THE MEANING OF WORDS.








THE
MEANING OF WORDS:
ANALYSED INTO
WORDS AND UNVERBAL THINGS,
AND
UNVERBAL THINGS CLASSIFIED INTO INTELLECTIONS,
SENSATIONS, AND - EMOTIONS.
BV
A. B. JOHNSON,
AUTHOR OF A "TREATISE ON BANKING," "RELIGION IN ITS RELATION TO THE
PRESENT LIFW    ET0. ETC.
Four ineradicable fallacies are concealed in the structure of language: it identifies what
unverbally are diverse, assimilates what unverbally are heterogeneous, makes * unit of
what unverbally are multifarious, and transmutes into each other what unverbally are
umtransmutable.
D. APPLETON AND CO., 443 & 445 BROADWAY.
1862.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854,
BY A. B. JOHNSON,
In the Clerk's Office oe the District Cosrt of the United States for the Southern District of New York,




TO
ALEXANDER S. JOHNSON,
JUDGE OF THE COURT OF APPEALS,
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK,
MY DEAR SoN,
I believe your recollection can extend back to no
period when we were not companions of each other, and I
often query which of us is more indebted to the other for
intellectual and moral benefits thereby received; but I usually adjudge myself to be the debtor. The topics of this
book you have heard from me in every form  in which my
intellect can conceive them, hence I inscribe the book to you,
not to communicate its contents, but to record the social relationship which has always existed between us.
Of the merits of the work neither of us is in a good
position to judge-I from self-love, and you from prepossessions towards me. It has, however, exerted a kindly influence over my leisure during a long life that has been
marked with sorrows of no ordinary magnitude. It has,
indeed, been to me like the poor man's lamb in the parable
of the prophet.  "It has grown up with me and my children, eaten of my meat, drunk of my own cup, lain in my
bosom, and been unto me as a daughter." Praying you
may possess a son to whom you may be able to transmit a
memorial of social intercourse, like that recorded in this
dedication,
I remain yours most faithfully,
THE AUTHOR.
UiIaA, State qf New York, 1854.








PREFACE.
THE inventor of the "Rule of Three" deemed his object
accomplished when he presented sufficient examples of his
rule to elucidate its rationale and utility. I, also, have not
communicated all the results which will follow from my
analysis of language, but rather as few as will suffice to
elucidate my doctrines, the materials for the elucidation being
taken from  any source that seemed to me best adapted to
the purpose; and taken usually from. my memory irrespective
of their merits or demerits for other purposes. Indeed many
of the scientific tenets on which I comment are probably no
longer authoritative, and my comments may misconceive those
which are authoritative, and kindred errors may be numerous;
but if the reader shall collect from  my comments the views
of language that I entertain, he will collect all that I seek to
accomplish, and I plead guilty in advance of all the scientific
errors of which he may be able to convict me.
Some paintings require to be examined at a distance,
others need a near inspection or the merits of the picture
cannot be ascertained. What distance of view is to paintings,
rapidity of reading is to books. The following sheets are




8                       PREFACE.
constructed for very slow reading-the slower the better;
and whoever reads them fast will be unable to judge accurately of their design, and had better not read at all. I have
found a difference myself between reading my speculations
in manuscript, and reading them in print,-manuscript being
naturally read more slowly than print, and the effect of the
difference causes the printed work to be less satisfactory to
me than the manuscript.
These pages convey my conceptions neither as fully as I
wish, nor as methodically and perspicuously, but they are the
miniature results of at least fifty years of reflection, intently
directed to a search whose object I at first saw but dimly,
and to which I approached by slow approximations. In the
year 1828, I published my first views under the title of " The
Philosophy of Human Knowledge, or a Treatise on Language."
It was published in New York, by G. & C. Carvill. In the
year 1836, I rewrote the whole work and it was published
in the same city, by Harper & Brothers, under the title of "A
Treatise on Language, or the Relation which Words bear to
Things."  Some years after both these publications, I heard,
accidentally, of a work on language somewhat similar in conception to mine. Its author is the late Sir Graves Chamney
IHaughton, F. R. S., and of the Institute of France, etc., and
author of a Bengalee Dictionary and other learned works.
He named his production Prodromus, and it was published
in London, in the year 1839. Like my above named two publications, it deemed intellectually conceived words as nothing
but words, and deemed the ultimate significations of all words
to be only sensible perceptions and internal feelings. I sup



PREFACE.                       9
pose such a limitation necessarily precedes the fuller conception of language contained in the present publication; our
knowledge being naturally cumulative and progressive.
In some places, I anticipate remarks that are subsequently
repeated in places where they more properly belong. I have
not been able to avoid this defect without more labour than
I thought the defect justified; for I have not duplicated the
same matter except to subserve some new purpose.. But
another difficulty exists that no care can obviate, for it is
organic in our intellect. Its rationale will be found in the
following sheets where they speak of general propositions:every modern discovery is subsequently found to be included
in some propositions that have descended to us from past
ages.  Even a foreshadowing of the electric telegraph has
been lately seen in the scornful exclamation found in the
Book of Job, "Canst thou send lightnings that they may go
and say unto thee, here we are! "  Like the above, every
sentence of a book suggests to the reader something that he
knows, while the writer may have intended something that
the reader knows not. The difficulty presents an insurmountable obstacle against the direct communication by words of
new intellectual conceptions.  The most which verbal communications can accomplish in the premises, is by a species
of fermentation or elicitation in the reader's intellect, whereby
the new doctrines may possibly become evolved, or, as we
say, conceived-a term that is more literal than figurative.
But to the above irremediable difficulty in the communicability, by means of words, of new conceptions that are
not merely lexicographical definitions, we add an avoidable
1*




10                       PREFACE.
difficulty of which the following is an example: —".We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
Equal in what? —surely some men are created deaf, some
blind, some idiotic, deformed, feeble, black, etc. How selfevidently untrue, therefore, is the above miscalled self-evident
truth of our Declaration of Independence! Such criticism  is
sometimes heard from men in high stations, and it may be
philological, but to deem it controversial of the author's
meaning is to commit the error I am anxious to expose.
The meaning of the declaration is not what it excludes, but
what it includes;-not what is false therein, but what is true;
and thus interpreted it is a summary of many truths; as,
for instance, men  are created "not with  saddles on their
backs," to designate that they -are to be ridden, but rather
with no peculiar adaptation to the artificial distinctions'that
men impose on each other.  All are created equally subject
to the same infections, pains, wounds, mischances, and death;
all are created with the same passions, instincts, self-love, and
impatience of injury; and though some men are created deaf,
blind, idiotic, etc., such evils are dispensed with no reference
to artificial social distinctions, but like sunshine and rain fall
on all classes indiscriminately.
Sectarian dogmas are preeminently subjected by opposing
sectaries to the foregoing captious misinterpretations, hence the
incessant crimrinations and recriminations that painfully disfigure
all polemical discussions of men whom we wish to respect;
while probably every sectarian tenet is correct in its proper
meaning, and every controvertist is combatting a monster of
only his own conception.  "I will tell you, sir," said Laplace,




PREFACE.           11
to one of his friends, "what is the greatest absurdity in the
world: it is the doctrine of transubstantiation, for it violates
both time and space." I will not venture to say what the
doctrine signifies to those who hold it understandingly, but
1 have no doubt they would indignantly reject any absurdity
therefrom that Laplace would imply. In every instance, therefore, where a reader finds that his interpretation of an author
contradicts the author's comments and conclusions, the reader
should amend his interpretation, and make it conform to the
author's comments and conclusions. At least, I crave such
an interpretation for my following speculations, if they shall
haply gain a reader.  We read in vain if we look into a
book as we look into a mirror, and receive back nothing but
a reflection of our own familiar lineaments. Finally, I could
not make the work pleasant to readers who seek amusement
only, but I have tried faithfully to make it brief and intelligible, and especially, to make it useful to those who desire a
knowledge of the structure of language-a knowledge which
bears the same relation to all speculative learning as a knowledge of the qualities of drugs bears to the practice of medicine, or as a knowledge of perspective and colours bears to
painting. Persons who know not the latent sophistries of
language, know no verbal knowledge unfallaciously, and in proportion as their defect is unsuspected, -the world, considered
speculatively, will be full of mysteries, and differ from unverbal realities as jugglery differs from ordinary operations.
To manifest these truths is, however, not easy. A celebrated
English physician deemed a milk diet so healthful, that he
said a stomach which cannot endure milk is the stomach most




12                      PREFACE.
in need of milk; and I will parody the remark, by saying
that a man who supposes he has nothing to learn in relation
to the structure of language, is probably the man who is
most in need of such learning. To show still more strongly
my own opinion of the nature of this publication-aside from
its execution, of whose many defects I am only too painfully
con.cious- I believe that a full fruition of what is herein
attempted will make no longer true the ancient oracle, which
r suppose referred to language, and which was engraven on
the pavement of Minerva's temple, " I am all that has been,
that is, and that shall be, and none among mortals has hith.
erto taken off my veil."




CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.-INTRODUCToRY, EXPLANATORY, AND POSTULATORY.
1. Words are originally unmeaning sounds. Words conceived in
thought are not different in this respect from oral words-oral
words being only articulated sounds, and words conceived in
thought being only inaudible articulations.
2. The meaning of all words is conventional, and can be analysed
into a verbal meaning and an unverbal. The unverbal meaning
alone is considered by me-indeed, to discriminate the unverbal
meaning from the verbal is the main object of the work.
3. The unverbal meaning of words is divisible into three classessensible, intellectual, and moral. The class that I call moral is
composed of our internal feelings, which latter designation being
more indicative of my meaning than the word "moral," I usually
employ it in preference to "moral," though I sometimes use the
word "emotional."
4. The elements of chemistry are so generically different from each
other that no one element can be converted into another. Unverbal
things-sensible, intellectual, and emotional! —are equally different
from each other generically, and equally inconvertible into one
another, except verbally, though they seem homogeneous when
contemplated through the medium of words.
5. Chemistry is at the end of its analysis when it has resolved physical bodies into the respective generical elements of. which the bodies
are composed; and our unverbal knowledge is at the end of its
analysis when it is resolved into its unverbal generic components,
sensible, intellectual, and emotional.
6. Oxygen, and every other chemical element, is its own best expositor.
It is what it is-just as God, in addressing Moses from the burning
bush, could no way so well designate His personality as by saying,
"I am that I am.".So its own best expositor is each sensible perception, intellectual conception, and internal feeling. Each is what
it is, and to characterise it in any verbal way is to prevent the discrimination of words from unverbal things.,7. The ultimate elements of our unverbal knowledge is not words, but
unverbal things-the unverbal meaning underlies the verbal.




14                         CONTENTS.
8. Every man is dependent on his senses for his unverbal sensible
knowledge, and the unverbal knowledge revealed to him by any
one of his senses cannot be revealed to him by any one or more of
his other senses, the revelations of each sense being unique when
estimated unverbally.
9. A man's intellect can yield him no sensible information, the intellect
being able to yield intellectual conceptions only.
10. Every nominal thing which is insensible is intellectual, unless it be
an internal feeling, and every nominal internal feeling that cannot
be felt unverbally is also an intellection only.
11. The words "physical" and "sensible," wherever employed in these
pages, are used as synonyms; the words ",moral," "emotional," and
"internal feelings;" are also employed as synonyms of'each other.
PART I.
OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.
LECTURE II.-THE HETEROGENEITY OF UNVERBAL THINGS DISCRIMINATED FROM
THEIR FALLACIOUS VERBAL HOMOGENEITY.
1. We possess but one set of words with which to speak of three inconvertibly different sets of urnlrerbal things.
2. The verbal sameness must be discriminated from the unverbal diversity, or much speculative error ensues.
3. We mistake the homogeneity of words for a characteristic of unverbal things.
LECTURE III.-UNVERBAL MULTIPLICITY DISCRIMINATED FROM ITS FALLACIOUS
VERBAL ONENESS.
1. Names analysed, and their implied oneness found to be intellectualverbal, not unverbal.
2. All individuality is a conception of the intellect.
3. The intellect aggregates sensible perceptions into nominal units.
4. The intellect aggregates internal feelings into nominal units.
5. The intellect aggregates its own conceptions into nominal units.
6. The intellect aggregates into nominal units its own conceptions associated with certain internal feelings.
LECTURE IV.-VERBAL IDENTITY ANALYSED INTO UNVERBAL DIVERSITY.
1. Identity is a subjective conception of the.intellect, not an objective
perception of the senses.
2. Physical things that are verbally identical, are identical in only the
conception of the intellect.
3. Intellectual things that are verbally identical, are identical in only
the conception of the intellect.




CONTENTS.                           15
4. Internal feelings which are verbally identical, are identical in only
the conception of the intellect.
5. Language is founded on the two intellectual organic processes of
creating nominal units and verbal identities.
PART II.
OF THE INTERPRETATION OF WORDS.
LECTURE V.-OF THE UNVERBAL SIGNIFICATION OF WORDS.
1. The verbal identity of any two or more unverbal things must be
interpreted by their unverbal diversity.
2. The verbal homogeneity of any two or more words must be interpreted by their unverbal heterogeneity.
3. The verbal oneness of any verbal thing must be interpreted by its
unverbal multiplicity.
LECTURE VI. -O  THE UNVERBAL INTERPRETATION or AFFIRMATIVE GENERAL
PROPOSITIONS.
1. The generality of a proposition is subjective, and refers to the intellect; but the objective signification of a proposition is governed by
the unverbal objects to which it refers.
2. Every general proposition possesses as many different objective significations, as it refers to different objects.
LECTURE VII. -OF THE UNVERBAL MEANING or NEGATIVE GENERAL PROPOSITIONS.
1. A negation that refers to no physical object is physically insignificant.
2. The absence of a physical negative will make an affirmative proposition true universally; yet the proposition will mean affirmatively
only the sensible particulars to which its affirmation refers.
LECTURE VIII.-OF THE UNVERBAL INTERPRETATION OF WORDS THAT ARE
INTELLECTUALLY'CONCEIVED.
1. Words conceived by the intellect mean, unverbally, the organism
of the intellect; not the objects which the words mean when they
apply to perceptions of the senses.
2. Intellectually conceived words are organic subjective responses of
the intellect to objective premises.
3. As a man increases his objective knowledge, he increases the materials
out of which his intellect conceives its subjective verbal responses.
4. The intellect cannot originate objective knowledge, except what relates to its own organism.
5. The responses of the intellect are independent of our volition.




L6                         CONTENTS.
LECTURE IX.-TnE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
1. The subjective nature of intellectual verbal conceptions, as contradistinguished from objective things, is urged upon our notice by the
necromantic dilemmas to which the intellect organically arrives in
predicating such conceptions to their ultimate results.
2. Conceptions of the intellect are organic, but not innate, their evolvement depending on accidental objective occurrences.
LECTURE  X. —O  THE UNVERBAL MEANING or VERBAL INQUISMON.
1. Retrospect of the preceding lectures.
2. Questions analysed into an inquirer, inquiree, and object.
3. Each of the three is unverbally triform, and only verbally a unit.
4. The error exemplified of seeking sensibly what is only intellectual, and seeking intellectually what is only sensible.
5. Inquisition is limited by the purview-of our sensible, intellectual,
and moral organisms.
6. All physical inquisition is unanswerable that is not within the purview of the senses, all intellectual inquisition is unanswerable that
is not within the purview of the intellect, and all inquisition that
relates to the internal feelings is unanswerable that is not within
the purview of our consciousness therein.
7. Knowledge, except of language, is, in its ultimate form, not verbal,
but unverbal.
8. Conclusion..
CAUTION  TO THE HASTY  READER.
A table of contents being necessarily composed of general propositions, is, in a work like the present, as unintelligible, when not preceded'
by the items in detail to which the general propositions refer, as a catalogue of plants is unintelligible to a person unacquainted with the plants.
This has prevented me from making as copious as I otherwise should the
above table, and the headings which precede each lecture. The table
and headings but glance at some of the main topics of the work, and
omit wholly collateral reflections and consequences, which as necessarily
accompany the main topics of every work as foliage accompanies the
production of fruit.




THE MEANING OF WORDS.
LECTURE I.
INTRODUCTORY AND- EXPLANATORY.
CONTENTS.
1. Words signify either words or unverbal things.
2. Unverbal things are either sensible, intellectual or emotional.
3. The unverbal things of any one of the above three classes are untransmutable into the un'verbal things of any other of the classes except
verbally.
4. The unverbal things of the different classes seem homogeneous when
contemplated through the medium of words.
~ I. LiKE the whistle of the winds, the lowing of oxen,
and the chirp of birds, words are mere sounds, apart from
the signification which they acquire conventionally or
otherwise; and to the people of one nation, the unaccustomed language of another nation  is still unmeaning
sounds. Words, whenever used significantly, must, therefore, signify other words or unverbal things, or both; but.so far as words signify other words, I shall not discuss
their meaning, how important soever the verbal meaning




18            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
of words may be; for it constitutes a branch of learning
which has been abundantly cultivated, and I can add
nothing thereto. I design to speak of only the unverbal
signification of words, —the signification which no explanatory words can reach, it underlying them all.
~ 2. I shall not, however, attempt to establish the unverbal meaning of any particular word, but simply attempt to discriminate words from unverbal things; —the
discrimination applying to all words in common, and to
all languages.  The meaning of particular words, as
matter, spirit, body, mind, etc., is constantly engaging the
efforts of philosophers, who suppose they are engaged in
profounder discussions than merely defining the signification of particular words; —but I disclaim the discussion,
not because I deem it unimportant, but because the disclaimer will aid in showing, by contrast, the character of
my design.
~ 3. To analyze the meaning of words into verbal and
unverbal, is, I suppose, new, and it is as useless as new,
unless I am correct in the above assumption; that words
are unmeaning sounds when they possess no ultimate signification that is unverbal. As this character of words
pervades all I shall say, I bring it prominently into consideration at the commencement of our discussions, that if
the assumption is fallacious, the fallacy may be readily
and speedily detected. Words have, heretofore, been defined as signs of ideas, and the meaning of words has been
sought in the ideas of which the words are said to he the




INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY.           19
signs; but ideas are often composed partially or wholly of
words; hence, to deemi words signs of ideas, will make
words signs of other words, while I desire to contemplate
words with reference only to their unverbal meaning. My
design will, therefore, be best foreshadowed by saying that
I shall deem words as signs of -only unverbal things.
~ 4. But what are unverbal -things? The term seems to
convey no definite meaning when I occasionally use it in
conversation. Indeed, after much effort, I am not always
successful in making my hearers understand the difference
that exists between words and unverbal things. We can
eat unverbal things without thinking of their names, and
we can drink, see, smell, and handle them; but to talk
about them, so as to discriminate what is unverbal. in the
meaning of our words from what is verbal, is a difficulty
which can be vanquished by only a strong effort of the intellect. Still it must be vanquished, for all I have to say
relates to unverbal things, not to words; and if the discrimination between them be not fully seen, I shall be
wholly unintelligible. The muster-roll of an army consists of words which name the unverbal components of the
army, and when the names are called during a muster,
each of the unverbal components answers to his name;
could we, in the same way, call over all words: and sentences of the English language, and each unverbal thing
could present itself, as the word or sentence that refers to
it is called, the muster would exhibit the unverbal things
separated.from the words that refer to-them.




20             THE MEANING OF WORDS.
Unverbal things are divisible into three classes-sensible, intellectual, and moral.
~ 1. But all unverbal things cannot be sensibly thus
mustered, only a portion of them being cognizable by our
senses. This portion I shall classify by itself, and call
them sensations-sensible things, and sometimes physical
things.'Physical, wherever used by me, will be as a
synonym  of sensible; and both terms will severally be
employed to denote what any one or more of my senses
can reveal to me as a sight, sound, taste, feel or smell.
By saying, therefore, of any thing that it is sensible or
physical, I shall only mean that it is something cognizable
by some one or more of my senses. To an uneducated
deaf mute sensible things must appear in entire separation
from words. He sees in the heavens neither sun, moon,
stars, clouds, nor firmament, but he sees the unverbal
things which the words name; and he sees on the earth,
neither trees, grass, men, women, houses, streets, nor
water, but he sees the unverbal things that those names
designate. All sensible things possess thus an unverbal
existence, and all that I require at present, is to discriminate what is unverbal from what is verbal.
~ 2. Another portion of unverbal things, but not cognizable by my senses, I shall class by themselves, under
the name of emotions, or internal feelings; though I may
occasionally call them by other names. I refer to our appetites, desires, passions, etc. They are as discriminable




INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY.            21
from the words that name them as sensible things. A
deaf mute knows them not as anger, love, vanity, hatred,
jealousy, emulation, hope, fear, desire, aversion, etc., but
as emotional feelings apart from any verbal designation;
and they can appear the like to us, to the extent at least
of enabling us to discriminate what is verbal in relation to
them from what is unverbal; though we are so accustomed,
from the earliest infancy, to contemplate unverbal things
through the medium of words, that to contemplate anger
unverbally, is at first an unintelligible requirement.
~ 3. A third class of unverbal things I shall designate
as intellectual. Every known thing is intellectual that is
not comprehended by one of the above two classes. By
this comprehensive rule, we never need suffer any hesitation as to whether any word names an intellection or not.
If the meaning of the word is not something that can be
perceived unverbally by some one or more of our senses,
the unverbal meaning is intellectual, unless it be emotional,
as stated in the preceding section. Our senses, therefore,
are a sort of Ithuriel's spear, which will at once inform us
whether the signification of any word is physical or not.
If its signification is neither emotional nor can be recognized unverbally by some one or more of the senses, the
signification is intellectual. Take, for instance, the word
physical, if I employ it without any reference to some thing
that some one of my senses can perceive unverbally-the
only meaning of the word will be intellectual. I labour
this point unnecessarily perhaps, but it is essential to a




22            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
proper understanding of the use which I shall constantly
make of the words physical and intellectual.
But I have not yet shown what intellectual things are
unverbally-the unverbal things which I have thus far referred to, being either sensible or emotional. I will, therefore, proceed to adduce some examples which may indicate
what I mean by the unverbal meaning of intellectual
things. The words. memory, thought, reflection, etc., are
names of some of the unverbal things of the intellect, and
they can be easily recognized unverbally. When Hamlet
says, he sees his father "in his mind's eye," his words refer
to an intellectual conception that is entirely distinct and
separable from the words which he utters. We can see
the moon, also, unverbally, in our mind's eye, and the
moon thus seen intellectually is easily discriminable from
the word moon, or from the sensibly perceived' moon. But
all intellections are not, so easily as the above, discriminable from words; for instance, the conception that the sun
"'required a creator before it could exist."  Have these
intellectually conceived words any unrverbal rmeaning-any
meaning that can be discriminated from the conceived
words and from all words?. That a ship needed a creator is.
not an intellectual conception so much as it'is a sensible
experience; and to our sensible experience about ships and
analogous things, the words may be said to refer when I
assert that a ship needs a creator before it can exist. But
when a creator is.predicated by the intellect of the sun, the
conceived words refer to no sensible experience with suns




INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY.           23
or with anything analogous thereto. At one period of my
life, I believed that words thus conceived by the intellect,
of the sun, are totally insignificant unverbally, except as
they refer to our sensible experience with ships and other
analogous creations of man. As a corollary from this be
lief, I supposed that an uneducated deaf mute, who knows
no kind of language, can possess no intellectual conceptions in relation to the sun's requiring a creator. I supposed such a mute to be as dumb intellectually as he is verbally, and to be dumb intellectually because he is dumb
verbally; and accordingly that his intellect cannot conceive
that the sun required a creator, -till he be taught some gesticulations with his hands or fingers, analogous to the
movements which we make with our organs of speech, and
which we call words. I found, however, that a deaf mute
manifests, by his conduct, a knowledge of some intellectual
conceptions that are as seemingly verbal only as the conception of a creator in relation to the sun; for instance, he
will prefer-the whole of any desirable thing rather than a
part, though he cannot know verbally "that the whole is
greater than a part;" and he will as readily receive a single
five dollar bank. note as receive five notes of a dollar each,
though he cannot know verbally " that things equal to the
same are equal to each other." He cannot conceive verbally the relation between master and servant, master and
slave; yet he can act suitably to the relations as master,
servant, or slave.
In reflecting on these anomalies, and knowing that men




24            TIE MEA:NING OF WORDS.
in all ages of the world, and in all places, have, without
any possible conventionality, conceived intellectually that
the sun required a creator before it could exist, I saw that
the universality of the conception must proceed from the
organism of the intellect; and hence, that all such conceptions, how diversified soever in verbal creed, possess an
unverbal meaning in an organic impulse from which the
verbal conceptions all proceed, and to which they owe
their ultimate cogenicy. In truth, the meaning of such
words is subjective, not objective. A deaf mute, therefore,
though his intellect cannot conceive in words, as ours can,
that the sun required a maker, will possess the intellectual
organism from which the words proceed in us; and his
knowledge in the premises, excluding what is taught in
the Scriptures, will be equal to ours, except that he cannot apply thereto words.
So when an uneducated deaf mute is under the influence
of anger, he cannot utter the verbal execrations and imprecations which anger induces us to utter, but he can feel
unverbally what we feel. The verbal execrations and imprecations are merely the effects of an organic unverbal
feeling, just as the verbal dogmas in relation to a creator
of the sun, are merely the effects of an organic unverbal
intellectual impulse; and while the said feeling and the
said impulse are probably much the same in all men, the
verbal execrations and imprecations that result from the
foeling of anger, and the verbal dogmas that result from
the intellectual impulse, will be rude and gross among an




INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY.           25
uncultivated people, and will at all times be Dutch, French,
Indian, etc., according to the nationality of the speaker;
and may be inarticulate screeches in a deaf mute, or gibberish in an idiot, or spasmodic screams in an infant.
As I am endeavouring to manifest a very important, and,
I suppose, unrecognized unverbal meaning of intellectually
conceived words, I will give another illustration of my discrimination of the unverbal meaning from the verbal. In
an uneducated deaf mute the organs of speech are situated,
in relation to words, somewhat like the hands of a man are
situated in relation to manipulations when the man is
handcuffed. His hands, though unable to perform their
proper organic movements, will possess the tendency to perform them when an occasion occurs that naturally excites
the movements, and the tendency may manifest' itself, as
we see it in infants, in some imperfect struggles; so I suppose the' intellect of an uneducated mute manifests, in some
guttural sounds, a tendency to conceive words on the occasions where words are organically conceived by persons
who are not mutes. I have never been in a position to
observe mutes, and, therefore, speak from only conjecture;
but whether they thus manifest the organic tendency or
not is immaterial to my purpose, which is only to discriminate intellectually conceived words from the organice un —
verbal impulse from which the conceived words proceed;
and to show that intellectually conceived words possess an
unverbal meaning in the organism of the intellect, just' as
verbal execrations and imprecations possess an unverbal
2




26            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
meaning in our moral organism. In both cases the part
which is principal is unverbal, while the verbal part is
subordinate. The verbal part may be Chinese, Indian,
Dutch, etc., without impairing the cogency of the unverbal
part; and probably the verbal part may be guttural, solecistic, and incoherent, without impairing to the speaker the
cogency of the unverbal part. Some men are so stupid
that the verbal conceptions of their intellect are as unintelligible to hearers as an unknown tongue; still the utterance
seems to satisfy the intellects of the speakers; and how far
intellections, even thus manifested, differ unverbally from
intellections that are manifested in better words by better
cultivated men, may be problematical. We never estimate
thus the intellectual condition of stupid or illiterate men,
though we are accustomed to interpret somewhat thus in
such men, and in all others, words that proceed from our
internal feelings. The words rogue, rascal, etc., we deem
epithets of endearment when we know they proceed from
feelings of affection. Indeed, the feeling of love, when it is
extreme, finds often in its struggles for utterance no words
so expressive of its energy as those which literally are opprobrious. We know, also, that in expressing his intellectual conceptions, every man occasionally utters, inadvertently, words of an opposite conventional meaning from
what he intends; still the mistaken words satisfy the organism of his intellect, as well as a correct utterance. When,
too, we listen to persons who are speaking in some foreign
language that is unknown to us, and refiect that such lan



INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY,           27
guages are numerous to the extent of several thousand,
and all of them equally satisfactory to the intellects of the
speakers, we may well infer that the ultimate significance
of the utterances is not dependent on the sounds that are
uttered; but on the intellectual organism from which the
sounds proceed. This is still more evident from the translatability of every language into the words of every other
language, and which manifests that the words of all languages take cognizance of like things; and what is thus
like must be unverbal, for it is not verbal; and must be
organic, for it is common to all men everywhere and at all
periods. If this doctrine be not true, we convert into mere
words all knowledge that is not sensible or emotional;
that is, all knowledge that can be manifested in words
only; as, for instance, all doctrinal theology, natural and
revealed; words conceived by the intellect in thought or
otherwise, being no more significant and no less than
words uttered audibly. I shall, however, speak more on
this subject hereafter. I have attempted at present to show
only that all intellectual conceptions can be discriminated
from words as well as sensible things and internal feelings.
Intellectual conceptions are discriminable with more difficulty, because a large number of them consist of words;
but an unverbal meaning underlies and is the ultimate signification of the conceived words; just as the internal feeling that dictates the execrations of anger, underlies and is
the ultimate unverbal signification of the verbal execrations.




