Philosophy of language. general doctrine is truth in act, in activity. . When expounded and applied to human affairs, Philosophy is not only a fine art in herself (schöne Wissenschaft), but the mother of Beauty: it is only through her that Rhetoric and Poetry can ever be educational, useful, or in the truest sense pleasant." 1 Herder and Hamann deserve our gratitude for having brought a current of fresh air into the study of the philosophy of language. The lead given by the PortRoyal authors had been followed since the beginning of the century by many writers of logical or general grammars. According to the French Encyclopædia, “ La grammaire générale est la science raisonnée des principes immuables et généraux de la parole prononcée ou écrite dans toutes les langues," 2 and d'Alembert spoke of grammarians of invention and grammarians of memory, assigning to the former the duty of studying the metaphysics of grammar.3 General grammars had been written by Du Marsais, De Beauzée, and Condillac in France; Harris in England; and many others. But what was the relation between general grammar and particular grammars? If logic be one, how comes it that languages are many? Is the variety of tongues but a deviation on their part from one single model? And, if there be no such deviation or error, what is the explanation of the fact? What is language, and how was it born? If language be external to thought, how can thought exist if not in language? "Si les hommes," says Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "ont eu besoin de la parole pour apprendre à penser, ils ont eu bien plus besoin encore de savoir penser pour trouver l'art de la parole"; appalled at the difficulty, he declares his conviction "de l'im 1 Sophron, 1782, § 4. 2 Encyclopédie, ad verb. 3 Éloge de Du Marsais, 1756 (introd. to Œuvres de Du Marsais, Paris, 1797, vol. i.). 4 Du Marsais, Méthode raisonnée, 1722; Traité des tropes, 1730; Traité de grammaire générale (in Encyclopédie); De Beauzée, Grammaire générale pour servir de fondement à l'étude de toutes les langues, 1767; Condillac, Grammaire française, 1755; J. Harris, Hermes, or a Philosophical Enquiry concerning Language and Universal Grammar, 1751. possibilité presque démontrée que les langues aient pu naître et s'établir par des moyens purement humains." 1 Such questions became fashionable; books on the origin and formation of language were written by de Brosses (1765) and Court de Gébelin (1776) in France, by Monboddo (1774) in England, Süssmilch (1766) and Tiedemann in Germany, and Cesarotti (1785) in Italy, and by others who had some slight acquaintance with Vico, but profited little by it.2 None of the above-named writers was able to free himself of the notion that speech was either natural and mechanical, or else a symbol attached to thought whereas in fact it was impossible to solve the difficulties under which they were labouring except by dropping the notion of a sign or symbol and attaining the conception of the active and expressive imagination, verbal imagination, language as the expression not of intellect but of intuition. An approach towards this explanation was made by Herder in a brilliant and imaginative thesis in 1770 upon this subject of the origin of language, chosen for discussion by the Berlin Academy. In it he says that language is the reflexion or consciousness (Besonnenheit) of man. Man shows reflexion when he puts forth freely such force of mind as enables him to make selection from amongst the crowd of sensations by which he is assailed: from the ocean of the senses, so to speak, to select a single wave and consciously to watch it. He shows reflexion when, amidst the thronging chaos of images which pass before him as in a dream, he can in a waking moment collect himself and fasten his attention upon a single image, examine it calmly and clearly, and separate it from its neighbours. Once again, man shows reflexion when he is able not merely to grasp vividly and 1 Discours sur l'origine de l'inégalité parmi les hommes, 1754. 2 De Brosses, Traité de la formation mécanique des langues, 1765; Court de Gébelin, Histoire naturelle de la parole, 1776; Monboddo, Origin and Progress of Language, 1774; Süssmilch, Beweis dass der Ursprung der menschlichen Sprache göttlich sei, 1766; Tiedemann, Ursprung der Sprache; Cesarotti, Saggio sulla filosofia delle lingue, 1785 (in Opere, vol. i.); D. Colao Agata, Piano, ovvero ricerche filosofiche sulle lingue, 1774; Soave, Ricerche intorno all' istituzione naturale d'una società e d' una lingua, 1774. clearly all the properties of an image, but also to recognize one or more of its distinctive properties." The language of man" does not depend on the organization of the mouth, for even he who is dumb from birth has, if he reflects, a language; it is not a cry of the senses, since it resides in a reflective creature, not in a breathing machine; it is not an affair of imitation, since imitation of nature is a means, and we are here trying to explain the end: much less is it an