Kitabı oku: «The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, August, 1864», sayfa 12

In the mean while we must work out the problem of this religion of the future in any and all ways which lie open to us—doubting nothing of the final issues. The wildest theories of Millerites, Spiritists, Naturalists, and Supernaturalists, are all genuine products of the time, and of the spirit of man struggling upward to this solution—blindly struggling, it is true, but gradually approaching the light of the far-off truth, as the twilight monsters of geology gradually approached the far-off birth of man, who came at last, and redeemed the savage progressive, the apparent wild unreason of the terrestrial creation.

It is more than probable that this great fratricidal war with which we are now struggling, will prove, in its results, of the very highest service to the nation, and make us all both better and wiser men than we were before. We have already gained by it many notable experiences, and it has put our wisdom, and our foolishness also, to the test. It has both humbled and exalted our pride. It has cut away from the national character all those inane excrescences of vanity and brag which judicious people everywhere, who were friendly to us, could not choose but lament to see us exercise at such large discretion. It has brought us face to face with realities the most terrible the world has ever beheld. It has measured our strength and our weakness, and has developed within us the mightiest intellectual and physical resources. All the wit and virtue which go to make up a great people have been proven in a hundred times and ways during the war, to exist in us. Courage, forethought, endurance, self-sacrifice, magnaminity, and a noble sense of honor, are a few of the virtues which we have cropped from the bloody harvest of the battle field.

It is true that wicked men are among us—for when did a company, godly or otherwise, engage in any work, and Satan did not also fling his wallet over his shoulder and set out with them for evil purposes of his own?—but after all, these are but a small minority, and their efforts to ruin the republic and bring defeat and dishonor upon the Federal arms, have not yet proved to be of a very formidable nature. These, the enemies of America, though her native-born sons, the people can afford to treat with the contempt which they merit. For the rest, this war will make us a nation, and bind us together with bonds as strong as those of the old European nationalities. It will make us great, and loving patriots also; and root out from among us a vast amount of sham and political fraud, to the great bettering of society.

We shall have reason in many ways to bless its coming and its consequences. It was indeed just as necessary to our future national life and happiness as the bursting out of a volcano is to the general safety of the earth. It will destroy slavery for ever, and thus relieve us from the great contention which has so long and so bitterly occupied the lives of our public men and the thoughts of the world. In reality, we have never yet given republicanism a fair trial upon this continent. With that dreadful curse and crime of slavery tearing at its heart and brain, how was it possible for equality and self-government to be anything else but a delusion and a mockery? This cleared out of our pathway, and we have enough virtue, intelligence, and wealth of physical resources in the land to realize the prophecy and the hope of all noble thinkers and believes on the planet, and place America first and foremost among the nations—the richest, the wisest, the best, and the bravest.

LONGING

The corruption of a noble disposition is invariably from some false charm of fancy or imagination which has over-mastered the mind with its powerful magic and carried away the will captive. It is some perverted apprehension or illusory power of the infinite which causes a man who has once fallen a prey to any strong passion to devote all his energies, thoughts, and feelings to one object, or to surrender himself, heart and soul, to the despotic tyranny of some favorite pursuit. For man's natural longing after the infinite, even when showing itself in his passions and feelings, cannot, where genuine, be satisfied with any earthly object or sensual gratification or external possession. When, however, this pursuit, keeping itself free from all delusions of sense, really directs its endeavor toward the infinite, and only to what is truly such, it can never rest or be stationary. Ever advancing, step by step, it ever rises higher and higher. This pure feeling of endless longing, with the dim memories of eternal love ever surging through the soul, are the heavenward—bearing wings which bear it ever on toward God. Longing is man's intuition of enternity!—Schlegel.

THE LESSON OF THE HOUR

I

 
Strong in faith for the future,
Drawing our hope from the past,
Manfully standing to battle,
However may blow the blast:
Onward still pressing undaunted,
Let the foe be strong as he may,
Though the sky be dark as midnight,
Remembering the dawn of day.
 

