True irony--for there also is a false one--is the irony of love. It
arises out of the feeling of finiteness and one’s own limitation, and
out of the apparent contradiction between this feeling and the idea of
infinity which is involved in all true love. As in actual life and in
the love which centers in an earthly object, a good-humored raillery,
which amuses itself with some little defect of character, either
apparent or real, is not inconsistent with sincerity--not, at least,
when both parties have no doubt of each other’s affection, and its ardor
admits of no increase--but, on the contrary, lends to it an agreeable
charm, even so is this true of that other and highest love. Here, too,
an apparent, or it may be an actual, but still only insignificant and
trivial contradiction, can not destroy the idea on which such a love is
based, but, on the contrary, serves rather to confirm and strengthen it.
But only there where love has reached the highest purity--has become
profoundly confirmed and perfect--does this appearance of contradiction,
which is thrown out in an affectionate irony, fail to alloy or weaken
all higher and better feeling. And what other foundation could a
philosophy of life well have and recognize as legitimate than the idea
of such a love? And this is even that supposition of life, viz., of the
inner life, of which I formerly said that it is the only one which
philosophy requires, and from which alone it must set out. Only it is
requisite that this love should be personally experienced or inwardly
felt, and the notion of it derived from immediate experience.
Directly opposed to those arbitrary systems which compose the reigning
philosophy of the day, the philosophy of life is a science of internal
spiritual experience, which, as it proceeds from, so it every where
rests on facts; though indeed the facts on which it is grounded, and to
which it has invariably to refer, are in many respects of a high and
peculiar kind. On this account philosophy may even be called a science
of divine experience. If man had never, and, in short, were incapable of
having any experience of divine things, what could he know of the Deity
with certainty? A knowledge devoid of experience would be but the
arbitrary creation or illusion of his own mind--an inward fancy, or the
mere reflex of his own reason--consequently an absolute nullity. And for
such a knowledge the task would ever be difficult to get rid of a mere
idealistic conception of the Divine Being, or at least to repel the
doubt whether He be actually any thing more than what such a conception
represents Him. And, in fact, in most treatises and elaborate
developments of that system of thought which makes man’s self the
exclusive principle and standard of truth, the manner of treating the
divine nature is extremely superficial. Such purely formal and empty
notions on this subject are advanced, that we are often justified in
applying to these speculations on the highest topic of human language
and thought, the remark that applies too often to lower scientific
treatises: “Thus it is that men write who have no real knowledge of the
matter.” “Here we at once see there is a total want of personal
observation; the work is not based on any solid foundation of actual
experience.”
Now the philosophy of life, in its highest range at least, is a divine
science of experience. This experience, however, is throughout internal
and spiritual. It is therefore easily conceivable that it can enter
readily and easily into all other experimental sciences, and into those
especially which more immediately relate to man, as, for instance, most
of the branches of natural history, and still more into philology, with
which at present we are most immediately concerned. And this it does, in
order to borrow such illustrations and comparisons as may tend to
elucidate or further to develop its own subject-matter, or else to
furnish applications to individual cases in other departments of life.
However, in thus proceeding, philosophy must take heed lest it overpass
its own proper limits or forget its true end and aim. It must not go too
deeply into particulars, or lose itself among the specialities of the
other sciences. On the contrary, it ought carefully to confine itself to
those points which more immediately concern man, and especially the
inner man, and, adhering to the meaning and spirit of the whole, seek to
elucidate and throw out this pre-eminently.
The question as to the origin of language, or, more correctly, the
question how man attained to the capacity for this wonderful gift or
faculty of speech, which forms so considerable and essential a part of
his whole nature, if it is to be taken merely as a matter of historical
research and philosophical learning, lies out of the circle which we
have marked out to ourselves. A discussion exclusively confined to this
special branch of philology has little in unison with speculations
involving the inner experience of life and psychological observation.
There are two opinions pretty generally diffused on this subject: the
one maintaining that there is one primary and original language, from
which, as a stem, all others have branched forth; and the other, that
several were cotemporaneously formed. These opinions, as unfavorably
affecting the right understanding of the essential connection between
language or speech and thought, I would wish to keep out of view, and
consequently I shall dismiss them with a few passing remarks.
The one is founded on an erroneous hypothesis, and is itself false. It
is in open contradiction to facts, as we now know them with tolerable
completeness. As for the other, even if it be not in itself truly and
properly false, it is, nevertheless, based on a great misconception, or
at least, as it is commonly propounded, involves one.
