with the Philosophy of the Human Mind. Among these the first place seems due to the inquiry concerning the Origin and History of Language.

OF THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF LANGUAGE.

PART I.

As the acquisition of language, in the case of every individual, commences long before that period to which memory extends, it comes to be not only combined, but almost identified with all our intellectual operations; and, on a superficial view of the subject, appears inseparable from the principles of our constitution. Hence it happens, that, when we first begin to philosophize on it, and to consider what a vast and complicated fabric language is, it is difficult for us to persuade ourselves, that the unassisted faculties of the human mind were equal to the invention. It is justly remarked by Dr. Ferguson, that when language has attained to that perfection at which it arrives in the progress of society, "the speculative mind, in comparing the first and last steps of the progress, feels the same sort of amazement with a traveller, who, after rising insensibly on the slope of a hill, comes to look from a precipice of an almost unfathomable depth, to the summit of which he scarcely believes himself to have ascended without supernatural aid." It is interesting, therefore, to transport ourselves in imagination to the early periods of society, and to consider by what steps our rude forefathers must have proceeded in their attempts towards the formation of a language, and how the different parts of speech gradually arose. Upon this problem, accordingly, some of the most eminent of our modern philosophers have employed their ingenuity, and have suggested a variety of important observations. A few slight and unconnected reflections are all that I can propose to offer here.

Before proceeding farther, it is necessary to remark, that the object of the problem now mentioned, is not to ascertain an historical fact, but to trace the natural procedure of the mind,

in the use of artificial signs. In this speculation, therefore, it is not to be understood that we mean to prejudge the question, whether language be, or be not, the result of immediate revelation; but only to trace the steps which men, left entirely to themselves, would be likely to follow, in their first attempts to communicate their ideas to each other: For that the human faculties are competent to the formation of a language I hold to be certain; and, indeed, one great use of this very speculation is to explain in what manner this might have been accomplished, and by what easy transitions the various parts of speech might have arisen successively out of each other.

One of the most philosophical attempts yet made to delineate this progress is to be found in a dissertation of Mr. Smith's published at the end of his Theory of Moral Sentiments. When I say philosophical, I would be understood to speak of its general scope and design, for in its details it is certainly liable to some obvious and formidable objections. This dissertation does not seem ever to have attracted much of the public notice; though it was written by the author in early life, and was one of his favourite performances. It contains, unquestionably, several most important and luminous observations; and appears to me, on the whole, amply to deserve the partiality with which Mr. Smith always regarded it.1 It was first published, I have been told, in some London collection of fugitive pieces by different authors, and if it had never appeared elsewhere, it would long ago have sunk into oblivion. It was with a view of procuring for it a more general circulation that it was appended to the Theory of Moral Sentiments. From the unpretending simplicity with which it is written, it is so little calculated to draw the attention of common readers, that I recollect few instances of its being quoted by later writers; but it has had a visible effect on the speculations of many of them, particularly of those foreigners who have treated

1 The strongest proof of this partiality is, that it was republished by Mr. Smith a little before his death, at the end of a corrected and enlarged

edition of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, without the alteration, as far as I have observed, of a single word from the first impression.

of the origin of the Romanic tongues spoken in modern Europe. Some, indeed, of the remarks contained in it, which, as far as I know, were Mr. Smith's original property, are now become so common, that I have heard them criticised as not altogether worthy, from their triteness, of the author of the Wealth of Nations. Referring to Mr. Smith's Discourse for the particulars of his theory, I shall avail myself of this opportunity of offering a few slight criticisms on one or two passages, which seem to me less satisfactory than the rest of it.

In order to make the first of these criticisms intelligible, it is necessary to premise, that, according to Mr. Smith, the first step that men would take towards the formation of a language, would be the assignation of particular names to denote particular objects-or, in other words, the institution of nouns substantive; which nouns, it is plain, (according to this theory,) would be all proper names. Afterwards, as the experience of men enlarged, these names would be gradually applied to other objects resembling the first; in the same manner as we sometimes call a great general a Cæsar, or a great philosopher a Newton; and thus, those words which were originally proper names, would gradually and insensibly become appellatives. It is by a slow process of this kind, (as Mr. Smith remarks,) and not by any deliberate or scientific exertion of abstraction, that objects come at last to be classified and referred to their proper genera and species.1

1

"When the greater part of objects," says Mr. Smith, "had thus been arranged under their proper classes and assortments, distinguished by such general names, it was impossible that the greater part of that almost infinite number of individuals, comprehended under each particular assortment or species, could have any peculiar or proper names of their own, distinct from the general name of the species."-" When there was oc