28            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
The classification of unverbal things into intellections, sensations, and emotions, assimilates to the analysis of chemistry.
~ 1. Having thus manifested what unverbal things are,
and shown that they are divisible into three classes, sensible, intellectual and emotional, I mean not to characterise
any one of the three classes as more or less important than
any other, my design extending no further than to so
analyse our knowledge that we may discriminate words
from unverbal things; and the unverbal things of one of
the three classes from the unverbal things of any other of
the classes.
The classification which I have attempted to apply to all
unverbal things assimilates to the analysis of chemistry.
As chemistry shows the relation which all compounded
physical things bear to a few elemental physical things
that are not compounded, so I have shown the relation
which words bear to things that are unverbal. And as
chemistry ends its analysis when it has analysed compounds
into their elements, so when I shall have analysed any
given words into unverbal things my analysis will end.
The elements of chemistry-hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen,
etc.-you can examine in any way you may find practicable; but you cannot change them into each other or into
any physical thing'more simple. They practically say to
chemists as God said to Moses, "I am that I am;" that is,
they alone are their own proper expositor, and unresolva



INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY.           29
ble into any more elemental thing. So, after I have shown
that the word memory names an intellectual thing, and you
wish to know further what the said intellectual thing is
unverbally, my teachings cannot answer your question
except by referring you to your intellect, which alone can
present the intellection to you unverbally; and when it is
thus presented, and you shall wish to question it, it can
answer, like the elements of chemistry, "I am that I am;"
language being at the end of its unverbal signification
when its meaning is traced to the unverbal things to which
it refers. What I have said of the word memory, I may
repeat of every other word which signifies an intellection,
as thought, idea, etc. When you know the unverbal thing,
impulse, or zest, to which the words refer, you know the
word's unverbal meaning; and I have accomplished in relation to it all that my analysis contemplates.
~ 2. And what I have thus said of words which signify
intellections, may be repeated of words which signify internal feelings, as love, hate, hope, fear, kindness, jealousy,
etc. Each of the words, when used with reference to any
internal feeling, means'unverbally the feeling to which it
refers; and when your consciousness' recognizes the feeling
unverbally,' the feeling becomes its own best expositor;
an'd language in' relation thereto has performed its office.
The like'may be said of words which signify sensible
things; as, for instance, the word elephant. What your
senses perceive when an elephant is exhibited to you, constitutes to you-the unverbal sensible meaning of the word




30             THE MEANING OF WORDS.
elephant; and the like may be said of every other word
whose unverbal signification is sensible.
The unverbal things of any one class are untransmutable into
the unverbal things of any other class.
~ 1. But vain will be the foregoing classific discrimination between intellectual conceptions, sensible perceptions,
and internal feelings, if the three classes of unverbal things
differ only in the source through which they become known
to me. I assume, however, much more, namely, that the
unverbal things of each class are essentially different, and
are inconvertible into each other; and I am anxious that
these tenets shall be perceived clearly, because, if I am incorrect in them, my entire classific superstructure is fallacious and worthless. We may well suspect that our
Creator is too skilful to create more than one set of organs
to perform one office; but, irrespective of this assumption,
and relying wholly on what we may discover experimentally and consciously, I postulate that our sensible organs,
our intellectual organism, and our internal feelings, yield
respectively knowledge that is different, each of the three
sets yielding us knowledge that is sui generis. The senses,
for instance, reveal to us that matter is divisible, but after
the sensible division proceeds to a certain extent, we find
that further sensible division is impossible; the intellect,
however, can and will continue the division verbally, and
finds that matter is divisible ad infinitum; and so certain
is the divisional process that it is capable of mathematical




INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY.             31
demonstration. Now I insist, that when the division ceases
from being sensible, it becomes only intellectual. The two
"divisions" are verbally homogeneous, but they are unverbally different; one being a sensible perception and the
other an intellectual conception. But you may ask me what
the difference is, and I answer that it is unverbal; hence
I cannot tell you the difference in words. Our knowledge
is at the end of its analysis when it is traced to the unverbal things of which it is composed.  The intellectual
division, like the oxygen of chemistry, is unverbally what
it is. It is its own best expositor, and sole revealer. So
the sensible division is unverbally what it is, and its own
proper expositor and sole revealer, and no words in relation thereto can aid us in discovering how it differs unver-.bally from an intellectual division; the mute revelations
of our intellect and our senses alone can discover the difference.
~ 2. The generic and inconvertible difference which thus
exists unverhbaly in things that are verbally homogeneous, I
claim as an important discovery; and to manifest this discovery, I have been endeavouring so long and laboriously
to discriminate words from their unverbal signification;
and the unverbal things of the senses from the unverbal
things of the intellect, etc.; for when we speak of them, we
are constantly liable to disregard their unverbal differences;
by reason that the same word will often signify the unverbal things of two or of all the different three classes, as we
have evinced in the word division. I can, for instance, see




32            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
that the sun shines, and I can see that the three angles of a
triangle are equal to two right angles; but in the first case,
the word "see" signifies a physical -perception —a sight;
and in the second case it signifies a conception of the intellect-an intellection. Again, take the word good: Thomas
is good, an apple is good, an argument is good; meaning, unverbally, some benevolent internal feeling which influences
Thomas, some desirable physical property possessed by the
apple, and some intellectual acuteness contained in the argument. You thus perceive that we possess three classes
of unverbal things, and language refers to them all indiscriminately; consequently the unverbal things of each
class being as essentially different as the Dromios of Shakspeare, nothing is more important to an unsophistical
appreciation of verbal learning and verbal speculations
generally, than to understand the threefold unverbal character of nearly every word; and to be able to untwist'into
its respective unverbal strands the three-stranded cord
which nearly every word may be called. Nor is the process difficult. When language speaks of anything that our
senses cannot perceive unverbally, language is speaking of
an intellection, how much soever the words may imply that
the thing is physical-;, and when language speaks of any
internal feeling that our- consciousness -cannot recognize
unverbally, language is again speaking of'an intellection,
how much soever the words -may imply an'internal feeling.
Nothing, therefore, can be more discriminable from each
other than'the unverbal things of the three classes.




INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY.           33
X 3. But I must not precipitate what I have to say in
relation to the nature of words. I shall speak of words
presently. I desire to show now only the inconvertible
difference which I claim for the perceptions of the senses,
the conceptions of the intellect, and for our internal feelings. I might, perhaps, safely leave the inconvertible difference as self-evident.; but Providence, by making some
men blind and some deaf, enables us to learn experimentally the inability of the intellect, and the inability of words,
to communicate to us the unverbal information which we
receive through those senses; and by a due contemplation
of such and kindred cases, we shall more readily discover
the inconvertibility into each other which I claim for the
three classes of unverbal things, namely, sensible perceptions, intellectual conceptions, and internal feelings. If
any person is already satisfied in relation to their inconvertibility into each other, he need not read what intervenes
between this' and the next succeeding lecture; but if he
needs more light on the subject, the following considerations
may yield it:~ 4. Truth possesses often two aspects, one so gross that
every person sees it, and the other so subtile that the acute
pass it unnoticed. For instance, that a blind man's intellect cannot reveal colours to him through the agency of
words, or through any other agency, is obvious; while the
kindred fact that no sight can be known to you which you
have not seen, has been denied by even the sagacious
Hume. He says, " Suppose a man is acquainted with every
2*




34           TIE MEANIN'G OF WORDS.
colour except a Particular shade of blue, and then let all
the shades of blue, except the above, be placed before him
in an order descending gradually from the deepest blue to
the lightest; and he will be able, by his imagination, to acquire a knowledge of the absent shade." But Hume is
wrong. The absent shade is a sight, and nothing can reveal
it unverbally to the man but his eyes.
If we cannot thus learn a new appearance, can we not
by some mental elaboration commix known sights and discover the effects? No; a change of appearance is a new
sight, and irremediably unknown till disclosed by our eyes.
When a milliner wishes to know how a ribbon which lies
before her will appear on a hat, she trusts not to her intellect to compound the two known appearances; but from a
practical acquaintance with the limitation of her faculties,
applies the ribbon to the hat. So, from the known inadequacy of words to reveal new sights, we employ pictures.
But a person who never saw the original, will receive from
its representative no sight except that of the painting.
Let a youth study geography, and be competent to designate on a map or globe every kingdom, and to tell its latitude, climate, soil, productions, and appearance; his knowledge is precisely what he displays; various appearances on
maps, globes, and pictures, together with words and phrases
which he has learnt to associate with them. If he thinks
he knows unverbally any sight which he never experienced, a visit to the countries he has been taught to speak
of will undeceive him. He may recognize names of places,




INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY.           35
names of customs, and names of natural productions; but
the sights will be new. All the ingenuity of man, assisted
by painting, sculpture, and eloquence, cannot teach the
brightest understanding the exact unverbal appearance of
a pin, except by presenting to his eyes what will produce
a sight that in every respect is a pin.
On the organic limitation of our visual perceptions, to
which we are thus adverting, arises the efficacy of disguises.
They merely introduce a new ingredient in some known
appearance, as, for instance, a black wig in place of light
hair. The change of appearance produced in a man by
death is often only an alteration of colours; though the
change renders difficult, in many cases, an identification of
the body by former familiar acquaintances. The variety
which seems endless in the human countenance, is the
effect of a different grouping, rather than any different formation of the features and hues that unite in the counter
nance. The toy called the Chinese puzzle, also the kaleidoscope, operate on the above organic principle; and,
with changes in the juxtaposition of a few pieces of wood
or coloured glass, produce an almost endless variety of different sights, the knowledge of any one of which we shall
seek in vain from the intellect, assisted by looking, no
matter how long, at the pieces separately. When we see
an Indian with a daub of red paint on his cheek, and
when we read in the Scriptures that women were accustomed to tinge their eyes, as modern women formerly
placed small black patches on their faces, we laugh at the




36            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
custom, and ask what beauty can be found in a daub of'
red paint or a piece of black court-plaster.  The beauty
consists not in these, but in the change produced in the
whole countenance by the new addition, and which change
no intellect can anticipate. It is often great, though the
effect may not accord with our present tastes.
~ 5. That the intellect can reveal to me no sight that
seeing has not informed me of, is a physical truth which
experience will substantiate, and I advert to it rather than
press it by argument. But a kindred position is equally
true of our other senses. Let an epicure prescribe some
unusual mixture of known ingredients,- and after.his imagination has feasted on the compound, let him present it to
his taste, and he will discover the inefficiency of his intellectual foreknowledge. No brilliancy of imagination nor
acuteness of the intellect can perform the office of any of
our senses.
~ 6. The like may be said of feelings. A person who has
never felt pain (if we can conceive such a being), will possess no correct unverbal meaning of the word; and he who
has felt no greater pain than a tooth-ache, may be told of
the superior agonies of the gout, but he will not be able to
divine the feeling. Language can refer us to any sensible
knowledge we possess, but it can reveal to us none in its
unverbal aspect that we possess not.
~ 7. We may say the same of sounds. If I have never
heard, a cataract, you may inform me what the sound is
like; and if I have hearid a similar sound, I shall be in



INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY.          37
structed;:but the intellect can effect no more than such an
approximation. Should you wish to acquaint a child with
the sound of a cataract, his unverbal conception of it will
be very erroneous; not because his intellect is less acute
than yours, or.language less operative on him than on you;
but because his sensible experience is less than yours, and
language can be sensibly significant to him, of his sensible
experience only. If he has heard no sound more consonant,
you must refer to even the lowing of an ox. You may
qualify the' comparison, by saying the cataract is awfully
louder; but if he has heard nothing louder, the qualification will not add to his sensible instruction, except that it
may teach him intellectually, that he is still ignorant of the
correct' sound of a cataract.
But cannot the letters of the alphabet be combined, so
that by looking at the combination, my intellect can teach
me a sound that hearing has never informed me of? I
may combine letters so as to denote a new sound; but the
sound, so far as it is new, will.be'unknown to me, till my
organs of speech have uttered the combination, and thus
made my hearing acquainted with it. Seeing the letters
can teach us a new sound, no more than it can teach sound
to a deaf mute. Nor let any person suppose that his intellect can compound known sounds, and thus acquire a
sound which he never heard. The most practised musician
can, no more than the most unskilful, know unverbally
the sound which will be produced by a new combination
of familiar notes. So far as the combination will produce




38            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
a sound that he never heard, so far the effect of the combination must be sensibly unknown to him, despite all the
efforts of his intellect. The power of written characters, to
communicate sounds to me, is limited to sounds already
known by me. We accordingly find when an Englishman
attempts to learn the French language by means of written
directions as to the pronunciation, he will still utter only
English sounds; though to a Frenchman the written directions may represent French sounds. The obstacle to the
mere Englishman is organic, and insurmountable by any
visible or intellectual contrivance whatever.
~ 8. From the inadequacy of language to teach us unverbal things not already known, arises the inefficacy of verbal
instruction. A writing master may direct a child how to
make a perpendicular mark; but in every particular in
which the directions refer to some motion which the pupil
has never produced, or to some muscular effort that he has
never made, the directions are as impotent as a discourse
on colours is to the blind.
Nearly every word that possesses an unverbal meaning, possesses a verbal meaning also.
~ 1. That the sensible significancy of a man's language
is limited to his sensible experience would be readily admitted, were we not embarrassed with one difficulty.
Bonfire names a sight, and melody a sound. If these
words possessed no other signification, we should immediately understand that the unverbal import of bonfire




INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY.         39
must ever be unknown to the blind, and the unverbal import of melody unknown to the deaf.- But these words,
and nearly all others, name words also; and till you understand this, you will not understand clearly that our
senses alone can reveal to us the sensible signification of
any word. When Locke says that the meaning of rainbow
can be revealed to a person who never saw one, provided
he has seen red, violet, green, etc., Locke is alluding to the
verbal meaning of rainbow. This meaning can be known
to the blind; and I once saw a company surprised when a
blind youth was exhibiting what was esteemed a triumph
of education over natural defects, by giving in words a
description of the appearance of rainbows. The company
knew not that rainbow possesses two significations; one
unverbal, which nothing can reveal but seeing, and the
other verbal, that can be learnt by hearing. You may
suppose that we differ from the blind; and that a verbal
enumeration of the colours of a rainbow, and of their
figure, size, position and arrangement, to us who know the
sights which the words signify unverbally, would reveal
to us a rainbow, not verbally merely, but visibly. Take,
however, any one of the colours, say red: it names unverbally not one sight only, but numerous sights. Fire is
red, blood is red, my hand is red, bricks are red, and an
Indian is red; which of these unverbal sights is he to imagine, when you speak of the red of a rainbow?
The same remark will apply to the other colours, and
to their figure, position and arrangement. But admit that




40            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
a person who has never seen a rainbow, shall still Lave
seen all its colours. Admit further, that when you enumerate the colours, he shall guess the precise red, orange,
yellow, etc., to which you refer; yet, for the person to know
how the colours will look unverbally when they are combined, will be impossible; much less, how they will appear
unverbally when drawn into the shape, size and position
of a rainbow. If he has seen such a combination, he has
seen a rainbow; but if he has not seen the combination,
language is inadequate to reveal it. After the most copious definition, and the most familiar acquaintance with the
sights separately that are referred to by the defining words,
a person will be conscious of a new sight the moment ho
sees a rainbow.
~ 2. Words also which refer to intellections and to internal feelings, possess a verbal meaning in addition to the
unverbal. The instructors of the deaf may find this discrimination important. If they wish to teach a deaf mute
the signification of the word joy, they should teach him its
verbal signification and its unverbal. The verbal is easily
taught, but the unverbal can be disclosed by only making
the mute apprehend, by any method you can, the feeling
within him which joy names. To understand this analytical
discrimination in the meaning of words will make the
mute's knowledge definite, and facilitate his acquisitions.
~ 3. I have thus, I hope, shown that our knowledge is
not a cyclopedia of mere words, but that unverbal things
underlie words and constitute an unverbal meaning to




INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY.            41
which words refer for all the unverbal signification the
words possess. I have shown, also, that unverbal things
are not homogeneous when examined unverbally, though
our knowledge seems to be homogeneous when it is deemed
a cyclopedia of mere words. Unverbal things are not
transmutable into one another except verbally-they are
revealed to us by our senses, our intellect and our internal
feelings-and each of these three sets of organs furnishes
us with unverbal items that are inconvertibly different
from the items furnished by either or both of the other of
the said three sets of organs. I will hereafter deem these
doctrines as established truths, and deem every item of our
unverbal knowledge either sensible, intellectual or emotional. The utility of the discrimination of our knowledge
into verbal and unverbal, and of unverbal things into three
heterogeneous classes, I will now endeavour to establish.








PART I.
OF THE STRIUCTUR]E OF LAINGUAGE.








LECTURE II.
THE HETEROGENEITY OF UNVERBAL THINGS DISCRIAMINATED FROM THE HOMOGENEITY WITH WHICH THEY ARE
FALLACIOUSLY INVESTED BY WORDS.
CONTENTS.
1. We possess but one set of words with which to speak of three inconvertibly different classes of unverbal things.
2. The verbal homogeneity must be discriminated from the unverbal diversity, or much speculative error ensues.
3. We mistake the homogeneity of words for a homogeneity of unverbal things.
~1. We have seen, by the preceding introductory lecture, that while we contemplate our knowledge through
the medium of words, we cannot discriminate what is intellectual from what is sensible, etc. We adduced an example
of this indiscrimination in the divisibility of matter; the
sensible divisibility and the intellectual divisibility being
verbally homogeneous, though as heterogeneous unverbally as oxygen and hydrogen. While we deem homogeneous
the sensible divisibility and the intellectual, we are as much
astonished at the logical divisibility ad infinitum of matter,
as we are at a feat of unsuspected jugglery; but when we
discover that the divisibility is generically different in the




46            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
two cases, our astonishment is as much relieved as when
we find that the handkerchief which the juggler cut into
pieces, is not the handkerchief which he subsequently restores to us uncut.
The above is only an example of the fallacious homogeneity which our knowledge assumes continually when
contemplated through the medium of words; and we shall
find, as we proceed in our discussions, that to discriminate
the generic differences that pertain to unverbal things, and
which the structure of language leads us to disregard, will
relieve our speculative knowledge and our logic from
sophistry, mystery and perplexity; and that the want of
such discrimination constitutes the least suspected, but the
greatest, most general, and most surprising error of the
age. If any person will refer to the word "matter" in
Rees's New Cyclopedia, he will find a summary of what
the most eminent men of different periods have said of
matter, and he will be painfully conscious of the fog which
surrounds the subject by their deeming intellectual conceptions homogeneous with sensible things. Acuteness of
intellect, in labours thus misdirected, but darkens more
elaborately what it strives to elucidate. The indiscrimination betweef what is sensible and what is intellectual constitutes the radical defect of all metaphysics and all logic,
and in view of the wreck of intellectual effort the indiscrimination has occasioned, countless volumes that have
descended to us through the course of ages, and to which
we are still adding, are like the blood on the hands of




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.          47
Macbeth, "a sorry sight!" Indeed, till a man learns to
discriminate the generic difference between things sensible,
intellectual and emotional; till he learns to regard their
verbal homogeneity as only a quality of language; his
knowledge, when contemplated through the medium of
words, will be as fallacious as a child's who shall not discriminate the generic difference between the events of the
" Arabian Nights," and the events of history-a difference
that consists in only that one set of events are intellectual
conceptions; and the other set, sensible performances. But
the principle is too complex to be discussed thus in gross,
and I will proceed to manifest it in several of its various
phases, but commencing with the most simple examples.
Perhaps nothing are deemed more unsuspectedly homogeneous than our thoughts, and to their verbal hornogeneity pertains much of the mysteriousness connected with
them. A little reflection will, however, enable us to discover that thoughts, instead of being homogeneous, can be
classified into six strongly-marked univerbal, geheric diversities. Professor Stewart says, "Some men, in even their
private speculations, not only use words as an instrument
of thought, but form the words into sentences." What is
thus alleged is true of all men; but the remark attaches to
only one kind of thoughts. When we pronounce million
inaudibly, it is a thought; when we pronounce it audibly,
it is a word. The like may be said of every word. We
can better see that verbal thoughts are only inaudible
words, when we reflect that every oral word consists un



48            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
verbally of a sound and certain movements of the breath,
lips, tongue, and other vocal organs. This analysis dispels
part of the mystery of verbal thoughts, for we usually
deem a word nothing but sound; and are conscious that
our verbal thoughts are not sounds.
Verbal thoughts are, unverbally, a movement of some of
the vocal organs, and occasionally of the breath. If, for instance, you repeat in thought the alphabet, you will occasionally detect a slight.agency of some of the vocal organs,
especially of the tongue. The more freely we permit the
tongue's movements, the more'distinctly we can think the
alphabet. If you stand before a mirror and protrude your
tongue, you will often see it either dilate or thicken, as
each letter is pronounced in thought.  The experiment
must be made with letters whose'articulation is lingual.
And again., we cannot think the word George while we
are speaking the word Thomas; nor can we pronounce the
word Thomas, while we are thinking George. Utterance
is limited also to successive syllables, and verbal thoughts
are similarly limited to successive syllables. The phrase
"Our father," we can no more condense into one thought,
than we can pronounce the words in one articulation;
hence, though verbal thoughts and oral words are not identities in name, the similarity between them is close. A
deaf mute is as deficient of verbal thoughts as he is of oral
words; nor can an infant possess'verbal thoughts till he
has learned to speak. A Frenchman thinks French words,
and an Englishman  English.  An  uneducated man




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.          49
thinks ungrammatical sentences, and a rude man, vulgar
sentences. Professor Blair says truly, that a person who
is learning to arrange his words correctly, is learning to
think correctly.
~ 2. But the Professor's remark is applicable to only
verbal thoughts, and to them I alluded in my introductory
lecture when I said, "that ideas are often composed partially or wholly of words."  When the intellect conceives
verbal thoughts in explanation of oral words, we call the
explanatory thoughts an idea; but they are only the substitution of one set of words for another. Such substitution
constitutes an artificial circle which we may travel around
interminably without advancing a step in unverbal knowledge; though we may suppose we are piling Ossa on Pelion,
erecting a new Babel, and peering therefrom into the highest heavens. that our intellect- conceives to exist.  Peer
thus we may, I- admit, but such peerings signify, unverbally, the subjective conceptions of the intellect, not what
the words mean unverbally when.they refer to sensible things. Of such verbal conceptions I shall speak in
another place, and will not further anticipate the topic
here.
~ 3. But verbal thoughts are only one kind of the six
generic varieties into which thoughts are divisible. We
can think the appearance of the moon, and the appearance
is a visual thought. Visual thoughts possess the evanescence of vision. They appear' and vanish. They possess
also the comprehensiveness of vision. We comprehend in
3




50            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
one gaze the starry firmament, and our visual thought of
the firmament is as capacious as the gaze, and apparently
as remote from our contact. We may, in some instances,
detect a slight agency of the eyes in the production of
visual thoughts. We keep the eyes fixed, and, in a manner,
direct our attention to the eyes when we want to recall in
visual thought some absent sight. The actor who, in personating Hamlet, says, "My father! I think I see him
now," will instinctively stare.
The remaining four kinds of thoughts are characteristically sounds, tastes, feels, and smells. When I recall
in thought the last pressure of my hand by an absent
friend, the pressure rests seemingly upon my hand, with
the contaction Which pertains to the sense of feeling,
though peculiarly modified. Smells, when recalled in
thought, possess the limitation that pertains to the perception of odours; for we can no more combine in one unverbal thought, the distinct fragrance of a rose, and the fetor
of assafeetida, than we can realize the odours separately in
one inspiration. We also snuff up the air when we endeavour to recall unverbally some absent odour. To recall
sounds in thought conforms so nearly to actual hearing,
that I have heard a musician require silence from his
auditors when he was recollecting a tune. Many voices
uttered confusedly'ogether, can be recalled in thought in.
one clamour, as we heard them; and in this, the thinking
of sounds differs characteristically from the thinking of
words: they can be thought of in only the syllabick suc



OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.            51
cession of oral utterance. Tastes, when recalled in thought,
possess the singleness which attends the perceptions of
tastes. Vinegar and water, for instance, when placed together in the mouth, combine to form a single taste, and
thought cannot present us, unverbally, the two tastes
simultaneously. Some acids will produce a flow of saliva,
and to think unverbally of the acids will often produce a
like flow. In speaking also of absent luxuries of the
palate, we often say, the recalled tastes make us "smack
our lips," etc. Our forms of speech exhibit our organization about as necessarily and as accurately as wax exhibits
the lineaments of the seal which impresses it; and a better
philosophy floats in our colloquial phraseology than phraseology receives credit for.
~ 4. Whether madness uniformly affects alike all of the
six kinds of a maniac's thoughts, may be worth the examination of physicians. When the late Attorney-General
of the United States, Mr. Legare, was suffering under his
last illness, he called for water, but on its presentation to
him, he rejected it, saying the tumbler was full of ants.
His attendants assured him that the glass and water were
pure, and that the apparent ants were a delusion of his
sight. He then drank the water. This supremacy of his
intellect, over his visual perceptions, discriminates such a
delusion as his from intellectual insanity. How many of
the senses may concur in any delusion, and the intellect
retain its supremacy over the deranged senses, may be deserving of note, when such'cases can be observed. A lady




52            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
has been long an inmate of the Utica Lunatic Asylum, who
continually hears audible words which her intellect deems
the conversation of invisible people, she refusing to believe
that the words are simply a derangement of her hearing,
and hence she is properly accounted intellectually insane.
A paralysis of the organs of speech affects verbal thoughts
nearly as much as it affects oral words; while the other
five kinds of thought are unimpaired. The paralytic, in a
case like the above, recognizes by sight his friends, but he
cannot recollect their names; he recalls in visual thought
his absent friends, with a like inability of recollecting their
names.
Every person's memory is perhaps better in some one of
the six classes of thoughts than in the others. I can recollect
sights better than words. Musicians may recollect sounds
better than words or sights. The recollection of words is
the only branch of memory we usually cultivate at schools,
and this limitation may be a defect in our instruction.
Practically, we are well aware of the generic diversity
which exists in our thoughts as above classified into six
varieties. I heard a gentleman refuse to look on his deceased friend, because he wished to think of his friend in
no other way than as he appeared when alive. The remark surprised no one. With verbal thoughts, he can
think of the deceased in any state of decay that language
can express, whether he view him or not; but with visual
thoughts, he can think of only the sights he can recall. I
shall say rio more of thoughts. I have introduced them as




OF A]E STRUCTURE OF -LANGUAGE.         53
only subsidiary to my present topic, the verbal homogeneity of things that unverbally are heterogeneous.
~ 5. The. fallacious homogeneity assumed by unverbal
things when contemplated verbally, first presented iitself
to me in a physiological examination to which I, many
years ago, subjected our senses.  One of my theorems
affirmed, that "what seeing cannot inform me of is not
sight." When, for instance, an infant is situated in a dark
room, and the room becomes suddenly illuminated by the
introduction therein of a lighted candle, the sensible appearances alone will not teach the infant that the candle
and the illumination are connected as cause and effect; and
what is thus true of an infant is equally true of a man who
shall be as inexperienced as an infant. The causal connection, therefore, which in such a case exists between the
illumination and the candle, is not a sight, or seeing could
inform the infant, thereof. Seeing sees only the sequence
of the two sensible events, the introduction of the candle
and the illumination of the room; and after a thousand
experiments of the same kind, seeing will still- see only
the sequence of the two sensible events. But we learn
eventually that the candle and the illumination of the room
are causally connected, and if the knowledge is not sight,
the knowledge must proceed from some other inlet than
the senses; hence gradually arose in me the conception,
(common enough, no doubt, in many men,) that our causal
knowledge is intellectual. But with this common conception arose the further conception, and of which in part the