The former theory consists in this, that language generally, or, rather,
several cotemporary languages, as fundamentally distinct from each other
as the several races of men, who, as this view asserts, sprung up out of
the earth, and its primeval slime, were formed spontaneously by a
perfectly natural process. To the mere animal cries and various
instinctive exclamations, either of joy and grief, of passion and want,
were associated the deliberate imitation, together with a childlike
mimicry of different sounds, similar to what we may even now observe in
children, with whom such mimic intonations and mocking word-play is a
common and favorite amusement. From such sensuous beginnings, it is
pretended, a language might have grown up, gradually and slowly, indeed,
to the height of rationality and grammatic form and order. That these
two elements--the animal cries of nature and the mechanical imitation of
sounds--have contributed to the development of language, is a position
that needs not and can not be controverted. This element, however, is
not found in all languages in equal measure. It is strongest in those
languages which stand at the very lowest grade of development. Among
others, again, which having attained very rapidly to maturity, and
having at an early period branched off into several others, appear, in
their most ancient state, highly intellectual and significant, it is
scarcely traceable. But a fatal objection to the hypothesis as
explaining the universal and complete principle of the phenomenon of
language in all its ramifications, is the fact that the noblest and most
cultivated languages are found, upon investigation into their earliest
state, to possess, even at this date, the most artificial form, and to
be manifoldly rich, and at the same time highly regular and simple. And
this is pre-eminently the case with the Sanscrit or Indian, in
comparison with the Greek, Latin, and other kindred languages of the
West and North. In those, on the other hand, which appear to be at the
very lowest grade of intellectual culture (and generally these stand
quite isolated from all those in the midst of which they are found), we
frequently observe, on a closer acquaintanceship, a very high and
elaborate degree of art in their grammatical structure. This is
especially the case with the Basque and the Lapponian, and many of the
American languages. In the Chinese, this excessive and inappropriate
expenditure of art has been directed to a very peculiar and complicated
system of writing. There was no place for it in the language itself,
which is extremely poor, being in its basis excessively, not to say
childishly, simple, and quite ungrammatical. Its whole verbal treasury
does not, it is said, contain more than three hundred and thirty words,
which form the same number of single syllables. These, however, acquire
a different signification by means of accents, of which there are no
less than eighty thousand; and even though, as competent judges and the
learned aver, not more than the fourth of this large number are really
necessary and made use of in practice, still the liability to mistake
must be very great, since the entire language is founded on this
artificial system of writing, much more than on its living and spoken
sounds. Hence, not unfrequently, when even learned Chinese talk
together, they misunderstand each other. This, indeed, is occasionally
the case in other countries also. But the difference is, that in the
former the source of misconception lies in the language itself; and it
is only by writing down their words, that the Chinese can be sure of
intelligibly conveying their real meaning.
Modern and experienced philologists have, in consequence of these
difficulties, given up that view of language which would derive it
entirely from the imitation of animal cries. Plain facts, indeed, speak
too decidedly against it. And, in truth, the chief point to be guarded
against amid the great variety and the immeasurable richness of the
phenomena of language in general, is the explaining them all by any
single hypothesis, or the deriving them from one origin.
As to the other opinion respecting the origin of language: the view and
assertion that God himself brought language to man, and taught it to
him, can not properly excite any opposition, in so far as all that is
good, and man’s best and original prerogatives, must in reason be
derived from God as their first author. But when it is supposed that the
language which on this hypothesis the first man spoke in Paradise, and
which, as such, is the source of all other later and derivative
languages, may still be found, and is to be recognized in any one now
extant, as, _e.g._, the Hebrew--this assuredly is a great error. It
involves a total misconception of the immense interval which separates
us from the first origin of the world. Of the language which may have
belonged to the first man, before he lost his original power,
perfections, and dignity, we are not, with our present organs and
senses, in a capacity to form an idea. Indeed, we are no more able to do
this than to judge of the nature of the language employed by the eternal
spirits for the immediate interchange of their thoughts, which on the
wings of light fly instantaneously through the wide expanse of heaven,
or of those words, ineffable by any created being, which are uttered by
the Deity in His inmost being, where, to use the words of the Psalmist,
“deep calleth unto deep,” and where the fullness of infinite love
answers to Eternal Majesty.
But now, to descend from this unattainable height to our own level, and
to consider the first man as he really was: then in the simple statement
of the first authentic records of mankind, that God taught man language,
there is nothing, if we adhere to its obvious meaning, which is in any
way revolting to man’s natural feelings. For why should it make any such
startling impression on us, if, as it ought, this whole matter be
understood somewhat in the light of a mother teaching her child the
first rudiments of language?
Still, together with this simple and childlike signification, it (like
every other part of this divine book, thus written on the inside and the
out) possesses also a far deeper meaning. That name by which each living
creature is called by God, and designated from eternity, must embrace
the sum of its inmost essence--the key of its existence--the reason and
the explanation of its being. As, indeed, generally in the Holy
Scriptures, so here, also, a high and holy import is combined with the
notion of the name. Interpreted, then, by this profound sense and
significance, this brief narrative, as I previously pointed out, conveys
the idea that by this communication to man by God Himself, of the names
of all living things, the former was set up as the lord and king of
nature, and even as God’s vicegerent over the terrestrial creation. And
indeed this was his original destination.
