3. Many obvious difficulties are presented in connexion with such an undertaking. If the principles advanced should be considered just, it may not be easy to make them entertaining, and reconcile them to the prejudices resulting from a different course of instruction. These difficulties, however, do not consist in the want of interest in the nature of language itself, but in the want of skill properly to explain it.

4. Among persons of more conceit than intelligence, it is not uncommon to hear the study of language represented as being, under almost any form, a dull and frivolous pursuit. It may be so to

those whose attention is confined to arbitrary rules, founded on the mere forms of words: but when we consider the faculty of speech as the distinguishing gift of the Creator to our race: as inwoven with all the wants, enjoyments, and improvements of man: as the index to the progress of society from barbarism to refinement, and of its downward course through luxury, imbecility, and crime to the depths of national degradation; contemplating the structure of speech as blended with the whole internal organization of society; with instruction, laws, religious sentiments, moral conduct, and habits of thought; when we consider it as the means of the Christian's present consolation and future hope, and still extend our views to the faculty of speech as the medium of social bliss for superior intelligences in an eternal world: what benighted man, rejecting the bounty of his Maker, shall come forward and say that the study of language is dull, or low, or unprofitable?

5. Speech is to mind what action is to anima! bodies. Its improvement is the improvement of

our intellectual nature, and a duty to God who gave it.

6. As a subject of philosophic contemplation, and as parts of physiological or anatomical science, the structure and use of the organs of speech are among the most wonderful of the Creator's works. There is, perhaps, no exercise of mechanical skill among men equal to what is produced in the organs of speech in rapid utterance. The precision with which definite sounds are produced, in all their various complication, almost without the consciousness of effort; the nice distinctions, which are so infallibly preserved, by variations almost inconceivably minute, render the human articulation, to those capable of attending to its principles, an unceasing theme of admiration. Yet, the learned Dugald Stewart justly observes: "Many authors have spoken of the wonderful mechanism of speech; but none has hitherto attended to the far more wonderful mechanism which it puts into action, behind the scene." How wonderful indeed are those complex and subtile springs of thought, which every one feels himself to possess: whence originate the distinctive powers and glory of man; but which no acumen in philosophy has yet been able to explain. An attention to the intimate connexion between ideas and words will exhibit something of that wonderful influence which language exerts over our inmost sentiments and strongest associations.

7. The dispute of the mental philosophers whether ideas are innate, intuitive, or wholly acquired through the medium of the senses, has no necessary connexion with the structure of language. Whether the rational faculties have their seat in

the medullary substance of the brain or not, there is no need of stopping to inquire. The position assumed as the foundation of the present treatise is, that whatever may be the origin of our ideas, there is no possibility of constructing elementary language, to transmit them from one person to an other, but by reference to sensible objects, consentiently known. This is a leading principle, to which our general train of reasoning will refer, and which, suitably attended to, will explain many of the seeming mysteries of speech.

8. Most of the philosophers who have attempted to explain the wonderful structure of the human intellect, have been evidently entangled by the false theories of language; and though some of them have been aware of the difficulty, they have not attempted to apply the remedy. Mr. Locke has many allusions to the absurd and mistaken systems of the professed writers on language; but when he attempts to particularize, shows that he is himself grossly misled by the errors of false teaching.

9. This truly great philosopher, adopting the doctrine which he had been taught, that a large portion of the English language lay beyond the reach of practical investigation, yet too clear-sighted to suppose numerous words used without meaning, introduces the following remarks. "The 'particles' are all marks of some action or intimation of the mind, and therefore, to understand them rightly, the several views, postures, stands, turns, limitations, and exceptions, and several other thoughts of the mind, for which we have either none, or very difficult names, are diligently to be studied."

If Mr. Locke had even suspected, what is the unequivocal fact, that these marks of actions or in

timations of the mind, are names of sensible objects, or of obvious actions, with direct reference to things in the material world, capable of being traced to their origin, and clearly defined as nouns and verbs, his comprehensive intellect would hardly have been satisfied with the metaphysical approximation to which his views were so mistakingly confined. A deeper and broader knowledge of comparative etymology, would have led him, instead of studying the meanings of words in the unseen stands, limitations, and exceptions of the mind, to seek them in the real views, postures, and turns, of the early framers of speech.

*

10. Lord Bacon, speaking of the advancement of learning, says-" And lastly, let us consider the false appearances that are imposed upon us, by words, which are framed and applied according to the conceit and capacities of the vulgar sort: and although we think we govern our words, and prescribe it well-loquendum ut vulgus, sentiendum ut sapientes; yet certain it is, that words, as a Tartar's bow, do shoot back upon the understanding of the wisest, and mightily entangle and pervert the judgment. So as it is almost necessary in all controversies and disputations, to imitate the wisdom of the mathematicians, in setting down in the very beginning, the definitions of our words and terms, that others may know how we accept and understand them, and whether they concur with us or no. For it cometh to pass, that we are sure to end there where we ought to have begun, which is in questions and differences about words."

Profiting therefore by the suggestions of so able a counsellor, we shall lay down a few elementary

* Speaking as the vulgar, thinking as the wise.

the body, the affections of the heart, and the operations of the understanding; in other words, there are these three kinds of excitement, action, or instrumentality, by which ideas are interchanged between one percipient being and an other.

16. The bodily sensations are manifested, perhaps, in some degree, by all organized beings. The writhing or the groans of pain, the cries of hunger, and other evidences of feeling, are manifested in different modes and degrees by most animals. The young bird raising its open mouth for food, is the natural indication of corporeal want. Man has the various bodily sensations and their outward signs, in common with brutes, and has some expressions of sensation which they have not : of these are laughter and weeping. This class of signs is the lowest in order, least extensive in application, and most remote in its nature from conventional language.

17. It is doubtful whether any portion of what we understand as the affections of the heart, can properly be ascribed to inferior animals. The attachment of brutes for their young, is a wise ordination of Providence for the preservation of the

spe

cies but it extends no farther than is necessary for this specific purpose. The fidelity of a dog for his master, is the instinct or attribute of his nature; and this obsequious trustiness is as readily subservient to the highwayman or pirate, as to the person of most upright conduct.

It is only in the human species, that the moral and social affections assume their expressive signs, and become an intelligible and powerful language. The indications of sentiment assume a variety of forms, as they appear in the countenance, attitudes,