54            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
present lecture is a consequence, that language yields us
no intimation that a causal connection, as conceived by the
intellect, is different generically from a sensible connection,
as perceived by the senses in the links which compose an
iron chain. While the unverbal generic difference is not
recognized between the two verbally homogeneous connections, nothing but confusion must ensue from any verbal
speculations, like those which Hume rendered famous, in
relation to the connection which exists between cause and
effect. The connection of cause and effect is therefore only
a conception of the intellect; while the connection of two
links of a chain is a perception of the senses.
Night follows day sensibly, and day follows night; and
after fume had defined cause and effect to be nothing but
invariable sensible succession, the question has been often
asked, sportively I suppose, whether night is the cause of
day, or day the cause of night. The question, however
intended, is useful, for if the words cause and effect possess
a sensible meaning only, (an invariable sequence of two
given sensible events,) night is the cause of day, or day the
cause of night. But the intellect sees not in night and day
the relation of cause and effect, hence neither is deemed
the cause of the other. When, however, the sun arises
and daylight succeeds the sun's emergence, our senses inform us of only the two sensible events; but in addition to
these, and wholly different therefrom, our intellect informs
us that the sun is the cause of the light.
Lawyers, whose profession is employed about unverbal




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.          55
differences rather than verbal homogeneities, are well
versed in the distinction which exists between sensible
perceptions and intellectual conclusions. If I see William
stab Peter, and see Peter fall down and die immediately
thereafter, seeing perceives only the sensible facts; but
whether the fall of Peter and his death were effects of the
stab, are intellectual conclusions which may be decided
better by a surgeon of practical experience who was not
present at the stabbing, than by an unprofessional and inexperienced man who saw it. If a witness, misled by the
homogeneity of language, were to testify that he saw
William murder Peter, he would be forthwith told to testify to what he saw, and that the intellect of the jury
would determine whether Peter was murdered, and whether
William was the murderer. In our day, many people will
testify that they have seen tables gyrated, and heard tables
rapped, by the spirits of the dead. Such people are unaware
of the generic difference between what is sensible in such
testimony, and what is intelleetual. In all that is sensible,
(the gyrations and raps,) every person will concur, such
concurrence being a peculiarity of sensible perceptions, and
unaffected by localities or periods of time; but when the
intellect superadds a conception in words, of some modus
operandi, by which the tables are gyrated and rapped, the
conceived words may assume some three thousand and
sixty different kinds of utterance, that being about the
number of different languages which are said to exist in
the world at the present day. The intellectually conceived




56            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
words may differ also, not vernacularly only, as above supposed, but every man of the millions of men who now
occupy the earth, may express his intellectual conceptions
of the modus operandi of table rappings, etc., in words differently collocated, and in different words, according to. his
individual intelligence, experience, ignorance,:credulity,
etc. To recognize the difference which thus exists- generically between what we see and hear in relation to tables,
and what the intellect will conceive to be the cause thereof,
may be useful in dispelling the delusion which.deems homogeneous the intellectually conceived cause and the sensibly perceived movements'and sounds. I could-easily say
more on the subject, and especially in relation to the absurdity of the popularly assigned cause, but it is not properly within the purview of my discussions. I cannot,
however, refrain from adding, that such gyrations and rappings are as evincive of a physical cause, as the appearance
of a house or clock; and for precisely the same reasons.
~ 6. What we have said of cause and effect may be repeated of numerous words which, like them, signify intellectual conceptions, though language fails to mark the
generic distinction between them and sensible perceptions.
When I see a man- and a boy, I may relate the event in
those words; and I may say, also, they are father and son.
Verbally the two expressions are homogeneous, but unverbally the. expressions refer to generic differences; the man
and boy being sensible perceptions, while the relations of
father and son are intellectual conceptions. Thelike may




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.            57
be said of master and apprentice, master and pupil, master
and slave, etc.; all are intellectually conceived relations,
not sensible.appearances. So when we see a man placing
one tier of bricks on another with mortar and trowel, we
see nothing sensible but the man and his operations; but
in addition to these, and generically different and separable
therefrom, the intellect sees the relation of building and
builder, construction and constructor, making and maker,
design and designer. When I see one man whipping another, my senses see only the sensible actions and the sensible actors; but besides these, and wholly uncognizable
by my senses, my intellect may see in the two men and
their sensible conduct, the relation /of executioner and
criminal, oppressor and oppressed, tyrant and subject, etc.
Nothing is more mysterious to us than Time, still its superior mystery over other things arises from our unconsciousness that time is only a conception of the intellect. Our
senses perceive objects successively, our internal feelings follow each other successively, our thoughts are also successive,
and from all these experimental successions the intellect
conceives the notion of time; but if we endeavour to esti-1
mate time as something different from an intellectual conception, especially if we deem it homogeneous with sensibly
perceived objects, we of course convert time into a mystery.
The like may be said of space. What is sensibly perceptible in space is no way mysterious, but what we conceive
intellectually of space is very mysterious, when we deem
the concepti on homogeneous with sensible perceptions.
3*




58            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
We may say the like of power, quantity, quality, number,
infinity, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, etc.
Whatever is sensibly perceptible in relation to any of
them is no more mysterious than any other sensible perception; but what we conceive intellectually of any of
them is very mysterious, when we deem the conception
homogeneous with any thing that is sensibly perceptible.
When I look at a man vigorous in health, and, perhaps,
in a moment or more thereafter look at the same man dead,
-my intellect, and the intellect of every man, savage and
civilized, philosopher and clown, will organically conceive
from the change, what we shall in vain seek physically,
though the intellect, as in cause and effect, may express its
conceptions of the change in words that are homogeneous
with sensible perceptions; as, for instance, that " the vital
spark is extinguished that burned so brightly a moment
previously;" that "the soul which was'united with the
body is become disunited and fled," etc. Men often speak
of these verbally expressed intellections as Hume speaks
of the connection of cause and effect, and deem Tmysterious
that we cannot see how the soul is united to the body; as
Hume deemed mysterious that we cannot see the connection
between cause and effect; but we cannot see how the soul
is united to the body, and how effects are connected to
causes, for the words refer in each case to a conception of
the intellect, not to any thing that is sensible. The admission that the aunion and connection cannot be seen,
proves that they are intellectual. We are organized with




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.           59
mental as well as sensible inlets of knowledge, anti if we
will give all words an interpretation that refers to sensible
perceptions, (deeming homogeneous intellectual conceptions and sensible perceptions,) the resulting verbal mystery is an error of our speculations, and nothing more.
Where is next week? said a child to me lately; and truly,
where is next week? If we look for it sensibly, our inability to find it involves much mystery; but next week
exists in only the intellect, and when thus considered, its
mysterious undiscoverability vanishes with the delusion on
which the sensible search is founded.
~ 7, We place an acorn in the ground and it becomes an
oak; we eat food, and it sustains life and increases our
strength; we will, and our limbs obey the impulse; we
sleep, and become unconscious; we awake, and consciousness returns. In these and countless other cases, the parts
which are sensible in the performances constitute only a
portion of our knowledge thereof, another important part
being intellectually conceived; but the intellectual part
being conceived' in words that express also sensible perceptions, we recognize not the generic difference which pertains
to the unverbal meaning of the words in these different
uses of them, and accordingly deem perplexingly mysterious that we cannot discover sensibly the parts that are only
intellectually conceived, If we reflect on the words that
refer to the intellectual part of our knowledge, in cases
like the above, we shall find that they proceed from attempts of the intellect to assimilate its conceptions to




60             THE MEANING OF WORDS.
physical operations; as, for: instance, when the senses perceive, as just stated, that a man who a moment ago could
walk, speak, and argue, is now dead-a mass of inert matter that will speedily decompose and corrupt-the intellect
will assimilate the change to some sensible.processes that
the intellect conceives to be analogous; for instance, to the
extinction of a candle, ('.' the vital spark is fled;") to the
stoppage of a coach by the. removal of the horses, (" the
soul is departed. from the body;")' to the fall'of an infant
when the nurse' withdraws its support, (" God has withdrawn His sustaining hand,") etc., etc., to the end of the
many analogiesthat the intellect can.see between life and
death. I object to none. of the intellectual assimilations,
for they are organic, but I object to deeming the assimilations homogeneous with sensible perceptions. The assimilations possess. a. subjective meaning in our organism, not an
objective meaning -in -sensible. things, as they verbally. seem
to possess; hence no proper reason exists for surprise and
mystery that we cannot see sensibly what, on any occasion,
we conceive intellectually.
If you. scratch ever. so lightly with a pin at the end. of a
long piece of Solid timber, the scratch will be heard by any
person who places his ear at the other end of the timber.
The intellect accounts for the result of this experiment by
conceiving that the sound passes through the timber.  The
passing'through the timber thus referred to, is a conception
of the intellect, but it is no way discriminated verbally
from  a physical passage through, like the passage that




OF THE. STRUCTURE. OF LANGUAGE.        6.1
would be made by the boring of an auger, or like the passage of a flow of water through a pipe. I admit that the
intellect may be unable to account for the experiment with
the timber, (that is; may be unable to assimilate it to tangible operations,) in any better way than by an analogy
with the passage of water through a pipe; but we need not
deem both " passing through" as homogeneous unverbally
as they are verbally. Such a discrimination, however, we
never make, but, unwisely, I think, employ the verbal
equivoke, to excite surprise at the subtility of sound which
thus can glide through solid timber; we are surprised because we mistake an intellectually conceived passage for a
physical passage. So when the electric telegraph transmits a communication over a thousand miles of wire, the
transmission from one end of the wire to the other is nearly
instantaneous. The intellect may find no better way of
assimilating to our physical operations the transmission,
than by conceiving that an electric fluid passes or flows instantaneously from one end of the wire to the other; but
if we deem such intellectually conceived flow and passage
homogeneous with a physical flow and passage, (as, for instance, the passage of a stage-coach over a turnpike, or the
passage of a cannon ball through the air,) we astonish
ourselves needlessly and fallaciously by confounding intellectual conceptions with physical things.
If the conceptions of the intellect and the informations
of our senses possessed no other evidences of their heterogeneity than the character of their results, as in the above




62            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
examples, we nught reasonably suspect that some delusion
existed, though we might be unable to tell what it is; just
as we know the tricks of a professed juggler to be deceptive, though we may be unable to detect the deception.
But if this test be cogent in the foregoing examples, what
shall we say to speculations like the following, whose mys
tery is resolvable in no other way than by the radical heterogeneity that exists unverbally between things intellectually conceived and things sensibly perceived. Doctor
Nieuwentyt, in his Religious Philosophy, Vol. III., p. 865,
thus disdcurses of the divisibility of the particles of matter:-He has computed intellectually, and'doubtless with
accuracy, that " from an inch of candle, vastly more particles of light will issue during its consumption, than a
thousand times a thousand millions times the number of
sands the whole earth can contain."
Or, take what is daily taught in our schools, that light
travels, or moves consecutively, from the sun to the earth,
with a velocity equal to about twelve millions of miles in
a minute; or, as it is often stated, a million of times more
swiftly than the flight of a ball fired from a cannon. I
object not to the doctrine, and know it is logically satisfactory to the intellect; but when we deem the intellectually
conceived consecutive velocity and motion of light, homo-'
geneous with the sensibly perceived consecutive motion of
a car along a railroad, or even of a cannon ball, we are fallaciously confounding intellectual conceptions with physical
perceptions. The phraseology forms no part of my objec.




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.         63
tion, whatever form the phraseology may assume; but I
contend that a generic difference exists between what is intellectually conceived and what is sensibly perceived, and
that a disregard of the unverbal difference is a needless
verbal mystification and obfuscation of what Providence
permits us to know clearly in its unverbal reality. The
generic unverbal difference may be deemed unimportant,
between what we conceive intellectually and what we can
perceive sensibly; but if the discrimination be unimportant,
why are we so anxious, as we seem to be, to identify, for
example, the intellectually conceived consecutive motion
of light with sensibly perceived consecutiveness. Of our
proneness to such verbal equivokes, the following, which
I extract from a highly valuable recent periodical publication, is only a common example in its kind, though peculiarly ingenious in its matter. It is designed to generically
assimilate to physical operations the intellectually conceived consecutive speed of light, and also the intellectually conceived distance from the earth of the sun and other
celestial bodies:-'"Imagine," says the writer, "a railway from here to
the sun. How many miles is the sun from us? Why,
if we were to send a baby in an express train, going
incessantly a hundred. miles an hour, without making
any stoppages, the baby would grow to be a boy; the boy
would grow to -be a man; the man would die without seeing the sun; for it is distant more than a hundred years
from us. But what is this compared to Neptune's distance?




64            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
Had Adam and Eve started by our railway to go from
Neptune to the sun, at the rate of fifty miles an hour, they
would not have got there yet, for Neptune is more than
six thousand years from the centre of our system."
If intellections are unverbally homogeneous with sensible things, we may well wonder why verbal assimilations
like the foregoing so surprise and amuse us that we employ
them'as piquantly as we employ ventriloquism and legerdemain. Astronomy has yielded so many practical benefits
to mankind, that it can well dispense with any eclat that
may proceed from our deeming its intellectual conceptions
homogeneous unverbally with sensible perceptions. I may
say the like of chemistry, whose similarly fallacious serbal
assimilations I shall occasionally advert to; but only for
the purpose of illustrating my views of language; hence if
my strictures on astronomy and chemistry shall themselves
be deemed unsound, as they may be from my defective
knowledge of those sciences, my strictures will still be useful to the end for which alone I shall introduce them.
~ 8. Our dissatisfaction with intellectually conceived relations and agencies, till the intellect can in some way
theoretically materialize them,-as, for instance, our dissatisfaction with the intellectual relation of cause and effect,
till we can theoretically superadd a material or physical
connection between the cause and the effect,-may be an
inevitable result of our organization, or it may be simply a
prejudice resulting from our sensible employments. We
satisfy hunger and thirst by sensible appliances; we move




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.            65
by sensible operations; by sensible agencies we speak,
hear, see, taste, feel, smell, propagate our species, construct
ships, houses, and innumerable other things, fight battles,
and employ ourselves. incessantly; hence when a spark
produces an explosive effect on gunpowder, and.we can
perceive. only a sensible juxtaposition between the spark
and the powder,'we lare dissatisfied till the intellect will
conceive some rationale that will. analogize or assimilate
the intellectually conceived action of the spark to our personal sensible agencies in the production of effects.
So when two billiard balls rebound upon coming in contact with each other, we can perceive sensibly nothing but
the contact; but in addition to all which the senses can
perceive, the intellect of every beholder will conceive some
impulse in the concussion, analogous to the sensible force
which a man is conscious of exerting when he pushes any
thing'from him, or hurls a stone from his hand; and when
we see a needle rush towards a' magnet, the intellect will
conceive some physical emanation fromn the magnet which
draws the needle towards the magnet, as our hand draws
sensibly to our body some object at which we are pulling;
and when we stand.before a fire, and feel warmth or heat,
the intellect will conceive some material radiation from the
fire to sensibly connect our body therewith, and thereby to
assimilate the effect which we feel, to our mode of operating
by sensible contact; and when we look at distant hills,
trees, and fields, and hear distant sounds, the intellect will
insist on.theoretically assimilating the organic processes of




66            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
seeing and hearing to our personal processes of tangible
contaction; and hence will conceive that rays of light radiate physically from the distant visible object to the retina
of the eye, and that appulses of air from the distant sonorous body, strike physically the tympanum of the ear; and
when water rushes up a tube from which the air is exhausted, the intellect will insist on conceiving some material process of suction in the vacuum, analogous to the
process with which we sensibly suck fluids into our mouth;
or some process of material pressure on the water analogous
to the sensible pressure we exert upon bodies with our
hands or weight; and when we look at the sun, moon, and
stars, the intellect will insist on attributing to them tangibility, solidity, and other constant physical properties that
are found in the bodies which we handle; and when a
physician administers medicine, his intellect will insist on
conceiving some material modus operandi by which the
expected result in the patient is to be produced. A man
can no more prevent his intellect from conceiving such
material machinery, than he can prevent his sight from
seeing objects that are before it; or prevent his ears from
hearing sounds; but he is not compelled to deem such conceptions homogeneous with sensible things. Such conceptions constitute the theories of scientific men, and the
hypotheses of the unscientific-the theories of optics, of
acoustics, of medicine, of magnetism, of combustion, of the
generation of a foetus, the cosmogony of the world, the
formation- of metals, the alternation of the seasons, etc.,




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.            67
etc., through the whole circle of speculative knowledge;
and I believe I am not mistaken in assuming that
we never discriminate such conceptions of the intellect
from physical things;-indeed such a discrimination would
divest the conceptions of their chief charm, the fallacious
homogeneity constituting a sort of fairy land in which we
delight to wander.
That theories are useful, only accords with the general
fact that our intellect is adapted to our physical powers,
as our physical powers are adapted to the material universe. If, however, we mistake for physical, the intellectually conceived emanations from magnets, the radiations
of caloric from fire, of rays of light to the eye, the aerial
appulses to the ear, the pressure on water, etc., we are not
discriminating the heterogeneity of unverbal things from
the homogeneity of words.
So satisfied are we with the self-sufficiency of sensible
agency, that the attempts of phrenologists to account for
intellectual manifestations by sensible organs, is deemed a
species of atheism; though our sensible organs are often as
apparently perfect after death, when they are powerless,
as during life, when they are powerful. In truth, therefore, our sensible pdwers and our intellectual are alike
wonderful. They are severally just what they are, and as
they are; but we superadd to their inevitable wonder, the
unnecessary wonder that we cannot find, sensibly, a power,
causation, impulse, vitality, etc., that are only intellectual;
and that we cannot find, in intellectual operations, a ma



68            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
chinery tklat is sensible; results which ought to teach us
that the two classes of things are different and inconvertible, except verbally.
In the conception of theories, the intellect is not, however, restricted to physical agencies, but may' employ an
internal feeling as the agent, if the intellect can discover
an analogy between the effect on us of such an internal
feeling, and the conceived efficiency to be accounted for;
"Let there be light! and there was light," -can be. accounted for satisfactorily. to the intellect, by its deeming
the will of I)eity to be the efficient agent. Horror moves
us- effectively, and hence Nature's horror of a vacuum accounted formerly as satisfactorily to the intellect for the
ascent of water up a vacuum, as the pressure of the atmosphere accounts for the ascent at present. So the intellect
can theoretically account for the instantaneous transmission
of electricity over a thousand miles of wire, by conceiving
that electricity possesses the nature of thought; indeed I
have heard -its operations thus accounted for. Such a conception assimilates the transmission with our personal
operations, and the transmission becomes immediately satisfactory.
~ 9. I have now completed three steps in my progress.
I have manifested the difference that exists between words
and unverbal things; I have shown, also, that unverbal
things are divisible into three generically and inconvertibly
different classes, sensible, intellectual, and emotional; -and
lastly, that the heterogeneity of unverbal things is disre



OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.          69
garded by language, words implying a homogeneity, or at
least manifesting no sign of the generic differences that
exist in unverbal things. To the steps thus accomplished
I wish to give some prominence before I proceed further,
and, therefore, place these remarks as mile-posts, to prevent
the said completed steps from escaping notice. Any reader
who comprehends satisfactorily the said three accomplished
steps, may proceed at once to the next succeeding lecture;
the intervening remarks being chiefly valuable as a means
of illustrating still further the heterogeneity which language disregards in unverbal things.
~ 10. The indiscrimination which is thus inherent in
language encourages various speculative errors, as I have
endeavoured to show; but we are not left without an ability to discover that the indiscrimination is not an unmitigated evil; indeed we can find that it is attended with
utilities which more than compensate for its evils; and that
the indiscrimination is founded in our intellectual organism,
and assimilates with all other evils that proceed from our
organization, in being unavoidable rather than unnecessary; for instance, sensible things we can exhibit to each
other unverbally, and the unverbal meaning of words is
learnt by children through the means of such exhibitions
only; but intellectual conceptions we cannot exhibit to
each other unverbally, hence children nor men could ever
learn the meaning of words that should signify intellections
only. The intellect is, therefore, compelled, if it speak of
its conceptions at all to other men, to employ words that




70           THE]  KEANING OF WORDS.
refer to sensible things. To provide for this dilemma, the
intellect of every man is so organized, that it sees an analogy between its own conceptions and sensible things; so that
when you tell me that an electric fluid passes over, or flows
through a telegraphic wire, my intellect recognizes immediately the intellection to which the language refers. Even
a deaf mute who knows no language, were he acquainted
with both the flowing of water through a pipe, and the
communication of written messages by means of the wires
of a telegraph, would probably recognize intellectually an
analogy between the two processes; and if this conjecture
be correct, it evinces that the sensible flow and the intellectual conception are spoken of by the same words from
an organic tendency of the intellect, not from any conventional usage. Indeed, the usage cannot be conventional,
the same kind of phraseology being common to all lan —
guages and to all periods of time.
~ 11. Internal feelings manifest themselves sensibly
almost as distinctly as physical objects; hence we can
speak of internal feelings, love, rage, anger, etc., without
employing therefor words that signify physical objects.
Internal feelings contrast thus very observably with intellectual conceptions, and by reflecting on the difference be.
tween their external manifestibility we can more easily
understand why we speak of intellectual conceptions with
words that signify physical objects, and adopt a different
course in speaking of internal feelings.
So knowable by sensible signs are our internal feelings,




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.            71
that painters depict the signs on canvass, and our intellect
recognizes, in brutes and in even inanimate sensible things,
appearances analogous to the said sensible signs; hence in
all periods of time, and in all languages, we find such expressions as violent winds, furious storms, hateful weather,
kind showers, vicious horses, stubborn ropes, frantic torrents, impetuous eloquence, etc. By like external signs,
deaf mutes can be taught as readily the unverbal meaning
of the words rage, love, pride, etc., as the mutes can be
taught the unverbal meaning of the words fire, horse,
cat, etc.
But I have no concern with either intellectual concep
tions or internal feelings, except to explain why internal
feelings can be spoken of by peculiar words; and why the
intellect is compelled to speak of its own conceptions in
words whose original meaning is sensible things. I will,
however, add that a great utility is discoverable in the sen-.
sible external manifestibility of our internal feelings. We
are thereby able to conserve our personal safety by ascertaining the presence in brute animals and in our human associates, of rage, anger, etc., before we become injured thereby.
A kindred utility attends the opposite principle of the undiscoverability by external sensible manifestations of our
thoughts and other intellections. Every man's intellect is
thus organically able to think and conceive with perfect
occlusion, though surrounded by multitudes of inquisitive
observers. The benefit which we derive from this freedom
of thought is itself sufficient to compensate for the conse



72            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
quent evil of organically thinking and conceiving intellectually in words that ordinarily signify sensible things.
~ 12. I ought, perhaps, before I conclude the present
topic, to advert to a radical difference which, besides their
heterogeneity, exists between intellectual conceptions and
internal feelings;-internal feelings exist in different degrees of intensity in different men, and are more excitable
in some men than in others; but in the numerical variety
of feelings that pertain to men, any two men are like pianos
that possess the same number of keys, and consequently
possess latently the same numerical variety of sounds. Intellectual conceptions are different in the above respects.
A child who should hear at the end of a stick of timber,
the scratch made with a pin at the other end, would not
infer intellectually, that the sound. passed through the timber, as water passes through a pipe, if he had never seen
such a passage of water; the intellect conceiving theories
from only the sensible facts that are known to it; hence
we are constantly changing our theories as we become acquainted with new sensible facts; and hence the often noted
peculiarity that chemists account for things by assimilating
them to chemical processes; mechanics account for them
by mechanical processes; mathematicians, by mathematical
processes, etc., etc. In constructing theories the intellect
obeys an organic impulse, but, the form of the theory will
depend, as above stated, on the accidental knowledge of
the theorist. I will- not anticipate what I shall say hereafter when I shall treat particularly of "the iinverbal




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.            73
meaning of intellectually conceived words," but the unverbal meaning of all theories is subjective, (in the intellect,
not in the objective universe;) hence the accidental verbal
form which the theory on any subject assumes in different
men, at different periods, may affect the practical utility
of the theory, but all the theories will, subjectively considered, possess the same unverbal meaning.
From the foregoing account of the mode in which the
intellect constructs theories, we may see why medical theories continue, after the efforts of centuries, to be but little
improved. - The processes of generation, the functions of
vital organs, the commencement and progress of diseases,
are manifestations so unique, that the intellect can see no
analogy between them and any different operation; especially none between them and tangible operations, which
supply our most satisfactory theoretical agencies. This is
perhaps an insurmountable obstruction to the progress of
medicine as a science,' and compels it to be empirical. Any
way, our medical practitioners theorize less.than their early
predecessors, without having yet been able. to conceive any
substitute for theories as a guide to medlical practice, in
advance, of actual experiments.. But these are speculations
only'incidental to a correct analysis of language; and having now exhibited, though. I fear too desultorily, the heterogeneity of unverbal things, and the homogeneity with
which language invests them, I will proceed.to.the consideration of, another equally important and equally unde:
tected characteristic of words.
4




LECTURE III.
UNVERBAL MULTIPLICITY DISCRIMINATED FROM  ITS
FALLACIOUS VERBAL ONENESS.
CONTENTS.
1. Names analysed, and their implied oneness found to be a conception
of the intellect, not an objective oneness.
2. All individuality is a conception of the intellect.
3. The intellect aggregates sensible perceptions into nominal units.
4. The intellect aggregates internal feelings into nominal units.
5. The intellect aggregates its own conceptions into nominal units.
6. The intellect aggregates into nominal units, its own conceptions, associated with certain internal feelings.
7. Of nominal units, whose unverbal components belong to two or more
of the senses; or whose components are otherwise heterogeneous.
Of Physical Units.
~ 1. The views of language presented in this lecture, like
the views presented in the former, were suggested to me
many years ago in the investigation which I made of the
powers of our senses, and to which I have already alluded.
I assumed that the information which any one of the
senses yielded to me, cannot be yielded by the other senses
singly or conjointly; still, practical results contradicted the
assumed truth.  Some blind men can recognize colours by
the sense of touch; some have lectured and written books
on visual subjects. A man not blind, can discern a globe




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.            75
by either seeing or feeling, and can recognize an orange by
either the taste, the smell, the sight, or the feel; how then
is the assertion true, that what one of my senses informs
me of, no one or more of my other senses can inform me
of? Two senses can inform me of the same globe, and
four senses of the same orange. The dilemma perplexed
me long, till, finally, I discovered that the difficulty lay in
language. It applies the word orange to the sensible group
(taste, smell, sight, feel,) that four of my senses severally
disclose to me; hence the information which I receive
from the respective four senses is one in only the name
orange, that is applied in common to all the four sensible
revelations.
To relieve myself from embarrassments like the foregoing, and to manifest unmistakeably in future, that what
any one of my five senses informs me of, no one or more
of my other senses can inform  me of, I denominated
as sight merely every information that I received from
seeing; as feel, every information I received from the
sense of feeling; as sound, every information that I received from the sense of hearing; as taste, every information I received from the sense of tasting; and as smell,
every information I received from the sense of smelling.
Instead, therefore, of saying that both seeing and feeling
informed me of a globe, (and thereby implying that what
seeing informs me of, I am informed of by feeling also,) I
said, seeing informs me of the sight globe, and feeling informs me of the feel globe.




76            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
But still a difficulty arose; the globe is only one thing,
while my analysis converts it into two things, a sight globe
and a feel globe. If the oneness of the two globes is simply a contrivance of language, as I had supposed of the
orange, all languages would not concur, as they do, in
calling the sight globe and the feel globe one thing. The
uniformity se6emed too'extensive to be cbnventional, hence
gradually became evident to me, that the oneness of the
globe, not being sensible, must be intellectual; the intellect being so organized, that the sight globe and the feel
suggest a unit to the intellect; and language so constituted
that it refers, in all names of things, to the intellectually
conceived unit.
Besides, if the oneness were only verbal, as I had at first
supposed it was, an uneducated deaf mute would not deem
as one thing, the sight globe and the feel globe; but his intellect conceives the two to be a unit, as completely, no
doubt, as ours. The organic tendency of the intellect to
thus aggregate sensible multiplicity into intellectual units
is, as I ultimately discovered, one of the essential foundations of language, names referring to these intellectual
units; and if our intellects had not been organized to thus
conceive units, we could talk of an army no way but by
repeating the muster-roll; nor would that have sufficed —
every:soldier, George or Thomas, or whatever may be his
name, being himself a unit only intellectually; while physically, he is head, arms, face, eyes, hands, and other multitudinous and almost innumerable sensible items.




