Lecture Iii.

True irony--for there also is a false one--is the irony of love. It arises out of the feeling of finiteness and one’s own limitation, and out of the apparent contradiction between this feeling and the idea of infinity which is involved in all true love. As in actual life and in the love which centers in an earthly object, a good-humored raillery, which amuses itself with some little defect of character, either apparent or real, is not inconsistent with sincerity--not, at least, when both parties have no doubt of each other’s affection, and its ardor admits of no increase--but, on the contrary, lends to it an agreeable charm, even so is this true of that other and highest love. Here, too, an apparent, or it may be an actual, but still only insignificant and trivial contradiction, can not destroy the idea on which such a love is based, but, on the contrary, serves rather to confirm and strengthen it. But only there where love has reached the highest purity--has become profoundly confirmed and perfect--does this appearance of contradiction, which is thrown out in an affectionate irony, fail to alloy or weaken all higher and better feeling. And what other foundation could a philosophy of life well have and recognize as legitimate than the idea of such a love? And this is even that supposition of life, viz., of the inner life, of which I formerly said that it is the only one which philosophy requires, and from which alone it must set out. Only it is requisite that this love should be personally experienced or inwardly felt, and the notion of it derived from immediate experience.

Directly opposed to those arbitrary systems which compose the reigning philosophy of the day, the philosophy of life is a science of internal spiritual experience, which, as it proceeds from, so it every where rests on facts; though indeed the facts on which it is grounded, and to which it has invariably to refer, are in many respects of a high and peculiar kind. On this account philosophy may even be called a science of divine experience. If man had never, and, in short, were incapable of having any experience of divine things, what could he know of the Deity with certainty? A knowledge devoid of experience would be but the arbitrary creation or illusion of his own mind--an inward fancy, or the mere reflex of his own reason--consequently an absolute nullity. And for such a knowledge the task would ever be difficult to get rid of a mere idealistic conception of the Divine Being, or at least to repel the doubt whether He be actually any thing more than what such a conception represents Him. And, in fact, in most treatises and elaborate developments of that system of thought which makes man’s self the exclusive principle and standard of truth, the manner of treating the divine nature is extremely superficial. Such purely formal and empty notions on this subject are advanced, that we are often justified in applying to these speculations on the highest topic of human language and thought, the remark that applies too often to lower scientific treatises: “Thus it is that men write who have no real knowledge of the matter.” “Here we at once see there is a total want of personal observation; the work is not based on any solid foundation of actual experience.”

Now the philosophy of life, in its highest range at least, is a divine science of experience. This experience, however, is throughout internal and spiritual. It is therefore easily conceivable that it can enter readily and easily into all other experimental sciences, and into those especially which more immediately relate to man, as, for instance, most of the branches of natural history, and still more into philology, with which at present we are most immediately concerned. And this it does, in order to borrow such illustrations and comparisons as may tend to elucidate or further to develop its own subject-matter, or else to furnish applications to individual cases in other departments of life. However, in thus proceeding, philosophy must take heed lest it overpass its own proper limits or forget its true end and aim. It must not go too deeply into particulars, or lose itself among the specialities of the other sciences. On the contrary, it ought carefully to confine itself to those points which more immediately concern man, and especially the inner man, and, adhering to the meaning and spirit of the whole, seek to elucidate and throw out this pre-eminently.

The question as to the origin of language, or, more correctly, the question how man attained to the capacity for this wonderful gift or faculty of speech, which forms so considerable and essential a part of his whole nature, if it is to be taken merely as a matter of historical research and philosophical learning, lies out of the circle which we have marked out to ourselves. A discussion exclusively confined to this special branch of philology has little in unison with speculations involving the inner experience of life and psychological observation. There are two opinions pretty generally diffused on this subject: the one maintaining that there is one primary and original language, from which, as a stem, all others have branched forth; and the other, that several were cotemporaneously formed. These opinions, as unfavorably affecting the right understanding of the essential connection between language or speech and thought, I would wish to keep out of view, and consequently I shall dismiss them with a few passing remarks.

The one is founded on an erroneous hypothesis, and is itself false. It is in open contradiction to facts, as we now know them with tolerable completeness. As for the other, even if it be not in itself truly and properly false, it is, nevertheless, based on a great misconception, or at least, as it is commonly propounded, involves one.