II

 
Strong in the cause of freedom,
Bold for the sake of right,
Watchful and ready always,
Alert by day and night:
With a sword for the foe of freedom,
From whatever side he come,
The same for the open foeman
And the traitorous friend at home.
 

III

 
Strong with the arm uplifted,
And nerved with God's own might,
In an age of glory living
In a holy cause to fight:
And whilom catching music
Of the future's minstrelsy,
As those who strike for freedom
Blows that can never die.
 

IV

 
Strong, though the world may threaten,
Though thrones may totter down,
And in many an Old World palace,
Uneasy sits the crown:
Not for the present only
Is the war we wage to-day,
But the sound shall echo ever
When we shall have passed away.
 

V

 
Strong—'tis an age of glory,
And worth a thousand years
Of petty, weak disputings,
Of ambitious hopes and fears:
And we, if we learn the lesson
All-glorious and sublime,
Shall go down to future ages
As heroes for all time.
 

VI

 
Strong—not in human boasting,
But with high and holy will,
The means of a mighty Worker
His purpose to fulfil:
O patient warriors, watchers—
A thousandfold your power
If ye read with prayerful purpose
The Lesson of the Hour.
 

THE SCIENTIFIC UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE:
ITS CHARACTER AND RELATION TO OTHER LANGUAGES

ARTICLE ONE.
THE ORIGIN OF SPEECH

The Continental for May contained an article, written by Stephen Pearl Andrews, entitled: A Universal Language: its Possibility, Scientific Necessity, and Appropriate Characteristics. Although then treated hypothetically, or as something not impossible of achievement in the future, a Language constructed upon the method therein briefly and generally explained, is, in fact, substantially completed at the present time. It is one of the developments of a new and vast scientific discovery—comprising the Fundamental Principles of all Thought and Being, and the Law of Analogy—on which Mr. Andrews has bestowed the name of Universology. The public announcement of this discovery, together with a general statement of its character, has been recently made in the columns of a leading literary paper—The Home Journal.

Although the principle involved in the Language discussed in the article referred to is wholly different from that upon which all former attempts at the construction of a common method of lingual communication have been based; and although such merely mechanical inventions were therein distinguished from a Language discovered as existing in the nature of things; several criticisms, emanating from high literary quarters, indicate that there is still much misunderstanding as to the real nature of a Universal Language framed upon the principles of Analogy between Sense and Sound. This misunderstanding seems most prevalent in respect to the two points relating directly to the practical utility of such a Lingual Organ. It is assumed that a Language so constituted must be wholly different in its material and structure from any now existing, and that the latter would have to be abandoned as soon as the former was adopted. It is supposed, therefore, that in order to introduce the Scientific Universal Language, the people must be induced to learn something entirely new, and to forsake for it their old and cherished Mother-tongues. The accomplishment of such an undertaking is naturally regarded as highly improbable, if not impossible.

It is also supposed that every word of the Language is to be determined in accordance with exact scientific formulas;—a process which, if employed, would, as is conceived, give a stiff, inflexible, monotonous, and cramped character to the Language itself; and would be wanting in that profusion of synonymes which gives an artistic and life-like character to the lingual growths of the past.

Both of these objections arise, as we shall hereafter see, from an erroneous impression of the nature of Language based on Analogy, coupled with a misconception of the real character and constituents of existing Languages. It is the purpose of the present papers to correct these false notions. In order to do so—and, what is essential to this, to present a clear exposition of the true character of the Language under consideration, and of its relations to the Lingual Structures of the past and present—it is necessary to give a preliminary examination to the fundamental question of the Origin of Speech. By means of this examination we shall come to understand that the existence and general use of a Universal Language with the elements of which Nature has herself furnished us, would not involve the abrupt or total abandonment of the Tongues now commonly employed; but, on the contrary, while preserving all that is substantially valuable in each, would enable us to acquire a knowledge of them with a facility which Comparative Philology, as now developed, lays no claim to impart.

