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ESSAY

LANGUAGE.

READ BEFORE THE

€mmiQ %\im\j %ssMmik%

On the 5ih March, 1857.

EDWARD T. FLETCHER, ESQ.

PUBTJSHED BY RESOLUT[OV OP THE ASSOCIATION.

ST V n 1 :

LBADER AND PATRIOT STEAM-l'UKSS PRIXT, KINO HTREET EAST.

1857.

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LANGUAGE.

READ BEFORE THE

f or0nt0 Jiterarg ^^ssodation,

On the 5th March, 1857.

EDWARD T. FLETCHER, ESQ.

PUBLISHED BY RESOLUTION OF THE ASSOCIATION.

Toronto:

LEADER AND PATHIOT STEAM-PIIESS PRINT, KINO STREEP EAST.

1857.

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ON LANGUAGE, AS SUBJECTIVE & OBJECTIVE.

I propose to consider language as vesturing thought : to see
how far a chissification of dialects may be based on psycholo-
gical diflerences of race : to examine to what extent diversi-
ties of speech indicate corresponding varieties of mental
constitution.

As regards their outward structure, languages are either
isolating, agglutinative, or inflectional. The first class com-
prises those which like the Chinese are monosyllabic, devoid
of inflection and dependent mainly on intonation and position
for the expression of connected discourse. The second di-
vision, or that of agglutinative languages, includes the Indo-
Arian and Turanian branches, or those dialects which decline
and conjugate by the addition of particles to the root; and
lastly, the third class, the Syro-Arabian or inflexional family,
maybe said t' comprehend those languages where inflection
is effected ratht r by a change in the entire word than by the
addition of particles.

Thus, in the Chinese class, each vocable has not only a
specific meaning in itself but is also variable in sense from its
position in the sentence, from varieties of tonic accentuation,
and even from occasional gestures in the spoken language,
all of which seem required to eke out its original poverty in
radical etymons and inflexional shades of meaning. Viewing
Central Asia as the cradle of our race, it would seem as if,
while the other swarms dispersed towards the South and
West into comparatively fertile tracts, the Chinese protoplasts

mi2[ratL'(l Eastward ''ito iho salt closoil of Cobi and the sto-
rilo wilderness of I-'astern Tibetj where, from the miserablo
and Lsolaleil mode of lile they were compelled to assume,
their speech, lo.sinij in the course of age.-* its original richness,
may have slowly declined to its present condition. We have
said that it depends largely on seipicncc and intonation. Nor
only this, but the same attribute or qualifying term is diilerontly
expressed for each difl'erent class of subjects : thus, in speak-
ing of ''twenty ships," the word twenty is not the same, in
Chinese, as it would be in speaking of " twenty houses."
Literally translated, most of their sentences would appear to
us clumsy, circuitous, and periphrastic. For instance, the
simple ([uestion — '• where have you been ?" if literally trans-
lated from tlie Chinese would read, — " you just now go which
one place come ?" Thus, from the rigid and inflexible genius
of the language, thought, among this singular people, has ever
been restricted to the barest utilitarianism. A play of fancy
or iiaagiuation was no more possible than the combination of
free and athletic exercise wi h the use of a strait jacket. A
halting system of ethics, a reverence for old age, a code of
endless ceremonial observances, a literature composed of
unimaginative comedies, chronicles, and moral apothegms, a
subtle ingenuity in copying, in constructing bridges and canals
and in works of agriculture, mechanism and engineering:
this is nearly the sum of their attainments. The mythical or
heroic period, common to all beside, has with them had no
equivalent. No Iliad or Kalevala, no song or epic, the na-
tional incarnation of a people's genius, has run like living fire
through their broad and luxuriant vallies, to kindle all heaits
and giadden every hearth. Beyond its lower manifestations,
the universe to them has been a blank. Age after age, each
with its mystery and its lesson, has swept by them — but in
vain. The seasons have come and gone, the thunder has
rolled above and the graves have yawned at their feet, the
world of nature has unfolded its wonders, all grand and gen-

tie influences have been with them as with others— but m
vain. As that vast and wondrous sphinx of stone, that lius
stood since the dawn of time beside the river of Egypt, with
its couchant lion-paws and its grandly massive features, half
bestial, half divine, yet filled with a sublime and unutterable
mournfulness; on whose eyes the sun and stars still shine on
forever, unrecognized and unknown, so, in this remar!;able
family of nations, the higher utterance of the soul has ever
remained dumb and lifeless, rigid and fixed in stone.
They remind us of the immature condition of physical nature
in Australia, the land of strange and else-unknown types of
being, as if the creative power had stopped half way^ — where
both the Fauna and Flora seem to have been arrested, as by
a breath, whi e yet imperfectly devolped, where a dicotyle-
donous vegetation is almost wholly wanting, and where the
dark hued forests are haunted by such structural monstrosities
as the ornithorynchus, half bird, ha f reptile — w^here the mar-
supials are the highest of irrational mammals, and the leafless
acacia the most universal of plants.

