Part 4 (2/2)
16 Language is either oral or written; the question of its origin has consequently two parts Having suggested what seein of _speech_, I now proceed to that of _writing_ Sheridan says, ”We have in use _two kinds of language_, the spoken and the written: the one, the gift of God; the other, the invention of man”--_Elocution_, p
xiv If this ascription of the two things to their sources, were as just as it is clear and emphatical, both parts of our question would seeot his own doctrine, or did not mean what he here says For he afterwards e as much a work of art, as any one will suppose the latter to have been In his sixth lecture, he coift of speech thus: ”But still we are to observe, that nature did no ive the language_, as in the case of the passions, but left it to the industry of ree upon such articulate sounds, as they should choose to oes farther, and supposes certain _tones of the voice_ to be things invented by ly, as she did not furnish the _words_, which were to be the symbols of his ideas; neither did she furnish the _tones_, which were to manifest, and communicate by their own virtue, the internal exertions and euish him from the brute species; but left them also, like words, to the care and invention of h has already been presented
17 Byis not only considered an artificial invention, but supposed to have been wholly unknown in the early ages of the world Its antiquity, however, is great Of this art, in which the science of grainated, we are not able to trace the commencement Different nations have clai the learned, to whoinated in Egypt For, ”The Egyptians,” it is said, ”paid divine honours to the Inventor of Letters, whom they called _Theuth_: and Socrates, when he speaks of him, considers him as a God, or a God-like man”--_British Gram_, p 32 Charles Bucke has it, ”That the first inventor of letters is supposed to have been _Memnon_; as, in consequence, fabled to be the son of Aurora, Goddess of the ”--_Bucke's Classical Graht Phoenicia the birthplace of Letters:
”Phoenicians first, if ancient fame be true, The sacred mystery of letters knew; They first, by sound, in various lines design'd, Express'd the ures rude conveyed, And useful science everlasting made”
_Rowe's Lucan_, B iii, l 334
18 So coeval with speech Thus Bicknell, from Martin's Physico-Graave na creature_;[23] but how those names ritten, or what sort of characters he made use of, is not known to us; nor indeed whether Adae at all; since we find no mention made of any in the sacred history”--_Bicknell's Grarammar, with admirable flippancy, cuts thishi all speech to be natural, and all writing artificial: ”Of how e? It is of two kinds; natural or spoken, and artificial or written”--_Oliver B Peirce's Grae is, to a limited extent, (the representation of the passions,) co the work of invention, is peculiar to s delivered to the Israelites by Moses, are more ancient than any others non In the thirty-first chapter of Exodus, it is said, that God ”gave unto Moses, upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testier of God_” And again, in the thirty-second: ”The tables were the work of God, and the writing was _the writing of God_, graven upon the tables” But these divine testimonies, thus miraculously written, do not appear to have been the first writing; for Moses had been previously commanded to write an account of the victory over Amalek, ”for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua”--_Exod_, xvii, 14 This first battle of the Israelites occurred in Rephidiulf of the Red Sea, at or near horeb, but before they came to Sinai, upon the top of which, (on the fiftieth day after their departure froypt,) Moses received the ten co whom is Dr Adam Clarke, suppose that in this instance the order of the events is not to be inferred from the order of the record, or that there is room to doubt whether the use of letters was here intended; and that there consequently reue, which God himself delivered to Moses on Sinai, A M 2513, B C 1491, was ”the first writing _in alphabetical characters_ ever exhibited to the world” See _Clarke's Succession of Sacred Literature_, Vol i, p 24 Dr Scott, in his General Preface to the Bible, seems likewise to favour the same opinion ”Indeed,”
says he, ”there is so was first communicated by revelation, to Moses, in order to perpetuate, with certainty, those facts, truths, and lahich he was employed to deliver to Israel Learned , in the history of the nations, till long after the days of Moses; unless the book of Jobales of a few letters, or marks, seems more like a discovery to man from heaven, than a human invention; and its beneficial effects, and almost absolute necessity, for the preservation and coion, favour the conjecture”--_Scott's Preface_, p xiv