The former theory consists in this, that language generally, or, rather, several cotemporary languages, as fundamentally distinct from each other as the several races of men, who, as this view asserts, sprung up out of the earth, and its primeval slime, were formed spontaneously by a perfectly natural process. To the mere animal cries and various instinctive exclamations, either of joy and grief, of passion and want, were associated the deliberate imitation, together with a childlike mimicry of different sounds, similar to what we may even now observe in children, with whom such mimic intonations and mocking word-play is a common and favorite amusement. From such sensuous beginnings, it is pretended, a language might have grown up, gradually and slowly, indeed, to the height of rationality and grammatic form and order. That these two elements--the animal cries of nature and the mechanical imitation of sounds--have contributed to the development of language, is a position that needs not and can not be controverted. This element, however, is not found in all languages in equal measure. It is strongest in those languages which stand at the very lowest grade of development. Among others, again, which having attained very rapidly to maturity, and having at an early period branched off into several others, appear, in their most ancient state, highly intellectual and significant, it is scarcely traceable. But a fatal objection to the hypothesis as explaining the universal and complete principle of the phenomenon of language in all its ramifications, is the fact that the noblest and most cultivated languages are found, upon investigation into their earliest state, to possess, even at this date, the most artificial form, and to be manifoldly rich, and at the same time highly regular and simple. And this is pre-eminently the case with the Sanscrit or Indian, in comparison with the Greek, Latin, and other kindred languages of the West and North. In those, on the other hand, which appear to be at the very lowest grade of intellectual culture (and generally these stand quite isolated from all those in the midst of which they are found), we frequently observe, on a closer acquaintanceship, a very high and elaborate degree of art in their grammatical structure. This is especially the case with the Basque and the Lapponian, and many of the American languages. In the Chinese, this excessive and inappropriate expenditure of art has been directed to a very peculiar and complicated system of writing. There was no place for it in the language itself, which is extremely poor, being in its basis excessively, not to say childishly, simple, and quite ungrammatical. Its whole verbal treasury does not, it is said, contain more than three hundred and thirty words, which form the same number of single syllables. These, however, acquire a different signification by means of accents, of which there are no less than eighty thousand; and even though, as competent judges and the learned aver, not more than the fourth of this large number are really necessary and made use of in practice, still the liability to mistake must be very great, since the entire language is founded on this artificial system of writing, much more than on its living and spoken sounds. Hence, not unfrequently, when even learned Chinese talk together, they misunderstand each other. This, indeed, is occasionally the case in other countries also. But the difference is, that in the former the source of misconception lies in the language itself; and it is only by writing down their words, that the Chinese can be sure of intelligibly conveying their real meaning.

Modern and experienced philologists have, in consequence of these difficulties, given up that view of language which would derive it entirely from the imitation of animal cries. Plain facts, indeed, speak too decidedly against it. And, in truth, the chief point to be guarded against amid the great variety and the immeasurable richness of the phenomena of language in general, is the explaining them all by any single hypothesis, or the deriving them from one origin.

As to the other opinion respecting the origin of language: the view and assertion that God himself brought language to man, and taught it to him, can not properly excite any opposition, in so far as all that is good, and man’s best and original prerogatives, must in reason be derived from God as their first author. But when it is supposed that the language which on this hypothesis the first man spoke in Paradise, and which, as such, is the source of all other later and derivative languages, may still be found, and is to be recognized in any one now extant, as, e.g., the Hebrew--this assuredly is a great error. It involves a total misconception of the immense interval which separates us from the first origin of the world. Of the language which may have belonged to the first man, before he lost his original power, perfections, and dignity, we are not, with our present organs and senses, in a capacity to form an idea. Indeed, we are no more able to do this than to judge of the nature of the language employed by the eternal spirits for the immediate interchange of their thoughts, which on the wings of light fly instantaneously through the wide expanse of heaven, or of those words, ineffable by any created being, which are uttered by the Deity in His inmost being, where, to use the words of the Psalmist, “deep calleth unto deep,” and where the fullness of infinite love answers to Eternal Majesty.

But now, to descend from this unattainable height to our own level, and to consider the first man as he really was: then in the simple statement of the first authentic records of mankind, that God taught man language, there is nothing, if we adhere to its obvious meaning, which is in any way revolting to man’s natural feelings. For why should it make any such startling impression on us, if, as it ought, this whole matter be understood somewhat in the light of a mother teaching her child the first rudiments of language?

Still, together with this simple and childlike signification, it (like every other part of this divine book, thus written on the inside and the out) possesses also a far deeper meaning. That name by which each living creature is called by God, and designated from eternity, must embrace the sum of its inmost essence--the key of its existence--the reason and the explanation of its being. As, indeed, generally in the Holy Scriptures, so here, also, a high and holy import is combined with the notion of the name. Interpreted, then, by this profound sense and significance, this brief narrative, as I previously pointed out, conveys the idea that by this communication to man by God Himself, of the names of all living things, the former was set up as the lord and king of nature, and even as God’s vicegerent over the terrestrial creation. And indeed this was his original destination.