How, then, did Language originate? In setting out to answer this question, Professor Max Müller says, in his Lectures on the Science of Language:³

'If we were asked the riddle how images of the eye and all the sensations of our senses could be represented by sounds, nay, could be so embodied in sounds as to express thought and to excite thought, we should probably give it up as the question of a madman, who, mixing up the most heterogeneous subjects, attempted to change color and sound into thought. Yet this is the riddle we have now to solve.

'It is quite clear that we have no means of solving the problem of the origin of language historically, or of explaining it as a matter of fact which happened once in a certain locality and at a certain time. History does not begin till long after mankind had acquired the power of language, and even the most ancient traditions are silent as to the manner in which man came in possession of his earliest thoughts and words. Nothing, no doubt, would be more interesting than to know from historical documents the exact process by which the first man began to lisp his first words, and thus to be rid forever of all the theories on the origin of speech. But this knowledge is denied us; and, if it had been otherwise, we should probably be quite unable to understand those primitive events in the history of the human mind. We are told that the first man was the son of God, that God created him in His own image, formed him of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. These are simple facts, and to be accepted as such; if we begin to reason on them, the edge of the human understanding glances off. Our mind is so constituted that it cannot apprehend the absolute beginning or the absolute end of anything. If we tried to conceive the first man created as a child, and gradually unfolding his physical and mental powers, we could not understand his living for one day without supernatural aid. If, on the contrary, we tried to conceive the first man created full-grown in body and mind; the conception of an effect without a cause, of a full-grown mind without a previous growth, would equally transcend our reasoning powers. It is the same with the first beginnings of language. Theologians who claim for language a divine origin, … when they enter into any details as to the manner in which they suppose Deity to have compiled a dictionary and grammar in order to teach them to the first man, as a schoolmaster teaches the deaf and dumb, … have explained no more than how the first man might have learnt a language, if there was a language ready made for him. How that language was made would remain as great a mystery as ever. Philosophers, on the contrary, who imagine that the first man, though left to himself, would gradually have emerged from a state of mutism and have invented words for every new conception that arose in his mind, forget that man could not, by his own power, have acquired the faculty of speech, which is the distinctive character of mankind, unattained and unattainable by the mute creation. It shows a want of appreciation as to the real bearings of our problem, if philosophers appeal to the fact that children are born without language, and gradually emerge from mutism to the full command of articulate speech.... Children, in learning to speak, do not invent language. Language is there ready made for them. It has been there for thousands of years. They acquire the use of a language, and, as they grow up, they may acquire the use of a second and a third. It is useless to inquire whether infants, left to themselves, would invent a language.... All we know for certain is, that an English child, if left to itself, would never begin to speak English, and that history supplies no instance of any language having thus been invented....

'Speech is a specific faculty of man. It distinguishes man from all other creatures; and if we wish to acquire more definite ideas as to the real nature of human speech, all we can do is to compare man with those animals that seem to come nearest to him, and thus to try to discover what he shares in common with these animals, and what is peculiar to him, and to him alone. After we have discovered this we may proceed to inquire into the conditions under which speech becomes possible, and we shall then have done all that we can do, considering that the instruments of our knowledge, wonderful as they are, are yet too weak to carry us into all the regions to which we may soar on the wings of our imagination.'

As the result of a comparison of the human with the animal kingdom, Professor Müller remarks that, 'no one can doubt that certain animals possess all the physical acquirements for articulate speech. There is no letter of the alphabet which a parrot will not learn to pronounce. The fact, therefore, that the parrot is without a language of his own, must be explained by a difference between the mental, not between the physical faculties of the animal and man; and it is by a comparison of the mental faculties alone, such as we find them in man and brutes, that we may hope to discover what constitutes the indispensable qualification for language, a qualification to be found in man alone, and in no other creature on earth.'

