Chapter V: Introduction (2)

If it should prove a matter of fact, as capable of exact scientific demonstration as any other, that the Consonant and Vowel Elements of Oral Language are, in a radical and important sense, repetitory of, or correspondential with, Musical Tones or the Elements of Music, as well as with Chemical Elements, and these again with the Elements of Numerical Calculation, of Form, or the Science of Morphology, and, in fine, with the Prime Metaphysical Elements of Being, or the first Categories of Thought, perhaps we may by such speculations catch a glimpse of the possibilities of a great lingual discovery, having the attributes here indicated. _Why should not the Elements of Speech have been brought by Nature herself into some sort of parallelism with the Elements of Thought which it is the special province of Speech to represent?_ Why, again, should not the Prime Elements of every new domain of Being be merely a Repetition in new form of the Prime Elements of the Universe, as a whole, and of those especially of Language, its representative domain?--Language being the literal word, as Universal Law is the Logos or the Word _par excellence_, and Divine. In that event, every speech-element would be of necessity inherently charged with the precise kind and degree of meaning specifically relating it, first to one of the Prime Elements of Being, metaphysically considered, and then, by an echo of resemblance, to one of the Prime Elements of every subordinate domain of Being throughout the Universe. The Combinations of the Letter-Sounds would then constitute words exactly, simply, and naturally expressive of any combination of the Elements of Being, either, first, in the Universal domain, or, secondly, in any subordinate domain, physical or psychical. In this way a grand and wonderful system of technicals would be wrought out for all the sciences--_provided by Nature herself, and discovered, only, by man_. It is at least certain that if a grand Science of Analogy is ever to be discovered, capable of Unifying all our knowledges, an anticipation vaguely entertained by our most advanced scientific minds, it must be sought for primarily among the simplest elements of every domain of science, or, what is the same thing, every domain of Thought and Being. It is alike certain that heretofore the first step even has never been rightly taken among the men of science to investigate in that direction. The failure of all those who have entertained the idea of a Universal Analogy as a basis of Scientific Unity, has resulted from the fact that, drawn rapidly along by the beauty of their conceptions, they have attempted to rush forward into the details of their subject, and have lost themselves in the infinity of these, without the wisdom and patience to establish a basis for their immense fabric in the exact discovery and knowledge of Elements. They have hastened forward to the limbs and twigs and leaves and flowers and fruitage, without having securely planted the roots of their scientific tree in the solid earth. Such was the case with Oken, the great German Physio-Philosopher and Transcendental Anatomist, the pupil of Hegel, who exerted a profound influence over the scientific mind of Germany for thirty years, but has now sunk into disrepute for want of just that elementary and demonstrative discovery of first Elements, and the rigorous adhesion to such perceptions of that kind as were partially entertained by him and his school of powerful thinkers and scientists.

To repeat the leading idea above, which is so immensely pregnant with importance, and, perhaps we may add, so essentially new: The combinations of Speech-Elements--in a perfect and normal Language for the Human Race, which we are here assuming that Nature should have provided, and which may be only awaiting discovery--when they should be rightly or scientifically arranged into words and sentences, would be exactly concurrent and parallel with the combinations of the _Prime Elements_ of Thought and Being in the Real Universe; so that each word, so formed, would become exactly charged with the kind and amount of meaning contained in the thing named or the conception intended. An idea will thus be obtained by the reader, somewhat vague, no doubt, at first, but which would become perfectly distinct, as the subject should be gradually unfolded, of the way in which a universal language naturally expressive of Thoughts and Feelings, and capable of unlimited expansion, might perhaps be evolved from a profound understanding of the Analogies of the Universe. It is important, however, in order that this theory, now when it is first presented, should not unnecessarily prejudice cautious and conservative minds, and seem to them wholly Utopian, to guard it by the additional statement that, while such a language might be appropriately denominated Universal, there is a sense in which it would still not be so; or, in other words, that it could only become Universal by causing to coalesce with its own scientifically organized structure, the best material already wrought out, and existing as _natural growth_ in the dead and living languages now extant; by absorbing them, so to speak, in itself. It would have no pretension, therefore, directly to supersede any of the existing languages, nor even ultimately to dispense with the great mass of the material found in any of them.