If, then, no existing speech or language can afford us an access to this veiled original, now become inaccessible to us, still the idea of one primary language, or, perhaps, of several such, is certainly any thing but devoid of an historical foundation. At least it is a very natural hypothesis, and founded in some degree on facts, which must not be forthwith rejected, but requires to be tested by further inquiry. It is, however, of no light importance to the maintenance of this hypothesis to form a right conception of the difference between derivatory and mixed languages, and, above all, to take a comprehensive survey of the whole of human language, in its nearly boundless wealth, so far as such a survey is serviceable to our present object of arriving at a true knowledge of man. And how can such a profitable application and applicability be well doubted? For the genealogical tree of human languages, in its manifold ramifications--the growth of language shooting forth from epoch to epoch, with all the vast riches of art, does but hold before us, as it were, a written monument and memorial of the thinking consciousness assuming, so to speak, a bodily shape, and visibly presenting itself before us, but still on a grand historical standard, and according to dimensions which reach over the whole habitable globe. That, therefore, the history of the thinking consciousness stands in most intimate connection, or at least in very close relation to the science of living thought, is surely a point which requires neither lengthened investigation nor an express demonstration.

In the attempt at this juxtaposition, I shall only project those points which either are of importance for the right understanding of the whole, or of interest in themselves. For this purpose I shall avail myself of nothing but the most certain and clearly demonstrated results of modern research into the nature and history of language. All that may appear in any way uncertain, or would lead us too far into the special branches of philology, will be left unnoticed.

A simile from physical science will perhaps lead us by the quickest and shortest road to the object we are in pursuit of. And, indeed, the geological branch of natural history may well be considered cognate to the inquiry before us. For what geology properly investigates is the antiquities of this terrestrial planet, and the primal condition of the mountain ranges, observing and seeking to read the long-hidden memorials that are daily brought to light of pristine convulsions, and to number the successive epochs of gradual change and decay. But it was not at once that geological science made any progress beyond the mere acquaintance with the surface of our globe. An insight into its primary internal constitution and subsequent process of formation was not gained until observation had enabled us accurately to distinguish between the two kinds of rocks--the alluvial and the secondary, with their fossiliferous strata of chalk and clay--and the primary, unstratified rocks of granitic and similar structure, and by patient and accurate observation of the superficial phenomena of the earth in different lands and climates to establish this classification as a general law. Now this geological distinction admits of application to language. Those composite languages which have been formed out of a mixture or aggregation of several, may be compared to the diluvial rocks which belong to the secondary formation. As the latter have arisen out of or have been formed by floods and inundations, so these mixed languages owe their origin to the great European migration of nations, or perhaps were formed by the East by similar Asiatic migrations, at a still older epoch, and in primeval times. Those languages, on the contrary, which, at least as compared with those which are manifestly mere derivatives from them, we may call primary. In this class we may mention the Roman among those of Europe, and the Sanscrit in those of Asia. These, then, stand on the same line and dignity with the so-called primary rocks. No doubt, even in these further investigation will discover many traces of a mixture, no less palpable indeed, but one, however, in which the constituents neither were originally so heterogeneous, nor since have continued so totally unchanged. For in the same manner, granitic rocks, and others of the primary order, are also found to be composite in their mineral constituents. These likewise point to a still earlier convulsion of nature, to which they owed their first production. Unquestionably, however, the primary mountains form the first line and earliest formation among the several epochs of revolution which the present earth has undergone. But it would be an error were we from this simple fact at once to draw any inference as to the interior of our globe; for this geological and mineralogical distinction of the two classes of rocks can not be proved to hold good beyond the mere surface and coat of the earth. To this alone is man’s observation and experience confined.

It is impossible to penetrate very far into the interior or the central mass of our planet, and investigate its internal constitution, and consequently this ring of rock can not be regarded in any other light than as analogical to the thin covering and epidermis of the organic living creature. And just so is it with the science of language. There are undoubtedly languages which, in a certain sense, we may term primary. Only in so doing, we must not think that in any one of them we have discovered and possess the long-hidden original of all existent languages. If, for instance, from this correct geological classification of rock, any bold speculator should go on to assert that the whole interior of the earth, or at least the center of it, is a mass of granitic or other primary rock, we feel at once that this would be a baseless hypothesis. And it would be as grave an error, in the domain of philology, were we to go on and draw a similar conclusion. The Sanscrit, for instance, holds unquestionably the foremost rank, as the oldest among those which belong to the same family, and, as compared with these, may undoubtedly, in a precise but limited sense, be regarded as a primary language; but it would be an idle assumption were we therefore to consider it in the same light that Hebrew was formerly, and to look upon it as the universal original, the first source and mother of all other languages on the surface of the earth.