If, then, no existing speech or language can afford us an access to this
veiled original, now become inaccessible to us, still the idea of one
primary language, or, perhaps, of several such, is certainly any thing
but devoid of an historical foundation. At least it is a very natural
hypothesis, and founded in some degree on facts, which must not be
forthwith rejected, but requires to be tested by further inquiry. It is,
however, of no light importance to the maintenance of this hypothesis to
form a right conception of the difference between derivatory and mixed
languages, and, above all, to take a comprehensive survey of the whole
of human language, in its nearly boundless wealth, so far as such a
survey is serviceable to our present object of arriving at a true
knowledge of man. And how can such a profitable application and
applicability be well doubted? For the genealogical tree of human
languages, in its manifold ramifications--the growth of language
shooting forth from epoch to epoch, with all the vast riches of art,
does but hold before us, as it were, a written monument and memorial of
the thinking consciousness assuming, so to speak, a bodily shape, and
visibly presenting itself before us, but still on a grand historical
standard, and according to dimensions which reach over the whole
habitable globe. That, _therefore_, the history of the thinking
consciousness stands in most intimate connection, or at least in very
close relation to the science of living thought, is surely a point which
requires neither lengthened investigation nor an express demonstration.
In the attempt at this juxtaposition, I shall only project those points
which either are of importance for the right understanding of the whole,
or of interest in themselves. For this purpose I shall avail myself of
nothing but the most certain and clearly demonstrated results of modern
research into the nature and history of language. All that may appear in
any way uncertain, or would lead us too far into the special branches of
philology, will be left unnoticed.
A simile from physical science will perhaps lead us by the quickest and
shortest road to the object we are in pursuit of. And, indeed, the
geological branch of natural history may well be considered cognate to
the inquiry before us. For what geology properly investigates is the
antiquities of this terrestrial planet, and the primal condition of the
mountain ranges, observing and seeking to read the long-hidden memorials
that are daily brought to light of pristine convulsions, and to number
the successive epochs of gradual change and decay. But it was not at
once that geological science made any progress beyond the mere
acquaintance with the surface of our globe. An insight into its primary
internal constitution and subsequent process of formation was not gained
until observation had enabled us accurately to distinguish between the
two kinds of rocks--the alluvial and the secondary, with their
fossiliferous strata of chalk and clay--and the primary, unstratified
rocks of granitic and similar structure, and by patient and accurate
observation of the superficial phenomena of the earth in different lands
and climates to establish this classification as a general law. Now this
geological distinction admits of application to language. Those
composite languages which have been formed out of a mixture or
aggregation of several, may be compared to the diluvial rocks which
belong to the secondary formation. As the latter have arisen out of or
have been formed by floods and inundations, so these mixed languages owe
their origin to the great European migration of nations, or perhaps were
formed by the East by similar Asiatic migrations, at a still older
epoch, and in primeval times. Those languages, on the contrary, which,
at least as compared with those which are manifestly mere derivatives
from them, we may call primary. In this class we may mention the Roman
among those of Europe, and the Sanscrit in those of Asia. These, then,
stand on the same line and dignity with the so-called primary rocks. No
doubt, even in these further investigation will discover many traces of
a mixture, no less palpable indeed, but one, however, in which the
constituents neither were originally so heterogeneous, nor since have
continued so totally unchanged. For in the same manner, granitic rocks,
and others of the primary order, are also found to be composite in their
mineral constituents. These likewise point to a still earlier convulsion
of nature, to which they owed their first production. Unquestionably,
however, the primary mountains form the first line and earliest
formation among the several epochs of revolution which the present earth
has undergone. But it would be an error were we from this simple fact at
once to draw any inference as to the interior of our globe; for this
geological and mineralogical distinction of the two classes of rocks can
not be proved to hold good beyond the mere surface and coat of the
earth. To this alone is man’s observation and experience confined.
It is impossible to penetrate very far into the interior or the central
mass of our planet, and investigate its internal constitution, and
consequently this ring of rock can not be regarded in any other light
than as analogical to the thin covering and epidermis of the organic
living creature. And just so is it with the science of language. There
are undoubtedly languages which, in a certain sense, we may term
primary. Only in so doing, we must not think that in any one of them we
have discovered and possess the long-hidden original of all existent
languages. If, for instance, from this correct geological classification
of rock, any bold speculator should go on to assert that the whole
interior of the earth, or at least the center of it, is a mass of
granitic or other primary rock, we feel at once that this would be a
baseless hypothesis. And it would be as grave an error, in the domain of
philology, were we to go on and draw a similar conclusion. The Sanscrit,
for instance, holds unquestionably the foremost rank, as the oldest
among those which belong to the same family, and, as compared with
these, may undoubtedly, in a precise but limited sense, be regarded as a
primary language; but it would be an idle assumption were we therefore
to consider it in the same light that Hebrew was formerly, and to look
upon it as the universal original, the first source and mother of all
other languages on the surface of the earth.