It is a common prejudice among the learned that Language is a growth, and cannot in any sense be a structure; in other words, that it is purely the subject of the instinctive or unthoughted development of man, and not capable of being derived from reflection, or the deliberate application of the scheming faculty of the intellect. A little reflection will show that this opinion is only a half truth. It is certain that language has received its primitive form and first development by the instinctive method. It is equally true, however, that even as respects our existing languages, they have been overlaid by a subsequent formation, originating with the development of the _Sciences_, due wholly to reflection on the scheming faculty of man, and already equal in extension to the primitive growth. The Nomenclature of each of the Sciences has been devised by the reflective genius of individuals, and arbitrarily imposed, so to speak, upon the Spoken and Written Languages of the World, as they previously existed. From the cabinets and books of the learned, they gradually pass into the speech of the laity, and become incorporated with the primitive growth. If, instead of the Carbonate of Soda, the Protoxide of Nitrogen, and other Chemical Technicalities arbitrarily formed in modern times from the ancient Greek Language, terms which the ancient Greeks themselves never heard nor conceived of, we had words derived from similar combinations of Anglo-Saxon or German Roots; if, for instance, for Protoxide of Nitrogen, we had the _First-sour-stuffness_, or the _First-sharp-thingness of Salt-petreness_, and so throughout the immense vocabulary of chemistry, what an essentially different aspect would the whole English Language now wear! Had Lavoisier, therefore, chosen the Anglo-Saxon or the German as the basis of the chemical nomenclature now in use, we can readily perceive how the intellectual device of a single savant, would, ere this time, have sent a broad current of new development through the heart of all the advanced Languages of the earth; of a different kind wholly, but no more extensive, no more novel, and truly foreign to the primitive instinctual growth of those Languages, no more purely the result of intellectual contrivance, than the current of development to which he actually did give origin.

Lavoisier chose the dead Greek as a fountain from which to draw the elements of his new verbal compounds, assigning to those elements arbitrarily new volumes of meaning, and constructing from them, with no other governing principle than his own judgment of what seemed best, a totally new Language, as it were, adequate to the wants of the new Science. Still, despite these imperfections in the method, the demand, with the growth of the new ideas, for a new expansion of the powers of Language, in a given direction, made the contrivance of the great chemist a successful interpolation upon the speech-usages of the world. It is certainly not therefore inconceivable--because of any governing necessity that Language should be a purely natural growth--that other and greater modifications of the speech of mankind may occur; when--not an arbitrary contrivance upon an imperfect basis and of a limited application is in question, but--when a real discovery, the revelation of the true scientific bases of Language, and limitless applications in all directions, should be concerned.

On the other hand, the extent of the practical applications of strictly scientific principles to the Structure of Language is subject to limitation. Even mathematics, theoretically the most unlimited of the existing Sciences, is practically limited very soon by the complexity of the questions involved in the higher degrees of equations. In the same manner, while it may be possible to construct a Scientific Language adequate to all the wants of Language, in which exactness is involved; that is to say, capable of classifying and naming every object and idea in the Universe which is itself capable of exact classification and definition, still there remains an immense sphere, an equal half, it may be said, of the Universe of objects and conceptions, which have not that susceptibility; which are, in other words, so complex, so idiosyncratic, or so vague in their nature, that the best guide for the formation of an appropriate word for their expression is not Intellect or Reflection, but that very Instinct which has presided over the formation of such Languages as we now have. We may accurately define a triangle or a cube, and might readily bring them within the range of a Universal Language scientifically constructed; but who would venture to attempt by any verbal contrivance to denote the exact elements of thought and feeling which enter into the meaning of the verbs _to screech_ or _to twinge_?

There is, therefore, ample scope and a peremptory demand for both methods of lingual development. The New Scientific Language herein suggested would be universal within the limit within which Science itself is universal. But there is another sphere within which Science, born of the Intellect, has only a subordinate sway, and in which instinct, or that faculty which, in the higher aspect of it, we denominate Intuition, is supreme. This faculty has operated as instinct in the first stage of the growth of Language, the Natural or Instinctual; it should now give place to the Intellect, in the second stage, the Scientific; after which it should regain its ascendency as Intuition, in the final finish and perfectionment of the Integral Speech of Mankind, the Artistic.

Such a Language would be, to all other Languages, precisely what a unitary Science would be to all the special Sciences; and we have seen how it might happen that the same discovery should furnish both the Language and the Science. Without rudely displacing any existing Language, it would, besides filling its own central sphere of uses, furnish a rallying point of unity between them all. It would ally them to itself, not by the destruction of their several individualities, but by developing the genius of each to the utmost. It would enrich them all, by serving as the common interpreter between them, until each would attain something of the powers of all, or at least the full capacity for availing itself of the aid of all others, and chiefly of the central tongue, in all those respects in which in consequence of its own special character it should remain individually defective. The new Scientific and Central Language might thus plant itself in the midst of the Languages; gradually assimilate them to itself; drawing at the same time an augmentation of its own materials from them, until they would become mere idioms of it, and finally, perhaps, in a more remote future, disappear altogether as distinct forms of speech, and be blended into harmony in the bosom of the central tongue.