This theory of Mr. Smith, as well as some of my own observations on the same subject, have been animadverted on with much acuteness by Dr. Magee, now Archbishop of Dublin. In a note at the end of the second volume of this

work, I have attempted to reply to the objections of the learned and right reverend author. See Note K, where the reader will also find Dr. Magee's strictures quoted in his own

words.

casion, therefore, to mention any particular object, it often became necessary to distinguish it from other objects comprehended under the same general name; either, first, by its peculiar qualities; or, secondly, by the peculiar relation it stood in to some other things. Hence the necessary origin of two other sorts of words, of which the one should express quality, and the other relation."—"In other words, hence the origin of adjectives and prepositions. The green tree might distinguish one tree from another that had been blasted. The green tree of the meadow distinguishes the tree, not only by its quality, but by the relation it bears to another object."

So far Mr. Smith's doctrine appears to be equally simple, ingenious, and just. His account, in particular, of the gradual and insensible transformation of proper names into appellatives, (however obvious it may seem,) is widely different from that commonly given in books of logic and metaphysics—in which the formation of genera and species is represented as an intellectual process of the most mysterious and unintelligible nature.1 Nor has Mr. Smith been less successful in accounting

1 Rousseau, who is very seldom misled by the authority of the schools, has, however, in this instance, adopted with much confidence the common language of logicians. See his Essay, Sur les Causes de l'Inégalité parmi les Hommes, et Sur l'Origine des Sociétés. Partie première.

It is somewhat curious that Leibnitz seems to assume the contrary of Mr. Smith's doctrine as an axiom. In the first sentence of the following paragraph, he lays it down as a self-evident principle, that all proper names were at first appellatives; a proposition which must now appear nearly as absurd as to maintain, that classes of objects existed before individual objects had been brought into being. "Illud pro axiomate habeo, omnia nomina quæ vocamus propria, aliquando appellativa fuisse; alioqui," he adds, "ratione nulla constarent. Itaque

quoties vocabulum fluminis, montis, sylvæ, gentis, pagi, oppidi, villæ, non intelligimus, intelligere debemus, ab antiqua nos lingua discessise."-Miscell. Berolin. tom. i. p. 1. (1710.) [Opera, Dutensii, tom. iv. pars ii. p. 186.]

When Leibnitz, however, comes to explain his idea more fully in the sequel of the paragraph, we find that he here uses the word appellative as synonymous with descriptive, and not in its usual sense, as synonymous with generic; and that his proposition amounts only to the trite and indisputable observation, that in simple and primitive languages, all proper names (such as the names of persons, mountains, places of residence, &c.) are descriptive or significant of certain prominent and characteristical features, distinguishing them from other objects of the same class; a fact of which a large proportion of the surnames still

for the invention of adjectives and prepositions; and in explaining the connexion in which it stands with the previous step of classifying objects, and of distinguishing them by general names. In some of the remarks, however, which he has offered on the metaphysical difficulties attending the invention of these two classes of words, I cannot agree with him; and as the same error (if it is one) runs through some other parts of his theory, I shall make no apology for attempting shortly to point out in what it appears to me to consist. The doctrine to which I object, I shall state in Mr. Smith's own words:" It is worth while to observe, that those prepositions which, in modern languages, hold the place of the ancient cases, are of all others the most general, and abstract, and metaphysical; and, of consequence, would probably be the last invented. Ask any man of common acuteness, what relation is expressed by the preposition above? He will readily answer, that of superiority. By the preposition below? He will as quickly reply, that of inferiority. But ask him what relation is expressed by the preposition of? And if he has not beforehand employed his thoughts a good deal upon these subjects, you may safely allow him a week to consider of his answer."1 In reply to this observation, it may suffice to remark, that the difficulty of explaining the theory of any of our intellectual operations, affords no proof of any difficulty in applying that operation to its proper practical purpose; nor is the difficulty of tracing the metaphysical history of any of our notions, a proof that in its first origin it implied any extraordinary effort of intellectual capacity. How many metaphysical difficulties might be raised about the mathematical notions of a line and of a surface? What efforts of abstraction (it might be said)

in use all over Europe, as well as the names of mountains, villages, and rivers, when traced to their primitive roots, afford numerous and well-known exemplifications.

See what I have farther remarked on this subject, in Note M, at the end of the second part of my Dissertation pre

fixed to the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica. [Supra, Works,] vol. i.]

1 For some additional observations on the problem concerning the Origin of Language, see the Dissertation quoted in the last note, Part Second. [Supra, vol. i. pp. 360-363.]