But not even the historical prerogative of a high antiquity--no, nor even the merit of having preserved a primary form in greatest purity, however valuable a quality, is the sole standard of excellence in a language, nor that which alone determines its perfection. The English language affords a ready illustration of our remark. To it, beyond all others, the designation of being a mixed language applies; indeed it corresponds altogether to this character. It furnishes at the same time a striking proof of the height of excellence which even a mixed language is capable of attaining; meeting as it does, all the requisitions of a solemn and nervous poetry, the earnest appeals of eloquence, and the calm flow of descriptive prose. And yet, on analysis, it presents to the grammatical eye the somewhat heterogeneous compound of two wholly different elements, whose originally chaotic mixture has been reduced into a rare and happy proportion. For into its original High-Dutch, or Anglo-Saxon basis, many words have been introduced from the Latin or Norman-French, which among the living roots of the former appear so far aliens and foreigners, as, being little capable of grammatical declension or derivation, they do not, like the others, form so many fruitful verbal stems, from which new forms and compounds shoot forth. Of Asiatic languages the Persian is in this respect of a similar constitution to the English. Here also the essential foundation and living root of the whole is some peculiar and old national language, closely akin to the Sanscrit and Gothic-German; but its Arabian admixture is as great in degree as the Latin-French of the English, and indeed both were brought in by a similar political revolution. Still the Persian is generally, and with good cause, praised as a noble language, abounding in lively poetical ornament, and moreover, like the French in Europe is adopted throughout Asia as the general language, of business and conversation. Those derivatory languages also which stand next in order to the mixed, and in part also belong to them, and which have rather softened down than abolished the stricter grammatical forms, having rounded them off as it were for greater convenience of use, do not necessarily stand inferior to the mother-tongue in grace and vigor of composition. On the contrary, in respect of style, they are often vastly superior to them. Thus the Italian appears softer and more flexible for lyrical verse, and perhaps for every creation of the poetic fancy, sweeter and more graceful than its Roman mother-tongue. The French, too, at least as the language of society, moves with an unequalled freedom, while, for precision and distinctness of expression, its prose has attained to an unparalleled height of excellence. The Spanish also, besides being praised for the excellence of its prose, as admirably suited either for the dignity of serious narrative or the ingenious play of wit, is in poetry distinguished above most of its sister dialects by a wonderful richness and peculiar grace in the playful sallies of the fancy. And yet it is a derivative language, and compounded of the most heterogeneous elements. For not only it is highly probable that the Gothic-German admixture is even greater in this than in any other of the romance dialects which sprung up out of the Latin, but the Arabic also forms a very considerable element in it.

But it was not to descend into the grammatical specialities of philological erudition, or to heap up a mass of purely æsthetical remarks, that I have alluded to these pregnant instances. What I chiefly had in view was to remove, if possible, all erroneous notions from the conception of the primal language. It was, in short, my object to bring before your minds its origin and growth, according to that continuous process which may even still be seen going on in any spoken language. And although in our own neighborhood it is only in a few partial instances, and these far from definite, that we can trace this living process, still they are not on this account to be neglected, since they furnish much instruction, and are calculated to throw much light upon the whole matter.

Now, as regards the historical origin, not only of language in general, but also of its several extant dialects, and especially those which relatively to such as are derived and compounded out of them may pass as primary, there is one essential point toward a right understanding of the matter. We must not attempt to account for their origination and development merely by a mixture and derivation from many individual parts, but rather endeavor to set them before our minds as productions similar in nature to that of a poem or any other piece of art. For the latter are severally the result of a conception which, from the very first, was a whole--they never could have been produced by any successive agglomeration of atomistic parts. In this view of language we must, in thought, place ourselves at a very different epoch of mind from the present. Now we can not well hesitate to allow that, in the primal period of the human race, and of nations individually, the productive fancy would manifest itself in the creation of words with far more of inventive genius and fertility than would be likely to be displayed at a subsequent period of mental culture, when the analytical reason had, step by step, succeeded in gaining the preponderance.