The resources of Language for the formation of new words, by the possible euphonic combination of elementary sounds, is as nearly infinite as any particular series of combinations usually called infinite; all such series having their limitations, as in the case of the different orders of the Infinite in the calculus which are limited by the fact that there are different orders. Yet, notwithstanding that this inexhaustible fountain of Phonetic wealth exists directly at hand, none of these resources have ever been utilized by any scientific arrangement and advice. Only so many verbal forms as happen to have occurred in any given language, developed by the chance method, in the Greek, for instance, are chosen as a basis, and employed as elements for the new verbal formatives now coming into use with such astonishing rapidity in all the sciences. For instance, let us take the consonant combination _kr_ (or _cr_), and add the following series of vowels: _i_ (pronounced _ee_), _e_ (pronounced _a_), _a_ (pronounced _ah_), _o_ (pronounced _aw_), _u_ (pronounced _uh_), _o_ (pronounced _o_), and _u_ (pronounced _oo_); and we construct the following series of euphonic triliteral roots:

Kri (Kree)

Kre (Kra or Kray)

Kra (Krah)

Kr_o_ (Kraw)

Kr_u_ (Kruh)

Kro (Kro)

Kru (Kroo).

Let us now add the termination _o_, and we have the following list of formatives:

Kri-o (Kree-o)

Kre-o (Kra-o)

Kra-o (Krah-o)

Kr_o_-o (Kraw-o)

Kr_u_-o (Kr_uh_-o)

Kro-o (Kro-o)

Kru-o (Kroo-o).

Of these verbal forms only two occur in any of the well-known Southwestern Languages of Europe, namely, _Creo_, I CREATE, of the Latin, Italian, etc., and _Crio_, I REAR, of the Spanish. The other forms are entirely unused. Of any other simple series of Euphonic combinations, such as Phonetic art can readily construct, there is the same wasteful neglect, and, in consequence of this total failure of the scientific world to extract these treasures of Phonic wealth lying directly beneath their feet, they are driven to such desperate devices as that of naming the two best-known and most familiar order of fishes, those usually found on our breakfast tables, _Acanthopterygii Abdominales_, and _Malacopterygii Subbrachiati_; and the common and beautiful bird called bobolink is _Dolichonyx Orixyvora_. For the same reason--the entire absence of any economical and systematized use of our phonetic materials by the scientific world--the writer found himself, recently, in attempting certain generalizations of the domain of science, stranded almost at the commencement, upon such verbal shoals as _Anthropomorphus Inorganismoidismus_; and the subsequent steps in the mere naming of discriminations simple enough in themselves, became wholly impossible. The urgent necessity existing, therefore, for the radical intervention of Science in the discovery of true principles applicable to the construction of its own tools and instruments, can hardly be denied or questioned.

The immense condensation of meaning, and the consequent compactness and copiousness of which a Language based on a meaning inherently contained by analogy in the simplest elements of sound would be susceptible, would give to such a Language advantages as the instrument of thought and communication, which are but very partially illustrated in the superiority of printing by movable types over manuscript, for the rapid multiplication of books.

In the _compound words_ of existing Languages each root-word of the combination has a distinct meaning, and the joint meaning of the parts so united is the description or definition of the new idea; thus in German, _Finger_ is FINGER, and _Hut_ is HAT, and _Finger-hut_ (FINGER-HAT) is a _thimble_; _Hand_ is HAND, _Schue_ is SHOE, and _Hand-schue_ is _a glove_, etc. So in English, _Wheel-barrow_, _Thunder-storm_, etc. The admirable expressiveness of such terms, and the great superiority in this respect of Languages like the Sanscrit, Greek, German, etc., in which such self-defining combinations are readily formed, over Spanish, Italian, French, and other derivative languages, the genius of which resists combination, is immediately perceived and acknowledged. But if we analyze any one of these compound words, _Finger-hut_, for instance, we shall perceive that while each of the so-called elements of combination, _Finger_ and _Hut_, has a distinct meaning, which enters into the more specific meaning of the compound, yet they are not, in any true sense, elements, or, in other words, that they are not the ultimate elements of the compound words. _Finger_ is itself constituted, in the first instance, of two syllables, _Fing_ and _er_, which, in accordance with the same principle upon which the compound word _Finger-hut_ is organized, should describe the thing signified, as would be the case if _Fing_ meant HAND, and _er_ meant CONTINUATION. _Finger_ would then mean HAND-CONTINUATION, and _Finger-hut_ (_thimble_) would then be a HAND-CONTINUATION-HAT. But, again, _Fing_ consists of three elementary sounds, _f-i-ng_, _er_ of two, _e-r_, and _hut_ of three, _h-u-t_. Suppose now that the primary sound _f_ had been scientifically discovered to be correspondential throughout all the realms of Nature and of Thought with _Superiority_, _High-position_, or _Upperness_; _i_ with _centrality_, or _main body_, and _ng_ with _member_ or _branch_; the syllable _Fing_ would then signify UPPER-BODY-BRANCH, a very proper description of _the arm_. Suppose that _e_ signified, in the same way, _flat, palm-like ideas and things generally_ and that _r_ alone signified _continuation_; then _er_ would signify PALM-CONTINUATION, and _Finger_ would signify an UPPER-BODYBRANCH-PALM-CONTINUATION, or, in other words, a _Palm-continuation of an upper-body-branch_, and would so be completely _descriptive of_, at the same time that it would _denote_, a Finger. Suppose, again, that _h_ signified inherently _rotundity_ or _roundness_; _u_, _closeness_; and _t_, _roof_ or _covering_; then _hut_ would signify ROUND-CLOSED-COVER, a proper description of a _hat_; and _Finger-hut_ would then mean AN-UPPER-BODY-BRANCH-PALM-CONTINUATION-ROUND-CLOSED-COVER, or _the round-closed-cover of a palm-continuation of a superior limb or branch of the body_. It will be at once perceived how, with such resources of signification at command, compounds like _Acanthopterygii_ to signify _thornfins_, _Malacopterygii Subbrachiati_, to signify _Under-arm soft fins_, or _Anthropomorphus Inorganismoidismus_, to signify _things in unorganized form, having a resemblance to man_, would soon come to be regarded as the lingual monsters which they really are.