21 The time at which Cadmus, the Phoenician, introduced this art into Greece, cannot be precisely ascertained There is no reason to believe it was antecedent to the tiists make it between two and three centuries later Nor is it very probable, that Cadmus invented the sixteen letters of which he is said to havecertain can be inferred fro in vain for his stolen sister--his sister Europa, carried off by Jupiter--he found a wife in the daughter of Venus! Sowing the teeth of a dragon, which had devoured his co up to his aid a squadron of armed soldiers! In short, after a series of wonderful achieverief and infire, he prayed the Gods to release him from the burden of such a life; and, in pity froed into serpents! History, however, hasto hi him the worthy benefactor to whom the world owes all the benefits derived froly rob him of this honour But I must confess, there is no feature of the story, which I can conceive to give any countenance to his claienitor of the race of authors, his sufferings correspond ith the calaeneration have always so largely partaken
22 The benefits of this invention, if it reat In oral discourse the graces of elegance are rand instructors of reatness, and the proudest achievelory of a nation,” says Dr
Johnson, ”arises from its authors” Literature is important, because it is subservient to all objects, even those of the very highest concern
Religion and overnment, fame and happiness, are alike interested in the cause of letters It was a saying of Pope Pius the Second, that, ”Co as silver, nobleold, and princes prize it as jewels” The uses of learning are seen in every thing that is not itself useless[25] It cannot be overrated, but where it is perverted; and whenever that occurs, the re, till the truth is manifest, and that which is reprehensible, iscannot be overrated, but where it is perverted
Butis; and, consequently, of what is, or is not, a perversion of it And so far as this point s of God, it would sees If the illu and a reception of scriptural truth, is it not by an inference reat men have presumed to limit to a verbal medium the communications of Hiives to His own holy oracles all their peculiar significance and authority? Soiven to men any notion of Himself, except by words
”Many ideas,” says the celebrated Edmund Burke, ”have never been at all presented to the senses of any els, devils, heaven, and hell, all of which have however a great influence over the passions”--_On the Sublime and [the] Beautiful_, p 97 That God can never reveal facts or truths except by words, is a position hich I areat truths of Christianity, Dr Wayland, in his Ele _facts_, can never be known, except _by language_, that is, by revelation”--_First Edition_, p 132 Again: ”All of the of the _nature of facts_, they could be e_”--_Ib_, p
136 But it should be remembered, that these same facts were otherwise made known to the prophets; (1 Pet, i, 11;) and that which has been done, is not iain or not So of the Bible, Calvin says, ”No e of true and sound doctrine, without having been a disciple of the Scripture”-- _Institutes_, B i, Ch 6 Had Adae? And if such they had, what Scripture taught thehly to say of the that is _unscriptural_ I a there is any _other doctrine_ which can be safely substituted for the truths revealed of old, the truths contained in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testah not but by the Spirit understood” [27]--_Milton_
CHAPTER V
OF THE POWER OF LANGUAGE
”Quis huic studio literarurammatici vocantur, penitus se dedidit, quin omnem illaruitatione comprehenderit?”--CICERO _De Oratore_, Lib i, 3
1 The peculiar _power_ of language is another point worthy of particular consideration The power of an instruuage is used in cohty and the ihteous and the wicked, it may perhaps seeibly of its _peculiar power_ I mean, by this phrase, its fitness or efficiency to or for the accomplishment of the purposes for which it is used As it is the nature of an agent, to be the doer of so, so it is the nature of an instruns, is to do so, and, like all other actions, necessarily is by s are represented, are obviously the instruments of such representation Words, then, which represent thoughts, are things in thes, as being the instruments of their communication or preservation They are relative also to him who utters them, as well as to those who may happen to be instructed or deceived by them ”Was it Mirabeau, Mr President, or what other master of the hus? They are indeed things, and things of hty influence, not only in addresses to the passions and high-wrought feelings of al and political questions also; because a just conclusion is often avoided, or a false one reached, by the adroit substitution of one phrase or one word for an other”--_Daniel Webster, in Congress_, 1833