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.           77
~ 2. Arriving thus accidentally and gradually at the
knowledge that names, like globe, orange, army, etc., imply a oneness which is only intellectual and subjective,
while the objective things named may be sensibly multiform, I soon.found that the analysis would unriddle many
questions that have long perplexed metaphysics; for instance, can seeing inform us of distance?  When distance
is analysed as above, we find a sight distance, a feel distance, and an intellectual conception uniting the two;
therefore, whether seeing can inform us of distance, depends
wholly upon what we choose to deem the signification of
the nominal unit distance. If we limit the signification to
the intellectual unit, we may maintain that neither seeing
nor feeling can inform us of distance; they only suggest
distance to the mind. If, again, we limit the meaning of
the nominal unit to the feel distance, we may maintain that
feeling can inform us of distance, but'seeing cannot. The
controversy relates not to unverbal things, but to the definition of the word distance; a question over which we possess an entire control, it being wholly conventional and
verbal.
What we have said of the nominal unit distance, we may
repeat of the nominal unit figure. Can seeing inform us of
roundness? Roundness, as a unit, is a conception of the
intellect, while sensibly we find a sight roundness and a
feel roundness, as we manifested when speaking of.globe.
If, however, we choose to limit the meaning of the word
to the intellectual unit, we may mystify ourselves and




78            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
others by affirming that neither seeing nor feeling can reveal to us roundness; or we may limit the signification of
the word to the feel roundness, and then astonish ourselves
by finding that seeing cannot inform us of roundness.
And what we have thus said of distance and figure, we
may repeat of the nominal unit externality. We find a
sight external, a feel external, and an intellectual unit,
which the intellect forms out of the two sensible manifestations; and to which unit the word external is commonly
limited. If, therefore, you limit the word external to the
intellectual unit, (excluding the sight and the feel,) you
may mystify yourself with the discovery that the earth and
nothing therein, possesses an existence external of your
intellect; and deem this stupid, worthless, though somewhat famous verbal equivoke, a great psychological mystery. Or should this insidious subtraction of two things
from three, and finding only one remain, be too obviously
simple to be mystified, you may include the feel in your
definition of' the nominal unit external, and thereby (still
excluding the sight) arrive at the conclusion that seeing
cannot inform us of externality; and that without the sense
of feeling we should know nothing of the externality of the
universe. This latent verbal criticism constitutes, in some
of its many phases, what I meant when I said in my first
lecture that while philosophers are investigating and determining the meaning of words, they deem themselves
engaged in profounder discussions.
~ 3. The nominal unit shadow is an intellectual unit




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.             79
also, but we never mystify ourselves in relation thereto,
for it is as much a unit sensibly as it is nominally and intellectually. The like may be said of echo and of light; but
the greater number of nominal units are severally an intellectual aggregation of different and often numerous sensible
items; and we may greatly mystify ourselves if we look
sensibly for their oneness which is intellectual. A city, for
instance, composed of a hundred thousand inhabitants, and
ten thousand houses, is as much a nominal unit as a shadow; but if we seek the city, deeming it some sensible unit
that'conforms in oneness to the city's oneness which is intellectual, we may deem the ill success of our fallacious
sensible search a great mystery.  So, if we seek in man for
some physical or sensible unit which shall conform in oneness to man's nominal oneness, we are, in like manner,.seeking physically for what is not physical but intellectual.
Such searches are deemed neither fallacious nor futile, and
much has been written to determine in what part of physical man his oneness consists. If you cut off Peter's arms,
the remainder of Peter will be a man. Talke off his legs,
and his remainder is still a man; how much, therefore, say
such inquirers, and what must you take away from Peter
before the remainder will cease from being a man?thereby evidently mistaking the nominal oneness, which is
only intellectual, for a physical mystery.
The nominal unit matter is mysterious from a like misapprehension of the nature of its oneness. All we know
thereof, say philosophers, is the sensible p'2operties of mat



80            Ti:EE MIEANING OF WORDS.
ter; what the unit matter itself is, remains, like man's
oneness, among the unsolvable mysteries of life. Why?
Because, in neither case can our senses discover any such
unit. Of course they cannot, for it is not sensible, but only
intellectually conceived. But how do I know the unit
matter is merely: an intellection? Becausej what our senses
cannot discover, cannot be sensible, and must of necessity be
intellectual, if we know it at all. Well did Bishop Berkely
say, in reference to speculations of this kind, whose latent
verbal sophistry he saw partially, that men first raise a
smoke or dust, and then complain that they cannot see.
The delusion by which the intellectually conceived unit
matter is thus looked for among the sensible items which
compose the physical meaning of the word matter, and the
intellectually' conceived unit man. among the various physical parts which compose the physical meaning of the
word man, is analogous to the ancient puzzle, denominated
sorites: a heap of wheat is exhibited to a person, and you
proceed with him among the individual grains to look for
the heap itself. You take up a grain and ask him if that
is the heap?  You proceed thus with every grain, till the
whole will be exhausted, without finding the heap, for the
heap alluded to is an intellection.
What is individuality, what is magnetism, what is vitality, what is madness, what is fever, what is gravity, what
is electricity, etc.? The questions are asked continually,
and they presuppose that each of the nominal units names
a physical unit, to whose mysterious subtility (not to the




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.            81
fallaciousness of the search) is attributed the sensible undiscoverability of the unit in each case. Whether medical
science suffers or not by deeming fever and each other
nominal disease a physical unit, merits.the consideration
of physicians. Many medical theories seem to owe their
origin to this error. But not only fever in general is not
a physical unit, the particular fever of Thomas is not a
physical unit. It consists physically of many sensible manifestations; and if we would escape delusion, we must deem
their nominal oneness the result of only an organic operation of our intellect; an operation which is as useful as it
is inevitable; but we need not gratuitously engraft on the
utility a mischievous error, by deeming the oneness physical when it is only intellectual.
What we have said of fever, we may repeat of contagion.
The oneness which pertains to contagion is only intellectual. The contagiousness of cholera generally, and the
contagiousness of any single case of cholera, are severally
alike in oneness; but the sensible unverbal manifestations
that the intellect thus aggregates in each case into a verbal
unit, may be more multiform in one case than in another,
and they may differ otherwise. Even the contagiousness
of a single case during its whole continuance, is less a unit
physically than its contagiousness on any given moment;
hence to investigate the contagiousness of cholera, and to
proceed by supposing that the contE,giousness possesses unverbally the oneness which the word contagiousness purports, is like seeking for magnetism  as a physical unit
4*




82            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
among all unverbal magnetic phenomena. It is seeking
objectively in unverbal nature for a unit that exists only
subjectively in the intellect..The health of a country is as much an intellectual unit
as the health of Thomas. Unverbally the oneness of the
two cases is incalculably dissimilar. Even Thomas's general health during a year is less an unverbal unit, than his
health at the present moment. The saltness of the ocean
is an intellectual unit, and the saltness of any given drop
of the ocean is another; but the saltness of the ocean is
sensibly multiform, while the saltness of the drop is as
much a unit sensibly as intellectually. The oneness of
an army is intellectually as much a unit as the oneness of
Napoleon who commands it; while sensibly their oneness
is very dissimilar.
I trust the examples given are sufficient to manifest that
the name of every physical thing implies a oneness which
is only intellectual; and that when we mistake the nominal
oneness for a sensible or physical oneness, we are deluding
ourselves with an indiscrimination as bewildering as it is
fallacious. These remarks are applicable to all names of
physical things, from the universe, which is the most comprehensive of nominal units, to a shadow, that is as much a
unit physically as it is intellectually and nominally.
Of floral Units.
~ 1. But all nominal units are not intellectual aggregations of sensible mnanifestations.  Most, if not all those




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.           83
which we have been considering, are such; and I have,
therefore, denominated them physical units. But as the
intellect creates such physical units out of certain sensible
manifestations. so the intellect creates the nominal unit
love out of certain unverbal manifestations of our internal
feelings; and this unit love, with all other units that relate
to our internal feelings, I shall denominate moral units, and
sometimes emotional units.'If we turn from words to unverbal things, we find that a man may be said to love
music, his dog, his horse, his wife, his dinner, his child, his
business, ana innumerable other physical things. He may
love reflection, metaphysics, mathematics, and numerous
other intellectual things. He may love ease, excitement,
pleasure, revenge, and numerous other internal feelings;
but if amid the numerous and divers unverbal feelings to
which we thus apply the word love, we look for love
itself, and suppose it to be some mysterious unverbal unit,
we are looking objectively for what is only a subjective
creation of the intellect. That every language contains
the nominal unit love, is scarcely to be doubted, and the
coincidence is conclusive that the intellect conceives the
unit by an organic necessity; but if we mistakenly deem
this intellectual conception a mysterious emotional unit, or
a unit of any kind, except in the conception-of the intellect, we are needlessly mystifying our knowledge, and it
is sadly thus mystified, unless I greatly misjudge.
~ 2. What we have said of love we may repeat severally
of envy, hate, malice, hope, fear, conscience, piety, religion,




84            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
faith, kindness, passion, rage, charity, and every other nominal unit that refers to internal feelings. Every man's consciousness, embracing his knowledge of his own personality
through the course of his past life, is supposed to possess
as much unverbal oneness as it possesses nominal oneness;
while, like each of the former units, it is the name of an
intellectual aggregation of multitudinous units, just as the
wealth of a man is the name of his aggregate pecuniary
possessions.
But the mystery which proceeds from mistaking the true
unverbal character of the implied oneness, is greatly aggravated ~when we endeavour to find a corresponding unit
anywhere except in the organism of our intellect; and
especially when, in any case, we imagine that the intellectually conceived unit is. physical. Such speculations are,
however, no way uncommon.. In treatises, for instance,
which have been written on our passions, appetites, emotions, etc., the multitudinous internal feelings'which give
significancy to the word love, are enumerated, not as the
meaning of the.word love, but as the propensities of a
mysterious unit love, who holds his seat in the heart. So
in some treatises on our intellectual powers, wisdom, reason, judgment, conscience, and numerous kindred intellectually conceived nominal units, are crowded into the head,
where, as on invisible tripods and in specific localities,
they sit and hold dominion over the conduct, thoughts,
and feelings of the man in whom'they. are situated.
3. To a person who is destitute of internal feelings, (if




OF TEE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.            85
we may for illustration imagine such a person,) the nominal units love, hope, fear, etc., would possess but little
unverbal meaning; as also joy, sorrow, anger, jealousy,
hunger, thirst, sleepiness, weariness, vigour, lassitude, etc.
The words would not, however, be destitute of unverbal
meaning to him, because nearly every such nominal unit
includes within its signification some sensible external action or appearance, which enables us to determine by
looking at a man, that he is sleepy, faint, angry, jealous,
envious, hungry, etc. By means of these external exhibitions, a marl who should be void of internal feelings, might
discourse about love, anger, envy, etc.; as a man void of
the sense of taste could talk of the deliciousness of peaches,
oranges, grapes, etc., his words referring to the appearance
of the fruits; or, as a man void of sight could talk of the
delightfulness of sunshine, his words referring to the
warmth of the sunbeams.
Of intellectual operations aggregated into nominal units.
~ 1. I could easily give, to any extent, examples of units
that, like the foregoing, the intellect forms out of our internal feelings. I have designated them moral units, moral
being usually applied to the branch of our organization that
is neither physical nor intellectual. But the intellect converts also into units its own operations, and to these I-now
wish to direct your attention.'I hope youl understand
what has already been said, and you, doubtless, understand
numerous operations that you see daily, and numerous




86            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
things that you feel hourly, and numerous griefs and joys
that you are conscious of' but the understanding itself, as
a unit, is only a nominal creation which the intellect forms
in contemplation of the various unverbal acts of understanding to which I have referred. The intellect, likewise,
(of which I speak so often as a unit,) is itself only an intellectually conceived aggregation in all that relates to its
oneness, as separate and different from the various intellectual operations that we are conscious of experiencing. The
like may be said of mind, sagacity, judgment, reflection,
reason, wisdom, wit, cunning, and all other nominal units
that refer to unverbal intellectual operations, and whose
names occupy -no small space in our dictionaries.
~ 2. What is truth? said Pilate. His question implies
that he deemed truth a unit, and the question is supposed
to be as proper and profound now as Pilate deemed it;
truth being still deemed a mysterious unit. If, however,
we turn from words to unverbal things, we find many and
different truths. That a line not longer than an inch, may
be divided ad infinitum, is a mathematical truth; that I am
speaking, is a physical truth.; that honesty is the best
policy, is an ethical truth; that you have felt grief, is a
moral truth; that an unsupported stone will fall to the
earth, is an experimental truth; that heaven and earth shall
pass -away, is a religious truth; and that the matter of a
grain of sand may be logically divided interminably without arriving at a residue which cannot be further divided,
is a logical truth. We may enumerate millions of truths;




OF TIlE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.            87
but if we look among them for truth itself as a unit, we
are looking for a figment which the intellect forms organically and of necessity; and which unit is subjective, not objective, in the organism of the intellect alone, not in objective things.
Nominal units that are partly intellectual and partly moral.
Before I close in relation to nominal units, I must speak
of some whose signification is not wholly sensible manifestations, nor wholly emotional manifestations, nor wholly
intellectual manifestations; but internal feelings, associated
with intellectual conceptions. I allude to Deity, immortality, eternity, heaven, hell, angel, resurrection, soul, and
numerous other kindred nominal units. The existence of
such nominal units in all languages, and in all periods of
time, is proof unequivocal that the intellect is organized to
conceive them; and hence that they all possess a subjective
reality in human nature. Of their conception by the intellect, and their unverbal signification, I shall speak in another place; but at present, I speak of them in relation
only to their nominal oneness, in contrast with their unverbal multiplicity.
All the last mentioned nominal units derive their chief
cogency from certain internal feelings which may be designated as religious feelings, and which, in some cases, constitute the entire objective signification of the intellectually
conceived units. Such feelings are as indissolubly a part
of every man's organism as hope, fear, doubt, conviction,




88             THE MEANING OF WORDS.
confidence, uncertainty, etc. The whole history of man
manifests the existence of religious feelings, and every particular man's consciousness demonstrates their existence
occasionally.  A m-an may not at all times be under the
influence of religious feelings, any more than he is at all
times under the influence of hope, fear, love, or aversion;
but he is always liable to the excitation of religious feelings, as he is to any of his other feelings.
When we are unacquainted with the above twofold
character (intellectual and moral) of the nominal units we
are speaking of in the present section, we may be surprised
at the levity with which some persons regard them, in
contrast, with the awe with which other men regard them.
A principle analogous to this we may discover in the different appreciation which different persons evince towards
the nominal units spectre, ghost, apparition, spirit,, etc.
These nominal units are -often associated with an internal
feeling that renders each of the nominal units a subject of
awe or fear; while to other men they are associated with
no such feeling, and may be contemned.  But even the
nominal units ghost, spectre, etc., seem not wholly creations of the intellect, but to be organically associated with
the feelings of fear; and whether any effort of any man's
intellect'can at cal times, and in all places, wholly disconnect the feeling of fear from'the intellectual unit ghost,
etc., is very'questionable.' We are apt to attribute the
connected fear to tales which are told us in our infancy;
but the foundation exists in our intellectual and moral or




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.           89
ganisms, and an uneducated deaf mute, devoid of all language, may experience unverbally both the intellectual
impulse or state, from which the nominal unit ghost, etc.,
proceeds, and, in association therewith, the internal feeling
of fear.
Of nominal units, whose components belong to two or more of
the senses, or whose components are otherwise generically
diverse.
~. 1. I have said all that I deem necessary to manifest
the unverbal multiplicity, etc., of nominal units. The distinction is of the utmost practical importance, and the fault
is our own if we continue to mystify and perplex ourselves
by seeking objectively a oneness that is only subjective;
seeking in unverbal things, a oneness that is only verbal;
seeking physically, a oneness that is only intellectually
conceived. If any person is tired of the subject, he can
omit what intervenes, and proceed directly to the next succeeding lecture; but if he can endure a continuance of
the subject, I want to add a few remarks on several collateral topics, and especially in relation to nominal units, like
globe, orange, external, etc., of jwhich I spoke at the commencement of this lecture,'and which intellectually aggregate unverbal things that are revealed to us by more than
one of our senses; and whose nominal oneness is consequently peculiarly puzzling when we seek it sensibly. I
want to suggest a mode to speculatists, by which the generic diversity in the unverbal components of any such nomi



90            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
nal unit may become sensibly apparent. The alphabet is
a nominal unit, and possesses as much intellectually conceived oneness as the letter A; but even the letter A possesses less sensible oneness than nominal oneness; for it
names four different sounds. Orthoepists designate which
of the four sounds the letter A denotes in any given use
of it, by plying over the A some character which conventionally reveals the intenlded sound. Philosophers might
adopt a like contrivance.when using any nominal uhit
that aggregates objects generically different. I, might denote intellection; S, sight; F, feel; T, taste; L, smell; D,
sound; G, internal feeling.  For instance, thickness is a
nominal unit, but sensibly I can feel thickness and I can
see thickness; consequently, the intellectually conceived
nominal unit thickness names a sensible duality. We,
however, possess an entire control over the definition of
the word thickness, and can define it to signify the feel
thickness, excluding the sight thickness. This definition
is as good as any other when we understand the intended
limitation; but we may convert such a limitation into a
puzzle when the limitation is not avowed. Professor Reid
thus puzzled himself, as follows: —He says, " When I look
at a book, it seems to possess thickness as well as length
and breadth; but we are certain the visible appearance
possesses no thickcness, for it can be represented exactly on a
piece of flat canvass." Now, if he had placed the letter F
over the word thickness, so as to denote he was limiting
the word to the feel thickness, he would have seen the




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.            91
quibble which arises from saying we can represent thickness on a piece of flat canvass. We cannot represent the
feel thickness on the flat canvass; we can represent the
sight thickness only, which is just what we see when we
look at the canvass.
~ 2. That seeing cannot communicate unverbally to us
the feel thickness, may be an interesting item of experimental knowledge, indicatory of the general truth that
each of the senses yields us unverbal information that no
one or more of the other senses can yield us; but we need
not give the tenet an artificial and sophistical piquancy, by
limiting the unverbal signification of the word thickness to
the feel, and then asserting that thickness is invisible.. No
trick of legerdemain is superior in deception to suRch a
dodge, if we may thus designate what is performed ignorantly. The feel thickness, the sight, and the intellection
which unites the sight and feel, are three different items
of our unverbal knowledge, and entitled to equal honour.
We may, if we choose, restrict the word thickness to the
feel, and assert that the sight is no part of thickness; but
unverbal things are no party to our verbal disquisitions.
They exhibit themselves just as our senses and our intellect discover, unaffected by our speculations, unchanged
by our definitions.
Hume announces a like unconscious quibble, when he
says, "The table (S) which we see, seems to diminish (S)
as we recede from it, but the real table (F) suffers no diminution." (F)  The whole zest of the proposition consists




92            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
in the sensible duality of each of the nominal units table
and diminution. That the sight table exhibits a visible
diminution (S), while the feel table suffers no tactile diminution (F), are no contradiction of each other, the oneness
of the table being only intellectual and nominal, not sensible; and we may say the like of the diminution. That
the sight diminution and the feel undiminution can exist
thus together, is a physical fact of much interest; but we
can make a mystery of it only when we play at bo-peep
with words, by neglecting to discriminate the intellectually
conceived oneness of ciminution, and its physical duality.
The sight crooked, and the feel straight, can also exist
together, as we may learn experimentally if we will immers e a straight (F) stick in water, leaving a portion of its
length unimmersed. The experiment is interesting, but
we can make a juggle of it by neglecting to discriminate
that stick, which is a nominal unit, is a physical duality;
and that crooked and straight are severally but nominal
units, while sensibly each is a duality. With;a proper
discrimination between the nominal oneness and-the sensible duality, no contradiction exists when the sight crooked
will, under given circumstances, appear in association with
the feel straight. If we suppose that the sight crooked
must always be accompanied with the feel crooked, and
the feel straight with the sight straight, the error is in our
inexperience, not in our senses or in unverbal things.
If a piece of gold is held in front of a mirror, the mirror
will exhibit the sight gold separated from the feel. If you




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.            93
look at a candle, and press with your finger against the
external angle of one of your eyes, you will experience
the sight-two candles, unaccompanied by the feel, two.
If you look at the sun, and then close your eyes; or, without looking at the sun, if you press for a moment rather
painfully against either of your eyes, you will see various
colours, unaccompanied by any of the tangible objects
with which colours are generally associated. If you whirl
your body and produce dizziness, every object on which
you look will exhibit the sight rotation, unaccompanied
by the feel. If you cross the third and fourth fingers of
your right hand, and rest the tips of the crossed fingers on
a bullet, you will experience the feel, two bullets, unaccompanied by the sight two. If a wine-glass be half filled
with cotton wool, and immersed (in an inverted position)
in a bowl of water, the cotton will exhibit the sight wet,
as you slowly emerge the wine-glass; while to the feel, the
cotton will be dry; and a wheel can whirl so rapidly and
evenly, as to present the feel motion, without the sight.
In concluding this topic, I will add only, that the art of
painting consists, principally, in exhibiting sights separated
from their usually attendant feels; the sight prominence,
without the feel prominence; the sight distance, without
the feel distance; the sight shape, without the feel shape.
The art of manufacturing perfumery consists in separating
the smell rose, jessamine, etc., from the si-ghts and feels
with which the smells are naturally associated. Ventriloquism and mimickry consist in separating sounds from the




V94           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
sights and feels with which the sounds are naturally associated. Sleight of hand and natural magic are either the
apparent or actual separation of sights, feels, etc., which
nature generally associates. Usually some sight separated
from its associated feel, as when a juggler apparently
places (S) a ball under a cup, but places (F) it not under;
and finally, novels, and other imaginative verbal compositions, may be characterised as collections of nominal units,
separated from  all the sensible. things with which the
nominal units are usually associated.
~ 3. But though the sensible items are separable of
each group which the intellect constitutes into a nominal
unit, still so reliably uniform are the groups (as to the
several items of which each group is composed), that when,
for example, we see space, we know immediately that our
hand will encounter no resistance in passing through it;
and when we look at glass, we know' that our hand will
encounter resistance; and when I see ice of a given appearance, I know it will sustain my weight, and I venture
on it fearlessly; but when I see water, I know it will not
sustain me, and I avoid it carefully. Our sensible perceptions constitute thus an unverbal language common to all
men, and more important by far than Latin and Greek;
and equally with. Latin and Greek, an acquired language,
though not a conventional language. A noise which to me
originally, and which to an infant is still a mere sensation
of hearing, will communicate to me what animal or thing
causes it, whether the cause is located in the room where I




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.           95
am sitting, or in a room below me, or above-in the clouds
or in the street; and whether the noise is associated with
danger or mirth. The noise is become,.without any conventionality, a natural word, whose meaning I have learnt
Experimentally, and whose meaning is understood equally
by men'of- all nations. An ignorance of this unverbal
language by children produces much of the intellectual
difference that' exists between them and adults; and which
we erroneously attribute to immaturity of intellect, it being
a mere deficiency of sensible experience. A child who
is just beginning to walk, will step off a tfable if you place
him on one, the appearance of vacancy yielding him no
intimation that it cannot sustain him; and when he begins
to run in the streets, horses and and approaching carriages appear to his sight as they appear to yours, but the sights
yield him no intimation that he will be run over unless he
change his position. Should he select a peach from a basket, he will not see, as you can, which is ripe and good
flavoured, bat probably select one which is big, but which
you see is decayed or otherwise undesirable. WVe exclaim
against his stupidity, but his defect is organic, and no brilliancy of native powers can spontaneously supply the
experimental knowledge of which he is deficient. - We
may tell him to grasp the moon, and we may smile when
he reaches forth his tiny arm to obey our bidding; but
seeing can yield a priori no intimation of what the arm can
reach, or what it cannot, except in cases which his intellect
sees to be analogous to cases which he has experienced.




