one

genus, to cover the land, to give a reasonable explanation of even the

terms they employ to define their meaning, if indeed, meaning they have.

What is meant by an “in-definite article,” a dis-junctive

con-junction, an ad-verb which qualifies an adjective, and

“sometimes another ad-verb?” Such “parts of speech” have no existence

in fact, and their adoption in rules of grammar, have been found

exceedingly mischievous and perplexing. “Adverbs and conjunctions,” and

“adverbial phrases,” and “conjunctive expressions,” may serve as

common sewers for a large and most useful class of words, which the

teachers of grammar and lexicographers have been unable to explain; but

learners will gain little information by being told that such is an

adverbial phrase, and such, a conjunctive expression. This is an

easy method, I confess, a sort of wholesale traffic, in parsing

(passing) language, and may serve to cloak the ignorance of the

teachers and makers of grammars. But it will reflect little light on the

principles of language, or prove very efficient helps to “speak or write

with propriety.” Those who think, will demand the meaning of these

words, and the reason of their use. When that is ascertained, little

difficulty will be found in giving them a place in the company of

respectable words. But I am digressing. More shall be said upon this

point in a future lecture, and in its proper place.

I was endeavoring to establish the position that all language depends

upon permanent principles; that words are the signs of ideas, and ideas

are the impressions of things communicated to the mind thro the medium

of some one of the five senses. I think I have succeeded so far as

simple material things are concerned, to the satisfaction of all who

have heard me. It may, perhaps, be more difficult for me to explain the

words employed to express complex ideas, and things of immateriality,

such as mind, and its attributes. But the rules previously adopted will,

I apprehend, apply with equal ease and correctness in this case; and we

shall have cause to admire the simple yet sublime foundation upon which

the whole superstructure of language is based.

In pursuing this investigation I shall endeavor to avoid all abstruse

and metaphysical reasoning, present no wild conjectures, or vain

hypotheses; but confine myself to plain, common place matter of fact. We

have reason to rejoice that a wonderful improvement in the science and

cultivation of the mind has taken place in these last days; that we are

no longer puzzled with the strange phantoms, the wild speculations which

occupied the giant minds of a Descartes, a Malebranch, a Locke, a Reid,

a Stewart, and hosts of others, whose shining talents would have

qualified them for the brightest ornaments of literature, real

benefactors of mankind, had not their education lead them into dark and

metaphysical reasonings, a continued tissue of the wildest vagaries, in

which they became entangled, till, at length, they were entirely lost in

the labyrinth of their own conjectures.

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The occasion of all their difficulty originated in an attempt to

investigate the faculties of the mind without any means of getting at

it. They did not content themselves with an adoption of the principles

which lay at the foundation of all true philosophy, viz., that the

facts to be accounted for, do exist; that truth is eternal, and we are

to become acquainted with it by the means employed for its development.

They quitted the world of materiality they inhabited, refused to examine

the development of mind as the effect of an existing cause; and at one

bold push, entered the world of thought, and made the unhallowed attempt

to reason, a priori, concerning things which can only be known by their

manifestations. But they soon found themselves in a strange land,

confused with sights and sounds unknown, in the explanation of which

they, of course, choose terms as unintelligible to their readers, as the

ideal realities were to them. This course, adopted by Aristotle, has

been too closely followed by those who have come after him.[2] But a new

era has dawned upon the philosophy of the mind, and a corresponding

change in the method of inculcating the principles of language must

follow.[3]

In all our investigations we must take things as we find them, and

account for them as far as we can. It would be a thankless task to

attempt a change of principles in any thing. That would be an

encroachment of the Creator’s rights. It belongs to mortals to use the

things they have as not abusing them; and to Deity to regulate the laws

by which those things are governed. And that man is the wisest, the

truest philosopher, and brightest Christian, who acquaints himself with

those laws as they do exist in the regulation of matter and mind, in the

promotion of physical and moral enjoyment, and endeavors to conform to

them in all his thoughts and actions.

From this apparent digression you will at once discover our object. We

must not endeavor to change the principles of language, but to

understand and explain them; to ascertain, as far as possible, the

actions of the mind in obtaining ideas, and the use of language in

expressing them. We may not be able to make our sentiments understood;

but if they are not, the fault will originate in no obscurity in the

facts themselves, but in our inability either to understand them or the

words employed in their expression. Having been in the habit of using

words with either no meaning or a wrong one, it may be difficult to

comprehend the subject of which they treat. A man may have a quantity of

sulphur, charcoal, and nitre, but it is not until he learns their

properties and combinations that he can make gunpowder. Let us then

adopt a careful and independent course of reasoning, resolved to meddle

with nothing we do not understand, and to use no words until we know

their meaning.

A complex idea is a combination of several simple ones, as a tree is

made up of roots, a trunk, branches, twigs, and leaves. And these again

may be divided into the wood, the bark, the sap, &c. Or we may employ

the botanical terms, and enumerate its external and internal parts and

qualities; the whole anatomy and physiology, as well as variety and

history of trees of that species, and show its characteristic

distinctions; for the mind receives a different impression on looking at

a maple, a birch, a poplar, a tamarisk, a sycamore, or hemlock. In this

way complex ideas are formed, distinct in their parts, but blended in a

common whole; and, in conformity with the law regulating language,

words, sounds or signs, are employed to express the complex whole, or

each distinctive part. The same may be said of all things of like

character. But this idea I will illustrate more at large before the

close of this lecture.