Commonly, indeed, men speak strangely enough of the origin of languages. They talk of the matter somewhat in the same fashion as it would be to say of a picture, that it had its origin in ochre, lake, ceruse, asphalt, and such like coloring substances, together with the addition of oil, which holds here somewhat the same place that in language the reason does with its grammatical arrangement and logical combinations. Of these motley materials, it might be said, one little particle after another is laid on the canvas, till, gradually, long streaks appear, which again swell gradually into fuller and deeper outline, until, at last, a complete form and figure stands forth, to which, at last, there accrues an expressive physiognomy. And so, at last, the picture is finished. But in all this description it seems totally forgotten, that unless the ideal conception--the picture as a whole--had, from the very first, been present to the mind of the painter, it would never have attained to such a realization, thus growing up, step by step, under the hand of the artist. At least, without this it would not be a true artistic work of genius, since this is, in every instance, the result of some foregoing conception of a whole.

Not piecemeal, therefore, and fragmentarily, did language arise. It came forth, rather, at once, and in its totality, out of the full inner and living consciousness of man. We shall have no difficulty in thus considering it, if only we can succeed in ideally transplanting ourselves to that foretime when the thinking faculty was more creative, and when, in the designation and expression of its ideas, it moved more freely and with the elasticity of genius. But if speech answers to thought, and if language itself is but a true copy, a shifting diorama, as it were, of man’s inward self, then (to make use of that oldest record of the human race, which, as it is better and more natural than all others, so it also furnishes the best clew for unraveling the riddles of olden tradition), we might well ask whether the language of Cain, the accursed vagabond wandering over the face of the earth, could have been the same as that of the pious patriarchs and saints of the primeval world, some of whom, under other names, but in equal honor, are found mentioned in the traditions of the ancient Persians, and the sacred books of the Hindoos and other Asiatic nations? Or could it well have been the same with that of Noah, the second progenitor and the restorer of the human race, whom, likewise, the earliest traditionary records of every people recognize and mention. The family of the Cainites holds no inconsiderable place in the earliest history of civilization, and the first working of metals, and the invention of several useful arts, is expressly ascribed to them. But still their difference in language from the other families of the antediluvian world, and generally in their whole civil constitution, must have been very great and palpably noticeable. And this favors the hypothesis, which, in itself, is any thing but impossible, and deserves rather to be called highly probable, of several primary languages, or, at least, of different epochs in the primeval speech of the earliest foretime, which, moreover, serve to indicate so many natural sections in the progression which the mental development of the aboriginal family of man observed, and the shapes which its mode of thinking successively assumed.

Now, if I may venture to suggest the course in which some such progression may, in idea at least, be projected and traced in the entire system of the vast multitudes of languages which exist on the face of the earth, I would set out with the Sanscrit. For this is the best known and understood of the whole Hindoo family, among which it holds the foremost rank as the oldest and most complete. To the same class would belong first of all the old Persian, the Gothic-German, and the Scandinavian, all of which are most intimately related to the former; then the Greek, and the Latin with its many derivatives; and lastly, according to the opinion of competent judges, nearly the whole of the Slavonic dialects. All these languages, each in its measure, and in proportion to the cultivation it had enjoyed, are marked, especially in their earliest stages, by a very artificial structure and a beautiful grammatical arrangement, but pre-eminently by a highly noble poetic shape, combined with an equal degree of scientific precision. This, however, is but one family among many others which make up the whole system. The latter, however, stand at a far lower grade of development and perfection. Among those which, like the Tartaric-Chinese and the African, belong to the latter class, the highly remarkable dialects of America occupy an important and characteristic place. The traveler best acquainted with the American races and dialects has described the former as singularly remarkable for the degradation to which their mental faculties have fallen below the original standard, while he speaks of the latter as resembling the relics of some great ruin or mighty devastation. On this expression of the famous traveler, which agrees so accurately with the idea I am here developing, and with the result of my own investigation into the course of the human mind since the old and primal times, I am disposed to lay very great stress. For with him it was the conviction impressed upon his mind by personal observation alone, unbiassed by any preconceived opinion or hypothesis favorable to my views. This character of deep degradation belongs, perhaps, to the better class of languages, since they present but little analogy to each other in their material elements, and admit scarcely of any classification. At least it forms a distinctive mark of them, and awakens a melancholy impression.