The difference between commencing the composition of words by the real elements of speech, represented by single letters, each charged with its own appropriate meaning, and conveying that meaning into every compound into which it should enter, from commencing the composition by assuming long words already formed in some existing language, as _Anthropos_ (Greek word for _man_), _Acanthos_ (Greek word for _spine_), _Keron_ (Greek word for _fin_ or _wing_), etc., as the first element of the new compounds, is infinite in its results upon the facility, copiousness, and expressiveness of the terminology evolved. It is like the difference of man working by the aid of the unlimited resources of tools and machinery and the knowledge of chemistry, on the one hand, and man working with his unaided _bare hands_, and in ignorance of the nature of the substances he employs, on the other hand. The scientific world has not hitherto known how to construct the lingual tools and instruments which are indispensable to its own rapidly augmenting and complicated operations; to analyze and apply the lingual materials at its command; and to simplify and unify the nomenclatures of all the sciences, in order to quicken a thousandfold the operation of all the mental faculties, in the perception and exact vocal indication of all the infinitely numerous close discriminations and broad generalizing analogies with which nature abounds.

It is hardly necessary to say that the particular meanings assigned above to the single sounds in the analysis of the German word _Finger-hut_, are not assumed in any sense to be the real meanings of the vocal elements involved. The whole case is supposititious, and assumed merely to illustrate the unused possibilities of Language in the construction of significant words, and especially in the construction of scientific technicalities. To found a real Language of this kind, it would be necessary, first, to work up patiently to the true meanings of the Elementary Sounds of Human Speech, and then to the analogy of those meanings with the elements of universal being (the categories of the understanding, etc.), and finally of these again with the elements of each of the special Sciences.

Could such a discovery be actually accomplished; should it prove to be the simple fact of nature that every sound of the human voice is Nature's chosen vehicle for the communication of an equally elementary idea; and that the Combinations of the Elementary Sounds into Words do inherently and necessarily, so soon as these primitive meanings and the law of their combination are known, produce words infinite in number and perfect in structure, naturally expressive of every precise idea of which the human mind is capable, it becomes perfectly conceivable how a Natural Universal Language would be evolved by discovery alone. The creation of the Language would belong to Nature as truly and absolutely--in a sense, more truly and absolutely--than our existing instinctual Languages. It would be in fact the normal Language of Humanity, from which, for the want of such a discovery, mankind has been unnaturally debarred. The fact would prove to be that we have ever been banished from our true vernacular, and have been, all our lives, speaking foreign or strange tongues, from which we have only to recur or come home. May we not, therefore, found in Science the rational expectation, that in due time, from a Lingual Paradise Lost in the remote Past, we may recur to a Lingual Paradise Regained, in literal fulfilment of the promise of prophecy, that all the nations of the earth shall be of one speech?

A SUMMER'S NIGHT.

[_Translated literally from the original Polish of Count S. Krasinski, by Prof. Podbielski; prepared for_ THE CONTINENTAL _by Martha Walker Cook._]

'O'er this sad world Death folds his gloomy pall, Bright buds hatch worms, flowers die, and woe shrouds all.'

MALIZEWSKI.

'Oh, look on me, my fellow countrymen, From the same Fatherland! On me, so young, Passing o'er the last road, gazing for the last time On Helios--to see him rise no more for ever! In his cold cradle Death rolls all asleep; Me _living_ he conducts to his black shores; Me wretched! unbetrothed! upon whose ears No bridal chant has ever hymned its joys, Stern Acheron alone calls to his side, And Death must be my icy Bridegroom now!'

SOPHOCLES: _Antigone_.