ation, are pronounced, a great step towards their interpretation is made in the mind of every person of common understanding; and although this analogical reference to the material world adds greatly to the difficulty of analyzing, with philosophical rigor, the various faculties and principles of our nature, yet it cannot be denied that it facilitates to a wonderful degree, the mutual communications of mankind concerning them, in so far as such communications are necessary in the ordinary business of life. Even to the philosopher himself, it is probably, in the first instance, indispensably requisite, as a preparation for a more accurate survey of the mind. It serves, at least, to circumscribe the field of his attention within such narrow limits, as may enable him, with greater ease, to subject it to the examination of the power of reflection; and, in this way, renders fancy subservient to the ultimate correction of her own illusions.

And here, I cannot help pausing a little, to remark how much more imperfect language is, than is commonly supposed, when considered as an organ of mental intercourse. We speak of communicating, by means of words, our ideas and our feelings to others; and we seldom reflect sufficiently on the latitude with which this metaphorical phrase ought to be understood.* The truth is, that, even in conversing on the plainest and most familiar subjects, however full and circumstantial our statements may be, the words which we employ, if examined with accuracy, will be found to do nothing more, than to suggest hints to our hearers, leaving by far the principal part of the process of interpretation, to be performed by the mind itself. In this respect, the effect of words bears some resemblance to the stimulus given to the memory and imagination, by an outline or a shadow, exhibiting a profile of a countenance familiar to the senses. The most minute narratives accordingly, are by no means, in every instance, the most intelligible and satisfactory; as the most faithful copies after nature do not always form the best portraits. In both cases, the

• Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. i. pp. 495, 496, 3d edit. VOL. IV.

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skill of the artist consists in a happy selection of particulars which are expressive or significant.

"Language," it is commonly said, "is the express image of thought;"-and that it may be said, with sufficient propriety to be so, I do not dispute, when the meaning of the proposition is fully explained. The mode of expression, however, it ought to be remembered, is figurative; and, therefore, when the proposition is assumed as a principle of reasoning, it must not be rigorously or literally interpreted. This has too often been overlooked by writers on the human mind. Even Dr. Reid himself, cautious as he is in general, with respect to the ground on which he is to build, has repeatedly appealed to this maxim, without any qualification whatsoever; and, by thus adopting it, agreeably to its letter, rather than to its spirit, has been led, in various instances, to lay greater stress on the structure of speech, than (in my opinion) it can always bear in a philosophical argument.

As a necessary consequence of this assumption, it has been, not unnaturally, inferred by logicians, that every word, which is not wholly useless in the vocabulary, is the sign of an idea; and that these ideas (which the common systems lead us to consider as the representatives of things,) are the immediate instruments, or (if I may be allowed such a phrase,) the intellectual tools with which the mind carries on the operation of thinking. In reading, for example, the enunciation of a proposition, we are apt to fancy, that for every word contained in it, there is an idea presented to the understanding; from the combination and comparison of which ideas, results that act of the mind called judgment. So different is all this from the fact, that our words, when examined separately, are often as completely insignificant as the letters of which they are composed; deriving their meaning solely from the connexion, or relation, in which they stand to others. Of this a very obvious example occurs, in the case of terms which have a variety of acceptations, and of which the import, in every particular application, must be collected from the whole sentence of which they form a part.

When I consult Johnson's Dictionary, I find many words of which he has enumerated forty, fifty, or even sixty different significations; and, after all the pains he has taken to distinguish these from each other, I am frequently at a loss how to avail myself of his definitions. Yet, when a word of this kind occurs to me in a book, or even when I hear it pronounced in the rapidity of vivá voce discourse, I at once select, without the slightest effort of conscious thought, the precise meaning which it was intended to convey. How is this to be explained but by the light thrown upon the problematical term by the general import of the sentence?—a species of interpretation easily conceivable, where I have leisure to study the context deliberately; but which, in the circumstances I have now supposed, implies a quickness in the exercise of the intellectual powers, which, the more it is examined, will appear the more astonishing. It is constant habit alone, that keeps these intellectual processes out of view;-giving to the mind such a celerity in its operations, as eludes the utmost vigilance of our attention; and exhibiting, to the eyes of common observers, the use of speech, as a much simpler, and less curious phenomenon, than it is in reality.

