Self-Education: Twelve Chapters for Young Thinkers. By Edwin Paxton Hood. London: Partridge and Oakey. This will prove an acceptable book to the large and increasing class of readers for whom it is designed. Although it bears the evidence of having been put together in haste, and is somewhat defective in style, there is an earnestness and freshness in its tone which makes it very attractive. We subjoin a characteristic extract, which we are sure will be read with interest: "We may say all education must be self-education; feeding the body, or feeding the mind, are alike pieces of workmanship that no one can do for us; all the education that has ever been in the world, has been the result of self-determination, self-training, and self-reliance. Many persons are accustomed to think if they were only born in circumstances where books were plentiful, and philosophical instruments abounded; where they only had to put on the head a sort of Fortunatus cap, and, by wishing for anything, find it in their possession, they would then, they imagine, be highly educated persons; as if knowledge could ever be obtained without labour; as if, by a sort of magic, books could be read, and their contents remembered and generalized; as if all the colleges and universities in the world could ever be of any use to the development of mind, without patient and enduring perseverance, and intelligence. Some time since, the writer was walking through the library of a man who has made himself celebrated in many large circles throughout England, by his power in wielding alike the tongue and the pen, and the accomplishments of whose scholarship are more than equal to his more talked-of celebrities. Now there was with us one of the pretending ones, who had a notion that only tools were necessary in order that work might be done; and when he looked round the library, he said, 'Ah, it's no wonder that you write and speak so well, with all these books;' but they both had the same opportunity of acquiring a library, or rather, the wondering spectator had a better opportunity than the other, who sprang from poverty, and from the tailor's board, not only to acquire a library, but to pour a light and lustre over the whole of England, and a very considerable portion of America. "TOOLS, AND NO TOOLS, how much may be said upon this topic in the way of education? We again repeat it, that many are foolish enough to suppose that tools alone are necessary to make a workman; that the possession of a good library, and philosophical instruments, alone will make the erudite and the philosophic mind. Ridicu. lous! Does the possession of the organ make the organist; or the hammer the blacksmith; or the plane and hand-saw the carpenter? ** One fine day, the writer was walking through one of the lovely valleys of the north of England; he had promised to call upon three several persons, all strangers to him: the first was a young man, of some twenty-five years of age, of wealth which might be truly said to be immense; his mansion was large, his gardens costly: and after looking over the latter, the writer was taken into some parts of the former. There was a laboratory, but all unused to the purposes of labour; a variety of philosophical tools were placed all around-a magnificent telescope-a microscope of great power-a little model steam engine-a daguerreotypic machine-a fine electric battery, with all these my friend was wholly unacquainted: he knew not how to use them; he never performed the slightest experiments with them: they seemed to have found their way there wholly by chance. We stepped from the laboratory into the study or library (places are frequently strangely misnobooks; 2,000 volumes, perhaps; many of them mered); it was a truly magnificent collection of very expensive. Desirous of sounding his host, the writer turned volume after volume; all were uncut, uncut, uncut: at last, one better fated than the rest turned up, Ranke's History of the Popes,' first volume, partially cut. How do you like this?' Oh, that? Eh! Ah! Yes! Why, my sister's reading it. I've not read it yet, myself. Thus, in the laboratory there was not an instrument the usage of which the owner fairly comprehended; or in the study a book which the owner had read. Here were the tools, abundant enough; but the tools came before necessity called for them, and, therefore, they were useless. "From this mansion on the breast of the hill, every day catching the bright cheery sunshine, another visit was paid to a small cottage in the depths of the valley, a mile or two away from the mansion. The owner here could purchase very few of the tools of knowledge, but he was an enthusiastic lover of knowledge, and therefore he made his own tools. His earnings were under one pound a week, and the cottage was very small, with only its two or three rooms; but it exited more veneration than the costly and wellfurnished mansion: everything was scrupulously neat, and all around the little parlour were arranged beautiful pieces of bird-stuffing, boxes and drawers too, made by the same hands that stuffed the birds. The hands of the owner of the cottage were filled with all