Widely different in language and modes of thought from
the subjects of the middle Empire are those two divisions of
the human family which we have now to consider, the Indo-
Arian and Syro-Arabian. In the first, which for the purposes
of the present classfication, includes also the Turanian dialects,
we have the principle of agglutination as the basis of declen-
sion and conjugation, a principle broadly manifest iu the
Osmanli or modern Turkish, and carried to the highest degree
of euphonic perfection in the old Sanscrit and its modern
derivatives. Thus, in the'Osmanli, from the root sevmek, to
love, are derived the fo.ms sevilmeky to be loved, sevmemek,
not to love, sevememek, not to be able to love, sevdurmek, to
cause to love, sevishmek, to love another, sevinmek, to love one-
self, and so on ; the root being every where easily distinguisha-
ble from the particles which are agglutinated to it to express the

required modification of muauin^'. Hut the spirit of the Syro-
Arabian loni^iics, as the Hebrew, Arabic, and tlieir congeners,
is essentially diin.'rent. Agglutination is here too, but sub-
ordinated to a higher principle, and the modifications of which
wo have spoken are here etrectud not so much by the addition
of particles to the root as by a change of the root itself ; and
thus, to the old Arab the conception vien seems to have pre-
sented itself not as the singular man with something volun-
tarily added, but as a purely independent and substantive idea.

If we revert for a moment to the beautiful idealistic theory
of Bishop Berkely, in relation to the philosophy of the human
mind, we may recollect that the stronghold of his idealism
lay in this : he viewed the mind as a formative agent, adding
and abstracting at will, and clustering round an idea the
various particulars which constitute its contingent modes and
accidents. In a word, he looked on the thinking principle as
essentially subjective and disposing at pleasure of the materials
of thought. On the other hand, the opponents of this theory,
as Thomas Brown and others, maintain the objectivity of the
mind, and assert that in each modification of an idea, the
entire mind of the thinker is changed, every variety of concep-
tion being represented by a new and correspondingly varied
state of consciousness. The train of thought is by them sup-
posed to be objective, and the thinker mainly passive, recip-
ient, and controlled by influences external to himself ; where-
as, by the former, he is held to be subjective, active, creative,
and the Demiurgus, as it were, of his own conceptions.

We may draw the same distinction between the Indo-
Arian and Syro-Arabian modes of thought. It will appear
that the former is as truly subjective as the latter is objective ;
and that the literature of the Indo-Arian nations is as re-
markable for plastic fancy, for exquisite invention, for art,
combination, and masterly grouping and arrangement, as that
of the Syro- Arabians is for depth and intensity of feeling,
for profundity of thought, and for that grandeur and sublimity

of sontimont which soom tlio logitimatn roault of then
sn.spoptibility to nilliioncos transccndni^^thoir own porsonality.
Thus (livorsoly propaiod then, thus variously yiftod, did both
in old tnno enter tho arena .side by side, to m(M)t and con-
front, aslhoy host might, tho great problem of Life.

The Problem of Life. Ye.s, for before every generation of
men, before every individual, still wits tho veiled IhIs, tho un-
answerable Sphynx. To every man, if left to himself, tho
question has arisen — What am I ? Whence is this" being that
I bear with mo ? This stormy life force, wherewith mountains
are levelled and the course of rivurs ♦urned aside, to what end
is it ? Is it roundeil on either side by a dumb eternity of
silence ? And when all is done, and all pleasant sights and
sounds have faded, willt! • old Earth still speed rejoicingly on
her way, bearing no memorial or footprint of tho offspring that
loved her so well ? Or shall we accept the analogy of the
flower and the plant, and believe tliat tons also a palingenesis,
a return of spring, is possible, is probable, is true ?

These and questions such as these met every thinker at the
onset. No poet or prophet went forth who found not this lion
in hii^ path. To solve these difliciilties was to bend the bow
of Ulysses to which few if any were equal.

