PART I.-ABSOLUTE PROPERTIES.

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL VIEW OF LANGUAGE AND ITS PROPERTIES.

§ 245. LANGUAGE may be defined to be THE VERBAL

BODY OF THOUGHT.

Language is not, as sometimes represented in loose expression, the mere dress of thought. It has a vital connection with thought; and is far more truly and appropriately conceived of as the living, organic body of thought, interpenetrated throughout with the vitality of the thought, as the natural body with the life of the spirit, having living connections between its parts giving it unity and making it a whole, than as a mere dress having no relation to thought and no organic dependence in its parts.*

"The production of speech proceeds by an internal necessity out of the organic life of man; for man speaks because he thinks; and with the production of thought is given at the same time the production of speech. It is a general law of living Nature that each activity in it comes forth into appearance in a material, each spiritual in a bodily; and in the bodily appearance have their limitation and form. In accordance with this law, the thought necessarily comes forth also in the appearance, and becomes embodied in Speech." - K. F. Becker's Organism of Speech, pp. 1, 2.

"The origin of speech," says Solger to the same effect, "is one with the origin of thought, which is not possible in reality without speech. Thought is subjective speech, as speech is objective thought the outward appearance of thought itself. Neither is possible without the other; and both reciprocally condition each other." — Esthetics, p. 266.

In like manner, Aristotle distinguishes thought and speech, as ò ëέw λóyos and ὁ ἔσω λόγος. Anal. Post. I. x. 7.

The embodying of thought into language must necessarily be affected by three different things:

First, the material of the body which it takes. Vocal language differs, in many respects, from a language of signs. A language, even, formed more directly under the influence of the ear, as for instance the ancient Greek, possesses peculiar features which distinguish it clearly from a language formed more or less under the influence of the pen. Some of the characteristics of the English language may be traced to the fact that the language was developed and formed by writers as well as by speakers; by those who were influenced more by the form of the word as presented to the eye than by its effect on the ear as a sound. And generally the nature of the material out of which the body is formed must evidently affect the process of embodying. The marble gives a different form to the embodiment of the same sentiment or character from that given by color as in painting, or by sound and language as in poetry and music.

Secondly, the character of the thought to be embodied. The thought must never lose its distinctive character and life. On the other hand, as the human spirit in its fleshly body, and the life of a plant in its vegetable structure, it enters its material, disposes it, shapes it, animates it, and altogether determines its outward form and character. Thought, in other words, is the organizing element. It, consequently, when the process of embodying is perfect, manifests itself in every part. This is true, more emphatically, of each particular thought expressed by the individual speaker in the form of oral language. That thought, as a life-giving and disposing element, enters the body of sounds which is furnished to the individual speaker in the language that he uses, and impresses its own character upon it. But language generally, or the fixed language of a people is organized, so to speak. Its properties are determined by the character of the thought that has, in being expressed, given it existence. Hence the languages of different nations are different, because the

thought that has characterized the nation at the formation of the language has been different.

Thirdly, the natural relationship between thought and articulate sound. Certain sounds are the natural expression of certain feelings and sentiments. Cheerfulness, sadness, exultation, despondency, love, anger, each has its own tone or oral expression.

Further than this, in the original construction of language, outward sensible events or objects are taken to represent mental states. For the most part, indeed, language is thus symbolical in its very nature; it represents thought through some external object or event either naturally or by accident associated with it. And although, in the progress of scientific culture, it becomes more and more abstract, that is, words having no obvious connection with the thoughts are used to represent them more and more arbitrarily, just as numerical or algebraical signs represent numbers or mathematical relations, still language never loses entirely its original symbolical character. It will ever be regarded, accordingly, as a great excellence of style that the thought is represented by means of pictures or images of sensible scenes or events. The sound, then, points to the external object or event, or some sensible property or characteristic of it; and this, again, to the mental state or thought which it is taken to represent. So far, now, as this object or event is fitted in its own nature to suggest the thought, the indication of the thought is more easy; the language is more perfectly adapted to its end.

This twofold relationship between thought and the means of representing it, namely, between the thought and the sound on the one hand, and between the thought and the sensible object indicated by the sound on the other, we should expect beforehand, would determine to some extent the construction of language; and in point of fact we find it does so control it to such a degree as to give rise to a class of properties which are considered necessary or highly auxiliary to the great ends of language.

This general view of the nature of language furnishes the ground for the classification of the properties of language or the absolute properties of style.

§ 246. The absolute properties of style may be distributed into three classes, as they respect more directly the nature of the material of language articulate sounds; the relation of that material to the content of language or the relation of articulate sounds to thought; or the laws of thought itself.

These several classes may be denominated the oral, the SUGGESTIVE, and the GRAMMATICAL properties of style.

Language, as the verbal body of thought, consists of articulate sounds. These form the material of which it is made. It is obvious, hence, that a proper regard to the essential nature of articulate sounds is requisite in the formation of style.

Again, it is plain that articulate sounds are not taken at random for use in speech. All are not equally adapted for this use; and the selection is not a matter of pure accident or caprice. On the other hand, through the closer affinity which some sounds have, either directly or through the object they are taken to represent, to certain thoughts, or through the more intimate association which experience has created between them and such thoughts, the selection is found, on a nice inspection of language as it is, to have been made on certain natural and easily defined principles. These principles, derived either from the inherent relationship of the sound to the thought, or of the object taken to represent the thought to the thought itself, thus come in to give shape and form to language.

Once more, thought itself has its own laws. It has its own relations, which must ever be observed in the construction of language and ever be correctly represented in it.

So far as these laws and relations belong to thought as thought, they furnish the foundation for the science of universal grammar, or grammar in the abstract. So far as the thought to be expressed is modified by the condition and circumstances of the people that frame a language, these accidental relations and forms of thought furnish the foundation for a grammar of a particular language, or, as it may be called to distinguish it from abstract grammar, historical or inductive grammar.

We have thus the definitions that are contained in the following sections.

§ 247. The ORAL PROPERTIES of style are those which are determined from the nature of language as consisting of articulate sounds.

§ 248. The SUGGESTIVE PROPERTIES of style are those which are determined from the relations of articulate sounds or of the symbols of thought to the thought to be represented by them.

Dr. Whately has applied the term "suggestive" to that kind of style which "without making a distinct though brief mention of a multitude of particulars, shall put the hearer's mind into the same train of thought as the speaker's, and suggest to him more than is actually expressed." Of course, what are here called "the suggestive properties" of style are to be widely distinguished from Dr. Whately's "suggestive style."

§ 249. The GRAMMATICAL PROPERTIES of style are those which are determined by the necessary or accidental forms and relations of the thought to be expressed.

These properties are comprehensively embraced by Dr. Campbell under the head of "grammatical purity."