The Egyptian, which, since the partial deciphering of its hieroglyphics, is no longer totally inaccessible, belongs, I think, to this second class. In it, however, it holds a very important place, and is eminently distinguished. For its hieroglyphical mode of writing, by combining the alphabetical with the symbolical mode of indication, gave it, consequently, great liberty of choice among the different phonetic figures which might stand for the same alphabetic character, so that the phonetic word was, as it were, invested with a symbolical garb, and all alike assumed an hieroglyphical tone. Some of the Greeks regarded the hieroglyphical as the oldest of all human languages; and, indeed, that somber melancholy which seems to reign in all the monuments of ancient Egypt, might well be regarded as a silent witness to the great event of the ruin of a primeval world.

In order to complete our subject, the Hebrew still remains for a general notice in that brief review which alone our limits admit of. We must, however, give such a characteristic view of it as will enable us correctly to determine the place which it is to assume among the rest. Apparently, it stands isolated by itself, belonging altogether to neither of the two classes we have described. It seems to favor the conjecture, that a new and peculiar class is necessary to embrace all the phenomena in this first and oldest epoch of language. This, then, with the two already considered, will form three classes. In its radical words, the Hebrew exhibits only a slight relationship to the Indo-European family. This, however, on further examination, will probably be found to be still more considerable. For it is often impossible to recognize it at once beneath a totally different grammatical form and structure, and it is, moreover, withdrawn from immediate notice by the difference of its predominant mental tendency. We know, however, as an historical fact, that the Phœnician, which differed from the Hebrew only as one dialect from another, was not without some connection with the Greek, on which it exercised no inconsiderable influence. Now, with respect to the peculiar character of the Hebrew, every thing in it is directed to the attainment of the highest vividness and profound significance. This is even the case with its grammatical principle, which makes all its other terms, whether names of objects or qualities, subordinate to the verb. The triplicity, also, of the roots, which, with very few exceptions, consist of three letters--which again, for the most part, constitute as many syllables--was, assuredly, not without a significant design, and possessed, collaterally, a certain mystic allusion. In its profound significancy and compressed brevity--in its figurative boldness and prophetical inspiration, far more than in any chronological precedence of antiquity, consists the peculiar character and high prerogative of the Hebrew. On the other hand, it is somewhat inferior to many others, as, for example, the Greek, in poetical forms and shape, in richness and variety of development, and in precision of scientific diction. In its essential character, the Hebrew language is prophetical, like the people itself, even in the present evil days of their dispersion--the people in whom the living word of the twofold ancient prophecy, now that the Jews have handed it over to the Gentiles, has first attained its perfect accomplishment.

The whole system of the languages of man is but the external and visible copy and true mirror of his inmost consciousness. The different epochs of their ancient production are but so many terms in the progression observed by the human mind in its development. Consequently, language in general, as the clew of memory, and tradition, which binds together all nations in their chronological series and succession, is, as it were, the common memory and organ of recollection for the whole human race. It is only in this relation, which is certainly important, and also essential to the problem before us, that I have thought it allowable to enter upon this episode. Many of the particulars may perhaps have been unattractive enough. Still I trust that the general result, as throwing light upon the origin, or, rather, the historical rise and oldest development of language, has proved universally interesting, even though at most it has but suggested matter for future meditation.

This result may be expressed or briefly comprised in the following words: on our side of that obscure interval or great chasm which separates us from the hidden and inaccessible history of the first formation of language, the first grade in its growth is indicated by a deep state of decline and a melancholy sense of the fact. And yet even from this state a highly significant art is not altogether excluded, since we see it expressing itself in the beautiful symbols of the figurative language of Egypt. The second step in the further development of human speech is formed by the lofty flight which the poetic spirit took in the ancient languages, which greatly excel all others in beauty of form and perfection of structure, in richness of poetical ornament, and perspicuity of scientific precision. Some of the oldest fragments in those languages are also marked with a peculiarly beautiful tone of sarcerdotal solemnity, as is the case with many a relic from the earliest period of the Latin.

But the fuller and higher initiation in divine lore, and a bold, religious enthusiasm, form another and a peculiar grade in the historical development of language; and this was the third step that it took in this earliest and primeval time. And, as a proof that the characteristic just alluded to is not derived solely from the spirit and tone of the holy writings of the Hebrews, and that I have not, without further corroboration, transferred it at once to language in general, I will add one more remark, tending to show that in some degree it has its foundation in the very nature and grammatical structure of human speech itself. In the Arabic, which in many other respects is closely akin to the Hebrew, many of these characteristic properties may likewise be traced, even though the Arabians at a very early date, turning aside from the simple faith of the old patriarchs, gave themselves up to the superstitions of magic and astrology, and, since the times of Mohammed, have been animated with an inextinguishable and fanatical hatred of a profounder truth of godliness and the religion of love.