But not even the historical prerogative of a high antiquity--no, nor
even the merit of having preserved a primary form in greatest purity,
however valuable a quality, is the sole standard of excellence in a
language, nor that which alone determines its perfection. The English
language affords a ready illustration of our remark. To it, beyond all
others, the designation of being a mixed language applies; indeed it
corresponds altogether to this character. It furnishes at the same time
a striking proof of the height of excellence which even a mixed language
is capable of attaining; meeting as it does, all the requisitions of a
solemn and nervous poetry, the earnest appeals of eloquence, and the
calm flow of descriptive prose. And yet, on analysis, it presents to the
grammatical eye the somewhat heterogeneous compound of two wholly
different elements, whose originally chaotic mixture has been reduced
into a rare and happy proportion. For into its original High-Dutch, or
Anglo-Saxon basis, many words have been introduced from the Latin or
Norman-French, which among the living roots of the former appear so far
aliens and foreigners, as, being little capable of grammatical
declension or derivation, they do not, like the others, form so many
fruitful verbal stems, from which new forms and compounds shoot forth.
Of Asiatic languages the Persian is in this respect of a similar
constitution to the English. Here also the essential foundation and
living root of the whole is some peculiar and old national language,
closely akin to the Sanscrit and Gothic-German; but its Arabian
admixture is as great in degree as the Latin-French of the English, and
indeed both were brought in by a similar political revolution. Still the
Persian is generally, and with good cause, praised as a noble language,
abounding in lively poetical ornament, and moreover, like the French in
Europe is adopted throughout Asia as the general language, of business
and conversation. Those derivatory languages also which stand next in
order to the mixed, and in part also belong to them, and which have
rather softened down than abolished the stricter grammatical forms,
having rounded them off as it were for greater convenience of use, do
not necessarily stand inferior to the mother-tongue in grace and vigor
of composition. On the contrary, in respect of style, they are often
vastly superior to them. Thus the Italian appears softer and more
flexible for lyrical verse, and perhaps for every creation of the poetic
fancy, sweeter and more graceful than its Roman mother-tongue. The
French, too, at least as the language of society, moves with an
unequalled freedom, while, for precision and distinctness of expression,
its prose has attained to an unparalleled height of excellence. The
Spanish also, besides being praised for the excellence of its prose, as
admirably suited either for the dignity of serious narrative or the
ingenious play of wit, is in poetry distinguished above most of its
sister dialects by a wonderful richness and peculiar grace in the
playful sallies of the fancy. And yet it is a derivative language, and
compounded of the most heterogeneous elements. For not only it is highly
probable that the Gothic-German admixture is even greater in this than
in any other of the romance dialects which sprung up out of the Latin,
but the Arabic also forms a very considerable element in it.
But it was not to descend into the grammatical specialities of
philological erudition, or to heap up a mass of purely æsthetical
remarks, that I have alluded to these pregnant instances. What I chiefly
had in view was to remove, if possible, all erroneous notions from the
conception of the primal language. It was, in short, my object to bring
before your minds its origin and growth, according to that continuous
process which may even still be seen going on in any spoken language.
And although in our own neighborhood it is only in a few partial
instances, and these far from definite, that we can trace this living
process, still they are not on this account to be neglected, since they
furnish much instruction, and are calculated to throw much light upon
the whole matter.
Now, as regards the historical origin, not only of language in general,
but also of its several extant dialects, and especially those which
relatively to such as are derived and compounded out of them may pass as
primary, there is one essential point toward a right understanding of
the matter. We must not attempt to account for their origination and
development merely by a mixture and derivation from many individual
parts, but rather endeavor to set them before our minds as productions
similar in nature to that of a poem or any other piece of art. For the
latter are severally the result of a conception which, from the very
first, was a whole--they never could have been produced by any
successive agglomeration of atomistic parts. In this view of language we
must, in thought, place ourselves at a very different epoch of mind from
the present. Now we can not well hesitate to allow that, in the primal
period of the human race, and of nations individually, the productive
fancy would manifest itself in the creation of words with far more of
inventive genius and fertility than would be likely to be displayed at
a subsequent period of mental culture, when the analytical reason had,
step by step, succeeded in gaining the preponderance.
Commonly, indeed, men speak strangely enough of the origin of languages.
