Chapter 3

For the memory of Mr. STEWART, in common with his surviving pupils, I feel the reverence that is due to a learned, eloquent and amiable instructor, although I may now differ with him in many essential points relating to his philosophy of the human mind. The fact, that every word possesses a distinct meaning, appears to constitute one of the foundations of language: and it is impossible to conceive that any word, in itself completely insignificant, can impart signification to others; that which it does not contain cannot be communicated. The reservation contained in the word _often_, implies that some words really are significant; but no directions are given how to discover, and select from the copious vocabulary of our language, such as are impregnated with meaning, in order to expunge those that are insignificant. When we consult Dr. JOHNSON'S Dictionary, we find that the greater part of the words enumerated in his ample collection, instead of being senseless, enjoy an exuberance of meaning. Thus the verb to think has ten significations; the substantive Thought (the preterite of the verb), 12; Something, n. s., 5; Nothing, n. s., 11; Smooth, adj., 6; Rough, adj., 12; To stand, v. n., 69; To run, v. n., 62; Empty, adj., 9; Full, adj., 15; Beginning, n. s., 5; End, n. s., 20; Before, prepos., 12; After, prep., 6. However strange, or perhaps ludicrous, these numbers may seem, yet, in the progress of language from barbarism to refinement, from the assumed authority of writers, this accumulation of meanings is inevitable. However precise the primitive signification of words may have been, imagination, passion, or feeling would readily train them to deflect from their original import, under the effusions of the "poet, the lunatic, or the lover." A correct etymology would unfold the rude and simple origin of many words, that our Anglo-saxon, and Norman ancestors have bequeathed to us; although we are now but little sensible of the legacy; as the great mass feels no inclination to revert to the source of derivation. Many have been distorted by corruption, and these are the most difficult to trace: to which may be added, that the terms we now employ to express our feelings and passions, and all that depicts mind and its operations, are of a figurative or metaphorical origin. Instead of any word being insignificant, there is no one but may become the keystone in a sentence; and therefore a word blotted out in a perspicuous, that is, a properly constructed sentence, would render it unintelligible. To the composition of a sentence, whatever may be the thought, certain words are absolutely necessary, each containing an individual meaning; which, like a sum in addition, composed of different units, each possessing a separate and intrinsic value, may, when added together, produce the total. To those who have not attentively considered the subject, there is considerable difficulty in understanding how a determinate number of words can include the intelligence contained in a proposition or sentence: and especially how these components of separate significations can become connected for such general and comprehensive meaning. It should be recollected that such is the amazing inclosure of language, that it comprehends all the living and inanimate materials of this world, all that perception can detect, memory recall, or thought elaborate. This exposition includes the present posture of human affairs, and the movements we observe:--much that has heretofore occurred, which the characters of language have preserved unfaded from dark and remote ages: and are competent to transmit to a distant posterity, with accumulated interest: all that experience has amassed, accompanied with the consoling promises of the future, which Revelation has unfolded. The extended empire of speech, and its perpetuating characters, embrace this prodigious range; but their comprehension is exclusively limited to the human race. When words can represent all that is evident and all that is conjectural--the works of Omnipotence, and the fabrications of man--we need to seek no further for the necessary materials of thought. The difficulty that has perplexed many persons respecting the compactness and unity of intelligence that a sentence contains, principally arises from their ignorance of the precise meaning of individual words. Etymologists would employ them in their original sense, and consider themselves justified by referring to their primitive import: others would use them according to their ordinary acceptation, which may be perverted; for in the currency of language, much is defective and counterfeit: but in general the authority of writers who are accredited, however they may disagree, is adopted. The intrinsic meaning of many words, especially the particles, will appear obscure; because they are disguised abbreviations of other words, and, in some instances, are sunk so deeply, that they cannot be fathomed. A protracted life might now be consumed in the investigation of these convenient and necessary particles, including the voluminous efforts of those illustrious grammarians who have terminated their discordant labours, without arriving at their primitive signification. The chemical elements of matter have undergone various reforms, and actual revolutions, and still await ulterior confusion.