Yet once and ugnin in the attempt to meet the problem of
existence, has the human soul found utterance in song ad-
dressed to the universal heart of man, and intelligible to the
sympathies of every age. The Indo-Arian formative and
creative spirit, aided and inspired by the refined synthesis of its
linguistic forms, after no ignoble prelnde in the old Indian
epic, those georgeous figments, " beautiful exceedingly,"
that, like drifting lotus-flowers on the bosom of their Own
Ganges, have floated down to us from afar, found at length
its cbarest and most perfect expression in the songs of Homer.
Never before or since, has there been heard a strain so
joyous and resonant, so full of enjoyment of life, so throbbingly

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alive with every feeling and emotion that have evoked the
smiles or tears or laughter of a common and catholic humanity.
The old Homer, how delightful the associations suggested by
the sole mention of his name ; — the well-remembered school
room, the beloved teacher who first taught us to lisp the
godlike language of the Hellenes, and guided our trembling
feet into that

wide expanse
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne; —

— the green field where our first game of cricket was played,
the stream where we fished, and the trees elect for birds-
nesting — aye, and farther back too, till we reach the quiet
threshold of childhood and those sacred parent knees, whose
touch, even now, were it so permitted, would cleanse us in a
moment from the leprosy of sin. The old Homer, — we call him
old, but in his speech, in his unfailing freshness and vigor,
he seems ever young- -bright and glowing with the sunshine
of immortal youth : he will not look on life a problem, to him
it is a picture : all that is sad or revolting or harshly untu-
neable he will not look at, or at most he will but glance that
way, and again, rising as a lark into the clearness of God's
sky, he pours forth a flood of song, a pcean of sustained and
glorious melody, waking all sympathies and moving the heart of
the listener as by some irresistible spell, till it swells with a
sense of responsive and re-echoing ecstacy. Affectionate
and simple of mood, he will stoop to notice the most com-
mon and homely things : but when the occasion comes, he
can rise to any height or expand to any theme ; there is no
argument to whose greatness he will not ascend, there is no
emergency to which he is not equal. The very ease with
whieh he is great places him immeasurably above his com-
peers. Gentle of heart, he is like his own Ulysses, who weeps
at the song of Demodocus, and veils himself that the PhcEa-
cians may not see his tears, but when the bounds are set and
the time for contest is come, the heavy discus flies with scarce

an effort from his hand, far beyond the marks of his compet-
itors. None have had a keener sense of the common blessini^s of
life. He luxuriates alike in the freshness of morning, the
warmth of noonday, and the night overcanopied with stars.
Feasting and wine to him are good things, and on sleep, the
balmy restorer,he bestows every grateful and endearing epithet.
In other poets the tide of inspiration ebbs at times, and a dark
shade of sadness creeps over the deserted strand, but with him
there is no fatigue or weariness : he speeds on his way with
radiant brow, always exulting and untiring in his strength.
He seems full and boundless and inexaustible as the great sea
itself, cincturing all the treasures of earth within its silver
zone, and mirroring on its surface the starry mansions of
the Gods.

Such ji'as the strain that startled in old time^ the dwellers
by the broad Kgean But already in southern lands, the rent
rocks and scarred wildernesses of Arabia had re-echoed to a
life-song of yet deeper pathos and intenser energy, — the song of
Job and his sufferings. We know not the author of this won-
derful Arab poem, but it seems strange that, unjewish as
it is, silent on everything connected with the early history of
God's people, and entirely opposed in its breadth and univer-
sality to the sectarian spirit of Judaism, it should ever have
found its way into the old Hebrew canon. Its very existence
there shews the strong hold it had obtained on the sympathies
of men. It stands there fiery and terrible as some threatening
comet stretched athwart the Heavens> an indignant denial of
the doctrine that prosperity is in anywise the invariable por-
tion of the righteous, a sublime protest against the creed that
we should serve God that good may come of it, and thjit it
may be well with us and our children. No ; it was not thus
that the old Arab, listening to solemn spirit voices, alone in the
wilderness with Night and his own soulyhad shaped his creed.
He, looking steadfastly on the existence of evil, and en-
quiring in extremest agony of mind why it was thus, had