They talk of the matter somewhat in the same fashion as it would be to
say of a picture, that it had its origin in ochre, lake, ceruse,
asphalt, and such like coloring substances, together with the addition
of oil, which holds here somewhat the same place that in language the
reason does with its grammatical arrangement and logical combinations.
Of these motley materials, it might be said, one little particle after
another is laid on the canvas, till, gradually, long streaks appear,
which again swell gradually into fuller and deeper outline, until, at
last, a complete form and figure stands forth, to which, at last, there
accrues an expressive physiognomy. And so, at last, the picture is
finished. But in all this description it seems totally forgotten, that
unless the ideal conception--the picture as a whole--had, from the very
first, been present to the mind of the painter, it would never have
attained to such a realization, thus growing up, step by step, under the
hand of the artist. At least, without this it would not be a true
artistic work of genius, since this is, in every instance, the result of
some foregoing conception of a whole.
Not piecemeal, therefore, and fragmentarily, did language arise. It came
forth, rather, at once, and in its totality, out of the full inner and
living consciousness of man. We shall have no difficulty in thus
considering it, if only we can succeed in ideally transplanting
ourselves to that foretime when the thinking faculty was more creative,
and when, in the designation and expression of its ideas, it moved more
freely and with the elasticity of genius. But if speech answers to
thought, and if language itself is but a true copy, a shifting diorama,
as it were, of man’s inward self, then (to make use of that oldest
record of the human race, which, as it is better and more natural than
all others, so it also furnishes the best clew for unraveling the
riddles of olden tradition), we might well ask whether the language of
Cain, the accursed vagabond wandering over the face of the earth, could
have been the same as that of the pious patriarchs and saints of the
primeval world, some of whom, under other names, but in equal honor,
are found mentioned in the traditions of the ancient Persians, and the
sacred books of the Hindoos and other Asiatic nations? Or could it well
have been the same with that of Noah, the second progenitor and the
restorer of the human race, whom, likewise, the earliest traditionary
records of every people recognize and mention. The family of the
Cainites holds no inconsiderable place in the earliest history of
civilization, and the first working of metals, and the invention of
several useful arts, is expressly ascribed to them. But still their
difference in language from the other families of the antediluvian
world, and generally in their whole civil constitution, must have been
very great and palpably noticeable. And this favors the hypothesis,
which, in itself, is any thing but impossible, and deserves rather to be
called highly probable, of several primary languages, or, at least, of
different epochs in the primeval speech of the earliest foretime, which,
moreover, serve to indicate so many natural sections in the progression
which the mental development of the aboriginal family of man observed,
and the shapes which its mode of thinking successively assumed.
Now, if I may venture to suggest the course in which some such
progression may, in idea at least, be projected and traced in the entire
system of the vast multitudes of languages which exist on the face of
the earth, I would set out with the Sanscrit. For this is the best known
and understood of the whole Hindoo family, among which it holds the
foremost rank as the oldest and most complete. To the same class would
belong first of all the old Persian, the Gothic-German, and the
Scandinavian, all of which are most intimately related to the former;
then the Greek, and the Latin with its many derivatives; and lastly,
according to the opinion of competent judges, nearly the whole of the
Slavonic dialects. All these languages, each in its measure, and in
proportion to the cultivation it had enjoyed, are marked, especially in
their earliest stages, by a very artificial structure and a beautiful
grammatical arrangement, but pre-eminently by a highly noble poetic
shape, combined with an equal degree of scientific precision. This,
however, is but one family among many others which make up the whole
system. The latter, however, stand at a far lower grade of development
and perfection. Among those which, like the Tartaric-Chinese and the
African, belong to the latter class, the highly remarkable dialects of
America occupy an important and characteristic place. The traveler[64]
best acquainted with the American races and dialects has described the
former as singularly remarkable for the degradation to which their
mental faculties have fallen below the original standard, while he
speaks of the latter as resembling the relics of some great ruin or
mighty devastation. On this expression of the famous traveler, which
agrees so accurately with the idea I am here developing, and with the
result of my own investigation into the course of the human mind since
the old and primal times, I am disposed to lay very great stress. For
with him it was the conviction impressed upon his mind by personal
observation alone, unbiassed by any preconceived opinion or hypothesis
favorable to my views. This character of deep degradation belongs,
perhaps, to the better class of languages, since they present but little
analogy to each other in their material elements, and admit scarcely of
any classification. At least it forms a distinctive mark of them, and
awakens a melancholy impression.
