From what has been said, it is seen that the Treatise on the Philosophy of Language, now presented to the public, amounts, in manner, certainly, and, to a large extent, in matter, to a new work, bringing up our knowledge on this most important subject to the present day.

WILLIAM HAZLITT.

Chelsea, Nov., 1849.

PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE.

INTRODUCTION.

1. IN attempting to treat of any subject philosophically, it is advisable Method. first to define the term or terms employed to designate that subject, and then to explain the philosophical method of treating it which the author intends to pursue.

2. The word " Language," which comes immediately to us from Language. the French word langage, originates in the Latin lingua, "the tongue;" and therefore anciently signified only the use of the tongue in speech. A just analogy, however, has extended its meaning to all intentional modes of communicating the movements of the mind: thus we use the expressions, "articulate language,” "written language,' "the language of gesture," &c.; for man is formed as well internally, as externally, for the communication of thoughts and feelings. He is urged to it by the necessity of receiving, and by the desire of imparting, whatever is useful or pleasant. His wants and wishes cannot be satisfied by individual power: his joys and sorrows cannot be limited to individual emotion. The fountains of his wisdom and of his love spontaneously flow to fertilize the neighbouring soil, and to augment the distant ocean.

3. But the thoughts and feelings of man, which belong to his mental and spiritual nature, can only be communicated by means of corporeal acts and objects-by gestures, sounds, characters more or less expressive and permanent, instruments not merely useful, as signs, for this particular purpose, but many times pleasing in themselves, or rendered so, by the long-continued operation of habit. These, reason, the peculiar gift to man of his Creator, enables him to select, to combine, to arrange; and the result is a language.

4. Speech, the language of articulate sounds, is the most wonderful, Speech. the most delightful of the arts which adorn and elevate our being. It is also the most perfect. It enables us, as it were, to express things beyond the reach of expression, the infinite range of existence, the exquisite fineness of emotion, the intricate subtleties of thought. Of such effect are those shadows of the soul, those living sounds, which

Words, how effective.

Speech, its diversities.

Method of study.

we call words! Compared with them, how poor are all other monuments of human power, or perseverance, or skill, or genius! They render the mere clown an artist; nations immortal; orators, poets, philosophers, divine!

5. Yet it is not to be supposed that spoken language, "with all appliances and means to boot," can always fully convey to others the conceptions or emotions of the speaker; and much less that it always does so. Joys beyond expression, and griefs too sad to vent themselves in words, are of every day's occurrence. On the other hand, there are persons, who habitually wrap up their thoughts in the language of mystery, equivocation, or falsehood, for the very purpose, or at least with the constant result, of misleading their hearers: and there are words and phrases susceptible of so many different interpretations, that nothing but an attentive comparison of them with the whole context, or with all the concomitant circumstances, can enable any one to comprehend their full force and effect. Dugald Stewart has well observed that, in consulting Johnson's Dictionary, the reader may meet with a multitude of words with five, six, or more significations attached to each of them, and after all the pains that the lexicographer has taken, may perhaps find no one of the definitions applicable to the passage which he has in view; and yet when he considers the whole passage together he may have no difficulty whatever in comprehending the intended sense of the particular word. This proves that the powerful effects of speech are not owing to the mere signification of separate Words, but to the activity of the Mind in seizing on the relations which they bear to each other, and in giving scope to the thoughts and feelings they are meant to excite.

6. Again, the dialects, or systems of speech adopted by various races of men, in different ages and countries, have been, in many respects, strikingly distinguishable. We may remark the copious Arabic, the high-sounding Spanish, the broad Dutch, the voluble French, the soft Italian: we may trace minute gradations from the monosyllables of the Chinese, to the long paragraph words of the Sanscrit; or we may rise, still more gradually, in the scale of expression, from the barbarous muttering of a poor Esquimaux in his solitary canoe, to the thunders of Athenian eloquence, and those delightful strains of our own Shakspeare, which are "musical as is Apollo's lute," and " a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets." Nor is this all: a thousand collateral circumstances tend still further to diversify the numerous spoken languages of the world. Not only does time produce gradual progress, or sudden change in their forms; but their effect is endlessly modified by combination with other arts of expression, with looks and actions, with sights and sounds.

7. In this labyrinth of interesting observations, what objects have we to pursue; what clue to guide us? Shall we be content to learn one or two dialects by rote; to burthen the memory without exercising the understanding? Or, if we would rise above this, to a know