Lectures on Language | Page 8

of one
genus, to cover the land, to give a reasonable explanation of even the
terms they employ to define their meaning, if indeed, meaning they
have. What is meant by an "in-definite article," a dis-junctive
con-junction, an ad-verb which qualifies an adjective, and "sometimes
another ad-verb?" Such "parts of speech" have no existence in fact, and
their adoption in rules of grammar, have been found exceedingly
mischievous and perplexing. "Adverbs and conjunctions," and
"adverbial phrases," and "conjunctive expressions," may serve as

common sewers for a large and most useful class of words, which the
teachers of grammar and lexicographers have been unable to explain;
but learners will gain little information by being told that such is an
adverbial phrase, and such, a conjunctive expression. This is an easy
method, I confess, a sort of wholesale traffic, in parsing (passing)
language, and may serve to cloak the ignorance of the teachers and
makers of grammars. But it will reflect little light on the principles of
language, or prove very efficient helps to "speak or write with
propriety." Those who think, will demand the meaning of these words,
and the reason of their use. When that is ascertained, little difficulty
will be found in giving them a place in the company of respectable
words. But I am digressing. More shall be said upon this point in a
future lecture, and in its proper place.
I was endeavoring to establish the position that all language depends
upon permanent principles; that words are the signs of ideas, and ideas
are the impressions of things communicated to the mind thro the
medium of some one of the five senses. I think I have succeeded so far
as simple material things are concerned, to the satisfaction of all who
have heard me. It may, perhaps, be more difficult for me to explain the
words employed to express complex ideas, and things of immateriality,
such as mind, and its attributes. But the rules previously adopted will, I
apprehend, apply with equal ease and correctness in this case; and we
shall have cause to admire the simple yet sublime foundation upon
which the whole superstructure of language is based.
In pursuing this investigation I shall endeavor to avoid all abstruse and
metaphysical reasoning, present no wild conjectures, or vain
hypotheses; but confine myself to plain, common place matter of fact.
We have reason to rejoice that a wonderful improvement in the science
and cultivation of the mind has taken place in these last days; that we
are no longer puzzled with the strange phantoms, the wild speculations
which occupied the giant minds of a Descartes, a Malebranch, a Locke,
a Reid, a Stewart, and hosts of others, whose shining talents would
have qualified them for the brightest ornaments of literature, real
benefactors of mankind, had not their education lead them into dark
and metaphysical reasonings, a continued tissue of the wildest vagaries,

in which they became entangled, till, at length, they were entirely lost
in the labyrinth of their own conjectures.
The occasion of all their difficulty originated in an attempt to
investigate the faculties of the mind without any means of getting at it.
They did not content themselves with an adoption of the principles
which lay at the foundation of all true philosophy, viz., that the facts to
be accounted for, do exist; that truth is eternal, and we are to become
acquainted with it by the means employed for its development. They
quitted the world of materiality they inhabited, refused to examine the
development of mind as the effect of an existing cause; and at one bold
push, entered the world of thought, and made the unhallowed attempt
to reason, a priori, concerning things which can only be known by their
manifestations. But they soon found themselves in a strange land,
confused with sights and sounds unknown, in the explanation of which
they, of course, choose terms as unintelligible to their readers, as the
ideal realities were to them. This course, adopted by Aristotle, has been
too closely followed by those who have come after him.[2] But a new
era has dawned upon the philosophy of the mind, and a corresponding
change in the method of inculcating the principles of language must
follow.[3]
In all our investigations we must take things as we find them, and
account for them as far as we can. It would be a thankless task to
attempt a change of principles in any thing. That would be an
encroachment of the Creator's rights. It belongs to mortals to use the
things they have as not abusing them; and to Deity to regulate the laws
by which those things are governed. And that man is the wisest, the
truest philosopher, and brightest Christian, who acquaints himself with
those laws as they do