Lectures on Language | Page 9

exist in the regulation of matter and mind, in the
promotion of physical and moral enjoyment, and endeavors to conform
to them in all his thoughts and actions.
From this apparent digression you will at once discover our object. We
must not endeavor to change the principles of language, but to
understand and explain them; to ascertain, as far as possible, the actions
of the mind in obtaining ideas, and the use of language in expressing

them. We may not be able to make our sentiments understood; but if
they are not, the fault will originate in no obscurity in the facts
themselves, but in our inability either to understand them or the words
employed in their expression. Having been in the habit of using words
with either no meaning or a wrong one, it may be difficult to
comprehend the subject of which they treat. A man may have a quantity
of sulphur, charcoal, and nitre, but it is not until he learns their
properties and combinations that he can make gunpowder. Let us then
adopt a careful and independent course of reasoning, resolved to
meddle with nothing we do not understand, and to use no words until
we know their meaning.
A complex idea is a combination of several simple ones, as a tree is
made up of roots, a trunk, branches, twigs, and leaves. And these again
may be divided into the wood, the bark, the sap, &c. Or we may
employ the botanical terms, and enumerate its external and internal
parts and qualities; the whole anatomy and physiology, as well as
variety and history of trees of that species, and show its characteristic
distinctions; for the mind receives a different impression on looking at
a maple, a birch, a poplar, a tamarisk, a sycamore, or hemlock. In this
way complex ideas are formed, distinct in their parts, but blended in a
common whole; and, in conformity with the law regulating language,
words, sounds or signs, are employed to express the complex whole, or
each distinctive part. The same may be said of all things of like
character. But this idea I will illustrate more at large before the close of
this lecture.
First impressions are produced by a view of material things, as we have
already seen; and the notion of action is obtained from a knowledge of
the changes these things undergo. The idea of quality and definition is
produced by contrast and comparison. Children soon learn the
difference between a sweet apple and a sour one, a white rose and a red
one, a hard seat and a soft one, harmonious sounds and those that are
discordant, a pleasant smell and one that is disagreeable. As the mind
advances, the application is varied, and they speak of a sweet rose,
changing from taste and sight to smell, of a sweet song, of a hard apple,
&c. According to the qualities thus learned, you may talk to them

intelligibly of the sweetness of an apple, the color of a rose, the
hardness of iron, the harmony of sounds, the smell or scent of things
which possess that quality. As these agree or disagree with their
comfort, they will call them good or bad, and speak of the qualities of
goodness and badness, as if possessed by the thing itself.
In this apparently indiscriminate use of words, the ideas remain distinct;
and each sign or object calls them up separately and associates them
together, till, at length, in the single object is associated all the ideas
entertained of its size, qualities, relations, and affinities.
In this manner, after long, persevering toil, principles of thought are
fixed, and a foundation laid for the whole course of future thinking and
speaking. The ideas become less simple and distinct. Just as fast as the
mind advances in the knowledge of things, language keeps pace with
the ideas, and even goes beyond them, so that in process of time a
single term will not unfrequently represent a complexity of ideas, one
of which will signify a whole combination of things.
On the other hand, there are many instances where the single
declaration of a fact may convey to the untutored mind, a single
thought or nearly so, when the better cultivated will take into the
account the whole process by which it is effected. To illustrate: a man
killed a deer. Here the boy would see and imagine more than he is yet
fully able to comprehend. He will see the obvious fact that the man
levels his musket, the gun goes off with a loud report, and the deer falls
and dies. How this is all produced he does not understand, but knowing
the fact he asserts the single truth--the man killed the deer. As the child
advances, he will learn