96            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
The sight of red-hot iron, which so palpably admonishes
us to beware of a contact with it, might tempt a child to
touch it; and he will see nothing in the point of a needle
to indicate to him that a pressure against it is more to be
avoided than a pressure against a bullet. A blind man,
who should be suddenly restored to sight, would, in the
same way, see in a stone wall no indication of its impassability to his hand; and see in space, no indication that his
hand will encounter from it no resistance. Such a man
would continue to grope his way by means of a stick till
he had acquired a knowledge of the unverbal language
of which I am speaking; so as to know, by the appearance, where he can tread safely, and where he can move
unobstructedly. Every feel, taste and smell, is a natural
word as much as the sights and sounds of which we have
been speaking. To feel the point of a needle and to feel a
bullet will originally no more indicate *the sights with
which the point and:bullet are respectively associated, than
the sound of a Greek word will indicate to an untaught
man the English word which is its synonyme.
~ 4. Men, however, doubtless differ from each other in
the facility with which they acquire a knowledge of this
natural, unverbal, and unconventional language; and, on
this difference depends much of what we call dullness of
apprehension and stupidity. Men differ also from each
other in the extent of their knowledge of this unverbal language. A physician can ascertain, somewhat, the condition
of a patient's lungs and heart by. the sound which the




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.         97
lungs create in respiration, and which the heart produces
in its palpitations; but should a man who is not a physician
hear the sounds, he would derive from them no information. Every mechanic is acquainted with items of the
foregoing unverbal language that are unknown to other
men. Some men, by looking for the first time at a picture,
can tell, almost unmistakably, the master who painted it;
some, by the ring of mixed metals, can tell the constituents
of the compound; and some, by looking at cloth, can tell
its durability.
~ 5. The world, at different periods, has understood this
unverbal, unconventional language in varying quantities.
Liquids long expanded and.contracted in bulk, ere men
learnt from the visible contractions and expansions, that
heat and cold were indicated thereby; and the pulse
knocked at our wrists for ages, with varying rapidity and
intensity, ere men discovered the vital messages the knocks
were unverbally telling. Galvani was not the first person
to whom the quivering limbs of frogs spoke unverbally;
he was only the first person who understood their mute
revelations; and, doubtless, around us continually are innumerable unverbal utterances that keep repeating important signs that are still unintelligible to us. Geology is
among the latest systematic translations that men have
made out of Nature's unverbal dictionary; though the sensible signs which compose geology are as old as man himself. Finally, the unverbal language of which I have been
speaking has never received the consideration which it




98            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
merits, and never has been taught in the way which would
lead men to further increase their knowledge thereof.
Possibly every sensible perception is a word in the above
sense, and to investigate its meaning may lead to greater
utilities than the interpretation of any Egyptian hieroglyphic. I will dismiss the subject with only one more
remark:-When a house is kindling with fire at midnight,
the fact can be unverbally disclosed to us by the smell,
the sound, and the sight, in advance of the more fatal information by the feel; so the approach towards us of a
person concerns frequently our safety, and it can scarcely
be effected so stealthily as not to cause some sound, some
visual shade, or some aerial trepidation that will admonish
us of the approach; now the remark which I wish to make
is, that a like multiplicity of signs, variously modified,
seem to attend, somewhat peculiarly, physical operations,
whose occurrence concerns our personal safety. Whether
a like analogy attends poisonous plants and minerals, so
that their presence may be discovered by signs numerous
in proportion to the malignity of the poison, I know not;
though something similar thereto is discoverable in the
sounds produced by rattlesnakes.
~ 6. Having thus seen that sensible things are perceived
by us in groups of so uniform an association, that when I
perceive any one of a group, the perception becomes to me
an unverbal sign of the remainder of the group, we may
readily understand why many persons when they see an
ignus fatuus, or any other unusual sight of fire, unassociated




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.            99
with a feel, are alarmed at the absence of'the feel. The
alarm is founded on the indiscrimination which prevails
generally between the intellectual oneness of fire, and its
sensible duality; hence the absence of the feel seems to
Drove not merely that the phosphorescent fire is not the
unit fire which possesses both a sight and a feel, but that
it is fire portentously disembodied of its feel, and become a
species of ghost.
The effect of novelty in sensible associations, as above
exemplified, is organic, or the effect would not be apparent,
as we find it is, in all men and in all periods of the world.
Novelty, though thus agitative of our feelings, is not agitative of the intellect, and we are able to discover a.happy
utility in this organic exemption from agitation of the intellect.. By the passiveness of the intellect, we are fitted
to derive knowledge-from sensible revelations of every description, and by the excitability of the feelings, we are
induced to pay special attention to novelties; and to ascertain whether they are apparent only, or real, necessary or
contingent, etc.  The effect of novelty ceases, also, on
our feelings, as soon as it has accomplished its organic
duty. When we become familiar with phosphorescent appearances, etc., we contemplate them with feelings entirely
tranquil.
~ 7. But the error of imputing to sensible things the
oneness that is only intellectual, and which error thus
alarms us when we experience in separation a portion of
the sensible -items that are usually aggregated by the intel



100           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
lect into a unit, is productive of another error that ought
to be understood; for instance, should you place in the.
hands of an inexperienced person a bladder inflated with
air, and another bladder filled with sand, he will suppose
that the contents of both possess visibility. He will not
pretend to decide whether the contents of both are sapid or
odorous; but he will be positive of the visibility; for he
has always found visibility associated with tangibility, and
he, therefore, supposes the two as much a sensible unit as
they are an intellectual unit. Under the like indiscrimination we look at the sun, moon, and stars; and seeing in
them shape and visibility, deem them also tangible; just as
though tangibility, visibility, and shape, were a physical
unit, instead of being only an intellectual unit.
I admit that the appearance of these celestial bodies is
strongly presumptive of their tangibility, and that our intellect is organically compelled to conceive that they are
tangible; but let us not make our knowledge less definite
than Providence enables us to make it; especially as Providence, perhaps purposely to give us a clue to the triplicity
of our organization, and the consequent conglomerate nature of words, presents us with just about enough anomalous sensible disassociations to enable us to unravel the
three-plied cord with which unverbal things are intellectually tied together by language into nominal units.
~ 8. I have now completed all I deem necessary to say
in relation to the unverbal duality or multifariousness of
nearly every nominal unit; but in dismissing the subject, I




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.            101
will state briefly how we acquire nominal units, and though
the information is not necessarily connected with my discussions, the utility of the information may justify the
digression. We are prone to suppose that when our eyes
are kept open, nothing more is necessary to the perception
of all visible things within the range of our vision; but
this is a mistake. Were an unprofessional man to attempt
the dissection of a human body, he would see in it but the
few nominal units, skin, flesh, bones, etc., while a professional surgeon will see all the units, whose names fill a
large anatomical dictionary.. To have these multifarious
units manifested to him unverbally, constitutes much of a
surgical student's professional education. Even now, after
all the sensible inspection to which the human body has
been for ages subjected, we occasionally hear of some
newly discovered unit; as, for instance, the sensible discoveries in the structure of the brain by Gaul and Spurzheim, The surface, likewise, of the earth exhibits to common -observers but little more sensible diversity than is
referred to by the nominal units ground, stones, trees,
shrubs and plants; while educated men see in it the multifarious units which constitute the nomenclature of mineralogy and botany. These sciences are new, and like phrenology, which is more recent, were created by the discovery
of units which our predecessors never saw, though as
palpably before their eyes as before ours.
~ 9. Every man's intellect individuates (conceives units)
in a ratio compounded of the familiarity of his senses with




102           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
the objects inspected, and of the familiarity of his.intellect
with the process of individuation; hence children individuate less than' adults, being in most cases obstructed by
both sensible unfamiliarity and intellectual inexperience.
When, therefore, we travel with our children, we are continually calling their attention to objects which will otherwise escape their observation. We attribute their heedlessness to immaturity of age, but a vigorous man would
individuate as imperfectly as a child were he as little accustomed to the practice, and surrounded by objects as new.
We can discover this in a man who suddenly obtains sight
after being connaturally blind. In his first views he individuates neither persons, chairs, tables, carpets, walls, etc.,
but, like an infant, he sees perhaps the whole as a unit.
We are often told by persons who never analyse words
into unverbal things, and never discriminate the generic
differences of unverbal things, that a restored blind man
affirmed that everything seemed to touch his eyes. He
may have so affirmed, but the affirmation meant nothing
but an attempt of his intellect to account theoretically for
the new perception. Even all of us account for visual
perceptions in the. same way, our intellect organically insisting that some rays must pass from the visible object
and touch the retina of the eye; and thus, like the above
restored blind man, we assimilate vision to tactile perceptions; no other mode of perception being satisfactory to
our prepossessions in favour of tactile operations. Lord
Montboddo made the required contact by conceiving that




OF THEE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.        103
the soul goes forth from the eye and -touches the object
which is seen; for how can any one object operate on another, we say, except by contact.
~ 10. The defectiveness with which we individuate when
surrounded by unaccustomed objects, is so well known
practically, that when we are walking with a friend around
his grounds, he will habitually direct attention to objects
that he may deem most worthy of our notice. By the
same principle, when we see a large panorama, the first
view is confused, and individuations present themselves
only gradually. After a man has viewed daily such a picture for months, he will not see all the units which the
artist can see who designed and executed the painting.
Also on this principle, likenesses are said to grow on us
when viewing the portrait of an acquaintance; for after we
have once individuated the points of resemblance, we recur
to them again readily whenever we look at the portrait. I
have found much difficulty in making children see the
eyes, nose and mouth, which most persons see in the full
moon; but after these units have been once intellectually
individuated in severalty, the child sees them again readily
whenever the moon presents them.  The difficulty lies
in only the first individuation, thus evincing that the
obstruction is not in the object seen, but in our organization.
~ 11. The unaptness of very young children to individuate is further discoverable in their usual inability to
recognize in a portrait the person portrayed. The portrait




104           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
will be seen by them as a unit in which they will include
the back ground and picture frame; but if they should see
only the whole face as a unit, they would not be likely to,
recognize the likeness, which probably is discoverable in
only some of the features individually. Nor is this the
whole of the difficulty; for when a very young child looks
at the person who is portrayed, the child will not necessarily individuate the face as a unit, but he may include
some part of the body and dress. That such are the early
individuations of children is known by the fact that a
change of head-dress, and sometimes of a gown, will prevent an infant from recognizing its nurse or mother. The
like difficulty obstructs a child when we endeavour to
teach him by sight, the alphabet. The A, which seems so
distinct to us, is to him only a part of a unit whose whole
may include much of the surrounding concomitants. No
contrivance of ours can obviate his difficulty, though we
attempt, more empirically, however, than scientifically, to
give prominence to the letter that we desire -him to learn,
placing it on a square of wood, ivory, etc., or by some
other contrivance. Men experience a like difficulty when
they hear an unaccustomed language: The words seem all
the same sound, till we acquire by time an ability to indiViduate their sonal differences.
The individuations of men, at all periods of maturity, are
much influenced by accustomed occupations. A landscape
painter will individuate picturesque views where an agriculturist will see nothing but qualities of soil; and a




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.         105
butcher nothing but the marketable condition of the cattle
that are grazing in the fields.
~ 12. The progress of individuations, of which a few instances are above referred to, and the unverbal language
of sensible perceptions, still more briefly referred to precedingly, were both indicated to me incidentally while
investigating, as I have heretofore stated, the powers of
our respective senses; and indeed, to those investigations,
began in early life and continued to this time, I have derived all the views of language that I possess; and very
much other knowledge that I suppose to be useful. I
commenced the investigations with no definite intention,
except an assumption that as our objective knowledge of
the external universe is derived entirely from our senses,
an experimental and minute analysis of the operations of
the senses must be useful. I state the fact, and present
some of the results, from a belief that such sensible investigations are too mu-ch neglected, and in the hope that
benefits may result from directing the attention thereto of
persons possessing leisure; the mode in which our intellect
creates nominal units being not properly the concern of our
present clisquisitions, but only the mode in which we shall
interpret them, so) as not to deem their oneness unverbal,
when it is only verbal, etc.
5*




LECTURE IV.
VERBAL IDENTITY  ANALYSED  INTO  UNVERBAL
DIVERSITY.
CONTENTS.
1, Identity is a subjective conception of the intellect, not an objective
perception of the senses.
2. Physical things that are nominally identical, are identical in only the
conception of our intellect.
3. Intellectual things that are nominally identical, are identical in only
the conception of the intellect.
4. Internal feelings which are nominally identical, are identical in only
the conception of the intellect.
I. Language is founded on the two intellectual organic processes of creating nominal units and verbal identities.
6. The latent defects which are inherent in logic, by reason of the foregoing properties of words, and Logic's disregard of unverbal heterogeneities.
Verbal identity analysed into unverbal diversity.
~ 1. Having in my last lecture shown that we impute to
nominal units a oneness that is intellectual only, I shall
now show that we- impute to them an identity that is also
intellectual only. This truth was suggested to me, like
the former, during my investigations of the powers of our
senses, to which I referred in my last lecture. In those
investigations I assumed that every sight is unknown to




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.         107
me which my seeing has not informed me of; that every
feel is unknown to me that my feeling has not informed
me of; and I assumed the like of the information of each
of my other senses. Still these apparently obvious truths
were contradicted the moment I designated the information
of my senses by other names than sights, sounds, feels, etc.,
for I cannot say that the sight of snow is unknown to me,
except the snow that I have seen; that the sight of oranges
is unknown to me, except the oranges that I have actually
seen; that the appearance is unknown to me of lions, except of the few that I have seen, etc. Endeavouring to
reconcile this contradiction between positions that seemed
equally irrefragible, I found that all lions are identical;
hence when I saw one lion, I in effect saw every lion; and
when I saw one orange, I in effect saw every orange.
But this explanation was soon refuted by reflection, for
the name lion, etc., is applied to countless individuals who
differ from each other in size, colour, and innumerable
other sensible manifestations; heiace my original assumption was still uncontradicted that every sight is unknown
to me which my seeing has not informed me of; the appearance of a lion, orange, etc., which I have not seen,
being not necessarily known to me by means of the lion,
etc., which I have seen. The name man, also, is applied to
many hundreds of millions of:the earth's inhabitants who
differ in complexion through'countless gradations, from
negro black, to albino white. Nor is the difference of complexion merely white, black, brown and red, as language




108           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
implies, the word white being applied to snow, silver, water,
the moon, the floor, and other countlessly diverse appearances; and the like may be said of black, brown, red, etc.;
hence the unverbal differences of man's complexion, are
almost as numerous as the persons. Men differ, also, from
each other, not merely in complexion, but in features,
stature, hair, age, sex, structure, knowledge, etc.; and each
of these words is applicable, like the word white, to multitudinous unverbal diversities; to say nothing of countless
unverbal differences in men, that have received no nominal
designation. In short, no two men are so much alike unverbally as to prevent them from being discriminated from
each other by the appearance; no two speak so much alike
as to prevent them from being discriminated by the voice;
no two sympathise so much alike as not to differ in their
sympathies, appetites, and passions; and no two think so
much alike as not to differ in their thoughts and other intellectual conceptions. Still they are all nominally men, and
thus all nominally identical. One may occupy an imperial
throne, and possess refinement, elegance, and knowledge;
another may wallow in a gutter, intoxicated, ignorant,
stupid, and ragged; but in language like that of Burns, a
man is a man for all that; and in this judgment, everybody's intellect irresistibly concurs, thereby implying that
a mysterious identity exists that is supreme over all physical, moral, and intellectual diversities.
What, then, is the identity between this multitude of
nominal 7lits, man, who severally differ thus from each




OF THIE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.        -109
other sensibly, morally, and intellectually? At one time
I supposed the identity was only conventional, and that
we arbitrarily designate alike all the unverbally diverse
individuals referred to. But how came we to apply the
same name to beings so diverse? A reason for the designation must have preceded the designation, for it is applied
to these unverbally different beings in all languages, and
has been so applied in all ages; and, therefore, is too general for any conventional origin; finally, I saw that as men
are not identical in unverbal manifestations, the nominal
identity must be only an organic conception of the intellect.
When we become satisfied that the nominal identity is
an intellection, we can analyse it no further. We are, in
respect to it, at the ultimate reach of our unverbal analysis,
like a chemist when he has analysed a compound into its
ultimate elements. We may, indeed, investigate the extent to which men approximate to the possession in common of the same unverbal physical things; and the extent
to which all men agree unverbally in moral and intellectual manifestations; but if we endeavour to discover
sensibly, in different men, the identity which is implied
between them by the name man, we are seeking sensibly
for what is only an intellectual conception, and our search
is organically absurd and fallacious.
What we have thus said of man, we may repeat severally of horse, elephant, eagle, dog, tree, shrub, whale,
heat, cold, blood, light, air, water, fire, and every other




110           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
nominal unit. Each of the names identifies innumerable
individuals that differ unverbally from each other, the
intellect alone converting them into identities. In the creation of such identities, the intellect obeys an organic necessity which is as active, I have no doubt, in an uneducated
deaf mute as in us; though in him the identity possesses
not the objective definiteness which it acquires in us from
its connection with an oral name. Could we realize how
the intellect of a mute conceives unverbally such identities,
we should understand more definitely than we now do, the
intellectual organism which gives equal significance to any
given conception, whether it be expressed in Dutch or
English, in manual signs, or possibly in what may sound
to us unmeaning gabble in idiots.
~ 2. By means of the organic action of the intellect
which thus verbally identifies sensible and other diversities,
the inhabitants of different countries who have never seen
the same horses, the same trees, birds, houses, etc., are enabled, when conversing together, to understand each other
with sufficient accuracy for all ordinary purposes; unverbal
things of the same name conforming to each other with a
degree of unverbal similitude, that approximates somewhat
to the verbal identity. I lately in France saw a vegetable
differing in appearance from any I had ever seen. I accordingly asked the usual question, What is it? and was
told it was a melon. The answer gave me much information by reason of my knowledge of American melons, and
the further knowledge (or perhaps intuition) that the




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.            111
verbal identity would be accompanied with unverbal similarities.
We see in this intuitive principle of interpretation a
reason for the anxiety usually manifested by sick persons
and their friends, to know the name of the patient's disease-a desire most urgent, probably, among persons who
mistake verbal identities for unverbal identities.  Modern
physicians, on whom experience forces a knowledge of the
sensible diversity that exists among diseases that are nominally identical, are often unwilling to announce to a
patient the name of his disease,-diseases nominally identical being accompanied in different patients with fewer
unverbal similarities than perhaps any other nominal
identities; and even the same person will be affected differently at different times by re-attacks of the same nominal
disease. Still some unverbal similarities must exist among
diseases verbally identical, or physicians could derive no
knowledge from experience.  The unverbal similarities of
the same nominal disease in different patients is, however,
in some few diseases, nearly as complete as the nominal
identity of the disease; and in such diseases, experience
yields its usual benefits, and medical science exhibits its
most reliable ministrations.
Different verbal identities exhibit different degrees of unverbal
similitudes.
~ 1. What we have said of the unverbal diversity that
exists in diseases of the same name, is measurably applica



112           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
ble to every drug of the same name, —no two masses of
calomel, rhubarb, etc., possessing as much sensible similarity as they possess nominal identity. The sensible similarities approximate usefully to the nominal identity, but
sufficient diversities exist to embarrass medical practice.
Physicians are embarrassed in their speculations, as well
as in their medical practice, by the unverbal diversities of
verbal identities. The contagiousness of cholera, in different
cases, possesses only a nominal identity, while unverbally
the contagiousness may possess endless diversities. Even
the contagiousness of Peter's cholera to-day, may differ unverbally from the contagiousness of his cholera to-morrow;
nothing being necessary to warrant the application of the
word contagiousness to any disease at any time, but that
the intellect of the observer shall observe in the disease
something analogous to what it has observed in some other
case that is deemed contagious. We can learn from the
controversies of physicians nothing so positive, as that the
sensible manifestations denominated contagiousness, are so
diverse in diseases of different names, and in diseases of
any one name at different times of its occurrence, that to
verbally allege contagiousness of any given nominal disease, will communicate to the hearer but little definite
unverbal information.
Leaving medicine and its concomitants, we shall find
that no unverbal things which are verbally identical,
possess as much unverbal similarity as verbal identity; but
though the diversity is thus general, it varies in degree in




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.           113
different cases. The sensible similarity in two drops of
water is infinitely greater than the sensible similarity of
two men, of whom one shall be an uneducated negro, and
the other an educated European. But the sensible similarity of the two men is much greater than the sensible
similarity of two fish, of which one shall be a shark, and
the other an anchovy, while the sensible similitude of the
two fish is greater than the sensible similitude of matter in
the form of a rock, and matter in the form of a sunbeam.
~3. Natural History is irremediably defective to the
extent that the nominal identity of animals of any given
name conflicts with their sensible diversities.  We can
construct no natural history, except by speaking of lions
as identities, horses as identities, whales as identities, etc.;
but we shall gain in unverbal accuracy by understanding
that the unverbal objects thus grouped into nominal identities, are identical in only the conception of the intellect;
and this remark applies not merely to classifications like
the above which the intellect makes spontaneously, but to
classifications which are made by naturalists artificially, on
any basis whatever.
Books of travels are subject to a like irremediable defect.
A traveller describing verbally what he saw in strange
countries, can make himself intelligible unverbally to his
readers only by means of the intellectual identities to
which the traveller's verbal trees will refer; and his verbal
rocks, men, and animals, etc.; but the sensible diversities
which exist among things nominally identical, make all




114           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
descriptive verbal narratives very fallacious. When this
inherent defect is attempted to be remedied by pictorial
representations in books of travels, the defect is less effectually remedied than persons usually suppose. A picture
can communicate to a spectator no sight which the spectator has never seen, except the picture itself may be such
a sight; but in every sensible particular in which the portrayed view or object differs unverbally from the picture,
the portrayed object cannot be revealed by the picture.
The difficulty is organic, and cannot be surmounted.
~ 4. The grouping of unverbal things by the intellect
into nominal identities, enables us with a few names to
discourse intelligibly of innumerable unverbal individualities; the word man, for instance, names, as we have already
said, many hundred millions of diverse individuals;- and
the words dog, tree, fever, grass, meat, drink, etc., name
severally numerous and at least equally diverse individuals. If the diverse unverbal individuals referred to by
each name, man, dog, etc., could not have been thus
grouped into identities by the intellect, and we could
speak of them by only giving a different name to each individual, language would have been either impossible, or
limited to the designation of a few individuals known in
common to the interlocutors; as now when we speak to each
other of particular individuals, we can speak of only such
as we can bring to each other's knowledge, as Mr. A., and
Mrs. B., etc.; hence we discover the very interesting and
important fact, that language is constructed on two intel



OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.           115
lectual processes-the creation of verbal units, (as we manifested in the last lecture,) and the creation of verbal identities, asmanifested in the present lecture. By the creation of
nominal units, the illimitable multitudes of unverbal things
are grouped into a manageable number of nominal units;
and by the creation of verbal identities, the illimitable unverbal diversities of the nominal units, (no two spears of grass
being unverbally alike,) are abridged into some few thousand verbal identities; the total number of words, for all
purposes, that compose the English language, being only
about sixty thousand, though it is, perhaps, the most copious of existing languages.
And we may note as also deserving our recognition, that
the above two processes (the creation of nominal units
and the creation of verbal identities) are no contrivances
of man, no mere conventionality of language, but proceed
from  an organic impulse of the intellect. The organic
proneness of the intellect to note similarities as identities,
rather than to note diversities, is readily seen in children.
After learning the word cow and the animal so named,
they will apply the word to horses as well as cows; and
the*child's familiarity with animals must be long established before he will discriminate between cows, oxen, and
bulls. Nor must we deem such indiscrimination peculiar
to children. When a man who is unaccustomed to rural
objects, sees a flock of sheep, they will look identically
alike, though the shepherd who attends the flock, will
know them individually, as accurately as he can discrim



116           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
inate individual men among his human acquaintances.
We may note the same organic proneness to identify rather
than discriminate, when we look at clouds, and grotesquely
form thereout mountains, camels, lions, whales, etc., no
man ever thinking what the clouds are not like, but only
what they are like. So the first impression of every man
when he looks at a portrait, is not whom it is not like, but
whom it is like; and, indeed, we may say of pictures as
we have said of words, that if the organic tendency of our
intellect had been to discover diversities rather than similitudes, we, probably, should have possessed no art of portraiture.
The discrimination of diversities is further unlike the
perception of similitudes by requiring usually an effort of
the will; hence dull, sleepy, and stupid people, discriminate differences less than persons who are deemed brilliant.
The perception of discriminations may be improved by
keeping the intellect attentive thereto, and the power is well
worth our cultivation. I know a man of ordinary discernment who sat for many years by a wood fire, which was
supported on a pair of brass andirons, and he had never
seen that the andirons were not matched, till a casual acquaintance directed his attention to a prominent visible
diversity in them.
Unverbal diversity of intellectual units that are verbally identical.
~ 1. I have probably said enough to evince the unverbal




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.          117
diversity that exists in sensible units that are verbally
identical. I desire to show a like unverbal diversity
among intellectual units that are verbally identical. Every
man possesses some wisdom, but if we seek in the several
wisdoms of all men for an unverbal identity, except subjectively in the conception of the intellect from which
alone the verbal identity proceecds, we are puzzling ourselves by mistaking the nature of the identity. Without
this organic intellectual identification of unverbal similarities or analogies, we could possess no such general word
as wisdom; let us, therefore, accept the benefit thankfully
without making the verbal identification of unverbal diversities a speculative delusion, through ignorance of a distinction which our intellect enables us to understand.
And not only is the wisdom of different men not identical,
except verbally, but the wisdom of Thomas to-day, and
his wisdom yesterday, are only verbally identical, and
may be unverbally very diverse. And what we have said
of wisdom we may; repeat of wit, judgment, sagacity, cunning, discrimination, reflection, anticipation, ratiocination,
reason, to the end of the vocabulary of intellectual personages and processes. Each word names countless unverbal
diversities, which the intellect alone identifies. The diversities, however, which each word identifies, never perplex
us practically; the intellect of any man knowing what
unverbal thing to name wit, judgment, cunning, etc., as
readily as it knows what unverbal things are fish, insect,
or vegetable, etc.
4




118           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
Diversity of internalfeelings that are verbally identical.
~ 1. I have shown sufficiently, I suppose, that all intellectual things which are verbally identical, are generally
diverse from each other. I will, therefore, proceed to
show the like of our internal feelings, and that the anger
of Thomas, and the anger of James, which are verbally
identical, are identical in only the conception of the intellect. Even the anger of Thomas to-day, and his anger
yesterday, are only verbally identical, while unverbally
they may differ much from each other. The love, also,
which I feel for my dog, my children, property, country,
etc., are verbal identities. They possess a sufficient analogy
to each other to induce the intellect to deem them identities, under the common name love; just as the intellect
sees in a shark, an anchovy, and an eel, a; sufficient analogy
to deem them identities, under the common name fish; but
we shall be deluded in either case, if we deem the verbal
identity anything more than a conception of the intellect.
We may apply the foregoing remarks severally, to all
other verbal identities formed of our internal feelings, as
pride, pity, vanity, glory, shame, generosity, patriotism,
goodness, etc. If we contemplate our emotional.manifestations ever so superficially, we must see the great diversity
that exists unverbally in the goodness of a good ship, a good
horse, a good road, a good man, and so of every other verbally identical goodness; to say nothing of the diversity
which exists unverbally among a thousand horses that are




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.          119
severally good, a thousand ships, etc. Such identities produce no practical, and but little speculative difficulty, their
unverbal diversity being obvious; unless a man more curious than ordinary, begins to speculatively inquire in what
the identity exists of these several goods; and fails to discover that it exists in merely an analogy which the intellect
discovers betweeni them; and which it discovers so organically, that we know as instantaneously what to designate
good, as we know instantly, without any previous acquaintance, what to designate as a metal or a tree.
~ 2. I will only remark further, on the present topic,
that the difficulty which men experience in disclosing to
each other the precise unverbal feeling that they are experiencing on any occasion, compels us to give the same
name to very diverse feelings; while the facility with which
we can exhibit to each other sensible objects, enables us to
give the same name to only very close resemblances; compare, for instance, the slight sensible difference between
any two scarlets, with the great emotional difference that
exists between the pity you feel for your sick child, and
the. pity you feel for a wounded fly. Verbally the two
pities are as identical as the two scarlets.
Verbal identities among things other than units or individualities.
~ 1. Most of the unverbal identities to which I have as
yet alluded, are what grammarians term nouns, and what
I in a former lecture called nominal units or individuali



120            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
ties. But the intellect converts into verbal identities, not
nouns only, but qualities, actions, and relations of various
kinds, etc. Sugar is sweet, honey, fruit of many kinds,
etc., are all sweet; but if we look for the identity of the
several sweets, except in the organic perception of the intellect to which alone the verbal identity owes its origin,
we shall not understand language correctly. So fire is hot,
sunshine is hot, our hands are sometimes hot, the atmosphere may be hot, etc.; but if we look for the identity of
these several hots, except in the intellect, in whose conception alone the identity exists, we shall not find it.
In the creation of such verbal identities, the intellect
obeys an organic impulse which.is irresistible; and the intellect seems equally compelled to subsequently aggregate
such identities into nominal units; as, for instance, to aggregate the several hots into the nominal unit caloric, and
the several sweets into the nominal unit sweetness, and
certain particular sweets into a unit under the name of
saccharine; but when we fail to understand that such verbal
identities and nominal units are intellectual, not physical,
we needlessly neglect a discrimination which also the intellect is organized to make. The conception of the identity
and the unit are both useful, but a correct understanding
of the identities and units is equally useful, our organization evolving utilities in all its capabilities.
~ 2. But not only the sweets of sugar, honey, fruit, etc.,
are only verbally identical, but some unverbal diversity
may exist in the sweet of different sugars, as it certainly




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.           121
exists in the sweet of different oranges, different apples,
etc. The like may be said of the identity of every nominal
quality. Snow, salt, silver, glass, water, the moon, my
hand, and this paper, are all verbally white, for the intellect sees an analogy in their appearance; and to that intellectual conception the word white refers; but if you seek
among the numerous whites for a sensible identity that
shall conform to the verbal identity, your search is fallacious. Even the white of different waters, different glasses,
or different snows, is not usually in any one class of the
articles as complete unverbally as verbally.
Perhaps every man'will occasionally think of his personal identity and sameness. He is conscious that he is
the same being, now, perhaps, decrepit and old, that was
once an infant, once a youth, once a vigorous man. He is
the same man, who is kind and amiable to his wife and
children, and perhaps harsh and hateful to other persons.
He is the same man, who was once innocent and happy;
now perhaps guilty and unhappy. He exhibits his portrait, and beholders smile when he assures them it was
once a correct delineation. He looks in a mirror and is
himself shocked at the change which time has produced in
him; he reflects on his feelings and is surprised how
calmly he contemplates events that once overwhelmed him
with grief; and how indifferent he feels towards death and
other future contingencies that once agitated him with apprehensions. He is changed in his physical aggregate, and
in every physical*particular-he is changed morally in the




122           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
intensity of every feeling, and intellectually in almost
every opinion; still he can no more doubt his sameness
and identity amidstthese changes, than he can doubt his
present existence. His sameness is an undiscoverable and
perplexing mystery while he attempts to discover it physically; but it ceases from being mysterious when he
knows that it is only a conception of his intellect, and
hence that it no way conflicts with the countless sensible
diversities he has suffered. Indeed, the only proper mystery to every man is his own organization, for all other
mysteries are solvable thereby as in the foregoing example.
His own organization is somewhat like the ocean. He can
account for rivers, creeks, and springs, by the descent of
rain from the clouds, and he can account for the rain in
the clouds by evaporations from the ocean; but the ocean
yields no explanation of its own exhaustless fullness, rolling and heaving incessantly, and leaving nothing for us
but to note and wonder.
~ 3. The verbal identity which exists thus between
qualities, etc., that are very diverse unverbally, we often
employ to add a piquancy to our intellectual speculations.
Stone, we say, is material, air is material, light, water,
earth, and iron, are severally material. We are then
taught to wonder and admire that sunbeams thus identical
with iron and stone, can fall with a velocity unparalleled,
and from a height of millions of miles, and not merely
leave our houses unbattered, but leave us unccnscious of
the blows which are inflicted on even our eyes. Now I