varieties of insect and leaf, rock and shell; the laboratory and the study of our friend in this cottage, had been Nature's wide and ample domain. * Taking down the catalogue of the Botanical Society of London, with a pride which was truly beautiful, he showed his name, given and appended to some rare variety of herb or plant he had discovered. This man had little book-knowledge, but he had a kind of knowledge out of which the most valuable books are made; a knowledge which can never be acquired by books alone, because the result of observation, reflection, and experiment; and all this without tools. What an illustration of the power of mind to conquer difficulties, and make the difficulties, indeed, tributary to its resources and its energies. Yet, another visit was paid that afternoon, to another labourer for a few shillings a week, and, although he was not an illustrious example, like the last, he also attested to the principle we are elucidating. He, poor glorious labourer, was a sober book man. Pleasant little cottage it is, there, down there, quite visible to the eye, so clean, so neat; and its small book-case, so well filled with books, so well chosen. After a long and weary walk there, a regaling cup of tea was the reward; and what a talk we had while the good wife wondered to hear her husband so learned, as the witty things of Butler, and Swift, and Shakspeare, and the wise things of Milton. and Foster, and Brown, and the folly of old Sancho, and the mirthfulness of hearty Sir Walter, were bandaged about between us.” Rhetorir. BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE ART OF REASONING." No. II. THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. Max is not only a thinking being, but also a thought-utterer. The union of ideation and speech completely differentiates him from all the other animal species, and constitutes the distinguishing characteristic of human nature. "Without speech, knowledge would have little value; and without knowledge, speech would have but little weight." Thus Reason and Language are mutually reactive. "Credunt enim homines rationem suam verbis imperare; sed fit etiam ut verba rim suam super intellectum retorqueant et reflectant.” "Speech is the great instrument by which man becomes beneficial to man; and it is to the intercourse and transmission of thought by means of speech, that we are chiefly indebted for the improvement of thought itself. Small are the advances which a single unassisted individual can make toward perfecting any of his powers. What we call human reason is not the effort or ability of one so much as it is the result of the reasoning of many, arising from lights mutually communicated, in consequence of speech and writing."† Without Language,-Society, Civilization, Government, Science, Philosophy, Art, Literature, Friendship, Love, Home, and Country, with all their advantages, associations, pleasures, and relation links, would be blotted from the category of human experiences. Animal gregariousness, isolation, and barbarism, would be the unpleasant destiny of humanity. To Language and Reasca combined man is indebted for his progressiveness and refinement. By this man imparts knowledge to his fellow-man-communicates pleasure-awakens hope-excites to action-elicits aspirations-transports with joy, and electrifies the soul in all its manifold powers and capabilities. By it man receives a multipled existence, and is enabled to live in the society and enjoy the converse of the illustrious of all ages and countries. How mighty, also, are the powers of speech when wielded by intelligence and moral heroism! We need not listen to the Orphic fables for illustrations of the power of speech, when "Words are with the love of truth and hues of grace Demosthenes, by the utterance of "words which were weapons," exciting the ardour and patriotism of the Grecian people, and rousing them to arms against the invading PhilipCicero, in the senate and on the forum, swaying all intellects and governing all hearts— Peter the Hermit, kindling with frenzied enthusiasm the populations of Europe, and calling them forth to the Crusadic wars-Luther, "the solitary monk who shook the world," causing the flood-tides of passion to rush across the souls of men until they snapt asunder the fetters of the all-potent church like stubble-withes, and became free from the soul **For men believe that their reason governs words; but it also happens that words retort and reflect their force upon the intellect."