First impressions are produced by a view of material things, as we have

already seen; and the notion of action is obtained from a knowledge of

the changes these things undergo. The idea of quality and definition is

produced by contrast and comparison. Children soon learn the difference

between a sweet apple and a sour one, a white rose and a red one, a hard

seat and a soft one, harmonious sounds and those that are discordant, a

pleasant smell and one that is disagreeable. As the mind advances, the

application is varied, and they speak of a sweet rose, changing from

taste and sight to smell, of a sweet song, of a hard apple, &c.

According to the qualities thus learned, you may talk to them

intelligibly of the sweetness of an apple, the color of a rose, the

hardness of iron, the harmony of sounds, the smell or scent of

things which possess that quality. As these agree or disagree with their

comfort, they will call them good or bad, and speak of the qualities

of goodness and badness, as if possessed by the thing itself.

In this apparently indiscriminate use of words, the ideas remain

distinct; and each sign or object calls them up separately and

associates them together, till, at length, in the single object is

associated all the ideas entertained of its size, qualities, relations,

and affinities.

In this manner, after long, persevering toil, principles of thought are

fixed, and a foundation laid for the whole course of future thinking and

speaking. The ideas become less simple and distinct. Just as fast as the

mind advances in the knowledge of things, language keeps pace with the

ideas, and even goes beyond them, so that in process of time a single

term will not unfrequently represent a complexity of ideas, one of which

will signify a whole combination of things.

On the other hand, there are many instances where the single declaration

of a fact may convey to the untutored mind, a single thought or nearly

so, when the better cultivated will take into the account the whole

process by which it is effected. To illustrate: a man killed a deer.

Here the boy would see and imagine more than he is yet fully able to

comprehend. He will see the obvious fact that the man levels his musket,

the gun goes off with a loud report, and the deer falls and dies. How

this is all produced he does not understand, but knowing the fact he

asserts the single truth–the man killed the deer. As the child

advances, he will learn that the sentence conveys to the mind more than

he at first perceived. He now understands how it was accomplished. The

man had a gun. Then he must go back to the gunsmith and see how it was

made, thence back to the iron taken from its bed, and wrought into bars;

all the processes by which it is brought into the shape of a gun, the

tools and machinery employed; the wood for the stock, its quality and

production; the size, form and color of the lock, the principle upon

which it moves; the flint, the effect produced by a collision with the

steel, or a percussion cap, and its composition; till he finds a single

gun in the hands of a man. The man is present with this gun. The motives

which brought him here; the movements of his limbs, regulated by the

determinations of the mind, and a thousand other such thoughts, might be

taken into the account. Then the deer, his size, form, color, manner of

living, next may claim a passing thought. But I need not enlarge. Here

they both stand. The man has just seen the deer. As quick as thought his

eye passes over the ground, sees the prey is within proper distance,

takes aim, pulls the trigger, that loosens a spring, which forces the

flint against the steel; this produces a spark, which ignites the

charcoal, and the sulphur and nitre combined, explode and force the wad,

which forces the ball from the gun, and is borne thro the air till it

reaches the deer, enters his body by displacing the skin and flesh,

deranges the animal functions, and death ensues. The whole and much more

is expressed in the single phrase, “a man killed a deer.”

It would be needless for me to stop here, and examine all the operations

of the mind in coming at this state of knowledge. That is not the object

of the present work. Such a duty belongs to another treatise, which may

some day be undertaken, on logic and the science of the mind. The hint

here given will enable you to perceive how the mind expands, and how

language keeps pace with every advancing step, and, also, how

combinations are made from simple things, as a house is made of timber,

boards, shingles, nails, and paints; or of bricks, stone, and mortar; as

the case may be, and when completed, a single term may express the

idea, and you speak of a wood, or a brick house. Following this

suggestion, by tracing the operations of the mind in the young child, or

your own, very minutely, in the acquisition of any knowledge before

wholly unknown to you, as a new language, or a new science; botany,

mineralogy, chemistry, or phrenology; you will readily discover how the

mind receives new impressions of things, and a new vocabulary is adopted

to express the ideas formed of plants, minerals, chemical properties,

and the development of the capacities of the mind as depending on

material organs; how these things are changed and combined; and how

their existence and qualities, changes and combinations, are expressed

by words, to be retained, or conveyed to other minds.

But suppose you talk to a person wholly unacquainted with these things,

will he understand you? Talk to him of stamens, pistils, calyxes; of

monandria, diandria, triandria; of gypsum, talc, calcareous spar,

quartz, topaz, mica, garnet, pyrites, hornblende, augite, actynolite; of

hexahedral, prismatic, rhomboidal, dodecahedral; of acids and alkalies;

of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon; of the configuration of the

brain, and its relative powers; do all this, and what will he know of

your meaning? So of all science. Words are to be understood from the

things they are employed to represent. You may as well talk to a man in

the hebrew, chinese, or choctaw languages, as in our own, if he does not

know what is signified by the words selected as the medium of thought.

Your language may be most pure, perfect, full of meaning, but you cannot

make yourself understood till your hearers can look thro your signs to

the things signified. You may as well present before them a picture of

nothing.

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