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.          123
would ask why, in such recitals, are we fond of directing
our attention to the velocity of light and the height from
which it falls. Our motive clearly is to thereby manifest
that our eyes ought to be hurt. But why ought they to be
hurt? —-simply because we identify light.witli stone. With
the intellectual identification of the two, I wage no controversy; but I would fain dispel the error which proceeds
from not discriminating unverbal differences in things verbally identical. The verbal equivoke is pleasing to the
feeling of wonder in I suppose every man; but as we no
longer tolerate necromancy, except when it is avowed to
be sleight of hand, I think we ought no longer to tolerate
intellectual identities to be presented to us as physical
identities. Let us enjoy all the benefits that proceed from
the organism by which our intellect identifies verbally,
diversities that are unverbal; but let us not vitiate the
benefits by unnecessarily disregarding generic and other
unverbal diversities in things' verbally identical.
I lately saw a book. intended for the instruction of youth,
in which the reader's curiosity is sought to be excited by
the information that he and iron possess many qualities in
common, as colour, form, substance, mobility, etc. So far
as the qualities are verbally identical, the child knows the
identity; but so far as you want him to deem the identity
physical, instead of an intellectual conception, you are deluding him with an equivoke. Youth are taught that
plants are male and female. The verbal identity thus established between plants and animals, is a conception of




124           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
the intellect, founded on certain analogies which ths intellect organically sees between plants and animals, and I
admit they are many, and highly deserving of observation;
but when we desire a youth to confound the intellectually
conceived verbal identity with a physical identity, we are
creating an interest for botany at the expense of his and
our own understanding. The difference is just what it is
between intellectually conceived vegetable sexuality and
animal sexuality. By commenting on the verbal identity
of the two sexualities, I desire not to commit the error that
I am seeking to dispel; that is, I desire not that their difference shall be estimated by my words, or by any words,
but simply by the unverbal differences that are discoverable between them; and especially by not confounding the
information we receive from our intellect and the information we receive from our senses; the two informations
being generically different.
~ 4. Leaving as sufficiently explained, the verbal identity of qualities of the same name, I will examine the
verbal identity of certain relations which grammarians call
prepositions. Colour is on (Sight) grass; a carpet is on
(Feel) the floor; a fragrance is on (Smell) a leaf; a word is
on (Intellection) my tongue; an eclipse is on (Sight) the
moon; a burden is on (G) my conscience. That the inteltellect insists on thus identifying these sensible diversities,
arises from the beneficial organic necessity of which we
have already spoken as one of the essential bases of ]anguage. Still we need not vitiate this benefit by deeming




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.            125
the verbal identity antagonistic to the unverbal diversity
of the several cases: puzzling ourselves to discover physically how colour can be on grass as a carpet is on a floor.
Professor Stewart, labouring under this puzzle, says, " The
bias of every person is certainly to deem that the green
colour of grass is spread on grass as a carpet is spread on a
floor." The bias is, I admit, general, and as inevitable as
general, and as unsophistical as inevitable, for it is intellectual; and signifies merely that in the conception of our
intellect the colour of grass bears the same relation to the
grass as a carpet bears to a floor on which it is spread; but
the conception involves no negation of the physical differences that can be discovered in the two cases; as, for instance, that the carpet can be felt as something apart from
the floor, while the colour cannot be felt apart from the
grass.  Unverbal sensible diversities result necessarily
from the diversity of our senses; and when we subsequently
arraign the sensible diversities at the bar of our intellect,
and confront them with their verbal identity, as conceived
by our intellect, we are trying the sensible diversities by
standards that pertain to the intellect, and to which the
sensible diversities owe no fealty.
I at one time thought that language is chargeable with
originating misconceptions like the foregoing, and that we
ought to have designated by different names the sight on,
and the feel on, etc.; but the difficulty underlies language,
or all languages would not make identities of such sensible
differences. A deaf mute who knows no language, will




126            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
intellectually deem the colour of grass to bear the same relation to the grass, as a carpet bears to:the floor over which
it is spread; and he may not understand that the identity
of the relation in the two cases, is only a conception of the
intellect; hence when he reflects that the carpet can be felt
apart from the floor, while the colour cannot be felt apart
from the grass, his intellect may not discern that the physical diversity of the two cases is no antagonist of the intellectual identity.
What I have thus said of the numerous unverbal diversities that the intellect verbally identifies by means of the
word on, I might repeat of the numerous other unverbal
diversities that the intellect verbally identifies by means
of the words here, there, out, in, etc. My hand is in a
glove, a haze is in the atmosphere, heat is in fire, an odour
is in roses, hardness is in iron, sweetness is in sugar, a
thought is in my mind, etc., etc.; but I will refrain from
the repetition, nor will I show that every verb and parti
ciple identifies verbally unverbal things that are diverse,
precisely as the above prepositions on and in, identify verbally what unverbally are diverse; for if what I have already said is not sufficient, I cannot make plainer that the
unverbal diversities which exist in things verbally identical are not contradicted by their verbal identity; the verbal identity being subjective and relating to the intellect,
while the unverbal diversities are objective, and relate to
unverbal things. Such of my readers as comprehend this
puzzling distinction, may omit what intervenes, and pro



OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.          127
ceed to the next succeeding lecture; though the intervening remarks, especially those on the inherent defects of
logic, will well repay the labour of a perusal, unless I
misjudge the amount of knowledge which exists on the
nature of language;-I much solicit a perusal of the whole.
~ 5. I will, therefore, close the present lecture by exhibiting a few miscellaneous verbal identities, whose unverbal meanings are not merely diverse, but heterogeneous.
Lecture II. treated of things that are verbally homogeneous, but unverbally heterogeneous; and I shall now reproduce some of the examples which I therein adduced,
though I shall now produce them to exhibit their verbal
identity in contrast with their generic diversity. The
passage, for instance, of light from the sun to the earth is
an intellectual conception, not a sensible perception, like
the passage of a steamboat from Albany to New York.
Our senses perceive that light ensues on the earth when
the sun rises above the horizon; bat we see only the sensible sequence of the sun and light, not any passage separately of the light, as we see the passage separately of a
steamboat through the water. No man can, however,
prevent his: intellect from identifying the two passages;
but when we permit the verbal identity to mystify and
delude us by our deeming the identity objective instead
of subjective, we become astonished,'and may even thereby
well suspect that we have wandered from the sober realities
of the senses, into the fairy land of the intellect. But as
we compare together the physical passage of a steamboat,




128           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
etc., and the intellectually conceived passage of light, for
the purpose of astonishing ourselves by the contrast, why
should we not relieve the astonishment, by showing that
the two passages are only verbally identical, though unverbally diverse; one being sensible, and the other intellectual. Just as well may we mystify ourselves by asking,
how the soul is united to the body? how heat and light
are united in flame? how coldness and hardness are united
in ice? how the movements of a man's limbs are united to
his volition? how effects are united to causes? how sweetness is united to sugar, and an echo united to a sound?
Well, all these questions have been asked from the earliest
periods of speculative inquiry, and they are still asked.
The difficulty is just like the foregoing. Two links of an
iron chain are united by a sensible union, but the union
of the soul to the body, etc., is an intellectual conception.
I, however, we suppose that the intellectual identification
of the two unions authorizes us to seek in the soul and
body, etc., for a physical union, like what our senses perceive in two links of a chain; or to make a mystery of our
inability to discover sensibly such a union; we are utterly
misunderstanding, not language only, but our perceptive
organization.
The error assumes a thousand different phases, and I am
striving only to manifest it, not to chronicle the errors in
detail. We teach a child that certain stars are suns. We
court his belief that the identity is not intellectual merely,
but as unverbal as verbal, despite the sensible- diversity,




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.          129
which only gives a zest to the sophistical identity. Our
inability to account for the luminousness of certain stars,
except by assimilating them with the sun, induces the intellect to make the assimilation;.and we possess other
inducements; but the assimilation, however induced, is intellectual, and will excite no feeling of surprise in any
person when thus understood. Beyond all natural visibility and all telescopic, other suns we say exist, orb above
orb without end; still wishing the child to continue the
erroneous indiscrimination between the verbal identity
which is intellectual, and the unverbal diversity that is
physical. With the logic that produces such intellections
I have no controversy; though I ought to say here as a
complement of former incidental remarks on the same subject, that the defect of logic consists in its taking no cognizance of the heterogeneity which exists in the unverbal
meaning of words. This defect renders the conclusions of
logic wholly unreliable in all speculative disquisitions not
purely intellectual; and of this I will subjoin an example in the succeeding paragraph, which quotes Zeno's
celebrated paradox in relation to motion. Nothing can be
more practically important than for us to understand the
foregoing inherent defect of logic; and I believe it has
heretofore escaped detection. Till a man understands it,
he is in constant danger of becoming the victim of some
speculative delusion. Creation needs no logical equivokes
for its exaltation, nor the perversion of reason for its glory.
We tell a youth that the earth travels with various veloo~I




130           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
cities, and gyrates in different circles; but the youth is
deceived by the verbal identity, when he believes that
the intellectually conceived gyrations and velocities are
unverbally identical with physical gyrations and velocities; and that he is physically whirled through space
momentarily, some thousand miles in one direction, and
some seventeen miles in another.
Zeno's celebrated paradox respecting motion, to which I
alluded above, is as good an example as I can adduce, of
the wonders we may logically produce by not' discriminating unverbal diversities among things verbally identical;
for instance, admit that a tortoise'is a mile:before Achilles,
and that Achilles' runs a hundred times faster than'the
tortoise, yet Achilles will never overtake the tortoise,
though he continue the chase forever; "because,": says
Zeno, "when Achilles has run the mile, the tortoise will
have moved forward the hundredth part of a mile; and
while Achilles runs the hundredth part of a mile, the tortoise has moved forward the ten-thousandth part of a. mile;
so that it is not yet overtaken. In the same manner whilst
Achilles passes over the ten-thousandth part of a mile, the
tortoise moves on the millionth part of a mile, and is not
yet overtaken; and so on ad infinitum," The millionth
part of a mile leaves them asunder say about the fifteenth
part of an inch, which is a physical distance; hence the
tortoise is, as stated, not yet physically overtaken. But
the next nominal progression will create a necromantic
quibble, unless we see that the words no longer retain a




OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.           131
physical meaning, but are speaking of intellectual conceptions; for instance, Achilles is distant from the tortoise the
fifteenth part of an inch, and the tortoise is not yet overtaken; but while Achilles pursues the tortoise along this
fifteenth part of an inch, the tor'toise will move forward
the fifteen-hundredth part of an inch; and is, therefore; by
the terms of the proposition, not yet overtaken. But the
fifteen-hundredth part of an inch, or some more comminuted
progression, will possess only an intellectual signification;
and if we deem it a physical separation between Achilles
and the tortoise, we are deluded by the verbal identity
that exists among things unverbally and generically
diverse.
In the same intellectual way, no limit exists to the divisibility of matter; for every nominal.whole possesses
intellectually two nominal halves, and each nominal half
becomes immediately, when separately considered, an intellectual whole, endued with nominal halves; and so ad
infinitum. The logic is incontestible, and the conclusion
is true intellectually, and true, physically also, while the
words possess any sensible signification; but after a certain number of sensible divisions of any Sensible thing,
the word half will refer to neither a sight nor a feel, and
will become as physically insignificant'and as purely an
intellectual conception only, as the insensible distance
which separates Achilles from the tortoise; hence the defect is alike in the logic of both propositions. So little
understood, however, is the defect,. that the infinite divisi



1832          THE MEANING OF WORDS.
bility of matter is treasured as a physical truth; while
Zeno's kindred problem, (from interfering more grossly
with our physical experience,) is called a quibble.
The intellect may imagine a circle- that shall be verbally larger than the orbit described by the earth in its
annual revolutions, still no part of the imagined verbal
circumference can be verbally a straight line; for no
proposition in mathematics is more logically satisfactory,
than that a nominal straight line cannot constitute a
nominal circle; hence we arrive logically at the intellectual conclusion, that a curve may expand ad infinitum
without becoming straight; though at every verbal expansion of the curve, it approximates intellectually
towards verbal straightness. In view of this logical process Hume says, "the demonstration seems as unexceptionable as that which proves the three angles of a triangle to be equal to two right angles; though the latter
opinion is natural and easy, and the former big with contradiction and absurdity. Reason here seems thrown into
a kind of amazement, which, without the suggestion of
any sceptic, gives her a diffidence of herself, and of the
ground on which she treads. She sees a full light, but it
borders upon the most profound darkness. Between them
she is so dazzled and confounded, that she can scarcely
pronounce with certainty concerning any object."
But the difficulty vanishes if we discriminate the
unverbal diversity that exists among verbal identities,
and which diversity logic disregards. Mathematicians




OP THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.        133
are correct physically, so long as the words which they
employ refer to sensible existences; but when they
speak of a curve which can neither be seen nor felt, it is
a verbal curve minus a physical curve; and the proposition
is like the problem of Zeno-that is, the names curve,
circle, etc., refer to only intellections. If we deem them
unverbally identical with the physical things of the same
name, we are confounding things'that are unverbally diverse. When we see a juggler cut a hole out of our handkerchief, and subsequently restore to us the handkerchief
uncut, we know he has deluded us, though we may be
unable to discover how; so when we see the logical processes to which Hume refers, we ought to know that some
delusion exists, though we should be unable to explain
what the delusion is. The subject merits any amount of
further illustration, but I am attempting the manifestation
of only principles.








PART II.
OF THE UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION
OF LANG JAG E.








LECTURE V.
OF THE UNVERBAL SIGNIFICATION OF WORDS.
CONTENTS.
1. The nominal identity of any two or more unverbal things must be interpreted by their unverbal diversity.
2. The verbal homogeneity of any two or more unverbal things must be
interpreted by their unverbal heterogeneity.
3. The nominal oneness of any verbal thing must be interpreted by its
unverbal multiplicity.
Of the unverbal signification of verbal identities.
~ 1. I have completed all I contemplate saying on the
structure of language, and I am to speak now of the interpretation of words into unverbal things; remembering
always, that I have nothing to say about language, except
in its relation to unverbal things. The word man is applied
to many hundred millions of individuals who severally
differ from  each other.  Their verbal identity proceeds
from an organic contrivance of the intellect, and the contrivance is one of the essential foundations of language;
but we must necessarily reverse this intellectual contrivance when we want to know what the word man means
unverbally in any particular application; that is, the man
himself, unverbally, is the only proper exponent of the




138           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
verbal manhood which our intellect gives him in common
with hundreds of millions of other individuals. Courts
and juries are often engaged in deciding whether a person
is sane or insane. If the intellect of the triers sees an identity between the person's conduct, etc., and other conduct
which they deem insane, he will be adjudged insane; but
after this decision, we must interpret his adjudged verbal
insanity by his unverbal conduct, etc., if we would know
what the verbal insanity signifies unverbally in the given
case. Ten thousand men may severally be insane at the
same time and place, but the identity of their insanity is
only an intellectual conception; while, unverbally, their
insanity may differ in every individual. Every man is
verbally a sinner, but this general admission refers to only
an intellectual identification; if you would know what sin
is unverbally in any given instance, the instance alone
with its unverbal utterance can yield the only proper
answer.
Water is fluid, air is fluid, quicksilver, light, blood,
electricity, lightning, ether, magnetism, fused iron, are all
fluid. The word fluid is correctly applied, for the intellect
discovers among the unverbal things thus referred to, a
similarity which justifies the application to them of the
word fluid; and we may apply the word whenever our intellect discovers that the name is appropriate; but we
must not afterwards interpret the unverbal fluidity by the
name which we thus attach to it; but the name must, in
every case, be interpreted by the unverbal fluidity to which




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 139
it is attached. Like remarks are applicable to every word.
Again, when we employ the word water to designate
the colour of a diamond, the word means the unverbal
colour to which the word refers; and the unverbal colour
is the only proper exponent of the meaning of the word.
When a physician says your blood is watery, the word
means the unverbal things to which he refers; and till you
are made acquainted with them, you will not understand
the physician's unverbal meaning, though you may know
the unverbal meaning of watery in every other use of it.
Why the colour of a diamond should be designated by the
word water, my intellect readily understands, for it sees
an analogy between the colour of a diamond and water;
and no doubt the intellect of a physician, who applies the
term watery to the blood, sees some analogy between the
properties of water and the unverbal thing to which he
refers when he says a patient's blood is watery.
One of the most beneficial powers of the intellect is the
countless multitude of unverbal things that it organically
assimilates, thus enabling us to designate all of them by a
single word. The more a man's intellect possesses this
analogizing power, the more acute we deem his power of
generalization; and perhaps man's capacity in this particular, is one of the chief particulars in which he is intellectually superior to other beings. The organic defect of idiots
may consist in the deficiency in some idiots, and in the
absence in some others, of the powers to conceive identities
among unverbal things, and to aggregate unverbal things




140           THE MEANING OF WVORDS.
into units; these two powers of the intellect being the main
foundations of language, and the absence or defectiveness
thereof would account for the inability among idiots to
acquire, employ, and understand language. My opportunities have never placed me in a position to note idiots;
but if the above suggestions shall prove to be accurate, they
may be useful in the attempt to instruct idiots; the organic
powers alluded to being improveable by effort where the
powers are not wholly absent.
We discover by the foregoing remarks, that the diversity
which exists in the unverbal meaning of even the most
simple word, is as great as the diversity of unverbal things
among which the intellect can discover a given analogy;
hence we can see the necessity of seeking the unverbal
meaning of every word in the unverbal thing to which it
is applied in every given application. Every word is
somewhat like a mirror, The mirror reflects the image of
every object that is placed before it, and every word reflects the unverbal things to which the word refers. My
hand is red, blood is red, hair is often red, the moon is
sometimes red, fire is red, and Indians are red. The intellect sees in these several unverbal sights, an identity or
congruity that makes the word red appropriate to all of
them; but if you would know unsophistically the unverbal
meaning of the word red, in its application to my hand, to
an Indian, to the moon, etc., you must, in each application, seek the meaning in the unverbal things referred
to. If you look in a dictionary for the meaning of red,




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 141
the dictionary can give you only the verbal meaning of the
word.
Still, after my intellect shall decide that a given colour
is red, your intellect may decide it is crimson, for every
intellect conceives its own identities or similitudes; but
whatever propriety or impropriety may exist in the name
with which I designate the colour, the unverbal colour is
the only proper exponent of the unverbal meaning of the
word; and with this understanding, the unverbal meaning
is the same, though fifty different persons call it severally
by fifty different names. If, therefore, the persons altercate
in reference to the name, they should understand, that so
long as they refer to the same sight, their altercation relates to language, not to unverbal things.  Whether a
given colour shall be called red or crimson, depends on
usage, and I shall be verbally wrong if I designate as red
what good usage designates as crimson; but people generally discriminate so little between words and unverbal
things, that disputants rarely understand definitely whether they are differing verbally or unverbally. I have
heard of men who cannot tell " one colour from another,"
but I have never been able to understand whether the alleged defect is  an inability to discriminate differences unverbally, or -only an inability to discriminate verbally as
other men discriminate, who are skilled in the proper use
of words; though the two defects are essentially different,
one relating to words, and the other to unverbal things.
~ 2. To remedy as far as practicable the foregoing vague



142            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
ness in the unverbal meaning of verbal identities, men
conventionally define what unverbal things shall constitute
the meaning of the words insanity, sin, fever, contagion,
knowledge, matter, truth, etc.; but though such definitions
are useful, they are all obstructed by the illimitable diversity of unverbal things; and if we would know accurately
the unverbal meaning in any given case, of even the word
murder, we must interpret the word by the unverbal actions
to which the word refers in the given case. If this be true
of the word murder, on whose definiteness the life of prisoners is daily either saved or lost, how much greater must be
the necessity of thus interpreting the unverbal meaning of
ordinary verbal identities, on whose definiteness:of unverbal meaning no important consequences are dependent.
Men have, however, succeeded usefully in the substitution of artificial identifications of given animals, vegetables,
minerals, etc., in place of the assimilations thereof which
the intellect makes spontaneously; and to which ordinary
language refers, by the words fish, birds, beasts, trees,
shrubs, grass, etc. Still to these scientific identifications,
we must apply what we have said above of other definitions; that unverbal things are no party to our nominal
classifications, divisions, and subdivisions. Over our language we possess unlimited control: we may designate a
whale to be a fish, or not a fish, as we shall think best;
but unverbal things remain uncommitted thereby, and
precisely as our senses reveal them, as unverbally diverse
individually, as they are individually numerous.




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF,LANGUAGE. 143
~ 3. Having thus shown that verbal identities must be
interpreted by their unverbal diversities, I will further illustrate the principle by showing that we often erroneously
estimate unverbal diversities by their verbal identity; not
seeing that the identity is subjective, not objective, in our
intellect, not in the things contemplated by the intellect.
The matter, for instance, of which air is composed, is so
expansible, that a closed bladder, flaccid and apparently
empty, will expand by heat so as to become full and hard.
The matter of gold is also very expansible, and a very
small piece can be beaten so as to equal in surface a rood
or more of land. But these are nothing in comparison
with matter in the form of musk, which is so expansible
by exposure as to fill with its particles many rooms, while
the musk will exhibit no sensible diminution. Light,
however, exhibits the expansiveness of matter to a still
greater advantage. Its particles are so attenuated that
they fall millions of miles, and with a velocity so wonderful as to accomplish the descent in an instant; still they
hurt not the eye, though they alight imme(iately on that
susceptible organ.. They seem absolutely imponderable,
for philosophers have in vain endeavoured with the nicest
balances to discover in them any sensible weight, even
when the number of particles thrown into the scale have
been multiplied by the most powerfullenses.
The above experiments are all interesting unverbally,
but what astonishes us in them is a verbal fallacy. If a
particle of gold should fall millions of miles in an instant




144          THE MEANING OF WORDS.
of time and strike our eye, the hurt would be fatal not to
the eye only, but to the whole body; still a particle of
light will not be even felt by the eye; and we are taught
to believe it is not merely verbally identical with the particle of gold, but identical unverbally, except in its greater
physical attenuation.
But let us review for a moment the insidiousness with
which the artificers of these verbal mysteries aid the delusion by the manner of announcing them. When we are
to be astonished by the diffusiveness of odour, it must be
announced as an example of the expansiveness of matter.
To exhibit it as an example of the diffusiveness of odour,
would be only the exhibition of a commonplace fact, no
more curious, and no less than any other common occurrence; but the assimilation of the diffusion to the expansion
of gold, stone, or other tangible body, is the marvel and
the fallacy. The intellect sees the identity of the two, and
easily falls into the delusion that is spread for it, of not
discriminating between the verbal identity, (which is only
an intellectual conception,) and a physical identity; and
thus prepared, receives with a gusto the crowning wonder,
that the musk remains undiminished in size, notwithstanding the number of rooms it has filled to overflowing. The
verbal identification of the diffusiveness of the odour and
the expansiveness of gold, produces thus a seeming miracle
in comparison with which the physical increase of the Galilean loaves and fishes is as nothing; for no number of baskets
can contain the increase of even a single grain of musk.




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 145
So again with light. We require some -preliminary preparation before-the feeling of astonishment can be elicited
in us, in relation to what is almost momentarily familiar
to our perceptions. We are usually prepared for the forthcoming fallacy by being told that light is composed of material particles, which materiality we deem as unverbally
identical in light and stone, as it is verbally identical. We
are then in a condition to feel astonished that particles of
light should not hurt the eye whose peculiar delicacy is
usually artfully adverted to; together with the distance
which the particles fall, and the velocity of their descent;
and then comes-the crowning wonder in relation to the
expansiveness of matter, that the nicest balances can discover no weight in sunbeams, though concentrated on the
balances by the most powerful lenses. The unverbal facts,
though abundantly interesting, are accounted as nothing,
(that light is innoxious to the eye, and that sunbeams will
produce no trepidation in the nicest scales,) but the interest
in the narrative is the fallacy, that the mnateriality of light
and stones is as identical unverbally, as it is verbally.
We astonish ourselves in the same fallacious way when
we talk of communications by an electric telegraph. The
electric fluid will travel, we say, from Buffalo to New York
with about the celerity of thought. The language is un-'derstood with entire accuracy in ordinary intercommunications between man and man, for both speaker and hearer
interpret it by the unverbal manifestations to which the
language refers; but wholly different is the result when
7




146           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
we turn upon language and speculatively interpret the unverbal manifestations of the electric travel by their verbal
identity with the travel of a stage-coach or the flow of
water. We overlook the fact that the identity of the two
travels is subjective, not objective, in our intellect, and not
in sensible realities.
We cast into a tub of water a small piece of indigo, and
the water becomes tinged with blue; we cast into another
tub of water a lump of sugar, and the water becomes
sweet; we open our shutters, and light becomes perceptible
throughout our room; we ignite a few sticks of wood, and
the mercury will rise in a distant thermometer;-these results possess a certain congruity to our intellect; hence in
reference thereto, we say, the indigo and sugar are diffused
through the water; the light and heat are diffused through
the room. If, however, we wish to discover the objective
unverbal meaning of the word diffused, in these several
uses, we must resort to our senses, not to our dictionaries,
which can give us only the relation which a given word
bears to other words. The unverbal objective meaning is
so diverse in the above different applications of the word
diffused, that a blind man will possess no knowledge of
the diffusion that refers to the light and indigo; while a
man who never possessed tasting, will possess no knowledge of the diffusion which refers to the sugar.
~ 4. Verbal identities I shall now dismiss with one
important inferential remark, that as the correct unverbal
signification of a word is the unverbal thing to which the




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 147
word refers, every man can interpret words, unverbally,
by only the unverbal things that are known to him; consequently, my unverbal meaning of a word is unknown to
a man who has never witnessed the unverbal thing to
which I refer. The analogy which the intellect organically
sees between unverbal things of the same name, remedies
this latent defect to a good practical degree; but the end.
less disagreements and controversies which arise among
men, in even ordinary conversation, evince that the irre-.mediable difficulty in the unverbal meaning of words is
still embarrassing to no small extent.
Nor is the above the only difficulty. The most simple
word that can be used, say white, names, even when restricted to sights, innumerable diverse unverbal sights,
from the white of snow to the white of an egg, the white
of a floor, or the white of a man's hand. The identity between'them is only intellectual and verbal; hence when
you designate something to me as white, the chances are
innumerably great against my receiving from your communication the objective sensible. information to which
you refer. These defects of language are all inevitable,
but to know them is providentially within our power.
The defects are, as we shall see below, attended with compensatory benefits, as are, probably, all organic defects;
but the evils that proceed from our needless ignorance,
are, in this case, as in most others, unmitigated by any
advantage.




148          THE MEANING OF WORDS.
Of the unverbal interpretation of verbal homogeneities.
~ 1. We are informed in Holy Writ, that after the
Creation, God brought all things to Adam, that Adam
might name them. To enable Adam to accomplish this
task, his intellect had been so organized, that comparatively few things had to be brought to him-his intellect
deeming identical innumerable things, notwithstanding
their sensible diversities; hence, many things unverbally
diverse, became identical in name. Of these verbal identities I have just spoken, and shown the speculative
errors into which they betray us in relation to unverbal
things. We cannot,. however, admire too much the exceeding simplicity and efficiency of the organic intellectual contrivance, by which the innumerable host of unverbal things were thus comprehensible by a number of
words not too large for our memory; and men were enabled to talk understandingly to their fellow men, though
the interlocutors may never have seen the same horses,
the same lions, the same trees, etc. We honour men too
much when we deem language a human contrivance,
which it is no more than walking, dancing, hopping and
jumping, laughing and crying.
But man was designed to commune with himself, and
with his fellow men, about not merely such unverbal'things as are sensibly perceptible, but about such also as
his intellect can conceive; and which latter could, of
course, not be brought to Adam that Adam might name




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 149
them; as, for instance, conceptions about his personal
origin, the origin of all other perceivable things, their prospective duration and final catastrophe, their insensible
uses in the universe, modes of operation, connections, dependencies, relations, etc. His intellect was accordingly
organized to meet this difficulty also, and by a contrivance
as simple as the former; that is, the intellect was organized to conceive its notions in words that possess a sensible signification, and to recognize in the conceived words
the intellectual notion to which the words refer. Intellectual conceptions acquired thus a verbal homogeneity with
sensible perceptions, notwithstanding their unverbal heterogeneity.  This twofold meaning, sensible and intellectual, which the same word may express, is well exemplified
in our ideographic numerical figures-the digit 2 expressing a French word to Frenchmen, a German word to
Germans, and'an English word to Englishmen; or,
perhaps, the twofold meaning of the same word may be
still better exemplified by Chinese printed words, which
we are told are ideographic, and alike intelligible to
several nations whose vocal languages are entirely dissimilar.
The verbal homogeneity of intellectual conceptions and
sensible perceptions produces no embarrassment in our
social intercourse, for when A tells B  that cause and
effect are linked together, B's intellect organically recognizes the intellectual conception to which the word link
refers, and is entirely satisfied. But far different is the




150           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
result when we turn upon language speculatively and insist that causes and effects are not linked together, for our
senses can see no link. We forget that the verbal homogeneity between intellectual conceptions and scnsible perceptions is merely an organic contrivance, by which alone
we can communicate to each other our intellectual notions,
and that, consequently, when we would know, objectively,
what a word means, and whether it means an intellectual
conception, or a sensible perception, we must interpret the
word by the unverbal thing to which it refers. This, then,
is the tenet which I desire to establish in view of the homogeneity of unverbal things. As verbal identities, heretofore alluded to, must be interpreted by their unverbal diversities, and as nominal units must be interpreted
by their unverbal duality or multifariousness, so must
the verbal homogeneity of unverbal things be interpreted
by their unverbal heterogeneity. Language is compelled
to deem unverbal things homogeneous, as it is compelled
to deem certain unverbal things identical, and certain unverbal things units; but when we would know what the
verbal homogeneity means unverbally, in any given case,
the unverbal thing alluded to is the only interpreter of
its own unverbal generic character.
Such being the general principles which must govern us in
disi.ntegrating the verbal homogeneity of things generically
heterogeneous, I will illustrate the principle by some few
additional examples, though probably further illustration
is superfluous. Light and colours pass through solid crys.