The Egyptian, which, since the partial deciphering of its hieroglyphics,
is no longer totally inaccessible, belongs, I think, to this second
class. In it, however, it holds a very important place, and is eminently
distinguished. For its hieroglyphical mode of writing, by combining the
alphabetical with the symbolical mode of indication, gave it,
consequently, great liberty of choice among the different phonetic
figures which might stand for the same alphabetic character, so that the
phonetic word was, as it were, invested with a symbolical garb, and all
alike assumed an hieroglyphical tone. Some of the Greeks regarded the
hieroglyphical as the oldest of all human languages; and, indeed, that
somber melancholy which seems to reign in all the monuments of ancient
Egypt, might well be regarded as a silent witness to the great event of
the ruin of a primeval world.
In order to complete our subject, the Hebrew still remains for a general
notice in that brief review which alone our limits admit of. We must,
however, give such a characteristic view of it as will enable us
correctly to determine the place which it is to assume among the rest.
Apparently, it stands isolated by itself, belonging altogether to
neither of the two classes we have described. It seems to favor the
conjecture, that a new and peculiar class is necessary to embrace all
the phenomena in this first and oldest epoch of language. This, then,
with the two already considered, will form three classes. In its radical
words, the Hebrew exhibits only a slight relationship to the
Indo-European family. This, however, on further examination, will
probably be found to be still more considerable. For it is often
impossible to recognize it at once beneath a totally different
grammatical form and structure, and it is, moreover, withdrawn from
immediate notice by the difference of its predominant mental tendency.
We know, however, as an historical fact, that the Phœnician, which
differed from the Hebrew only as one dialect from another, was not
without some connection with the Greek, on which it exercised no
inconsiderable influence. Now, with respect to the peculiar character of
the Hebrew, every thing in it is directed to the attainment of the
highest vividness and profound significance. This is even the case with
its grammatical principle, which makes all its other terms, whether
names of objects or qualities, subordinate to the verb. The triplicity,
also, of the roots, which, with very few exceptions, consist of three
letters--which again, for the most part, constitute as many
syllables--was, assuredly, not without a significant design, and
possessed, collaterally, a certain mystic allusion. In its profound
significancy and compressed brevity--in its figurative boldness and
prophetical inspiration, far more than in any chronological precedence
of antiquity, consists the peculiar character and high prerogative of
the Hebrew. On the other hand, it is somewhat inferior to many others,
as, for example, the Greek, in poetical forms and shape, in richness and
variety of development, and in precision of scientific diction. In its
essential character, the Hebrew language is prophetical, like the people
itself, even in the present evil days of their dispersion--the people in
whom the living word of the twofold ancient prophecy, now that the Jews
have handed it over to the Gentiles, has first attained its perfect
accomplishment.
The whole system of the languages of man is but the external and visible
copy and true mirror of his inmost consciousness. The different epochs
of their ancient production are but so many terms in the progression
observed by the human mind in its development. Consequently, language in
general, as the clew of memory, and tradition, which binds together all
nations in their chronological series and succession, is, as it were,
the common memory and organ of recollection for the whole human race. It
is only in this relation, which is certainly important, and also
essential to the problem before us, that I have thought it allowable to
enter upon this episode. Many of the particulars may perhaps have been
unattractive enough. Still I trust that the general result, as throwing
light upon the origin, or, rather, the historical rise and oldest
development of language, has proved universally interesting, even though
at most it has but suggested matter for future meditation.
This result may be expressed or briefly comprised in the following
words: on our side of that obscure interval or great chasm which
separates us from the hidden and inaccessible history of the first
formation of language, the first grade in its growth is indicated by a
deep state of decline and a melancholy sense of the fact. And yet even
from this state a highly significant art is not altogether excluded,
since we see it expressing itself in the beautiful symbols of the
figurative language of Egypt. The second step in the further development
of human speech is formed by the lofty flight which the poetic spirit
took in the ancient languages, which greatly excel all others in beauty
of form and perfection of structure, in richness of poetical ornament,
and perspicuity of scientific precision. Some of the oldest fragments in
those languages are also marked with a peculiarly beautiful tone of
sarcerdotal solemnity, as is the case with many a relic from the
earliest period of the Latin.
But the fuller and higher initiation in divine lore, and a bold,
religious enthusiasm, form another and a peculiar grade in the
historical development of language; and this was the third step that it
took in this earliest and primeval time. And, as a proof that the
characteristic just alluded to is not derived solely from the spirit and
tone of the holy writings of the Hebrews, and that I have not, without
further corroboration, transferred it at once to language in general, I
will add one more remark, tending to show that in some degree it has its
foundation in the very nature and grammatical structure of human speech
itself. In the Arabic, which in many other respects is closely akin to
the Hebrew, many of these characteristic properties may likewise be
traced, even though the Arabians at a very early date, turning aside
from the simple faith of the old patriarchs, gave themselves up to the
superstitions of magic and astrology, and, since the times of Mohammed,
have been animated with an inextinguishable and fanatical hatred of a
profounder truth of godliness and the religion of love.