I called language in general--as being the store-house of tradition, where it lives on from nation to nation, and as being the clew of material and spiritual connection which joins century to century--the common memory of the human race. Now, it is this faculty of memory which I would here seek to give a more precise characteristic of. For the present seems its appropriate place in our series of psychological inquiries, according to the relative position which it holds in the general system of the mental faculties. Before entering upon this topic, however, the position that language must not be thought of as being in the first instance produced piecemeal by the concretion of several atomistic and unconnected parts, but as molded in one cast, and in its totality, similarly to a poetical or other creation of art, requires proof and corroboration. For this purpose, then, I would bring to your remembrance a fact or phenomenon which is closely connected with the investigation into the nature of memory, though it involves a marvelous leap of the memory, or at least of its usual method of operation: I am alluding to what, by an old phrase, is called the gift of languages--or that natural gift by which certain individuals seem enabled to enter all at once into the spirit and structure of foreign languages, and that not merely in the case of very simple ones, but even the highly-cultivated and artificial languages of modern Europe.

This phenomenon of the soul transporting itself, or, as it were, transported all at once into a language previously quite strange to it, so as to understand any spoken or written composition in it, is certainly not one of ordinary occurrence; and, in truth, whenever it manifests itself strongly and decidedly, it closely borders on the marvelous. Still it is a fact sufficiently well known, and neither unheard of nor rare. On the other hand, the higher and active case of the same phenomenon, which is marked, not merely by the understanding but also by the speaking of a language never before learned, and which was meant by the gift of tongues in the old sense, is certainly a really miraculous fact. But even this is acknowledged and believed, and there is no sufficient reason for calling in question the ancient witnesses to the fact, merely on account of the nature of it.

I called this fact a wonderful leap of the memory. For however subordinate this faculty may in other respects appear relatively to those which every where make prominent claim to the spontaneous burst of genius, still, even in the case of memory, its first spring and origin is often veiled and inexplicable, and it presents many points of view leading to profoundest questioning, and suggesting grave investigation.

In our psychological survey of the whole human mind, we set out with its four leading faculties, as arranged under the two contrarieties of understanding and will, of reason and fancy. Besides these four leading faculties, there are several, perhaps, just as many others, derived indeed from the former, but still not so much subordinate to them (for in another relation they appear equally important and not less essential than them) as rather co-ordinate with them and having a peculiar function assigned to them. Of these I have in my former Lectures analyzed and described the conscience as the moral instinct for right and wrong, when I named it the reason applied to the will, or, rather, as I preferred to consider it, as a peculiar and independent faculty, intermediate between reason and will, and being an immediate feeling and judgment as to what is good and evil in human desires and actions. Now, just as conscience is a mean between reason and will, so is memory intermediate between reason and understanding. With both of them it is closely connected. Memory, on the one hand, is the treasure-house of the understanding; indeed, it is the understanding hitherto acquired and worked out, now laid and stored up. On the other hand, as the clew and thread of recollection, memory furnishes that ground and principle of association in the consciousness, on which reason itself and its exercise is dependent. So entirely is this the case, that the partial or total loss of memory, from sickness or old age, though producing no derangement of the reason, is, nevertheless, followed by a partial decline and slowness of rational thought, which occasionally amounts to a general deadening and extinction of the rational faculty. The close connection between memory and understanding is especially visible in children, in whom the first faint opening of intellect is generally simultaneous with the first apperception of self and retention of external impressions or signs. The understanding is that thinking and cognition of individuals, which is even the act of intellection. Consequently, the individual mark and characteristic sign in the function of memory belongs to the understanding; but the combining link between these individual conceptions or signs--their permanent association--is the reason’s share in memory; for the latter is the knowing and consciousness which, in the coherent whole of associated and illative thought, is conversant about general notions.

And here arises a question similar to that which we started in our investigation of language. Must we assume, at the first awakening and hidden spring of memory, a divine impulse, so to speak, or a higher foundation for it from before the beginning of this terrestrial existence? Or, indeed, since on this subject many theories have been started of old, and are ever springing up, to retain a place among the world’s floating opinions, what are we to think of these views tested by that knowledge of our inmost consciousness which the observation of life furnishes? How far do our feelings and reflections justify or limit them? Among these opinions is the hypothesis revived by Leibnitz, of innate ideas, or, rather, according to the most recent exposition of it, of certain forms of thought essential to the reason, existing, antecedently to experience, in its fundamental scheme, and, as it were, engraven in it. Now all such opinions, whatever variations they may present, arise, without exception, from the Platonic notion of the anamnesis possessed by the soul from a previous existence, and, moreover, they agree with the dogma of the metempsychosis, which, Indian in its origin, is, however, widely diffused among other nations also.