The clearness of the thought will be manifested by the perspicuity of the sentence that expresses it. Whatever may be related, is most readily comprehended, when detailed in the strict order of its occurrence. If a procession be described, the exact sequence of its train must be noted, otherwise it will become a confused mixture of persons, or a mob. The same regularity is required in the construction of a sentence; and it appears fortunate that the English language reconciles this direct location of words, on which, its conformity to natural events and human transactions principally depends. From this straight-forward expression of meaning we may expect a future excellence of composition, and a more direct elaboration of thought. This distant prospect which imagination paints, and hope promotes, can only be realized under a system where light streams uncontrolled, and the atmosphere we breathe is free. The spirit of liberty must preside where improvement is expected. When we have acquired the power and habit of original thinking, the most important part of education, the mind is emancipated, and its independence commences: we cease to be espaliers, and become standards. Hitherto we have been principally trained according to the ancient models. The Greek and Latin historians, orators, and poets, have consumed, to a great extent, the docile season of youth: when perception is active, and memory most permanently retains its various deposits, to the dereliction of the great presentations of Nature, the operations of numbers, the foundations of science, and more especially the exercise of thought. After we have quitted school, and commenced our career of profitable employment, these studies are seldom continued, and from desuetude are soon forgotten; or only revived, perhaps unaptly, in an occasional quotation. Even a living language, when not exercised, fades from the recollection. The indirect location of words which prevails in Latin, can be no model for English composition, where regular and consecutive meaning constitute the perspicuity of the sentence; and according to the reasoning that has been adopted, of the thought itself. Words, and the meaning which resides in each individual, are the only media by which our thoughts can be conveyed; and if these, which are connected by sense and subject, are so separated, or dislocated, that it becomes a puzzle to reduce them to their natural order, such distraction ought not to be considered an example for the process of thinking, and its development by composition or construction of sentences in the English language. The connexion that exists in a perspicuous sentence, is the conjunction of meaning, a further proof of the individual signification of words, and which bearing a definite sense, are selected for the purpose of that composition, which we term the process of thinking. To this connexion we are directed by the knowledge we possess of any particular subject, when we are intently occupied in its investigation, with a view to confute or confirm it, or by a more successful effort to arrive at discovery: and these acts of thought involve the continuation of meaning by the addition of words adapted to fulfil such intention.

Connexion, in a great degree, is the contrivance of our own minds, and has been frequently confounded with successive occurrences, many of which, on examination, are detected to be in no manner related; most persons link together circumstances that ought to be kept apart, and which often prove the source of unsurmountable prejudices.

It will scarcely be contended, that the order of time establishes such concatenation, although it forms the basis of historical narrative. Each portion of time must be individual and distinct, and essentially consists in its subdivisions: indeed, if we were to fuse together hours, days and years, our existence would only amount to a tedious dream. The letters of the alphabet are insulated symbols, and have no natural connexion with each other, but may be arranged to constitute words, which possess a definite meaning. Words are in the same situation, there is no connexion in a vocabulary; they resemble the individuals of our species. Each is a separate being, charged with his own propensities and peculiar character; but he may become connected with others in friendship, in interest, or as the member of a society for particular objects: he may confederate with immense bodies, for the protection of his rights, or become part of an army for the destruction of his neighbours. Thus one philosophical system, in pamphlets or in formidable volumes, endeavours to overturn another: but the words are individual, and have no tendency to associate until they are enlisted and disciplined into the composition of sentences.

When the proposition or sentence is formed, it ought to bear evidence of the most direct connexion, for the purposes of being readily comprehended and enduringly retained. From the nature of our minds, we recollect events, however unconnected, in the order of their occurrence, and we acquire by heart any passage, of level construction, with greater facility than where the natural sequence is disarranged; we repeat lines from Pope with superior fidelity than quotations from MILTON.