I called language in general--as being the store-house of tradition,
where it lives on from nation to nation, and as being the clew of
material and spiritual connection which joins century to century--the
common memory of the human race. Now, it is this faculty of memory which
I would here seek to give a more precise characteristic of. For the
present seems its appropriate place in our series of psychological
inquiries, according to the relative position which it holds in the
general system of the mental faculties. Before entering upon this topic,
however, the position that language must not be thought of as being in
the first instance produced piecemeal by the concretion of several
atomistic and unconnected parts, but as molded in one cast, and in its
totality, similarly to a poetical or other creation of art, requires
proof and corroboration. For this purpose, then, I would bring to your
remembrance a fact or phenomenon which is closely connected with the
investigation into the nature of memory, though it involves a marvelous
leap of the memory, or at least of its usual method of operation: I am
alluding to what, by an old phrase, is called the gift of languages--or
that natural gift by which certain individuals seem enabled to enter all
at once into the spirit and structure of foreign languages, and that not
merely in the case of very simple ones, but even the highly-cultivated
and artificial languages of modern Europe.
This phenomenon of the soul transporting itself, or, as it were,
transported all at once into a language previously quite strange to it,
so as to understand any spoken or written composition in it, is
certainly not one of ordinary occurrence; and, in truth, whenever it
manifests itself strongly and decidedly, it closely borders on the
marvelous. Still it is a fact sufficiently well known, and neither
unheard of nor rare. On the other hand, the higher and active case of
the same phenomenon, which is marked, not merely by the understanding
but also by the speaking of a language never before learned, and which
was meant by the gift of tongues in the old sense, is certainly a really
miraculous fact. But even this is acknowledged and believed, and there
is no sufficient reason for calling in question the ancient witnesses
to the fact, merely on account of the nature of it.
I called this fact a wonderful leap of the memory. For however
subordinate this faculty may in other respects appear relatively to
those which every where make prominent claim to the spontaneous burst of
genius, still, even in the case of memory, its first spring and origin
is often veiled and inexplicable, and it presents many points of view
leading to profoundest questioning, and suggesting grave investigation.
In our psychological survey of the whole human mind, we set out with its
four leading faculties, as arranged under the two contrarieties of
understanding and will, of reason and fancy. Besides these four leading
faculties, there are several, perhaps, just as many others, derived
indeed from the former, but still not so much subordinate to them (for
in another relation they appear equally important and not less essential
than them) as rather co-ordinate with them and having a peculiar
function assigned to them. Of these I have in my former Lectures
analyzed and described the conscience as the moral instinct for right
and wrong, when I named it the reason applied to the will, or, rather,
as I preferred to consider it, as a peculiar and independent faculty,
intermediate between reason and will, and being an immediate feeling and
judgment as to what is good and evil in human desires and actions. Now,
just as conscience is a mean between reason and will, so is memory
intermediate between reason and understanding. With both of them it is
closely connected. Memory, on the one hand, is the treasure-house of the
understanding; indeed, it is the understanding hitherto acquired and
worked out, now laid and stored up. On the other hand, as the clew and
thread of recollection, memory furnishes that ground and principle of
association in the consciousness, on which reason itself and its
exercise is dependent. So entirely is this the case, that the partial or
total loss of memory, from sickness or old age, though producing no
derangement of the reason, is, nevertheless, followed by a partial
decline and slowness of rational thought, which occasionally amounts to
a general deadening and extinction of the rational faculty. The close
connection between memory and understanding is especially visible in
children, in whom the first faint opening of intellect is generally
simultaneous with the first apperception of self and retention of
external impressions or signs. The understanding is that thinking and
cognition of individuals, which is even the act of intellection.
Consequently, the individual mark and characteristic sign in the
function of memory belongs to the understanding; but the combining link
between these individual conceptions or signs--their permanent
association--is the reason’s share in memory; for the latter is the
knowing and consciousness which, in the coherent whole of associated and
illative thought, is conversant about general notions.
And here arises a question similar to that which we started in our
investigation of language. Must we assume, at the first awakening and
hidden spring of memory, a divine impulse, so to speak, or a higher
foundation for it from before the beginning of this terrestrial
existence? Or, indeed, since on this subject many theories have been
started of old, and are ever springing up, to retain a place among the
world’s floating opinions, what are we to think of these views tested by
that knowledge of our inmost consciousness which the observation of life
furnishes? How far do our feelings and reflections justify or limit
them? Among these opinions is the hypothesis revived by Leibnitz, of
innate ideas, or, rather, according to the most recent exposition of it,
of certain forms of thought essential to the reason, existing,
antecedently to experience, in its fundamental scheme, and, as it were,
engraven in it. Now all such opinions, whatever variations they may
present, arise, without exception, from the Platonic notion of the
_anamnesis_ possessed by the soul from a previous existence, and,
moreover, they agree with the dogma of the metempsychosis, which, Indian
in its origin, is, however, widely diffused among other nations also.