2 To speak, is a moral action, the quality of which depends upon the motive, and for which we are strictly accountable ”But I say unto you, that every idle word that ive account thereof in the day of judgement; for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned”--_Matt_, xii, 36, 37 To listen, or to refuse to listen, is ain the injunction, ”Take heed what ye hear”--_Mark_, iv, 24 But why is it, that so much of what is spoken or written, is spoken or written in vain? Is language impotent? It is sometimes employed for purposes with respect to which it is utterly so; and often they that use it, know not how insignificant, absurd, or ill- they nity, has neither power nor value to him who does not understand it;[28] and, as Professor Duncan observes, ”No word can be to any n of an idea, till that idea coic_, p 62 In instruction, therefore, speech ought not to be regarded as the foundation or the essence of knowledge, but as the sign of it; for knowledge has its origin in the power of sensation, or reflection, or consciousness, and not in that of recording or coest, ”It is ti that words and precepts are sufficient to call internal feelings and intellectual faculties into active exercise”--_Spurzheim's Treatise on Education_, p
94
3 But to this it e are knowledge; and words, when he gives the ability to understand them, may, in some sense, become--”spirit and life” See _John_, vi, 63 Where cons of thought do move the s too, whether of assent or dissent, of ad is a rational soul, that it is hard to say to what ends the language in which it speaks, may, or may not, be sufficient Let experience determine We are often unable to excite in others the sentiments which ould: words succeed or fail, as they are received or resisted But let a scornful expression be addressed to a passionate s” into action? And how do feelings differ frohts?[29] Hear Dr James Rush: ”The human mind is the place of representation of all the existences of nature which are brought within the scope of the senses The representatives are called ideas These ideas are the sis, or [else] they exist with an activity, capable of so affecting the physical organs as to induce us to seek the continuance of that which produces them, or to avoid it This active or vivid class of ideas comprehends the passions The functions of the rees, froy of passion: and the ter, and passion, are but the verbal signs of these degrees and forms Nor does there appear to be any line of classification, for separating thought fro their nature, do, from interest or incitement, often assume the colour of passion”--_Philosophy of the Human Voice_, p 328
4 Lord Kames, in the Appendix to his Elements of Criticis _perception_ to be the act by which through the former we knoard objects, and _consciousness_ the act by which through the latter we knohat is within theto his definition, (which he says is precise and accurate,) is, ”That _perception_ of a real object which _is raised_ in thethe real objects fros of the mind itself, or whatever we rens Such a definition, he iht have saved Locke, Berkley, and their followers, from much vain speculation; for with the ideal systems of these philosophers, or with those of Aristotle and Des Cartes, he by no means coincides This author says, ”As ideas are the chief , it is of consequence that their nature and differences be understood It appears now that ideas uished into three kinds: first, Ideas derived froinal perceptions, properly tere_ or other signs; and third, Ideas _of iination_ These ideas differ from each other infrom different causes_ The first kind is derived frouage is the cause of the second_, or any other sign that has the saination is to himself the cause of the third It is scarce [ly] necessary to add, that an idea, originally of ie or any other vehicle, becoain, that an idea of this kind, being afterwards recalled to the mind, becomes in that circumstance an idea of memory”--_El of Crit_, Vol ii, p 384
5 Whether, or how far, language is to the reat importance in the philosophy of both Our literature contains occasional assertions bearing upon this point, but I know of no full or able discussion of it[30] Cardell's instructions proceed upon the supposition, that neither the reason of ences, can ever operate independently of words
”Speech,” says he, ”is to the mind what action is to animal bodies Its improvement is the improveave it”--_Essay on Language_, p 3 Again: ”An attentive investigation will show, that there is no way in which the individual mind can, within itself, to any extent, _combine its ideas_, but by the intervention of words Every process of the reasoning powers, beyond the immediate perception of sensible objects, depends on the structure of speech; and, in a great degree, according to the excellence of this _chief instrument of all mental operations_, will be the means of personal iht, and the elevation of national character From this, it may be laid down as a broad principle, that no individual can reat advances in intellectual ie, as the necessary ht easily be offset by contrary speculations of minds of equal rank; but I subestion, that the author is not reht to opinions
6 We have seen, a the citations in a forns, and as it were _the instrus_”