To compress this Essay into the smallest compass, citations have been studiously avoided; yet there is a temptation to illustrate this subject by the introduction of an Epigram from MARTIAL, _Lib. 5, Epig. 1._

13 14 18 15 17 16 18 "Hoc tibi Palladiæ seu collibus uteris Albæ,

2 19 20 22 21 23 24 Cæsar et hinc Triviam prospicis inde Thetin:

25 28 26 27 28 26 Seu tua veridicæ discunt responsa sorores,

30 31 29 32 30 31 Plana suburbani qua cubat unda freti:

33 30 35 34 37 38 39 Seu placet Æneæ nutrix, seu filia solis,

40 42 41 41 42 Sive salutiferis candidus anxur aquis;

12 1 6 3 8 5 4 Mittimus o rerum felix tutela salusque,

7 7 12 8 10 9 Sospite quo gratum credimus esse Jovem."

The figures pointing out the "_ordo verborum_" are according to the subjoined interpretation of Mons. COLLESSON, who prepared this Delphine edition. The same figures have been placed where the adjective agrees with the substantive or pronoun; and for this clew to the consecutive arrangement of these disbanded and dispersed members of the sentence, some young gentlemen at school, and many who have finished their education, will be under considerable obligations.

It is of considerable moment that this question should be fully discussed in order to be finally determined. The groundwork is physiological, the superstructure involves some moral considerations: and the conclusions will have an extensive influence on the system of education that ought to be adopted. If the perceptions of the eye, and its associated phantasms, or memorial visions, under the name of IDEAS, are to be viewed as the effective materials of our Thoughts; such inference is directly confuted by the instances of those born blind, and continue through life without sight, and who must necessarily be deficient of such materials. If Thought be the result of any immediate spiritual dictation, which the difficulty of accounting for it without such mysterious agency, has led many to suppose: and of which we are not conscious, the responsibility of our species is destroyed. If Thought be effected by the selection and arrangement of words, each of which possesses a definite meaning, and is capable when conjoined with other words, of adding to their significance: of which process, and the individual steps that compose it, we _are_ conscious under due attention, the mystery vanishes, and the act of thinking becomes unfolded in the progressive formation of a perspicuous sentence.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The eye is the only organ of sense that affords a connected phantasm, vision or Idea. In the other senses, there is a memorial connection, by which the perception is recognised as having previously occurred, and consequently a consciousness of former perception. Without these adjuncts the repetition of these perceptions would be useless as instruments of knowledge. Avoiding a lengthened detail concerning the other senses, it will be sufficient to instance the olfactory organ. If we scent the essences of rose or jasmine, on the second presentation, they are recognised as having occurred before: should we have smelled the same perfumes from the living plants that exhale them, and by the _eye_ noticed them, we should experience a phantasm or Idea of the figure of the plants, but there would be no phantasm of the odour. The excitation of the phantasm associated with the perception, and the recollection of the perception without the phantasm, by the attribution of a name, is, for the present, purposely concealed.

[2] Modification. A word of useless application, unless the _modus in quo agit_, be defined.

[3] Of the supposed operations of these Ideas, and the purposes to which they are subjected, a few, among abundant instances, are selected from Mr. Locke's Essay. "Some Ideas _forwardly_ offer themselves to all men's understanding; some sorts of truths result from any Ideas, as soon as the mind puts _them_ into propositions: other Truths require a _train_ of Ideas _placed in order_."--_Vol._ I. _p._ 63.

"When the understanding is once stored with these simple Ideas, it has the power to _repeat_, _compare_, and _unite_ them, even to an almost infinite variety, and so can make at pleasure _new_ complex Ideas."--_Vol._ I. _p._ 81.

"The next operation we may observe in the mind about its Ideas, is COMPOSITION, whereby it puts together several of those simple ones it has received from sensation and reflection, and _combines_ them into complex ones."--_Vol._ I. _p._ 118.

"If either by any sudden very strong impression, or long fixing his fancy upon one sort of thoughts, _incoherent_ Ideas have been _cemented_ together so powerfully, as to remain united."--_Vol._ I. _p._ 121.

"But there are degree of Madness as of folly, the disorderly _jumbling_ Ideas together, in some more, and some less." _Vol._ I. _p._ 122.