-Bacon's Nov. Org., Aph. 69. + "Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and the Belles Lettres," p. 1. E tyranny which bound them-Fox, Sheridan, Burke, Chatham, Chalmers, Hall, Wilberforce, and Peel-are historic examples known to all. When the gigantic intellect, the flashing eye, the enthusiasm-knit frame, the living voice, and the rugged, vigorous, passion-filled periods are all united, how grand the effect-how great the influence! And even when the voice is dumb in death, Language secures to man a semi-immortality. "Language is the instrument by which Socrates brought wisdom down from heaven to earth; and Newton made the heavens themselves, and all the wonders they contain, descend, as it were, to be grasped and measured by the feeble arm of man. But its noblest benefit is the permanent transmission of thought, which gives to each individual the power and wisdom of his species, or rather-for the united powers and wisdom of his species as they exist in myriads at the same moment with himself upon the globe would be comparatively a trifling endowment-it gives him the rich inheritance of the accumulated acquisitions of all the multitudes who, like himself, in every preceding age, have inquired and meditated and patiently discovered; or, by the happy inspiration of genius, have found truths which they hardly sought, and penetrated, with the rapidity of a single glance, those depths of nature which the weak steps and dim torchlight of generations after generations had vainly laboured to explore. By that happy invention which we owe indirectly to the ear, the boundaries of time seem to be at once removed. Nothing is past, for everything lives as it were before us. The thoughts of beings who had trod the most distant soil, in the most distant periods, arise again in our mind with the same warmth and freshness as when they first awoke to life in the bosoms of their authors."-Brown's Lectures, xx. Men's transient thoughts are by it enshrined in the page of Literature, and his soul still operates on the destiny of his race. To Language the historic narrative owes its precision and attractive grace, Philosophy its delicate distinctions, Argumentation its point and subtilty, and Poesy its beauty and refinement. It cannot be unimportant, then, to investigate "the Philosophy of Language." This includes two primary questions-What is the ature of Language? and What its origin? To each of these we shall endeavour to present brief and intelligible replies. Let it be understood, however, that we do not profess, in this article, more than to compress into small space the essence of the labours of the most eminent men, by whose diligence such inquiries have been prosecuted. 66 THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE.-Language-a term derived, through the French Langue," from the Latin "Lingua,"-in its original acceptation signified the power of employing the tongue in the production of speech. It is now, however, more generally applied to the whole means by which men intentionally express their ideas and emotions. These may be thus classified : Language Natural Artificial Cries, Gestures, and Modifications of Countenance and Voice. Painting, Sculpture, Hieroglyphics, Writing, Mute Signs, Language being the sign of the thoughts and emotions which pass and repass through the human mind, it becomes us to understand well the use of the representative media which are devoted to the expression of our ideas. This cannot be done unless we are acquainted with their nature. To understand this, then, we must endeavour to discover the peculiar office and duty which it has to perform. But as speech is the most useful and necessary system of idea-signs, we shall, for the present, confine ourselves to the consideration of Word-Language. Words have been variously defined; by Aristotle, as "sounds rendered significant by compact-by Priscian, as "the least part of a properly-constructed sentence, understanding a part to be such in relation to the meaning of the whole sentence" in which it is employed-by the Port-Royalists, as "sounds distinct and articulate, which men have taken as signs to express what passes in their minds"-by Hobbes, as that "which may raise in our mind a thought like to some thought we had before, and which being pronounced to others, may be to them a sign of what thought the speaker had or had not before in his mini-and by Harris, as "the smallest parts of speech." In all these we observe this great fact presented to the mind-that words are idea-symbols, the indications of impressions made upon a thinking essence; thus "As the vapours lie Bright in the outspread radiancy, So are men's thoughts invested with the light But though the sense of any single word is the idea which it symbolizes, the sense of two or more words collocated syntactically is not that of the two or more ideas indicated by the terms employed, but of the ideas involved in these terms and a relation. “Language is not a simple collection of isolated words; it is a system of manifold relations of words to each other." It is not, therefore, the mere exponent of thought, but is at the same time, as Lord Bacon remarks, “the sensible portraiture or image of the mental processes.” The ultimate analysis reduces Language to idea-signs; but each idea is acted upon by the mind in the process of naming; therefore Language implicitly contains the true representation of the operations of the mentality and the development of thought. It is semispiritual, semi-material—at once a transient agitation of the air, and the incarnation of the barman spirit in its noblest moods. The nature of Language, then, informs us, that1st. It is a system of idea-symbols.* 2nd. It is the product and representative of the active intelligential faculties.