The terms liberty, constitutional liberty, civil liberty, political liberty, political economy, are frequently understood in a different sense by different persons. The sense of the words wealth, capital, productive labour, value, labour, profits, demand, has been lately called in question, though I think without sufficient reason. As a remedy for these difficulties it has been proposed that a new and more perfect nomenclature should be introduced. But in such sciences as morals, politics, and political economy, it is impossible to suppose that a new nomenclature would be submitted to, or, if it were, that it would render the same service to these sciences as the nomenclatures of Linnæus, Lavoisier, and Cuvier, did to the sciences to which they were respectively applied."

These quotations are from works which were among the last and maturest labours of a Mackintosh and a Malthus; and though their tenor be not entirely correspondent, I apprehend that Malthus's not less than Mackintosh's sentiments demonstrate the inaccuracy and scarcity of our specific terms, or, in other words, the poverty of our language; whilst those of the former have other bearings upon this question, which will be recurred to in the sequel. Those who are disposed to object to mere authority, however high, are requested to advert to the prominent facts, that terminology occupies a large portion of the latest and ablest works on the theory of Government, on jurisprudence, on political economy, on mental and on moral philosophy-in a word, on every branch of knowledge beyond the limits of the exact sciences; and that the new vocables and definitions of one philosopher are continually rejected by another. And such inquirers will find that they can only excuse our language (if determined so to do), at the expense of our ideas or knowledge. If, then, we begin by a fair estimate of the value of our own language as an instrument of thought; and forbear, in proceeding to compare it with the vernacular tongues of India, from undue depreciation of them, I conceive that as much exaggeration will be found to have prevailed relative to the poverty of the latter, as to their multiplicity. When we speak of the multitude of Indian languages we are sadly apt to forget the extent of its territory and population; nor less so, the important distinction between the merely dialectial, and the

essential, differences of language. When, again, we speak of the poverty of those languages, as though they neither were, nor could be easily made, competent vehicles of European knowledge, we assume with equal rashness the power of our own speech, and the powerlessness of those of India-alike inattentive to facts directly bearing upon the matter, and to those general considerations which, unless I am much mistaken, may be made to demonstrate the necessary capacity of the Indian spoken languages to bear any weight of knowledge coming home to the business and bosoms of mankind that we can lay on them. I call upon you, sir, and upon your fraternity (which is best able to do so), to explain distinctly and to unfold my general assertions, that Bengalee, the language of thirty-seven millions, has good dictionaries and grammars, as well as works which, quoad language, exhibit a respectable share of precision and compass; whilst its connection with Sanskrit, and the peculiar genius of the latter, afford extraordinary means of enrichment by new terms competent to express any imaginable modification of thought. I call upon you, sir, to explain and unfold in detail my further assertions, that throughout the Bengal Presidency wherever Bengalee is not spoken, Hindee is the basis of that almost single vernacular language which is common to all Hindoos and all rural Moslems; that Hindee possesses books which in point of language exhibit very considerable actual and latent power; that the latter may be educed and extended to any requisite degree through the connection of Hindee with Sanskrit; and that, lastly, scarcely any part of the population of our vast presidency, which uses not Bengalee or Hindee, has other language than Hindoostanee—a language rich in grammars, dictionaries, and written works; and from its flexible genius capable of amalgamating with its existing wealth any and every variety of new terms and vocables which Sanskrit and Arabic can furnish from their inexhaustible fountains.

Let us now, for a moment, advert to those more general considerations above glanced at. That language is an express image of thought is an old and exploded error.* Words do not expressly embody ideas—the function of language being limited to putting and keeping two minds in the same train

* Stewart's Phil. Essays, pp. 201-211.

of thought. If the precision of mathematical expression seem to contradict this important truth, the semblance is nothing more than a real independence upon language, properly so called. It is, further, possibly the fact that philosophy, from its very nature, is incapable of that conciseness which belongs to the exact sciences; and, at all events, it cannot be denied that it is very far indeed from now possessing such conciseness in Europe, whether from comparative defect of knowledge on our part, or from more intrinsical peculiarities. Indeed, the signal failure of those great men who have again and again attempted to subject moral discussions to mathematical restraints would seem to prove that both the above conjectures are sound.