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 151
tal, sound passes through a solid block of stone, electricity
passes through a bar of iron, a thought passes through
the mind, a pain passes through our head. These several'passages through," differ from thoe passage of a thread
through the eye of a needle, the latter being a sensible
perception, while all the former are intellectual conceptions; but if we fail to understand this generic difference,
and deem all the passages as homogeneous unverbally, as
they are verbally, we may become as needlessly surprised
that light can pass through solid crystal, and sound
through solid stone etc., as a man would be if he
were assured that a linen thread can pass through solid
stone, or, as he may be, that he cannot see the link which
unites cause and effect. To avoid, therefore, all such delusions we must interpret the verbal homogeneity of all
"passages through," by their several unverbal manifestations and generic differences; but we seem fond of deeming the fallacious homogeneity a mystery of nature, and
rather willingly, I suspect, refuse to recognise the generic
difference between what is intellectually conceived, and
what is sensibly perceived. Professor Brown says, " That
light, itself a body, should pass through solid crystal is regarded by us as a physical wonder." Now, if Professor
Brown had not been pleased with the verbal equivoke,
he would not have increased its pungency by adding the
word solid to the crystal; the added solidity only leading
us to infer, that light, " itself a body,". ought to be unable to
pass through the crystal-the solid crystal. Like the fore



152           TEtE MEANING OF WORDS.
going are the expressions, an odour strikes my olfactory
nerves, light strikes my retina, a sound strikes my tympanum, a hat strikes my fancy, a project strikes my Ynind.
In ordinary conversation, the intellect of the hearer recognises the intellectual conceptions to which the several
strikes refer, and language fulfils therein its proper intention; but when we speculatively interpret the expressions
by deeming them  generically like the expressions, a stone
strikes my hand, the wind strikes my face, etc., we surprise
ourselves by the fallacious verbal homogeneity that is imputed to the different strikes;-and especially that light
can strike our retina blow upon blow, and we not feel it.
"Some of the ablest philosophers in Europe are now
satisfied," says Professor Stewart, "not only that no evidence exists of motion's being produced by the contact of
two bodies, but that proof may be given of the impossibility of such a process." In relation to this discovery, I
want to make a few remarks:-When I see a billiard ball
move forward on being struck by another billiard ball, I
see nothing but a sensible sequence of two sensible events,
the stroke and the motion; or, say the contact and the resulting motion. In addition, however, to the sensible
contact, and the resulting sensible motion of the struck
ball, my intellect conceives a power or causal efficiency
in thle stroke or contact, to account for the motion that
ensues. But, says Professor Stewart, the ablest philosophers of Europe are now satisfied that contact is not the
cause which moves the struck ball. Before we can under



UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 153
stand, correctly, this remark of Professor Stewart, we
must ascertain whether it refers' to the efficiency of the
stroke, which causes the motion of the struck ball. I
suppose such to be his meaning, and that the philosophers
mean only that the efficiency referred to, exists not in the
sensible contact or stroke. I will, any way, assume such
to be the meaning, as the assumption will enable me
to say what I desire to communicate in relation thereto.
The philosophers are, therefore, I say, only labouring
under the common delusion of not knowing that the efficiency which they are alluding to, is merely a conception
of the intellect, and, of course, the intellectually conceived
efficiency exists not in the contact of one ball with the
other, nor in the stroke of one ball against the other.
When philosophers are unacquainted with the above simple truth, they are constantly prone to interpose some imaginary causal efficient between the contact and the resuiting motion; and we will assume that they shall interpose in the above case, as Professor Stewart alleges, a
"power of repulsion," as something which surrounds
every particle of matter. All that is gained thereby, is a
name for the intellectually conceived causal efficiency;
and if they suppose that the "power of repulsion" is a
physical existence, we may say of it, as wd say of the contact and stroke, that when a billiard ball moves forward
on the approach towards it of a certain." power of repulsion," we see nothing but a sequence of two sensible
events,-we see the " power of repulsion," and the result7*




154           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
ing motion of the billiard ball, but we see not the causal
efficiency which is attributed to " the power of repulsion,"
and which compels the motion that sensibly ensues.
From not knowing, however, that all causal efficiency
is only a conception of the intellect, subjective, and not
objective, philosophers are constantly striving, as in the
above case, to materialize the efficiency of causation, without ever being able to arrive at an end of the process,every imagined physical efficient, call it a power of repulsion or what else you will, becoming immediately, as
we have shown above, only a new sensible antecedent in
some sequence; and we can immediately say of every
such new antecedent, as we say of the first, that we see
only a sequence of sensible events, not the causal efficiency which makes one produce the other. For instance, Locke, in speaking of ice, says that a man would
discover a great, but hitherto unknown secret, who should
find the cement that holds together, so firmly, the water
of which ice is composed. But, adds Locke, this discovery would aid but little, unless he could discover also,
the cement which holds together the particles of the cement.  To this, I add, that the last-named discovery
would still leave undiscovered the cement that holds together the particles of the latter cement, and so on ad
infilitum; —every new  cement requiring a cement as
much as the first, so long as we fail to see that we are
vainly endeavouring to materialize a causal cement that
-is not material, but only a conception of the intellect.




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 155
This error is, I think, the source of nearly all our theoretical causal imaginings.  We mistake an intellectually
conceived causal efficiency for something that is physical,
and vainly encleavour to imagine some physical agency
that will supply the exigency of our error. The causal
efficiency is subjective, and we seek it objectively;-it is
in the organism of our intellect, and we seek it in what
is sensibly perceptible, or in some imaginary thing analogous thereto; and hence we can keep predicating causes
ad infinitum, and are no better satisfied- than when we
began.
~ 2. The true interpretation of the words of all languages is the unverbal things to which the words refer.
That mode of interpretation gives to the intellect what is
intellectual, and to the senses what is sensible; while our
present indiscrimination of generic differences leads us to
conclusions so necromantic, that without any other proof,
we ought to know that we are in error. The motion of the
earth, for instance, around its own centre at a speed of a
thousand miles an hour, and around the sun at a speed of
about a thousand miles a minute, are all intellectual conceptions against which I have nothing to say; but when
we deem the revolutions and speed, etc., physical, we are
deluded by the homogeneity which exists verbally between
things that unverbally are generically different.
That men -exist on the earth whose feet are diametrically
opposite to ours and whom we term antipodes, I have no
wish to deny as a general proposition; but certainly a




156           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
generic difference exists between the sensible appearance
of men in the imagined position, should two men stand
thus before us, and the intellectual conception of the local
relation which men bear to each other when they stand on
opposite sides of the earth. My intellect will insist on
identifying the two cases, the said sensible and the said intellectual; but my intellect enables me to conceive also, a
difference between the sensibly perceived antipodal position and the intellectually conceived antipodal relation.
Now, all I demand in the premises is, that the two cases
shall not be. interpreted by their verbal identity, but, on
the contrary, the verbal identity shall be interpreted by
the unverbal diversity, be it more or less. I think this is
not our usual mode of interpretation in the above cases,
and that the intellectually conceived local relation which
men bear to each other when they stand on opposite sides of
the earth, is esteemed in proportion as it is interpreted to be
unverbally identical with a picture representing two men
in an antipodal position. I comment more. particularly on
the verbal identity of the above two cases, because a
learned friend, to whom I stated the position, saw nothing
in it but hypercriticism.
People speak also of seeing distant objects by means
of pictures painted on their retina, and seem to be unconscious that they are talking of only an intellectual conception. This, too, my learned friend, above alluded to,
deemed hypercritical. I avail myself of his objection, that
I may make my meaning more intelligible. I desire not




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 157
to controvert, as he supposes I do, any sensible perception
which is referred to by the alleged picture on the retina;
but when a man curiously puzzles himself by supposing
that a sensibly perceived landscape is sensibly identical in
some way with a miniature picture which his intellect
conceives to exist on his retina, his puzzle consists in
deeming the identity sensible when unverbally it is only
an intellectually conceived identity. If you ask me to say
further what the difference is, I say that the equivoke
possesses an unverbal piquancy which manifests the difference better than it can be manifested by words.
In relation, however, to the picture itself, I by no means
admit that its intellectually conceived existence on the
retina of a living man is identical unverbally with its sensibly perceived existence in a dissected eye. The intellect
conceives the existence of the picture on the eye of a living
man, and the reasons for the conception I cannot question
-as to their intellectual cogency; but still the intellect can
recognise also a demarcation between its conceptions and
sensible perceptions; and to understand the unverbal d.emarcation will certainly not vitiate our knowledge. So
far, also, as the intellectually conceived picture is part of
a modus operandi by which external objects are conceived
to be seen sensibly, I intend not to'comment thereon; but
if we deem the modus operandi more than an intellectual
conception, Especially if we fail to' discriminate it from
sensibly perceived operations, we are confounding things
generically different, though they may be verbally homo



158           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
geneous. All, however, that I demand in the premises, is
that the interpretation of the words alluded to shall be
governed by what is unverbal in relation thereto; and especially that we shall not interpret what is unverbal by
the words that we employ thereon.
Some years ago an ingenious account was published in
our country of discoveries made in the moon by an enlarged and improved new telescope. The narrative verified
sensibly all that the intellect conceives of the moon in subjective explanation-of the rrioon's sensible appearances.
The mountains, chasms, and human inhabitants of the
moon were no longer merely intellectual conceptions, for
the telescope revealed them sensibly with numerous collateral sensible appendages. Most persons thought that such
a sensible realization of existing intellectual conceptions,
made the narrative probable; but the accordance in a case
like this, and of a kind like this, satisfied me that the narrative was as intellectual merely as the theory which was
thus sought to be materialized. My skepticism shocked
many persons who never discriminate generic differences
in verbal homogeneities, but time soon manifested that the
narrative was a hoax. But I have been asked why I
spontaneously disbelieved the narrative, since I admit that
it only realized sensibly what is universally conceived intellectually. The answer is simply, that an intellectual
anticipation of a sensible discovery is reliable as to its sensible realization, just in proportion as the anticipated sensible discovery is analogous to some known sensible occur



UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 159
rence. If I see a bird sitting in a nest, the intellectual
conjecture that eggs are beneath the bird is so reliable that
a disappointment in the verification of the anticipation
would surprise me. Should I, however, see a quadruped
lie in his ]air, and see an egg under him, my intellect
might conceive that he produced eggs, but a sensible realization of such a conception I should deem much less
likely than its disappointment; and I estimated our conceptions in relation to the mountains, volcanoes, chasms,
etc., of the moon just as little likely of a sensible realization as the conceived production of eggs by a quadruped.
The only incredulity which I feel in relation to the recent
pendulous experiments at Paris, proceeds, as in the above
moon hoax, from their accordance too physically with the
intellectually conceived diurnal revolution of the earth;
though the experiment, if verified in full, will only add
an additional sensible fact to those which are already
comprehended under the subjective theory of a diurnal revolution of the earth.
~ 3. In concluding what I have to say of our interpretation of words that relate to things generically different, I
want to adduce a few examples from philosophical experiments, wherein we are continually playing, by means of
words, a game of bo-peep with unverbal things: at one
moment our words referring to sensible.perceptions, and at
another moment to intellectual conceptions, etc. When, for
instance, you exhibit a prism,'you may assert that the:light
which enters on one side of the prism is composed of the




160           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
gorgeous colours that are emitted on the other side. The
language refers to a theory by which the intellect accounts
for the prismatic spectrum; but we desire the spectator,
and ourselves included, to interpret the language by deeming the light sensibly alike on both sides of the prism,
despite our eyes which affirm the contrary. The only
physical interpretation which is not sophistical of such an
experiment, is the precise unverbal perceptions of the
senses. When, however, we desire a theoretical interpretation; we must accept it in such words as the intellect
will suggest; for the intellect organically theorises in
words, and the existing theory in relation to the spectrum
may be the best that can be conceived. The unverbal
meaning of theories and other verbal conceptions of the
intellect I shall discuss in another lecture. That stuch conceptions possess a meaning that is unverbal, we may know
from the fact that deaf mutes when uneducated and void
of all language, still evince all kinds of intellectual conceptions. The intellect of such a mute may conceive, as well
as ours, that ordinary solar white light bears the same relation to the prismatic coloured rays, as a monochromatic cord
bears to the variously coloured strands of which the cord
may be fabricated. He may, also be as much deluded
speculatively as we, by not understanding that such a conceived relation between the cord and the light differs
generically from a sensibly perceived identity.
But after the foregoing prismatic experiment, the experimenter may tell you, that as you have seen a ray of light




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 161
untwisted by the prism, and split into its constituent
threads, he will collect the filaments and retwist them into
their original form. With this preface which is true intellectually, but fallacious when interpreted sensibly, he
will cause the coloured rays to pass through a lens which
will converge them to a fogus of light in its usual colour.
The experiment is interesting, but what the observer sees
constitutes all the unverbal sensible signification that the
experimenter's language possesses.
The intellect seems organically compelled to conceive
some theoretical rationale to account for all that our senses
perceive; but we need not confound such intellectual conceptions with physical things, nor should we confound
them, except for a bias which also seems organic in us towards the excitation of the feeling of wonder in ourselves
and others. This bias crowds with spectators all exhibitions of sleight of hand, and probably we should look with
but little interest on a prismatic spectrum were we not
stimulated by the verbal and -hence delusive homogeneity
of the intellectual twisting and untwisting of light, with
the physical twisting and untwisting of the strands of a
rope; and hence imagining that light is somehow sensibly
coloured while it looks white, and somehow sensibly white
while it looks coloured.
When a chemist ignites a stream of hydrogen gas and
oxygen, and permits the flame to pass through a glass
tube, the inside of the tube becomes suffused with water.
The chemist will accordingly say, that water is nothing but




162           THE MEANINE OF WORDS.
a union of the two gases; and intellectually the chemist is
right. He is right physically also, to the extent that his
language is to be interpreted by what is sensibly perceptible in the experiment; but without being captious, I believe that such an interpretation of the language employed
is not intended by any body. I feel an irresistible repughance myself to such a limitation of the meaning. I want
to deem the water gases, and the gases water, in a sense
different from the experiment. I want somehow to dispel
the sensible diversity of the water and gases, and to substitute therefor as sensible, the identity between them that
the intellect conceives. To interpret what is sensible in
the experiment by simply its sensible manifestations, takes
from the experiment all its piquancy and necromancy.
Chemistry also analyses bodies, and out of glass produces sand, alkali, etc.  "Now," says Mr. Brown, (Philosophy of the Mind, Lecture IX.,) "these processes of
chemistry enable us only to discover what are always before our eyes; but our sight is not keen enough to see
them." That the sand is present in glass, and would be
visible were our eyes sufficiently acute, means not the same
as when I say this table is present. The word present, as
used by Mr. Brown, refers to the intellect which theoretically accounts for the analytical production of the sand by
conceiving that the sand is present in the glass. If we see
not the generic unverbal difference between a sensible
presence, and an intellectually conceived presence, the equivoke will necessarily surprise us.




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 163
"When a spark," says the same philosopher, " falls on
gunpowder, and kindles it into explosion, every person
ascribes to the spark the power of kindling the inflammable mass. But," continues he, "let any person ask himself
what he means by the power which he imputes to the
spark? and without contenting himself with a few phrases
which signify nothing, let him."  What? shall he content
himself with no phrase, but deem the word power significant of precisely the unverbal things to which the word
power is —applied? No; he must content himself with
some phrases which Mr. Brown prescribes. Such has always been the advice of philosophers, and such will be
their advice till they know that the unverbal signification
of every word is neither more nor less than the unverbal
things (sensible or intellectual as the case may be) to
which the word refers.. Every philosopher gives us a new
phrase, and like a quack with a new nostrum, desires us
to be content with no other.
In the present case, Mr. Brown advises the person to
answer, that by the power imputed to the spark, he means
only, "that in all similar circumstances, an explosion of
gunpowder will be the immediate and uniform consequence
of the' application of a spark." You may suppose that the
occurrence is vastly simplified by the new phraseology, but
the supposition is founded on the error of employing the
phrase to interpret an unverbal occurrence, instead of employing the unverbal occurrence to interpret the phrase.
So long as the two phrases refer to the same unverbal oc



164           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
currence, their unverbal meaning must be the same; but
if an explanatory phrase refers to some unverbal thing
that is different from the unverbal occurrence referred to
by the phrase which is sought to be explained, the parties
are controverting without understanding that they are
probably referring to unverbal things that are generically
different-one of the parties referring to an intellectual
conception, and the other to a sensible perception. Most
of the controversies of philosophers are founded on such a
misunderstanding of the unverbal import of their words.
~ 4. We talk of mountains in the moon, of the tidal influence of the moon, the size and distance of the moon, etc.,
with no apparent consciousness that we are talking of only
intellectual conceptions, not of sensible things; and that the
physical meaning of each expression is limited to only
what our senses can perceive, and that the remainder of the
meaning is intellectual. But I have said enough of the
unverbal interpretation of such verbal homogeneities, and
I will proceed to explain the proper unverbal interpretation of some verbal homogeneities whose unverbal heterogeneity consists of internal feelings and intellectual conceptions, instead of consisting, like the foregoing, of sensible
perceptions and intellectual conceptions. A man, for instance, may disbelieve in ghosts, and yet be unable to pass
alone at night across a burial-ground without fear of ghosts.
Can he thus both believe and not believe at the same time?
Experience evinces that'nverbally he can, and the contradiction is only verbal. One belief may unverbally be




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 165
intellectual, and the other unverbally an internal feeling.
Nothing is more common than the co-existence of such
generically diverse beliefs. A man's intellect may, like
Pyrrho's, believe confidently in the logical non-existence
of an external sensible universe, and still on the approach
towards him of a coach and horses, he may be compelled
by his feelings to seek safety in a change of position. Many
men disbelieve intellectually all the tenets of Christianity,
and still tremble like Felix, while hearing of "' righteousness, temperance, and judgment." Such, no doubt, was
the position of many Greeks and Romans in relation to the
theology of their era; though by interpreting the word
belief as something wholly intellectual, we often say that
men like Cicero could not possibly believe in the heathen
mythology.
~ 5. If we possessed no unverbal belief but what is intellectual, our condition would be wholly unreliable, for
the intellect must assent to its own logical deductions; and
nothing is so absurd, when interpreted physically, as some
of the intellect's conclusions. Even while I am penning
this lecture, one of the judges of our Supreme Court
publishes gratuitously and ostentatiously, his belief in
table-turnings by spiritual agency, and in table-rappings
as personal communications by the dead of past ages. He
says he believes the above because his intellect can discover no other solution of what his senses have witnessed.
Now this ju~dge, though still exercising well his judicial
functions on life, liberty, and property, is accounted insane




166           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
by most men; but in what consists his insanity? In being
governed by his intellectual belief, and not by the feeling
of unbelief which, in such matters, would govern him, as
is supposed, were he in a condition of sanity.
Some time ago, a sect called Millerites in our country,
began to preach that the millenium predicted in' the Bible,
was at hand; and as a precursor thereof, that the earth was
soon to be burned up, and " the heavens were to melt with
fervent heat." The texts of Scripture on which the predictions were founded, Christians had always assented to;
but the moment this sect began to make their intellectual
belief therein so effective over their conduct as to abandon
their ordinary occupations in preparations for the millenium, they were deemed insane for not being governed by
the feeling of unbelief which all sane'men are deemed to
experience in reference to the immediate advent of the
millenium; how much soever the intellect may be able, as
in the case of the Millerites, to logically demonstrate that
the advent is to be immediate. Our unverbal belief seems
to have been given us as a providential corrective of our
indiscrimination of the heterogeneity which exists unverbally between intellectual conceptions and sensible perceptions. The intellect may be deceived by verbal homogeneities, as in the above examples, but our internal feelings
will not yield to the delusion, and will control our conduct
despite of our intellect. The moment, however, we understand the unverbal difference between things verbally homogeneous, we are no longer dependent for our protection




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 167
on the insubordination of our feelings, for we know that
what the intellect conceives is not physical, and that the
intellect can reveal to us, in cases like the foregoing,
nothing but its own subjective notions.
Having thus endeavoured to show, but perhaps too
briefly, that all verbal homogeneities must be interpreted
by their unverbal heterogeneities, I will dismiss verbal
homogeneities, and proceed to discuss even still more
briefly, the last topic of the present lecture.
Of the unverbal interpretation of nominal units.
The nominal oneness of a man is only a conception of
the intellect; the nominal oneness of a ship, an army, the
universe, magnetism, attraction, matter, life, insanity, fever,
gravity, body, etc., are severally only a conception of the
intellect. If an army could not be spoken of as a unit,
and we could speak of it only by repeating its muster-roll;
and if no soldier on the muster-roll could be spoken of as
a unit, and we could speak of him only by repeating the
skin, flesh, bones, etc., of which he is composed; language
would be impossible, or almost useless if possible. But
the necessity for aggregating sensible multiplicity into
nominal units for the purposes of language, forces us to
segregate into its sensible components any given nominal
unit, when we would interpret unsophistically what the
nominal unit means unverbally. If, on the contrary, you
seek sensibly in any such nominal unit for an unverbal
oneness that differs from the unverbal multiplicity that you




168           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
may sensibly perceive therein, you may gain the pleasure
of much mystery, but you will lose the benefit of understanding aright the nature of language, and your unverbal
knowledge; the oneness which you are seeking sensibly,
being only a conception of the intellect.
What we have thus said of the unverbal interpretation
of physical units, we may repeat of the unverbal interpretation of intellectual units, as wisdom, wit, imagination,
judgment, intellect, truth, knowledge, mind, etc., to the
end of the vocabulary of intellectual units. The oneness
of each is only intellectually conceived and verbal, while
unverbally each unit is as multifarious as its unverbal
manifestations; consequently we must segregate the unverbal components of each verbal unit when we would
know what its verbal oneness means unverbally. We
must practise the like mode of interpretation with every
emotional unit, as anger, revenge, jealousy, love, suspicion,
vanity, envy, malice, pride, etc., the nominal oneness of
each being only a conception of the intellect, while unverbally it is multifarious. Finally, I doubt much if every
speculative mystery may not be solved by the foregoing
lecture. Ourselves and everything within our consciousness is, in one sense, mysterious; but the peculiar mysteries which perplex our speculations, arise from our misinterpreting nominal units, nominal identities, and verbal
-homogeneities. Such speculative mysteries all vanish when
we interpret verbal homogeneities by their generic uinverbal elements, sensiblef intellectual, and emotional; and
4




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 169
when we interpret verbal identities by their unverbal diversities, and nominal unhis by their unverbal multiplicity.
But I fear, notwithstanding I tautologize these eminent
truths in various ways, I shall fail to make them intelligible.
8




LECTURE VI.
OF THE UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF AFFIRMATIVE GENERAL PROPOSITIONS.
CONTENTS.
1. The generality of a proposition is subjective and refers to the intellect;
but the objective signification of a proposition is governed by the objects to which it refers.
2. Every general proposition possesses as many different objective significations as it refers to different objects.
~ 1. The propositions of which only I wish to speak
either affirm something or deny something; and I shall
speak first of affirmative propositions. Twice two are four.
Four what? Four anythings to which your intellect may
see the proposition is applicable. Every proposition possesses thus two heterogeneous meanings, one general and
looking to the intellect, like "twice two are four;" the
other particular and looking to the object to which the
proposition refers, like twice two apples are four apples.
The generality of a proposition is subjective, not objective;
hence, general propositions are intellectually what-readymade coats are physically that we find in slop shops. Owing to the physical similarity of men, a coat which fits one




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 171
man will fit multitudes of men; and owing to the similarity which the intellect sees among objective events and
things, the proposition which is intellectually applicable to
any objective event or thing, like the foregoing twice two
are four, will apply to numerous objective events and
things.  When, therefore, Py.thagoras affirmed that the
earth revolves around the sun, we are not compelled to believe that he knew, objectively, what Copernicus subsequently taught thereof, or what the proposition signifies
objectively now by means of the developments of Newton.
Pythagoras may have meant something intellectually analogous thereto, but which is no part of the existing Newtonian system of the universe. All Pythagoras discovered
was the general proposition, " that the earth revolves around
the sun."  His proposition is an intellectual surtout, which
is found to fit many objective bodies that were probably
wholly unknown to Pythagoras.
By means, however, of- the above objective indefiniteness of subjective general propositions, no modern discovery is announced but some person'Will show' it was known
to the ancients; for he will adduce some. ancient general
proposition that will intellectually fit the modern discovery.
Should my Lectures ever gain public attention, many persons will recollect some general proposition of Plato, Socrates, or somebody else, that will intellect-'rally'include all
that I shall manifest; and in this subjective way alone is
the adage true that "nothing is new under the sun." Steam
is powerful, dangerous, and useful. This proposition may




172          THE MEANING OF WORDS.
have been asserted of steam centuries ago, and the proposition would have referred to objective facts then known,
that would have made the proposition objectively significant; but we should mistake were we to suppose that the
author of the proposition necessarily knew the modern appliances of steam: he may have known none of them.
When Lord Bacon recommended physical investigations,
we may see from his Novum Organum, that the recommendation was a subjective intellectual garment whose objective occupants were almost worthless; but we speak of
Bacon as though his recommendations possessed the same
objective signification to him as they possess to us.
Since the time of Newton, his general proposition of
universal gravitation includes many objective facts that
were unknown to him. So the late experiments with a
pendulum, in the Pantheon at Paris, may give additional
objective meaning to the proposition which affirms subjectively the diurnal rotation of the earth; but no proposition
can, at any given time, signify objectively more than the
known objective facts to which it refers at the time: all its
capacity for further objective meaning is in our intellect.
I suppose we are speculatively ignorant of this limitation
in the objective signification of general propositions, though
we know the limitation practically; and hence the interest
we evince in physical experiments like the above at Paris.
Ourignorance consists in not duly estimating the heterogeneous character of general propositions-not clearly discriminating that their generality is only an intellectual




UNFkLLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 173
conception; and hence, when we would know what the
"diurnal rotation of the earth" signifies objectively, we
must not speculatively inquire what objective facts the
proposition will intellectually fit, and assume that they exist objectively; but we must examine sensibly to discover,
as in the above pendulous experiments at Paris, what objective things really exist that will conform to the proposition.
I deem the above rule of interpretation as important as
any which can be given in relation to language, and it applies as intelligibly to every general proposition as to the
" diurnal rotation of the earth." In the " Polynesian Researches," published some years since in London, the author, in speaking of some islands in the Pacific Ocean, says,
" The tide is here very singular. If influenced at all by
the moon, it is in a very small degree only. The height
to which the water rises varies but a few inches during the
whole year. Whatever be the age or situation of the
moon, the water is lowest at six in the morning, and the
same hour in the evening, and highest at noon and midnight."  The writer seems embarrassed by the usual indiscrimination between the intellectually conceived general
proposition in relation to the influence of the moon over
tides, and objective physical facts. If the seas to which
the writer alludes exhibit no sensible response to the intellectually conceived power of the moon, the defect is no
wonder of objective nature, but an instance of inapplicability in an intellectual conception of man. The proposi