A real and actual pre-existence, however, of the human soul, as it does
not admit of any historical proof, so is it not easily reconcilable with
our own feelings, nor with our general sentiments on the relation we
stand in to God, and the divine economy in the government of the world.
And as for the ancient belief in the migration of souls, it can not,
however remarkable for its wide diffusion, be regarded in any other
light than an arbitrary creation of fancy and a kind of mythology of the
soul. Moreover, with regard to the theory of essential forms of thought
impressed on the reason antecedently to all experience and prior to the
first awakening of consciousness, it is based on a view of the reason
which would make it a universal receptacle of the thought, divided into
greater and less chambers and compartments. It is thus made the residuum
or dead precipitate of the natural functions of the living cogitation,
and of the law of life which rules therein, which, thus arranged in rank
and row, are placed before us, like the dried specimens of an herbarium,
or like the butterflies pinned to the entomologist’s case, from each of
which, however, amid the mechanical arrangement, the true, delicate,
light-winged Psyche has long since flown away. And since in philosophy
our first object must be to seize, if possible, the living thought in
its very life, and to give to it also a living expression, or at least
to paint it after the life, it is not easy to see to what end this so
circumstantial procedure is to lead. The whole hypothesis, in short,
seems useless and superfluous. As to the principle or hypothesis of
innate ideas, which in truth requires to be kept perfectly distinct from
the one previously considered, it is quite conceivable that it may be a
right method for the artist, who is ever in pursuit of the ideal, and in
some cases also for the thinker, to present to his mind the object of
his conception, and which he is seeking ideally to manifest, such as
with a similar end it would appear before and be contemplated by the
divine mind. At any rate, such a mode of thought would greatly
facilitate the execution of his ideal conception. But if what is meant
by this theory is an antecedent intellectual intuition of the pure ideas
in the divine mind, then we are brought again to the difficult and
debatable hypothesis of an actual pre-existence. Moreover, when we go
into details, and attempt to apply this theory to particular instances,
we are at once involved in the greatest perplexity. For what, even in
the department of art, are we to understand by the inborn idea of a
noble, wide-spreading tree, of a beautiful flower, a grand and
well-proportioned architectural edifice, or other monument? or a
vigorous animal, or noble human form? and what meaning, in the domain of
practical life, would it convey, to talk of the innate idea of a
skillful general, or of a wise financier? We can not, indeed, imagine to
what good end this hypothesis can serve or lead, and, consequently, as
soon as it is taken for any thing more than a mere figure of thought, it
involves us in new, if it does not entangle as again in the old,
inextricable difficulties.
The question, however, admits of a more general sense. Without
supposing that there is, inborn in the human soul, a whole system of
notions and forms of thought--a whole world, in short, of all possible
ideas--may there not have been imparted to it from above a higher gift,
which, naturally, is only called into action simultaneously with the
awakening of the rest of the human mind, or of the mind generally? If
so, would it not appear to the soul in the form of a memory; and, in a
certain sense, be really such, though, indeed, not so much a memory of
the part as of eternity? This is a question which, advanced in this
sense, can not, I think, be absolutely negatived; not that any essential
necessity or actual ground exists for it; but that, carefully guarded by
certain limitations, it is an hypothesis that may, without hesitation,
be assumed or conceded. Can it, in truth, well be doubted that every
spiritual being, created by infinite love, has had imparted to him a
share in the source of eternal love, which is to remain his forever, or
so long, at least, as the connection with the supreme source of his
being is not violently broken and rent asunder? If, then, such a portion
is to remain forever the property of every created spiritual being, it
must assume a definite place in his consciousness, and, in the
development of the latter, manifest itself in its due place. As regards,
indeed, the human soul, this supposition can, with less justice, be
denied, the more universally and pre-eminently the prerogative of a high
degree of resemblance to the divine image is ascribed to it.
Now, this participation in God, as the primary source of eternal love,
which abides forever in the human soul, and which becomes extinct in one
extreme case alone--this divine endowment of the human consciousness
from above--can only be thought of and described as the recollection of
eternal love; and this, moreover, is the only innate idea in the human
mind which it is possible or allowable to assume.
The thought of an original recollection in man--which, properly, is not
of a mere foretime, but of eternity, but which, in all propriety, still
admits of being termed a recollection--has brought us to the notion of
time and eternity, and to the question of their reciprocal relation--of
which the true and correct view is probably very different from that
which commonly prevails. But this is a topic which, for its further and
complete elucidation, demands a special investigation.