"The acts of the mind wherein it exerts its power over its simple Ideas, are chiefly three. 1st. Combining several simple Ideas into one _compound one_, and _thus_ all complex Ideas are made. The second, is bringing _two Ideas_, whether simple or complex together, and _setting_ them by one another, so as to take a view of them _at once_, without uniting them into one; by which way it gets all its Ideas of relations. The third, is _separating_ them from all other Ideas that _accompany_ them in their real existence; this is called Abstraction."--_Vol._ I. _p._ 124.

[4] The acquirement of language does not wholly consist in the imitation of the word, but likewise in the comprehension that the articulate sound is the representative of the object perceived. There are some persons of defective intellect that I have seen, whose hearing was perfect, and who could whistle some tunes, but who were unable to learn their native language so as to understand what was said to them, and consequently incompetent to afford an answer. In this particular they approximate to the state of animals.

[5] "Nec missas audire queunt, nec reddere voces."

[6] On consulting the Concordance of CRUDEN, it does not appear that the word IDEA, is to be found in our Translations of the Old and New Testament. CRUDEN, although deemed a Lunatic, was a man of persevering research and scrupulous accuracy.

[7] It is very probable that MARTIAL, in his eulogy of the Roman Notarius, may have exceeded the actual performance.

"Currant verba licet, manus est velocior illis: Nondum linga suum, dextra peregit opus." _Lib. 14, Epig. 208._

[8] In imitation of the Auburn (American) prison, the Middlesex magistrates, in their judicial wisdom, have adopted an entirely opposite system; by imposing an awful silence in their house of correction. This penance must press sorely on the criminals of the softer sex, to whom tea and conversation (errors excepted) constitute the principal comforts of life. CATULLUS seems to allude to this infernal art of exasperating the miseries of incarceration.

"Nulla fugæ ratio, nulla spes: OMNIA MUTA, Omnia sunt deserta: ostentant omnia Lethum."

PRINTED BY G. HAYDEN, LITTLE COLLEGE STREET, WESTMINSTER.

* * * * *

_LIST OF WORKS BY THE AUTHOR._

OBSERVATIONS on MADNESS & MELANCHOLY. Octavo, 1809.

ILLUSTRATIONS of MADNESS. Octavo, 1810.

MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE, as it relates to Insanity, according to the Law of England. Octavo, 1817.

CONSIDERATIONS on the MORAL MANAGEMENT of INSANE PERSONS. Octavo, 1817.

A LETTER to the GOVERNORS of BETHLEM HOSPITAL. Octavo, 1818.

SOUND MIND. Octavo, 1819.

LETTER to the LORD CHANCELLOR, on UNSOUNDNESS of MIND and Imbecility of Intellect. Octavo, 1823.

Six LECTURES on the INTELLECTUAL COMPOSITION of MAN.--_Vide Lancet for 1827._

LETTER to the METROPOLITAN COMMISSIONERS in LUNACY. Octavo, 1830.

* * * * *

(_Shortly will be published_)

BY DR. HASLAM,

A WORK on the TREATMENT of INSANITY conducive to its CURE.

This Treatise will contain the practical experience of forty years. Three preliminary Dissertations will be prefixed. 1st. How far Insanity ought to be considered a _mental_ affection. 2d. On the influence which individuals are capable of exerting on the minds of others, both in the sane and insane state: the latter of course becomes the basis of that regulation which is termed _moral management_. 3d. On the connexion between the sexual organs and the mind, including the disorders that have been termed nymphomania, furor uterinus, puerperal insanity, barrenness, impotence, and the attacks that supervene at the period of cessation. On the disorders that resemble and are not unfrequently confounded with Insanity, viz. Delirium, Hypochondriasis, Morbid Activity of Mind, certain degrees of Paralysis, and various nervous affections. An investigation of the existing laws that apply to Lunatics, Idiots, and persons denominated of _Unsound_ Mind: with an accurate examination of the degree of incapacity or imbecility that ought to subject them to legal protection. Reflections on the parliamentary inquiries relating to insane persons, and the regulations enacted respecting the houses in which lunatics are confined. Candid remarks on the establishment and duties of the Metropolitan Commissioners. Estimate of the probability of the lives of insane persons, and of those who have been visited with mental derangement; calculated for the guidance of assurance offices.