A still more palpable illustration of the same remark presents itself, when the language we listen to admits of such transpositions in the arrangement of words, as are familiar to us in the Latin. In such cases, the artificial structure of the discourse suspends, in a great measure, our conjectures about the sense, till, at the close of the period, the verb, in the very instant of its utterance, unriddles the ænigma. Previous to this, the former words and phrases resemble those detached and unmeaning patches of different colors, which compose what opticians call an anamorphosis; while the effect of the verb, at the end, may be compared to that of the mirror by which the anamorphosis is reformed, and which combines these apparently fortuitous materials into a beautiful portrait or landscape.

In instances of this sort, it will be generally found, upon an accurate examination, that the intellectual act,

as far as we are able to trace it, is altogether simple, and incapable of analysis; and that the elements into which we flatter ourselves we have resolved it, are nothing more than the grammatical elements of speech ;—the logical doctrine about the comparison of ideas bearing a much closer affinity to the task of a schoolboy in parsing his lesson, than to the researches of philosophers able to form a just conception of the mystery to be explained.

These observations are general, and apply to every case in which language is employed. When the subject, however, to which it relates, involves notions which are abstract and complex, the process of interpretation becomes much more complicated and curious; involving, at évery step, that species of mental induction which I have already endeavoured to describe. In reading, accordingly, the most perspicuous discussions, in which such notions form the subject of the argument, little instruction is received, till we have made the reasonings our own, by revolving the steps again and again in our thoughts. The fact is, that, in cases of this sort, the function of language is not so much to convey knowledge (according to the common phrase) from one mind to another; as to bring two minds into the same train of thinking; and to confine them, as nearly as possible, to the same track.-Many authors have spoken of the wonderful mechanism of speech; but none has hitherto attended to the far more wonderful mechanism which it puts into action behind the scene.

The speculations of Mr. Horne Tooke, (whatever the conclusions were to which he meant them to be subservient) afford, in every page, illustrations of these hints, by showing how imperfect and disjointed a thing speech was in its infant state, prior to the development of those various component parts, which now appear to be essential to its existence. But on this particular view of the subject I do not mean to enlarge at present.

CHAPTER SECOND.

If the different considerations, stated in the preceding chapter, be carefully combined together, it will not appear surprising, that in the judgment of a great majority of individuals, the common analogical phraseology concerning the mind should be mistaken for its genuine philosophical theory. It is only by the patient and persevering exercise of reflection on the subjects of consciousness, that this popular prejudice can be gradually surmounted. In proportion as the thing typified grows familiar to the thoughts, the metaphor will lose its influence on the fancy; and while the signs we employ continue to discover, by their etymology, their historical origin, they will be rendered, by long and accurate use, virtually equivalent to literal and specific appellations. A thousand instances, perfectly analogous to this, might be easily produced from the figurative words and phrases which occur every moment in ordinary conversation. They who are acquainted with Warburton's account of the natural progress of writing, from hieroglyphies to apparently arbitrary characters, cannot fail to be struck with the similarity between the history of this art, as traced by him, and the gradual process by which metaphorical terms come to be stripped of that literal import, which, at first, pointed them out to the selection of our rude progenitors. Till this process be completed, with respect to the words denoting the powers and operations of the understanding, it is vain for us to expect any success in our inductive researches concerning the principles of the human frame.

In thus objecting to metaphorical expressions, as solid data for our conclusions in the science of mind, I would not be understood to represent them as of no use to the speculative inquirer. To those who delight to trace the history of language, it may, undoubtedly, form an interesting, and not unprofitable employment, to examine the circumstances by which they were originally suggested, and the causes which may have diversified them