Of mental faculties, the author whose ideas we are stating, claims a large share for the higher animals. 'These animals have sensation, perception, memory, will, and intellect, only we must restrict intellect to the comparing or interlacing of single perceptions.' But man transcends in his mental powers the barriers of the brute intellect at a point which coincides with the starting-point of language. And in this coincidence Professor Müller endeavors to find a sufficiently fundamental explanation of the problem of the origin of language.

In reference to this point of coincidence, he quotes Locke as saying that, 'the having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain to,' and then adds:

'If Locke is right in considering the having of general ideas as the distinguishing feature between man and brutes, and, if we ourselves are right in pointing to language as the one palpable distinction between the two, it would seem to follow that language is the outward sign and realization of that inward faculty which is called the faculty of abstraction, but which is better known to us by the homely name of reason.

'Let us now look back to the result of former lectures. It was this: After we had explained everything in the growth of language that can be explained, there remained in the end, as the only inexplicable residuum, what we called roots. These roots formed the constituent elements of all languages.... What, then, are these roots?'

Two theories have been started to solve this problem: the Onomatopoetic, according to which roots are imitations of sounds; and the Interjectional, which regards them as involuntary ejaculations. Having discussed these theories, and taken the position that, although there are roots in every language which are respectively imitations of sounds and involuntary exclamations, it is, nevertheless, impossible to regard any considerable number of roots, and much less, all roots, as originating from these sources, the distinguished Philologist announces as the true theory, that every root 'expresses a general, not an individual, idea;' just the opposite of what he deems would be the case if the Onomatopoetic and Interjectional theories explained the origin of speech.

Some paragraphs are then devoted to the examination of the merits of a controversy which has existed among philosophers as to

'whether language originated in general appellations, or in proper names. It is the question of the primum cognitum, and its consideration will help us perhaps in discovering the true nature of the root, or the primum appellatum. Some philosophers, among whom I may mention Locke, Condillac, Adam Smith, Dr. Brown, and, with some qualification, Dugald Stewart, maintain that all terms, as at first employed, are expressive of individual objects. I quote from Adam Smith. 'The assignation,' he says, 'of particular names to denote particular objects, that is, the institution of nouns substantive, would probably be one of the first steps toward the formation of language.... The particular cave whose covering sheltered them from the weather, the particular tree whose fruit relieved their hunger, the particular fountain whose water allayed their thirst, would first be denominated by the words cave, tree, fountain, or by whatever other appellations they might think proper, in that primitive jargon, to mark them. Afterward, when the more enlarged experience of these savages had led them to observe, and their necessary occasions obliged them to make mention of, other caves, and other trees, and other fountains, they would naturally bestow upon each of those new objects the same name by which they had been accustomed to express the similar object they were first acquainted with.''

This view of the primitive formation of thought and language, is diametrically opposed to the theory held by Leibnitz, who maintained that 'general terms are necessary for the essential constitution of languages.' 'Children,' he says, 'and those who know but little of the language which they attempt to speak, or little of the subject on which they would employ it, make use of general terms, as thing, plant, animal, instead of using proper names, of which they are destitute. And it is certain that all proper or individual names have been originally appellative or general.'

Notwithstanding the contradictory and seemingly antagonistic nature of these positions, Professor Müller shows that they are not irreconcilable.

'Adam Smith is no doubt right, when he says that the first individual cave which is called cave, gave the name to all other caves; … and the history of almost every substantive might be cited in support of his view. But Leibnitz is equally right when, in looking beyond the first emergence of such names as cave, town, or palace, he asks how such names could have arisen. Let us take the Latin names of cave. A cave in Latin is called antrum, cavea, spelunca. Now antrum means really the same as internum. Antar, in Sanskrit means between or within. Antrum, therefore, meant originally what is within or inside the earth or anything else. It is clear, therefore, that such a name could not have been given to any individual cave, unless the general idea of being within, or inwardness, had been present in the mind. This general idea once formed, and once expressed by the pronominal root an or antar, the process of naming is clear and intelligible. The place where the savage could live safe from rain and from the sudden attacks of wild beasts, a natural hollow in the rock, he would call his within, his antrum; and afterward similar places, whether dug in the earth or cut in a tree, would be designated by the same name … Let us take another word for cave, which is cavea or caverna. Here again Adam Smith would be perfectly right in maintaining that this name, when first given, was applied to one particular cave, and was afterward extended to other caves. But Leibnitz would be equally right in maintaining that in order to call even the first hollow cavea, it was necessary that the general idea of hollow should have been formed in the mind, and should have received its vocal expression cav …