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found at length the scales fall from his eyes and the truth
stand visibly revealed before him. Then as the mists rolled
away from his vision, he saw how all things became clear, he
saw that happiness was not of necessity the end or aim of our
being, but that Truth and Fidelity and Holiness were to be
practised, let the happiness come as it might. He saw that it
was bettor to serve God aright, though it was with bruised
feet and bleeding brow, than to hold, with any poor Paley,
that virtue was to be practised because of the probable gain
to ourselves. And he has told us this great lesson in a work of
surpiissing sublimity, in words that have rolled their thun-
ders from age to age unceasingly, in strains of divinest pathos,
in fiery outbursts of indignation that consume as lightning ; —
and yet how few have learned the lesson he would teach us.
Surely there should be a higher moral code than this unhappy
Palcyism. Surely (to borrow the words of another*) there is a
love which exults in the power of self-abandonment and can
glory in the privilege of suffering for what is good. "Que mon
" nom soit fletri" said Danton, " pourvu que la France soit
libre." " Let my name be withered, so tliat France be free,"
and those wild patriots who had trampled into scorn the faith
in an immortal life in which they would be rewarded for what
they were suffering, went to their graves as beds for the dream
of a people's liberty, — and shall we, who would be thought
reasonable men, love the living God with less heart than these
poor men loved their phantom ? Justice is done ; the balance
is not deranged. It only seems deranged, so long as we
have not learnt to serve without lookmg to be paid for it.

Thus from the fertile Ionian land, and Irom the parched and
burning south, e^rose these two utterances, — towered up, side
by side, these two colossal spirits, both great, but how differ-
ent ! The one blandly expansive as the universal sunlit air, the
other profoundly earnest and pathetic, sounding all depths,
vast and shadowy and solemn as Night itself.

♦ Vid. West Review No. 118.

Ill

Nor did their influence expire with their age. As men still
gaze from afar on the twin mountains Ebal and Gerizim,
and weary not of admiring the grandeur of the one and the
luxuriance ot the other, so all who have since trod the pathway
of life have beheld these two giant peaks, Homer and the
old Arab poet, still visible above the receding horizon.

And in long after ages, the Scandinavian Voluspa and the
Finnish Kalevala testified how deep and lasting had been the
impression created by those two grand prophetic voices.
For the recovery of the latter of those two noble songs, the
Kalevala or National Epic of the Finns, we are indebted, it
may be mentioned ' par parenthese,' to the philologer Lonrott
who after travelling over Finnland for many years gave the
world the latest result of his researches in 1849 when the Kal-
evala appeared in 50 Runes, containing nearly 23,000 verses
and relating the life and exploits of Wainiimoinen the mythic
father of his race born of Ocean and the daughter of the Air,
his wondrous voyage towards the north, and his adventures
in the future home of the Finns, all conceived and executed
in the highest style of romantic subjectivism. The metre of
this great epos, it may also be remarked, is octosyllabic, or that
of the Hindoo Nalus and Damayanti, and trochaic, as that of the
national drama of Castile, and of the recent poem by Profess-
or Longfellow. In fact the latter delightful legend so closely
resembles the Kalevala both in method, spirit and metrical
structure as to make it probable that * Hiawatha' was suggest-
ed by a perusal of the older saga.

But I have detained you too long. Yet to make the thesis
complete, I should have spoken of the two lines of thought
which I have indicated, the reflective and creative, runni^fg
side by side

Darkaess and I'ght, ebon and go d inlaid,

throughout the warp and woof of the modern literature of Eu-
rope. I should have told how in the land of the old Etruscans,

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and deeply imbued with their spirit, the grertt Florentine poet
arose, dark and terrible as one of the old Hebrew b^rds ;
and how the echoes of his sublime Vision had scarce died away
aud men yet held their breath for very awe, when our own
land gave fo th the large and noble utterance of Chaucer, a
true poet, nay, one of the greatest of our poets, whom it is a
shame for Englishmen to have neglected so long. I should
have told how these two opposing lines seemed at length to
merge and unite in the profound and creative Shakespere, of
whom it has been said with truth, that were the dwellers of
earth swept away as by a pestilence, and were the inhabitants
of some other world then to alight upon our planet,these wonder-
ful dramas would alone sufRce to inform him of the passions
and emotions, the joys and sorrows, the fears and hopes and
aspirations of the race that lay buried at his feet. It is no
mere national feeling that makes us speak of Shakespere as
great among the greatest. He, it is true, is pecu'iarly our

own : he has

gained for us a brighter aureole

than all

our achievements in science or in war ; he is entwined

in our thoughts with every fondest recollection of our country

and our home. But in his wondrous many-sidedness

and universality, compared with all the world beside, he

Above the rest
In sl,apc and gcsvure proudly smineot,
Stands like a tower.

He is as the sun before whom all lesser luminar es fade. And
in reviewing the history of the advance and retrocession of
the landmarks of human intellect, and the names of those who
have ruled as annointed kings in the realm of thought, it may
be said that, apart from the sacred books, there have been
bpt three great poets, — Homer, Dante, and the author of
Hamlet and OtliQllo.

Toronto, March 5, 1857.

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