A real and actual pre-existence, however, of the human soul, as it does not admit of any historical proof, so is it not easily reconcilable with our own feelings, nor with our general sentiments on the relation we stand in to God, and the divine economy in the government of the world. And as for the ancient belief in the migration of souls, it can not, however remarkable for its wide diffusion, be regarded in any other light than an arbitrary creation of fancy and a kind of mythology of the soul. Moreover, with regard to the theory of essential forms of thought impressed on the reason antecedently to all experience and prior to the first awakening of consciousness, it is based on a view of the reason which would make it a universal receptacle of the thought, divided into greater and less chambers and compartments. It is thus made the residuum or dead precipitate of the natural functions of the living cogitation, and of the law of life which rules therein, which, thus arranged in rank and row, are placed before us, like the dried specimens of an herbarium, or like the butterflies pinned to the entomologist’s case, from each of which, however, amid the mechanical arrangement, the true, delicate, light-winged Psyche has long since flown away. And since in philosophy our first object must be to seize, if possible, the living thought in its very life, and to give to it also a living expression, or at least to paint it after the life, it is not easy to see to what end this so circumstantial procedure is to lead. The whole hypothesis, in short, seems useless and superfluous. As to the principle or hypothesis of innate ideas, which in truth requires to be kept perfectly distinct from the one previously considered, it is quite conceivable that it may be a right method for the artist, who is ever in pursuit of the ideal, and in some cases also for the thinker, to present to his mind the object of his conception, and which he is seeking ideally to manifest, such as with a similar end it would appear before and be contemplated by the divine mind. At any rate, such a mode of thought would greatly facilitate the execution of his ideal conception. But if what is meant by this theory is an antecedent intellectual intuition of the pure ideas in the divine mind, then we are brought again to the difficult and debatable hypothesis of an actual pre-existence. Moreover, when we go into details, and attempt to apply this theory to particular instances, we are at once involved in the greatest perplexity. For what, even in the department of art, are we to understand by the inborn idea of a noble, wide-spreading tree, of a beautiful flower, a grand and well-proportioned architectural edifice, or other monument? or a vigorous animal, or noble human form? and what meaning, in the domain of practical life, would it convey, to talk of the innate idea of a skillful general, or of a wise financier? We can not, indeed, imagine to what good end this hypothesis can serve or lead, and, consequently, as soon as it is taken for any thing more than a mere figure of thought, it involves us in new, if it does not entangle as again in the old, inextricable difficulties.

The question, however, admits of a more general sense. Without supposing that there is, inborn in the human soul, a whole system of notions and forms of thought--a whole world, in short, of all possible ideas--may there not have been imparted to it from above a higher gift, which, naturally, is only called into action simultaneously with the awakening of the rest of the human mind, or of the mind generally? If so, would it not appear to the soul in the form of a memory; and, in a certain sense, be really such, though, indeed, not so much a memory of the part as of eternity? This is a question which, advanced in this sense, can not, I think, be absolutely negatived; not that any essential necessity or actual ground exists for it; but that, carefully guarded by certain limitations, it is an hypothesis that may, without hesitation, be assumed or conceded. Can it, in truth, well be doubted that every spiritual being, created by infinite love, has had imparted to him a share in the source of eternal love, which is to remain his forever, or so long, at least, as the connection with the supreme source of his being is not violently broken and rent asunder? If, then, such a portion is to remain forever the property of every created spiritual being, it must assume a definite place in his consciousness, and, in the development of the latter, manifest itself in its due place. As regards, indeed, the human soul, this supposition can, with less justice, be denied, the more universally and pre-eminently the prerogative of a high degree of resemblance to the divine image is ascribed to it.

Now, this participation in God, as the primary source of eternal love, which abides forever in the human soul, and which becomes extinct in one extreme case alone--this divine endowment of the human consciousness from above--can only be thought of and described as the recollection of eternal love; and this, moreover, is the only innate idea in the human mind which it is possible or allowable to assume.

The thought of an original recollection in man--which, properly, is not of a mere foretime, but of eternity, but which, in all propriety, still admits of being termed a recollection--has brought us to the notion of time and eternity, and to the question of their reciprocal relation--of which the true and correct view is probably very different from that which commonly prevails. But this is a topic which, for its further and complete elucidation, demands a special investigation.