'The first thing really known is the general. It is through it that we know and name afterward individual objects of which any general idea can be predicated, and it is only in the third stage that these individual objects, thus known and named, become again the representatives of whole classes, and their names or proper names are raised into appellatives.'

The italics in the last paragraph are my own.

But the name of a thing, runs the argument, meant originally that by which we know a thing. And how do we know things? Knowing is more than perceiving by our senses, which convey to us information about single things only. 'To know is more than to feel, than to perceive, more than to remember, more than to compare. We know a thing if we are able to bring it, and [or?] any part of it, under more general ideas.' The facts of nature are perceived by our senses; the thoughts of nature, to borrow an expression of Oersted's, can be conceived by our reason only. The first step toward this real knowledge is the 'naming of a thing, or the making a thing knowable;' and it is this step which separates man forever from all other animals. For all naming is classification, bringing the individual under the general; and whatever we know, whether empirically or scientifically, we know it only by means of our general ideas. Other animals have sensation, perception, memory, and, in a certain sense, intellect; but all these, in the animal, are conversant with single objects only. Man has, in addition to these, reason, and it is his reason only that is conversant with general ideas.

'At the very point where man parts company with the brute world, at the first flash of reason as the manifestation of the light within us, there we see the true genius of language. Analyze any word you like, and you will find that it expressed a general idea peculiar to the individual to which the name belongs. What is the meaning of moon?—the measurer. What is the meaning of sun?—the begetter …

'If the serpent is called in Sanskrit sarpa, it is because it was conceived under the general idea of creeping, an idea expressed by the word srip. But the serpent was also called ahi in Sanskrit, in Greek echis or echidna, in Latin anguis. This name is derived from quite a different root and idea. The root is ah in Sanskrit, or anh, which means to press together, to choke, to throttle. Here the distinguishing mark from which the serpent was named was his throttling, and ahi meant serpent, as expressing the general idea of throttler. It is a curious root this anh, and it still lives in several modern words. In Latin it appears as ango, anxi, anctum, to strangle, in angina, quinsy, in angor, suffocation. But angor meant not only quinsy or compression of the neck; it assumed a moral import, and signifies anguish or anxiety. The two adjectives angustus, narrow, and anxius, uneasy, both come from the same source. In Greek the root retained its natural and material meaning; in eggys, near, and echis, serpent, throttler. But in Sanskrit it was chosen with great truth as the proper name for sin. Evil no doubt presented itself under various aspects to the human mind, and its names are many; but none so expressive as those derived from our root anh, to throttle. Anhas in Sanskrit means sin, but it does so only because it meant originally throttling—the consciousness of sin being like the grasp of the assassin on the throat of his victim … This anhas is the same word as the Greek agos, sin … The English anguish is from the French angoisse, the Italian angoscia, a corruption of the Latin angustiæ, a strait … Mâ in Sanskrit means to measure, from which we had the name of the moon. Man, a derivative root, means to think. From this we have the Sanskrit manu, originally thinker, then man. In the later Sanskrit we find derivatives, such as mânava, mânusha, manushya, all expressing man. In Gothic we find both man and mannisks, the modern German mann and mensch.'