† 3rd. It is in a great measure arbitrary, and consequently depends on the will. 4th. Words are not reasoning, but the instruments of thought-development. 5th. Without power to comprehend Language-i.e., intelligence-signs would be valueless. 6th. The mind is qualified to make the minutest distinctions, and is capable of increasing the significancy of terms by connecting together a number of ideas and feelings in the same idea-image. * "Seeing names (i.e., words) ordered in speech are signs of our conceptions, it is manifest they ar not signs of the things themselves; for that the sign of the word stone should be the sign of a steno cinot be understood in any sense but this, that he that hears it collects that he that pronounces thinks of a stone."-Hobbes's Computation, or Logie, chap. 2. + "Parrots, and several other birds, will be taught to make articulate sounds distinct enough, which yet by no means are capable of Language. Besides articulate sounds, therefore, it was further neces sary that man should be able to use those sounds as signs of internal conceptions, and to make them stand as marks for the ideas within his own mind."-Locke's Essay, book iii. chap. 1. 7th. The rapidity and ease with which the mind seizes upon the significance of all these abbreviations, and combines them, is evidence of the wondrous speed of thought, and the influence of the suggestive faculties of the mind. 8th. The power of distinguishing most accurately between the nicest and most delicate shades of sensation is possessed by the sense-powers.* "Truth THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE.-Few questions have been agitated more frequently among philosophers than "The Origin of Language," and few have been debated with more acrimony and warmth. Happily, the age of uncharitable debate is fast fading "into the sere and yellow leaf," and the honest advocacy of opinion is being respected. is militant, and can only establish itself by means of conflict. The most opposite opinions can make a plausible show of evidence while each has the statement of its own case; and it is only possible to ascertain which of them is in the right, after hearing and comparing what each can say against the other, and what the other can urge in its defence."† We are happy that our readers, in a recent and ably-conducted discussion in this serial, have had the question of the Origin of Language so placed before them as to enable them to form a judgment for themselves. As, however, it has been heretofore the custom, among writers on Rhetoric, to treat upon this topic, we shall, even although we may run the risk of appearing presumptuous in doing so, proceed to give a succinct analysis of the chief arguments which have been, or may be, employed, in the pro and con of this questio vexata-"Was Language of Human Origin?" *We do not mean to say that all these several observations have been formally proven in the foregoing remarks; we merely mean that they may be legitimately deduced from them. We could have made this article less of a rudis indigestaque moles, had we not hesitated to employ the thoughts and illustrations which we had formerly placed before our readers-Art of Reasoning, Nos. III. and XII., to which we beg to refer, as also to the debate on "The Origin of Language," in Vol. II., in which many judicious remarks will be found. + Mill's "Logic," Preface. For further information and more extensive inquiry upon the Origin of Language, the following list comprises, so far as we remember, the most useful works, viz.-HUMAN ORIGIN: "Lucretius De Rerum Naturæ,” book v.; Cicero, "De Inventione"; Aristotle and Plato, passim; Lord Burnet of Monboddo's "Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of Language"; Horne Tooke's "Diversions of Purley"; Harris's "Hermes"; Kaime's "Sketches of the History of Man," book i.; Adam Smith's "Dissertation on the Formation of Language"; Dr. Blair's "Lectures on Rhetoric and the Belles Lettres," vi.-x.; Dr. Campbell's "Philosophy of Rhetoric"; Professor Barron's "Lectures on the Belles Lettres," i-vi.; James Dunbar's "Essays on Man," i. and ii.; Shuckford's "Connexion of Sacred and Profane History," vol. i.; Priestley's "Lectures on Language and Grammar," Works, vol. xxiii.; Locke's "Essay," book iii.; Smart's "Rhetoric"; President Des Brosse's "Traite de la Formation Mechanique des Langues"; Rousseau's "Discours sur l'Origine, l'Inegalité parmi les Hommes"; Condillac's "Essai sur l'Origine des Connaissances Humaines"; Ghibiline's "Monde Primitif"; Cousin's "Histoire de la Philosophie au 18me Siècle," lecture xx.-DIVINE ORIGIN: Winder's "History of Knowledge," vol. i.; Beattie's "Theory of Language"; Warburton's "Divine Legation of Moses"; Dr. Samuel Johnson's "Dictionary"; Webster's "Dictionary"; Archbishop Magee "On the Atonement," vol. ii.; Bishop Williams's "Boylean Lectures," vol. i.; Dr. Whitby's "Sermons on the Attributes," vol. ii.; Dr. Ellis "On the Knowledge of Divine Things"; Macgill's "Lectures on Rhetoric and Criticism"; Ripley's "Sacred Rhetoric"; Donaldson's "New Cratylus," book i. chap. 3; Chevenix Trench "On the Study of Words," Sect. i.; Bonald's "Recherches Philosophiques." |