arbitrary convention; a savage in the depths of the forest would have had to create a language for himself even though he never used it. Language is an understanding of the soul with herself, necessary just in so far as man is man." 1 Here language begins to show itself no longer as purely mechanical or as something derived from arbitrary choice and invention, but as a creative activity and a primary affirmation of the activity of the human mind. Herder's essay may not state such a view unequivocally, but it points forward to such a conclusion in a striking way for which its author has not received the credit he deserves. Hamann, in reviewing his friend's theories, agreed with him in denying the origin of language by invention or arbitrary choice; while dwelling also on the liberty of man, he regarded language as something which man could only have learned by means of a mystical communicatio idiomatum from God. That, too, was one way of recognizing that the mystery of language is not to be solved except by placing it in the forefront of the problem of the spirit. 1 Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache, in a small book Zwei Preisschriften, etc. (2nd ed., Berlin, 1789), esp. pp. 60-65. 2 Steinthal, Ursprung der Sprache, 4th ed., pp. 39-58. VII OTHER ÆSTHETIC DOCTRINES OF THE SAME PERIOD of the Batteux. A GREAT medley of heterogeneous ideas is noticeable Other writers among other writers on Esthetic during the same period. eighteenth In 1746 appeared a little volume by Abbé Batteux bear- century: ing the attractive title of The Fine Arts reduced to a Single Principle, in which the author attempted a unification of all the different rules laid down by the writers of treatises. All such rules (says Batteux) are branches emerging from one trunk; he who possesses the simple principle will be able to deduce the rules one by one without entangling himself in their mass, which can but involve him in endless coils. The author had passed in review the Ars Poetica of Horace and that of Boileau, and the works of Rollin, Dacier, le Bossu and d'Aubignac; but had found real help only in Aristotle's principle of imitation, which he thought could be easily and strikingly applied to poetry, painting, music and the art of gesture. But suddenly the Aristotelian principle of imitation yields place to a wholly new rendering, namely the imitation of natural beauty." The business of art is to "select the most beautiful parts of nature in order to frame them into an exquisite whole which shall be more beautiful than nature's self, without ceasing to be natural." Now, what may this greater perfection, this beautiful nature, be? On one occasion Batteux identifies it with truth: but "with the truth which may be; with beauty-truth, which is represented as though it really existed with all the perfections it could The English: possibly receive," recalling one example from the ancients in the Helen of Zeuxis, and one from the moderns in the Misanthrope of Molière. In another place he explains that beautiful nature, "tum ipsius (obiecti) naturae, tum nostrae convenit," i.e. that it has the closest connexion with our own perfection, our advantage and our interest, and is, at the same time, perfect in itself. The aim of imitation is "to please, to move, to soften, in one word, to delight"; so beautiful nature must be interesting and furnished with unity, variety, symmetry and proportion. Embarrassed by the question of artistic imitation of things naturally ugly or objectionable, Batteux falls back on saying, as Castelvetro had said before him, that displeasing objects please when imitated, since imitation, being always imperfect, in comparison with the reality, cannot excite the horror and disgust aroused by the latter. From pleasure he deduces the other aim of utility: if the aim of poetry be to give pleasure, and "pleasure by moving the passions, then in order to give a perfect and enduring pleasure it ought to rouse such passions only as it is well to excite, not those inimical to goodness." 1 It is difficult to string together a more insubstantial mass of contradictions. But Batteux is rivalled and outdone by the English philosophers or rather scribblers on Esthetic or rather on things in general which sometimes accidentally include æsthetic facts. Happening to find in Lomazzo some words attributed to Michael Angelo on the beauty of shapes, Hogarth the artist took into his head the idea that the figurative arts can be regulated by a special principle which can be expressed in a particular line. Filled with this discovery, in 1745 he designed a frontispiece for a volume of his engravings; it depicted a painter's palette scored across with an undulating line and the words The Line of Beauty. Public curiosity was immediately aroused by this hieroglyphic, to be satisfied a little later by the publication of his book The Analysis 1 Les Beaux Arts réduits à un même principe, Paris, 1746; see esp. part i. ch. 3; part ii. chs. 4, 5; part iii. ch. 3. 2 See above, p. 110. |