And now we are brought by the author of The Science of Language to the great question to which the foregoing is merely preparatory, to the fundamental consideration of Philological research: 'How can sound express thought? How did roots become the signs of general ideas? How was the abstract idea of measuring expressed by mâ, the idea of thinking by man? How did gâ come to mean going, sthâ standing, sad sitting, dâ giving, mar dying, char walking, kar doing?' Here is his answer:

'The four or five hundred roots which remain as the constituent elements in different families of languages are not interjections, nor are they imitations. They are phonetic types, produced by a power inherent in nature. They exist, as Plato would say, by nature; though with Plato we should add that, when we say by nature, we mean by the hand of God. There is a law which runs through nearly the whole of nature, that everything which is struck rings. Each substance has its peculiar ring. We can tell the more or less perfect structure of metals by their vibrations, by the answer which they give. Gold rings differently from tin, wood rings differently from stone; and different sounds are produced according to the nature of each percussion. It was the same with man, the most highly organized of nature's works. Man, in his primitive and perfect state, was not only endowed, like the brute, with the power of expressing his sensations by interjections, and his perceptions by onomatopoieia. He possessed likewise the faculty of giving more articulate expression to the rational conceptions of his mind. That faculty was not of his own making. It was an instinct, an instinct of the mind as irresistible as any other instinct. So far as language is the production of that instinct, it belongs to the realm of nature. Man loses his instincts as he ceases to want them. His senses become fainter when, as in the case of scent, they become useless. Thus the creative faculty which gave to each conception, as it thrilled for the first time through the brain, a phonetic expression, became extinct when its object was fulfilled. The number of these phonetic types must have been almost infinite in the beginning, and it was only through the same process of natural elimination which we observed in the early history of words, that clusters of roots, more or less synonymous, were gradually reduced to one definite type.'

Professor Max Müller occupies a commanding position in the foremost rank of the students of Philology. His work on The Science of Language, from which the preceding discussion of the Origin of Speech is taken, is, so far as I am aware, the latest volume treating of the problem in question which has issued from what is commonly regarded as high authority in the department of Language. It is to that volume, therefore, that we are to look for the last word of elucidation which the Comparative Philologist can furnish respecting it. And it is for this reason—in order that we might have before us the results of the latest research of the schools—that the exposition of the Origin of Language given in the work referred to has been so fully stated.

Where, then, does this explanation of the problem leave us? Does it go to the bottom of the matter? Is it sufficiently distinct and satisfactory? In brief, does it give us any clear understanding of the Origin of Speech? Does it not rather leave us at the crucial point of the whole inquiry, with the essence and core of the subject untouched and shrouded in mystery? Some indefinite hundreds of roots, obtained, it is assumed, by means of some indescribable and unknown mental instinct! This is the sober and contented answer of Philology to the investigator who would know of the Sources of Language, and its constituent elements. But of the component parts of these roots—the true and fundamental constituent elements of Speech, without a knowledge of which there can be no basic and conclusive comprehension of the meaning of roots—and of the nature of the method by which these elements become expressive of thoughts or ideas, there is no word. Language, as it now rests in the hands of the Comparative Philologists, is in the same state that Chemistry was when Earth, Air, Fire, and Water were supposed to be the ultimate constituent elements of Matter, ere a single real ultimate element was known as such. But Chemistry, as a science, had no existence prior to the discovery of the simple constituents of Physical creation. In like manner, a Science of Language must be founded on a knowledge of the nature and meaning of the simple elements of Speech. Until this knowledge is in our possession it is only on the outskirts of the subject that we are able to tread. Roots are, it is true, the actual bases of Language, so far as its concrete, working, or synthetical structure is concerned; in the same sense that compound substances are the main constituents found in the Universe as it really and naturally exists. But, although the proportion of simple chemical elements, in the real constitution of things, is small, as compared with that of compound substances; yet it is only by our ability to separate compound substances into these elements that we arrive at an understanding of their true character and place in the realm of Matter. So it is only by our ability to analyze roots—the compound constituents of Language—into the prime elements which have, except rarely, no distinctive and individual embodiment in it, that we can hope to gain a clear comprehension of the nature of Language itself, or of its most primitive concrete or composite foundations.