In a preceding paper, published in the May number of THE
CONTINENTAL, the possibility, the necessity, and the
characteristics of a Scientific Universal Language were considered. In
the present paper it is proposed to examine more at large the relations
of Language to the total Universe; not merely in respect to Elements or
the Alphabetic Domain of Language, and that which corresponds with it in
the Universe; but in respect equally to all that rises above these
foundations of the two edifices in question which are to be compared.
The term Edifice or Structure will be found to be alike applicable to
each. It will be found, likewise, that both arise in parallel
development through a succession of stages or stories (French, _étages_,
ESTAGES, STAGES), and that this and other similar repetitions,
in the development of _the one_, of all the facts and features of the
development of THE OTHER, is what is meant by the Analogy of
one with the other, and by the affirmation implied in the title of this
article, that Language is a Type of the Universe.
We shall begin, therefore, by a general distribution of these two
Domains or Spheres or Structures--for the facts of the analogy will
justify the occasional use and interchange of all these terms--and shall
pursue the relationship between them into so much of detail as space
will allow.
What the Universe is in itself we have no other means of knowing than as
it _impresses_ itself upon our minds, modified as it may be by the
reactive or reflectional element supplied by the mind itself. In
preponderance, then, or primarily, the Universe is for each of us, what
the totality of _Impression_ made by the Universe is within each of us;
and the Universe in that larger and generalized sense in which we speak
of it as one, and not as many individual conceptions, is the mean
aggregate or general average of the _Impression_ made upon all minds, in
so far as it has a general or common character.
The whole of what man individually or collectively puts forth, as the
product of his mind or of all minds, is the totality of _Expression_, in
a sense which exactly counterparts the totality of _Impression_.
Impression is related to Nature, external to man, and acting on him.
Expression has relation to Art, externalized from within man, and taken
in that large sense which means all human performance whatsoever.
Science is _systematized knowing_, and is a middle term, or stands and
functionates mediatorially between Impression or Nature and Expression
or Art.
Nature or the external world impresses itself upon mind, primarily,
through the Senses, and predominantly stands related with the sense of
Feeling, of which all the other special senses are merely modified forms
or differentiations. Feeling as a sense (the sense of Touch), is allied
again with Affection, the internal counterpart of the mere external
sensation, as testified to etymologically by the use of the same word to
express both; namely, Feeling as the synonyme of Touch, and Feeling as
the synonyme of Affection. _Conation_, from the Latin _conari_, TO
EXERT ONESELF, TO PUT FORTH EFFORT, is the term employed by
metaphysicians to signify both _Desire_ and _Will_, the last being the
determination of the mind which results in action. Conation is therefore
related to action, which is again _Expression_, and is also Art, in the
large definition of the term above given.
The grand primary distribution of the Mind made by Kant, followed by Sir
William Hamilton, and now concurred in by the students of the mind
generally, is into: 1. FEELING; 2. KNOWING; and 3.
CONATION (or Will and Desire). In accordance with this is Comte's
famous epitome of the business of life: AGIR PAR AFFECTION, ET
PENSER POUR AGIR; the three terms here being again, 1. Affection
(or Feeling); 2. Knowledge (or Reflection); and 3. Action (or
Performance).
If now, instead of distributing the Mind, we enlarge the sphere of our
thinking, and distribute upon the same principle the total Universe (_as
if it_ were a mind or a mirror of the mind), for Feeling or Affection we
shall put Impression or Nature; for Knowing or Reflection we shall put
Science or Systematized Knowledge; and for Conation or Action we shall
put Art.
The following table will exhibit the two series of distribution, that of
the Universe at large, and that of the Human Mind, in their parallelism,
reading the two columns from below upward: