to a natural collocation of words. He went so far as to attempt to introduce the latter in opposition to the general established practice. But this is in the highest degree contrary to the habits of the people of Germany, insomuch so, that his books in which the natural arrangement of words is adopted, appear hardly legible. I have often turned from them with displeasure, and even disgust; and found it a greater labour to read and understand him, than more difficult subjects would have given me, if delivered in the usual form of arrangement.”—The reader will find the subject farther prosecuted in the second edition of Dr. Noehden's Grammar.1

It is scarcely necessary to add, that this criticism of Dr. Noehden's is not meant to invalidate Mr. Smith's argument, but to suggest some necessary limitations of the terms in which it has been announced by the author. It tends, on the contrary, powerfully to support Mr. Smith's speculations ;* inasmuch as the German or Teutonic, falling obviously under Mr. Smith's idea of an original language, might be expected to differ in its construction from the Romanic tongues, as well as from the English, which, though it has Teutonic for its basis, has subsequently admitted largely into its composition Norman-French, -itself a mixture of Latin with the Celtic and Teutonic.

SECTION III. OF LANGUAGE CONSIDERED AS AN INSTRUMENT OF THOUGHT.

Another view of language, intimately connected with the Philosophy of the Human Mind, has for its object to illustrate the functions of words considered as the great instrument of thought and of solitary speculation. In the importance of its practical applications, this may justly claim the first place among the various branches of our present subject. Indeed, I do not think I should go too far were I to assert, that if a system of rational logic should ever be executed by a competent

1 London, printed for Mawman, 1807, p. 429.

[As is fully shewn by the Brothers Grimm.-Ed.]

hand, this will form the most important chapter of such a work. All, however, that I have to offer with respect to it is already exhausted in the course of my former publications; and as I am unwilling to tire my reader with repetitions, I shall here content myself with referring, in a note, to those passages in my works where it has happened to fall under my consideration.1

When I published my former volumes, I had not seen the ingenious Essay of Michaëlis on the Influence of Opinions on Language, and of Language on Opinions. The title is imposing, and strongly excited my curiosity; and the performance itself, though it scarcely answered the expectations I had formed of it from the great reputation of the author, may be justly regarded as an acquisition of some value to the Philosophy of the Human Mind. I was sorry, when I first read it, to find that few, if any, illustrations were taken from this branch of science, which certainly presents to a philosopher the most interesting and important of all exemplifications of the mutual influence which language and opinions have on each other; but, on reflection, I was led to indulge a hope, that the illustrations borrowed from sciences relating to the material world, will be turned to good account by the logicians who cultivate the science of mind; for nothing can be more evident than this, that all the conclusions of the author concerning the errors produced by the abuse of words in such sciences as botany and the other branches of natural history, must hold a fortiori in all those speculations which have the mental phenomena for their object. As this, however, is an inference not likely to

1 See Elements, &c. vol. i. p. 193, et seq.; vol. ii. p. 97, et seq.; Philosophical Essays, 3d edit., p. 147, et seq., p. 201, et seq., p. 207, et seq., p. 226, et seq., p. 232, et seq. [Infra, vol. v.]

An English translation of this Essay was published at London in the year 1771, by Johnson, in St. Paul's Churchyard; but I never happened to hear of it till very lately, when a copy of it was kindly communicated to me by a friend.

I had previously read a French translation, which appears to me to convey the sense of the author more clearly than the English one. The latter, however, (which, we are told in the preface, was revised in manuscript by the author,) is enriched with an Inquiry (by Michaëlis) into the Advantages and Practicability of a Universal Learned Language, which contains some very acute and important observations.

occur to ordinary readers, the subject may be considered as still open to future inquirers, who, after all that has yet been said. upon it, will find an ample field for original remarks, as well as for new strictures on the reasonings of their predecessors. It is a topic, indeed, which cannot be pressed too often upon the attention of philosophical students.

With the importance of this last subject, considered as a branch of logic, I am so strongly impressed, that I once intended to have brought together, and repeated in this place, the different passages from my former publications above referred to. But the dread of being tedious has induced me to relinquish this design. Two passages alone I beg leave to transcribe, partly as they originally appeared in a different work, and may not, therefore, be known to all my readers; but chiefly as they contain some practical suggestions, of the utility of which I have long had experience. They appear to me, therefore, on both accounts, to have a claim to a place in these Elements.