Hence, not less than because of the necessary connection of philosophy with our ordinary thoughts and feelings, the difficulty-perhaps impossibility-of creating such a language as our philosophers deplore the want of. Whether Mackintosh's anticipation that some future Bacon will raise our philosophical language to the level of our scientific be better grounded than Malthus's idea of the vanity of such a hope, I shall not presume further to indicate. But I assert without fear of contradiction, that the existing extreme inaccuracy of all European languages, as instruments of thought, in reference to the principles of every department of that portion of human lore coming home to the business and bosoms of mankind at large, is notorious and undenied; and that it is precisely in this view that our own language, no way distinguished from the rest, has nevertheless been assumed to possess such wonderful efficiency! So far, however, is it from the truth that it does possess such efficiency that the fact is, it is solely by means of ample definition, of much circumlocution, that the English language at present represents the English knowledge on these subjects.

And, whoever will advert to the nature and extent of this circuitous communication of ideas in our tongue (whether its

"A system of names may be imagined, indicating the objects of knowledge, and showing the relation of the parts to each other-an order and a language somewhat resembling those by which the objects of Botany and Chemistry have, in the 18th century, been denoted. But so great an undertaking must be reserved for a second Bacon and a future generation."-Mackintosh's Eth. Phi. pp. 5, 6.

cause be the nature of language and the dependence of philosophy upon it, or, the nature of philosophy, or, our imperfect knowledge of the latter), can have no further room to doubt that the same ideas may be conveyed to Indian minds, in their own languages, without much further circumlocution.

To put two minds in the same train of thought is all that it is ever given to language to accomplish: to effect this by the cumbrous expedient of definitions, amounting almost to dissertation upon the most ordinary and necessary vocables, is all that it has yet been given to philosophic* language to achieve in Europe. Such being the case, is it possible to advert to that universal consciousness, or almost universal experience, which form the basis and evidence of all the truths of philosophy, in connection with the long-sustained and literary character of Indian civilisation, without reaching the conviction that the alleged incapacity of the Indian vernacular languages cannot relate to the ordinary topics and functions of language, but must respect that peculiar function and those special topics in reference to which the feebleness of our own language is confessed; or, that the cure of this particular defect of the oriental vernaculars need excite the despair of those only who are hopeless about its cure in reference to their own?

We must exaggerate the perfection of our own language as much as we do the imperfection of those of India-we must further shut our eyes to the essential nature and function of speech, to the connection of philosophy with life, and to the high date of Indian civilisation, before we can admit the assertion that the Indian languages neither are, nor can readily be made, competent to express our knowledge. Their present competency is great, in most ordinary views; and if a very moderate degree of public patronage continue to be bestowed on the learned languages whence they are derived, the efficient lexicographical and grammatical labours of the past upon the vulgar tongues may be completed so as, without extraordinary pains, delay, or expense, to render the latter as much more

It may be as well, once for all, to say that by this term I mean to express all knowledge beyond the limits of mathematics and strict physics. The latter I indicate by the word science.

effective as can be required, or can be expected by those who either understand the real state of the English language at present, or the nature of language in general.

Any number of new terms, as clear to the mind and as little. startling to the ear, as the oldest words in the languages, may be introduced into Hindee and Bengalee from Sanskrit, owing to the peculiar genius of the latter,* with much more facility than we can introduce new terms into English: nor does the task of introducing such new terms into the Indian vernaculars imply or exact more than the most ordinary skill or labour on the part of the conductors of education, so long as they disconnect not themselves wholly from Indian literature. With such views of the nature of language in general, and of the existing comparative value of the languages of Europe and of India, I foresee that I may be set down for a lingual sceptic, or, may be, perchance, enlisted under the banners of that party which, without substituting English for the living tongues of India, would improve the latter by directly grafting English terms upon them, in preference to resorting to Sanskrit and Arabic. So far, however, from the truth is it, that my views of the general question are sceptical, that I am thoroughly convinced there is such a thing as idiosyncracy and genius in every cognate group of languages, and that this genius is of so rigid and commanding a nature that it is indispensably necessary humbly to bow to it, in all schemes for the improvement of any given tongue: for, if not, how happened it that those wonderful men who flourished in England between the Reformation and the Revolution, placed as they were close to the sources of our language, and endowed as they were with the highest faculties, yet failed utterly in becoming models of style? and how happened it that the wits of Queen Anne, much remoter as they were placed from the sources of our language, and incomparably inferior as were their mental powers, became so at once and for ever? The sole reason is that the former opposed, and the latter yielded to, the genius of our tongue, both in their terms and in their sentences.

* I borrow this idea, in his words, from Mackintosh, who applies it to German. Every scholar knows, and knows why, it is singularly applicable to the Indian Prakrits, through Sanskrit.