ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE RELATION BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND IDEAS.
183. Many ideas seem to be like sensations and sentiments; simple
facts, incapable of decomposition, for which reason we cannot explain
them with words. Words illustrate ideas; but do they not sometimes also
confuse them? When we speak of an idea, we reflect upon it, and I have
already remarked[11] that the reflective force of our perceptive ideas
is much inferior to their direct force.
[11] See Book I., Chs. III. and XXIII.
184. We have sometimes thought that we do, perhaps, know things which
we imagine we do not know, and that we are ignorant of things we think
we know. It is certain that disputes have been had in all schools of
philosophy upon many ideas, without attaining any satisfactory result;
and yet these ideas ought to be sufficiently clear to our mind, since
we all use them every day without any equivocation. Philosophers have
not, as yet, been able to agree upon the ideas of space and time, but
the most ignorant men, nevertheless, make use of these words, and
whenever the necessity occurs, apply them with exactness. This seems to
prove that the difficulty is not in the idea but in its explanation.
185. It has been remarked that there is great truth and exactness in
ordinary language, so much so, that the careful observer is astonished
at the recondite wisdom hidden in a language; to see how great, how
various, and how delicate are the gradations into which the sense of
words is distributed. This is not the fruit of reflection; it is the
work of reason operating directly, and consequently making use of ideas
without reflecting upon them.
186. In ideological investigations some idea of the idea is sought,
and it is not noted that if this be necessary to science, another idea
of the other idea may be exacted, and that thus an infinite process
may be given. It ought to be borne in mind that in treating of simple
facts, as well external as internal, no other explanation of them can
be demanded than an exposition.
187. _Idea-images_ are a font of error, and probably all ideas
explicable by words are not less so. An _idea-image_ induces the belief
that there are in our mind no ideas but sensible representations, and
the supposition that every idea can be expressed by words, makes us
imagine that to be composite which is simple, and attribute to the
substance what belongs to the form.
188. A composite idea seems to be a union, or rather a connected series
of ideas, which are either excited simultaneously, or follow each other
with great rapidity. Our understanding requires words to bind this
collection, to retain the thread which connects them; and hence it is,
that when the idea is simple, language is not indispensable. It is said
that speech is necessary in order to think, it might sometimes be said
with more propriety, that it is necessary in order to _recollect_.
189. When the object occupying our attention is offered to the sensible
intuition, we have no need of speech. We can, when we reflect upon
a right line, an angle, a triangle, observe that their imaginary
representation is all that we require, and that we do not need to bind
these objects together by words. The same thing happens in thinking
of unity, or on the numbers two, three, and four, which we easily
represent to ourselves sensibly. The necessity for speech begins when
the imagination loses the distinct representation of objects, and needs
to combine various ideas. Did we not assign to a word the idea of a
many-sided polygon, we should be in the greatest confusion, and it
would be impossible for us to reason upon it.
190. Since, on the one hand, our perceptive faculties do not create
their objects, but are limited to the combining of them; and, on the
other hand, our perception is not capable of embracing many at one
time, it results that the exercise of our faculties is necessarily
successive; the unity of consciousness serving as the bond of union
to our perceptions. But consciousness has no other means of knowing
what passes within it, than to fix its operations by determinate
signs, whence flows the necessity of arbitrary signs, which must be
sensible, by reason of the relation uniting our intelligence with the
sensitive faculties: and it is to be observed, that for this reason,
every sign to which we assign an idea, may be the object of one of the
senses. The great number and variety of ideas and their combinations,
require an exceedingly variable and flexible sign, and this variety
and flexibility require certain characters to simplify it, and thus
render its retention in the memory more easy, whence the advantages
of language: in the midst of its astonishing variety it lays these
characters in radical syllables. The conjugation of a single verb
alone offers us a considerable number of very different ideas, the
retention of which would be excessively difficult, were they not joined
by some tie such as the radical syllable: as in the verb to speak, the
syllable speak. We see this by the greater labor the irregular verbs
cost us than do the regular verbs when learning a language: and it may
be remarked in children also, who blunder on the irregularities. We
might compare language to the catalogue of a library, which is the more
perfect, the more it unites simplicity with variety, so as to designate
exactly the classes of the books and the shelves whereon they are to be
found.
191. _Succession of ideas and operations_; here, then, originates the
necessity of a sign by which to connect and recollect them: _relation
of our understanding with the sensitive faculties_, is the reason
why the signs must be sensible; _variety and simplicity of language_
constitutes its merit so far as the sign of ideas.[12]
[12] See Bk. I., Ch. XXVI.