"In speaking of the faculty of memory, (and the same observation may be extended to our other mental powers,) everybody must have remarked how numerous and how incongruous are the similitudes involved in our expressions. At one time we liken it to a receptacle, in which the images of things are treasured up in a certain order; at another time, we fancy it to resemble a tablet, on which these images are stamped, more or less deeply; on other occasions, again, we seem to consider it as something analogous to the canvas of the painter. Instances of all these modes of speaking may be collected from no less a writer than Mr. Locke. Methinks,' says he, in one place, 'the understanding is not much unlike a closet, wholly shut up from light, with only some little opening left, to let in external visible resemblances, or ideas, of things without: Would the pictures coming into such a dark room but stay there, and lie so orderly as to be found upon occasion, it would very much resemble the understanding of a man, in reference to all objects of sight, and the ideas of them.' In a different part of his Essay, he has crowded into a few sentences a variety of such theories, shifting backwards and forwards from one to another, as they

happen at the moment to strike his fancy. The memory in some men (he observes) is very tenacious, even to a miracle; but yet there seems to be a constant decay of all our ideas, even of those which are struck deepest, and in minds the most retentive; so that, if they be not sometimes renewed by repeated exercise of the senses, or reflection on those kinds of objects which at first occasioned them, the print wears out, and at last there remains nothing to be seen. Thus the ideas, as well as children of our youth, often die before us: and our minds. represent to us those tombs to which we are approaching, where, though the brass and marble remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced by time, and the imagery moulders away. The pictures drawn in our minds are laid in fading colours, and, if not sometimes refreshed, vanish and disappear.' He afterwards adds, that we sometimes find a disease strip the mind of all its ideas, and the flames of a fever, in a few days, calcine all those images to dust and confusion, which seemed to be as lasting as if graved on marble.' Such is the poverty of language, that it is, perhaps, impossible to find words with respect to memory, which do not seem to imply one or other of these different hypotheses; and to the sound philosopher, they are all of them (when considered merely as modes of expression) equally unexceptionable; because, in employing them, he in no case rests his reasoning upon the sign, but only upon the thing signified. To the materialist, however, it may not be improper to hint, that the several hypotheses already alluded to are completely exclusive of each other; and to submit to his consideration, whether the indiscriminate use, among all our most precise writers, of these obviously inconsistent metaphors, does not justify us in concluding, that none of them has any connexion with the true theory of the phenomena which he conceives them to explain; and that they deserve the attention. of the metaphysician, merely as familiar illustrations of the mighty influence exerted over our most abstracted thoughts, by language and by early associations."1

'Strongly impressed with the errors to which we are liable, 1 1 Philosophical Essays, pp. 227-229.

in the Philosophy of the Human Mind, by the imperfections of our present phraseology, a philosophical grammarian of the first eminence long ago recommended the total proscription of figurative terms from all abstract discussions. To this proposal D'Alembert objects, that it would require the creation of a new language, unintelligible to all the world; for which reason he advises philosophers to adhere to the common modes of speaking, guarding themselves as much as possible against the false judgments which they may have a tendency to occasion. To me it appears, that the execution of the design would be found, by any person who should attempt it, to be wholly impracticable, at least in the present state of metaphysical science. If the new nomenclature were coined out of merely arbitrary sounds, it would be altogether ludicrous; if analogous, in its formation, to that lately introduced into chemistry, it would, in all probability, systematize a set of hypotheses, as unfounded as those which we are anxious to discard."

"Neither of these writers has hit on the only effectual remedy against this inconvenience; to vary, from time to time, the metaphors we employ, so as to prevent any one of them from acquiring an undue ascendant over the others, either in our own minds, or in those of our readers. It is by the exclusive use of some favourite figure, that careless thinkers are gradually led to mistake a simile or distant analogy for a legitimate theory."3

To this general rule I have endeavoured to adhere through the whole of these Elements; and, accordingly, I have expressed myself nearly to the above purpose when treating of Memory. At the same time, when I published my first

1 Du Marsais. Article Abstraction in the Encyclopédie.

2

Mélanges, tom. v. p. 30. [Eclair. $ 2.]

Philosophical Essays, p. 232, et seq. 3d edition. [Infra, Works, vol. v.]

4 ( Such, indeed, is the poverty of language, that we cannot speak on the

subject without employing expressions which suggest one theory or another; but it is of importance for us always to recollect, that these expressions are entirely figurative, and afford no explanation of the phenomena to which they refer. It is partly with a view to remind my readers of this consideration,