174           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
tion which imputes tides to the attraction of the sun and
moon means,'objectively, not every bbjective occurrence
and thing that we can' speculatively see the proposition
will fit, but it means, objectively, such objective things
only as we can find sensibly to agree with the -proposition.
To know therefore, intellectually, that the sun and moon
influence the tides-that the earth revolves daily.on its
axis, and annually around the sun —that the earth is round,
etc., is to know certain general propositions which our intellect feels to be severally true subjectively; but'if we
would know what any one of the propositions means objectively, we must not employ our intellects to conceive
what objective things the proposition:will fit, but we must
employ our senses to discover, sensibly, what objective
things exist that can be covered by the proposition. I.am
aware that such an interpretation of general propositions
will dispel much intellectual and verbal enchantment; but
it will make our knowledge wholesome, masculine, and conformable to the realities of existence. I know, however,
we delight rather to deem every proposition sensibly significant of every sensible fact that the proposition will intellectually fit, irrespective of whether such facts are sensibly perceptible or not. That the limitation is consequential. which I thus speculatively assert, we may know; for
when a person disregards the limitation, and deems himself revolving with the earth as physically as he may see
a fly revolve with a revolving artificial globe, he feels an
amazement that is not excited by any of the sensible per



UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 175
ceptions which constitute the sensible meaning of the astronomical general propositions that impute revolutions to the
earth.
~ 2. Every new proposition that the English language
can make is only a new collocation of old words; just as
a compositor sets in type different sentences by only changing the collocation of the same types. A complete permutation, like that imagined by Raymond Lully, of all the
words in the English language, would exhibit every proposition that can be made in English; but many of the new
propositions would be objectively insignificant till time
should furnish some objects which the intellectual propositions would fit. We read in ancient history of " Greek
fire;" but as we know not any objective things which the
phrase intellectually fits, the phrase is objectively insignificant. When a schoolboy learns, intellectually, that every
verb must agree with its nominative case in number and
person, he may know none of the objective applications of
the rule; and after a child has learned, intellectually, that
twice one is two, he has still to learn the objective significations of the formula; as, for instance, that one apple and
another are, objectively, equal to two apples. I mean notto say that a boy's intellect will never learn spontaneously
that one apple and another are objectively equal to two
apples; the intellects of men are so alike organically, that
what one man's intellect conceives on any given occasion,
another man's will be likely to conceive when similarly induced (just as what one man's arms will perform on some




176           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
emergency, other men's will be likely to perform under a
like emergency); but if to know, intellectually, that twice
one is two, includes not necessarily the objective knowledge that one apple and another are two; no other general proposition that we may know intellectually will necessarily involve a knowledge of any of its objective meanings.
The general proposition attributed to Columbus, that he
could make an egg stand on end is useful in at least showing the distinction between a general proposition and its
objective meanings, and thereby disabusing us of the fallacious indiscrimination that is common in us between an
intellectual knowledge of a general proposition and its sensible significations. In short, every general proposition
possesses as many different objective meanings as it refers
to different objects, and we must interpret every general
proposition as we interpret, in an indictment, a general accusation of mutiny, treason, or felony. The general accusation is subjective, and refers to the intellect; but when
we would know what the general accusation means objectively, we must examine the specifications for particular
actions, and they alone can yield us unsophistically the
answer.
No person can read Spurzheim's Treatise on Phrenology
without discovering, intellectually, the connection which
his intellect saw between our emotional and intellectual
activity, etc., and certain protuberances of our brain and
cranium; but the general propositions that his intellect conceived thereon can mean, objectively, no more than the




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 177
limited number of objective facts that can be realized unverbally. Subject to the same objective limitation is the
major proposition which makes the whole brain the organ
of intelligence-a sort of imperium in imlperio, or great natural galvanic battery; from which nerves, like galvanic
wires, issue and ramify over all parts of the body, carrying
to the brain communications from the external world by
contact in the perceptions of touch-by pictures formed on
the retina of the eye in the perception of sights —by appulses on the tympanum of the ear in the perception of
sounds-by effluvia to the olfactory nerves in the perception of smells —and by papilla on the tongue in the perception of tastes. No general proposition is more subjectively satisfactory to the intellect than the foregoing in relation to the brain; still its objective, unverbal meaning
must, like the objective, unverbal meaning of every other
general proposition, be limited by the discoverable unverbal objects to which it refers.
~ 3. To limit the objective or unverbal signification of
every proposition to the unverbal -objects to which it refers,
may seem to conflict with what in law is called circumstantial evidence. That Thomas struck the blow which
killed John may be substantiated without proving the
blow, but by showing that a cry of murder proceeded
from a house out of which Thomas, covered with blood,
was seen to issue; and that John, recently killed, was
found alone in the house, with the sword of Thomas in his
heart, etc. These objective facts include not any act of




178            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
Thomas which will be included by the proposition that he
murdered John; still apparently they are all the objective
facts on which a jury may find a verdict of wilful murder
against him. Why, therefore, cannot certain sensible appearances, etc., in relation to the earth's diurnal revolution
around its axis, prove not themselves only, but, in addition, other sensible facts not discoverable sensibly in the
earth, but discoverable in the revolution of say an artificial
sphere, etc.?  The difference in the two cases may be
stated as follows:-The objective facts which are manifested on the-trial of Thomas, prove more than themselves
by means of our objective experience with men like
Thomas, their motives, actions, etc.; but the objective facts
discoverable in the earth, etc.,, prove more than themselves,
not by means of our objective experience with any thing
like the earth, but with artificial spheres, etc., which we
intellectually assume the earth to be like; so that really
our theoretical conclusion of the earth's physical identicalness in revolution, with the revolution of an artificial
sphere, partakes of the nature of a petitio principii. I must
not, however, be understood as denying the revolution of
the earth, as an intellectual proposition. I am only maintaining that the unverbal sensible meaning of the revolution is limited by the sensible facts which we can discover
in relation thereto; and that all we superadd is subjective,
not objective; intellectual, not physical. But I shall have
occasion to speak further on such general propositions in
our: next lecture.




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 179
~ 4. Scientific general propositions such as we have been
considering, possess determinate objective sensible meanings; but books and conversation are full of general propositions which partake more of the intellectual character
of riddles than of specific objective communications. If a
man has been thrown from the back of a vicious horse and'wounded, he may relate the accident objectively in words
like the above, or he may refer to it subjectively, in one or
several enigmatical general propositions: as, "'when we
seek pleasure, we may find pain; what we employ as a
substitute for medicine, may occasion a necessity for medicine;. brute, animals are so destitute of gratitude, that the
more you pamper them with food, the more they will repay
you with injury."  He can construct as many such enigmatical general propositions as his intellect shall deem
analogous to his'accident; and they may all mean objectively, no more than the one accident. When you hear
from him one of these propositions, the chance that you
will interpret it objectively, by the accident, if it be unknown to you, is about equal to your chance of guessing
what objective things I refer to when I say that I had a
nice dish for my dinner to-day. Still your intellect will
probably endeavour to find some objective physical meaning to his general proposition; and you will seek it among
such of the objective things known to you as the general
proposition will seem to fit. Should you succeed in finding any such objective thing, you will assent to the truth
of his general proposition, " that brute animals are so des



180          THE MEANING OF WORDS.
titute of gratitude, that the more you pamper them with
food, the more they will repay you with ingratitude;"
though perhaps all you mean is, that the more you feed
your cat, the more neglectful she becomes of clearing your
house from mice.
You may, however, recollect no objective thing which
seems to accord with the above proposition, and by an antagonism to which the intellect is organically prone, you
may be induced to recollect some objective things which
contradict the proposition; as, for instance, the more you
have housed and fed poultry during the winter, the more
eggs they have furnished for your table; or the more you
have provided appropriate food for your apiary, the more
its bees have repaid you with honey. You will, therefore,
deny his general proposition, and adduce these instances
as proofs of its falsity. So a man who picked up a dollar
which he saw fall from a traveller, went to a tavern, and
in conversation with the landlord, made this general proposition: " Men are more honest in great matters than in
small."  He meant that he acted dishonestly in not restoring the dollar, whilst in his more extensive intercourse
wvith mankind he was honest. The innkeeper, (who had a
week previously found in one of his chambers a pocketbook with bank-notes, which he intended to keep, though
he frequently corrected errors when his guests gave inadvertently some trifle too much,) replied, that he thought
" men were more honest in small matters than in great."
"We are," says Professor Stewart, "enabled by our in



UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 181
stinctive anticipations of physical events, to accommodate
our conduct to what we perceive is to happen." This general proposition will be objectively insignificant to every
person whose intellect cannot attach to it some objective
incident which the intellect shall deem it to fit. The object
of which it caused me to think, was the falling of a tree.
Instinctive anticipation would enable me to perceive that
I should be crushed if I did not change my position.
Probably Professor Stewart thought of something different,
and the fall of a tree may never have occurred to his observation. The inexperience of.children tends to make general propositions objectively unintelligible to them; hence
books intended for children, should avoid general propositions which are only intellectual vestments, and for which
children may possess no sensible bodies.
~ 5. Other writers avoid the above enigmatical, objective
unintelligibility. If they intellectually involve any objective fact in a general proposition, they subjoin the fact by
way of sample, though it often constitutes all the objective
meaning of their general proposition; thus, "the more,"
says St. Pierre, "temples are multiplied in a state, the more
is religion enfeebled."  What did St. Pierre mean? You
will find in his succeeding paragraph:-" Look," says he,
"at Italy covered with churches, yet Constantinople is
crowded with Italian renegadoes; while the Jews, who had
but one temple, are so strongly attached to their religion, that
the loss of their temple excites to this day their regret." Mr.
Hawkesbee asserts that the aurora borealis is the effect of




182           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
electricity on a vacuum. What does he mean by his general
proposition? He states subsequently as follows: -" The
excitation of -electricity in an exhausted Florence flask
produced a light which resembled the aurora."  Another
person who shall find that all the phenomena of the aurora
borealis cannot be thus imitated, will insist that Mr.
Hawkesbee is W;rong; but both are right intellectually, for
they severally mean objectively, no more than the objects
to which each refers. To speak thus of single physical
facts as general propositions, enables us to seem physically
rich on a very small actual capital; but without any determinate motive, the tendency of the intellect in every man,
is strong to such subjective generalization; and like every
organic tendency, it no doubt subserves useful purposes
when judiciously employed.
To compel all men to employ the same collocation of
words, is impracticable. The attempt has filled the world
with controversy, and not brought us to the desired uniformity. I am so confident that nearly every general proposition is true, in the manner intended by the speaker, that
I never contradict i-Cullen asserts, "that when an external cause produces in us a morbid action, Nature exerts an
opposite process to counteract the evil." Some medical
writers assert a conflicting general proposition. They say,
"that every morbid change which occurs in our system is
essentially injurious, and must be opposed by medicine."
Two physicians who should severally enforce a different
one of the above general propositions, supposing both pro



UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 183
positions to refer to the same objective diseased condition,
would employ opposite remedies. But to act thus proceeds from an erroneous belief that the general propositions
are objectively significant of more than certain definite
particulars. A person who knows the objective particulars
to which the framer of each general proposition alludes,
will probably find that both propositions are correct inothe
restricted cases.
Physicians have much employed such verbal controversy
on the origin of yellow fever, some asserting as a general
proposition that it is indigeneous, and others exotic. Were
each partizan to detail the unverbal objective particulars
to which his general proposition refers, no disagreement
would probably exist; but while he deems his general
proposition significant objectively of more than certain unverbal particulars, endless verbal controversy  ensues.
Each thinks justly that the other errs,'for the same mistake of the nature of general propositions misleads both.
A father said once, "My son, in water exists a principle
which is destructive of life; and in brandy, a principle
preservative of life." The father meant objectively, that
total immersion in water would produce death, and that a
small quantity of brandy was occasionally salutary. The
proposition was correct while confined to the objects to
*which the father alluded; but the son, supposing its application as universal unverbally, as verbally; refrained from
the use of water, and substituted brandy. We all err,
though not always in a like degree, when we consider any




184           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
general proposition significant objectively of more than
certain objective particulars; and if those who promulge
general propositions will not announce the objective particulars to which they refer, the proposition is to us only a
sort of intellectual garment with which we may invest any
unverbal object that our intellect shall happen to know,
and deem the proposition to fit; but the proposition will
not necessarily teach us the objective meaning referred to
by the promulgers of the proposition. Speculative writers
are particularly fruitful of general propositions, and usually
without subjoining any objective example by way of key
to the respective riddles which they thus construct. Books,
however, of every kind, abpund with unexplained general
propositions,-to frame general propositions being much
less laborious than to furnish them with substantial objec
tive bodies. Politicians find such propositions a convenient mode of expressing opinions that will suit everybody; for instance, "a judicious tariff" is precisely what
every man desires, though one man may mean thereby an
import duty of a hundred per cent. ad valorem, and another
man may mean a total exemption from any duty. "To
demand from foreign nations nothing but what ought to be
demanded, and to submit to nothing but what ought to be
submitted to," is a proposition which will meet with universal assent, though conduct entirely opposite in character
may be covered thereby. " To give to every private individual the utmost personal liberty that is useful to the
individual himself as well as to the nation," will meet the




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 185
approbation of the most liberal democrat and the most
tyrannical autocrat.  All such propositions are like the
bathing dresses supplied to visitors on the beach at Newport; they fit everybody equally well, but the bodies
clothed thereby exhibit, when uncovered, every sort of
variety that bodies are capable of assuming. Silence has
beef long denoted a characteristic of wisdom; and when
we consider the character of general propositions, we see a
propriety in refraining from speech if we have nothing to
communicate but general propositions; though the difficulty in acquiring sensible facts deserving of specific announcement, must impose much silence on any man who
should employ them as his only topics of conversation.
The scarcity in which new sensible facts exist, is usually
illustrated very painfully when scientific men meet together formally, in public associations, to interchange information. What a relief on such an emergency is some
narrative like the late soundings of the ocean by Lieutenant Maury, which speaks of something besides ever changing, ever conflicting intellectually conceived opinions.
The specific sensible facts that are usually announced at
such meetings compare in number with the general propositions in about the relation of a grain of wheat to a peck
of chaff.
~ 6. Before I close the present Lecture, I want to make
a few remarks on propositions which possess little or no
objective signification, and whose signification is mostly or
wholly subjective. Such propositions are easily construc



186           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
ted, and books of every descri'ption abound with them.
The intellect discovers in the words a syntactical congruity to each other; hence the propositions possess a hazy
intellectual intelligence, which satisfies the author and
often pleases the feelings of the reader. "Fellow citizens!"
might a Fourth of July orator say, in accordance with the
above species of propositions-" the destiny of our beloved
country is in our keeping, let us be faithful to our sacred
trust, and support no man for any public station who will
not advocate principles that will bear the scrutiny of virtue; for, without virtue, all seeming prosperity is baseless,
and all seeming good but evil in disguise. Oh! that this
important truth could be wafted by the four winds of heaven, and impressed, as with the point of a diamond, on the
hearts of the rising generation; then, indeed, would our
teeming population, from the wide Atlantic to the broad
Pacific, become a great and glorious nation, for we should
be a virtuous people. Finally, fellow citizens, let us not
be deceived by false demagogues who speak what they
mean not, but let us believe honest patriots who mean
what they speak, though they tell us unpalatable truths."
Propositions like the above assimilate to poetry or music. They speak to the feelings rather than to the intellect,
and hence probably their power to please. The feelings
can be affected -irrespective wholly of the objective meaning of words, as we find in very young children, to whom
the songs which induce tranquillity or pleasure can communicate no objective information. Nor ought we to deem




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 187
propositions, such as the foregoing oration, destitute of utility when addressed to men. I once went with a gentleman
to an oratorio, where, after a few intellectually unintelligible words had been sung, and repeated often in melodious
tones and with melodious accompaniments, he observed to
me, that he had derived from what he had heard, more religious feelings than he had everpbtained from intellectuali
sermons. So, probably, a Fourth of July oration, which
communicates no objective information, may yet promote
the patriotic feelings of the hearers, or cultivate in them
other beneficial feelings, and thus influence their conduct
more beneficially than any number of precepts with any
amount of objective signification. Indeed, no inconsiderable part of all prayers and sermons derive their cogency
from their effect on our internal feelings; hence, when listened to for objective information, the listeners constitute
usually the most dissatisfied portion of the audience. The
organic principle, by which words are thus efficacious over
our internal feelings, has not received the speculative consideration that the principle merits. I have presented my
views thereon in Lecture V. of a small book, entitled "Religion in its Relation to the present Life," published for me,
in 1841, by Harper & Brothers, of New York, and to which
I refer because any direct consideration of the subject would
not be within the proper purview of the present work.
~ 7. Having thus shown, I hope sufficiently, that the objec.
tive signification of every general proposition is only the objective particulars to which the proposition refers, and that




188           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
no verbal universality of the purview of any proposition
can make it significant unverbally beyond the above limits, I might dismiss the subject, except that a verbal puzzle
is connected with the assigned limits. A man, for instance,
who lives within the tropics, may never have heard that
light and darkness are not diurnally successive in every
part of the earth; and no general proposition will be more
incontestible to his intellect than the diurnal alternation,
everywhere, of light and darkness. We know, however,
that the man is mistaken; and why may we not be mistaken in our belief that every unsupported stone will everywhere fall towards the earth, and that every man will
die? The question I will reserve for our next Lecture, as
it involves an important principle in the interpretation of
general propositions, and otherwise deserves a separate consideration.




LECTURE VII.
OF THE UNFALLACIOUS MEANING OF NEGATIVE GENERAL
PROPOSITIONS.
CONTENTS.
A negation that refers to no physical object, is physically insignificant.
An affirmation that is universal in its terms, and unlimited by any sensible negative, is still significant sensibly of only the sensible objects to
which it refers.
~ 1. As no proposition can signify, objectively, more
than the objects to which it refers, every proposition in the
form of a negation is necessarily unmeaning, objectively,
when it refers to no objective thing. The limitation is not
conventional, but pertains to language constitutionally:
when, therefore, a man within the tropics asserts that light
and darkness alternate diurnally everywhere, he is correct
to the extent only of the physical particulars to which he
refers; but a negation of his proposition is also significant
physically, because the negation refers to physical facts
that occur beyond the tropics. If, however, I assert that
unsupported stones may, in some unexplored part of the
earth, not fall towards the earth, I shall refer to no physi



190           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
cal fact, and hence my salvo will be physically insignificant.
The limitation above stated, in the unverbal meaning of
negative propositions, possesses great practical importance,
and has, I suppose, not received the speculative recognition which it merits. I solicit for it, therefore, much attention, and will give some further examples of my meaning:
-An Esquimaux Indian will be as positive that water everywhere freezes during the winter, as I am that a piece of
gold will everywhere exhibit the sight round, and the feel
round, when the piece is so formed that a line drawn from
the centre of it to the surface, anywhere, will measure just
one inch. Now I know that the Esquimaux is mistaken.
Countries exist in which' water never freezes, and why may
not countries exist in which physical objects are so different from those with which I am acquainted, that a piece
of gold may possess the proportions that I have stated, and
still not be round? The two propositions are verbally alike,
but unverbally different. That countries exist in which
water never freezes is significant unverbally, for the affirination refers to the sensible experience of credible witnesses; but the doubt in relation to the gold is merely verbal, or, at most, intellectual. It refers to no sensible experience, and hence is as sensibly insignificant as any story
of fairies that amuses infancy, and for precisely the same
reason, and for no other reason.
That the dead exhibit neither sensation nor consciousness is nearly all we mean objectively when we assert that




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 191
the dead are void of feeling and consciousness. We cannot know, experimentally, that the dead suffer no pain on
a funeral pyre, or under the knife of an anatomical demonstrator, or under the process of decomposition. You may
deem this intellectual reflection full of horror, and deprecate for the dead some attention to the intellectually alleged possibility of their latent sensibilities. But you will
deplrecate in vain. The anatomical demonstrator will proceed in his dissecting operations as unconcernedly as before. He may not be able to state why he practically
disregards your remarks; but the reason lies in his practical
acquaintance with the nature of language. Your remarks
refer to nothing sensible, hence he knows them to be sensibly
insignificant. No views of language manifest so well the
secret of its significancy as the contemplation of salvos like
the foregoing. The' contingencies are objectively insignificant from no lack of subjective significancy, but simply
because they possess no objective meaning. They are intellectual garments which ostensibly are capable of fitting
somebody, but no physical bodyjis adapted to them. They
are worse than the slipper of Cinderella, for one foot was
found that it could fit; but a reservation which refers to no
unverbal object, is objectively meaningless.
~ 2. We may apply remarks like the foregoing to numerous-scientific propositions. For instance, the intellect
of every manl conceives irresistibly,,from existing premises,
that the earth is round, and that it is subject to diurnal and
annual motions; but should a man assert that the round



192           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
ness and motions thus conceived of the earth are not associated with any physical roundness and motions, his negation will be physically significant to only the extent of the
sensible perceptions to which it refers; and when any such
negation refers to nothing that is sensibly perceptible, the
negation will be sensibly insignificant. These doctrines
may be thought to conflict with what I have said heretofore on such propositions, and I contrast the two doctrines
the better to explain them. My former comments on such
doctrines, in their affirmative announcement, were directed
not against the propriety of the announcement, but against
imputing to the propositions a physical meaning beyond
the sensible particulars on which the doctrines are founded.
I suppose I am not mistaken in believing that men are accustomed to deem the affirmative diurnal and annual motions conceived of the earth, etc., not limited insensible signification to the sensible particulars to which the intellectually conceived motions relate; we include therewith and
confound as sensible much that is only intellectually conceived. And here again you may ask me what is the difference between what is only intellectually conceived and
what can be sensibly perceived; and I again answer, that
it is what it is'; the difference is unverbal, not verbal, and
words can only refer us to it. Unverbal things cannot be
transmuted into words, or vice versa; and if no unverbal
difference exists between what is only intellectually conceived and what is sensibly perceived, my whole speculative superstructure is inane-a distinction without a differ



UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 193
ence; though our bias towards confounding the two, or
rather the piquancy which attends the materializing of
what we conceive intellectually, is conclusive to, at least,
my feelings, that an unverbal and consequential difference
exists between what we intellectually conceive and what
we sensibly perceive.
Similar to the foregoing are the intellectually conceived
assertions, that the moon and the sun cause the tides; that
every fixed star is a sun, and the centre of a planetary system; that beyond all telescopic vision other stars exist,
which also are the centres of more remote systems; that
the earth appears like a star to the inhabitants of the planets, etc. Now, if a person chooses to say that no physical
realities exist that conform to these intellectual conceptions,
his negation will possess no physical significance beyond
the sensible perceptions to which his negation may refer,
and the negation will be wholly insignificant sensibly if it
refer to nothing sensible. The absence of a physical negative will make any affirmative proposition true universally;
yet the universal affirmation will still mean, physically,
the physical particulars only to which the affirmation refers. A nursery couplet says, "The clhildren of Holland
take pleasure in making, what the children of England take
pleasure in breaking."  I want to avoid a like conduct if
possible, though it is quite prevalent in speculative controversy. I take no pleasure in subverting any received speculative tenets, and only endeavour to manifest their proper
unverbal signification.
9




194           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
And now a friend suggests to me the following queries:
— " Have you any objective reasons for disbelieving that
the earth would appear like a star, if you could view it
from any of the planets which belong to our solar system?
-have you any objective reasons for disbelieving it would
exhibit the sight round and the feel round, if you could
possibly see it and feel it in entirety, as you can see and
feel an artificial globe?-have you any objective reasons
for disbelieving that the earth's motions would be as sensibly perceptible as an artificial globe's, were you located
in relation to the earth as you are located in relation to an
artificial globe?" To these queries I answer, that as they
refer to nothing sensible that is within my knowledge, they
are to me sensibly insignificant; but my intellect sees
the cogency of the questions, and cannot avoid assenting
thereto; and the intellectual assent no way conflicts with
any position I have intended to establish. If any person
shall discover a verbal conflict, the discovery will arise
from my inability to express verbally what I intended unverbally.
I have treated far too summarily the important truths
which the present Lecture embraces within its proper purview, but I will close it with an illustration of the embarrassment we may experience when we know not that a
negation is subject to the same limitation in its unverbal
interpretation as an affirmation; namely, that neither can
mean objectively more than the objects to which it refers;
and that either is insignificant sensibly when it refers to no




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 195
sensible object. I once heard a celebrated clergyman astonish and puzzle his hearers by the announcement that
experience alone would not authorize the belief that we
must all die; experience being able, he said, to speak of
the past only-not of the future. He insisted that we can
be affirmatively certain of death from only its being a prediction of revelation. Now the puzzle of the above vanishes when we discriminate between its intellectual significancy and its sensible significancy. That we must all die
refers, certainly for its sensible signification, to only our
sensible experience; but any doubt in relation thereto, and
any negative in relation thereto, refer to no sensible experience, and, consequently, both doubt and negative are sensibly insignificant.




LECTURE VIII.
OF THE UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF WORDS THAT
ARE INTELLECTUALLY  CONCEIVED.
CONTENTS.
1. Words conceived by the intellect mean, unverbally, the organism of
the intellect; not the objects which the words mean when they apply to the perceptions of the senses.
2. Intellectually conceived words are subjective responses of the intellect
to objective premises.
8. As a man increases his objective knowledge, he increases the material
out of which his intellect conceives its subjective responses.
4. The intellect cannot originate objective knowledge except what relates
to its own organism.
5. The responses of the intellect are independent of our volition.
1~. We are now arrived where we may usefully reflect
upon so much of what we have accomplished as is necessary to make the past subsidiary to the future.  The unverbal meaning of words is our theme; what the unverbal
meanings are is the object of our researches. To make
words tell what unverbal meanings are has always led
speculation to where it wanders "in endless mazes lost;"
and the result, as well as the attempt, may be likened to
the efforts of a child to outrun its shadow, or of a kitten,
by revolving, to catch its own tail:  Words are as unable




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 197
to tell us what unverbal things are as the sounds of a bell
are unable to tell us what unsonorous things are; or, as
visible appearances, pictures, etc., are unable to tell us
what invisible things are; or, as odours are unable to tell
us what inodorous things are. What unverbal things are
we can be told by only the mute unverbal revelations of
our senses, internal feelings, and intellect. Into these alone
we must translate words when we desire to know the ultimate unverbal signification of the words; and this mode
of interpreting words constitutes one of the main precepts
that I have attempted to inculcate.
~ 2. Unverbal things which I have thus postulated as
the ultimate signification of words, differ among themselves
generically; the revelations of each of our five senses differing from the revelations of the other four; and the revelations of the intellect and of the internal feelings differing
from each other, and from sensible perceptions. Our speculative disregard of the generic differences which thus
exist in our sensible, moral, and intellectual knowledge,
(our estimating unverbal things by their verbal homogeneity rather than by their unverbal heterogeneity,)
must, at some future period of the world's existence, astonish our successors, as much as we are astonished that our
predecessors could ever believe that the intellectually conceived flight through the air of witches on broomsticks was
homogeneous with a visible flight through the air of birds.
When a juggler opens a box, and shows us it is empty,
and again opens it and we find it full of sand, and again




198           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
opens-it and we see it full of live birds; we are surprised,
for we have not seen that the box possesses three different
compartments. We employ words with the same delusive
misunderstanding. The word revolution, for instance, refers unverbally in one use of it, to the sensible (visible and
tactile) revolution of a cart-wheel or a boy's top; and in
another use of it to the intellectually conceived relation
which men personally bear to the earth in its intellectually
conceived revolutions around its axis and around the sun;
but when we suppose that in both uses (the revolutions
intellectually imputed to us personally and to the earth,
and the revolution sensibly imputed to the cart-wheel and
the top,) the word revolution possesses a meaning that is
homogeneous, we are as much surprised at the verbal
equivoke, which deems us and the earth thus to revolve,
as we are at the juggle of the conjurer; and the source of
the surprise is alike fallacious in both cases. To estimate
unverbal things by their generic differences, despite their
verbal homogeneity, as in the above examples, has been
another of the purposes which I have endeavoured to accomplish; and after a short. familiarity with the generic
discrimination in the unverbal signification of words, every
man will be delighted with the clearness which it will
confer on his knowledge, and the immunity it will yield
him from mysteries.
Colloquial language has been unpremeditatedly fashioned by our practical knowledge of the above generic
differences that we speculatively disregard. We talk, for




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 199
instance, of our ability or inability, as the case may be, to
feel the truth of a given remark-to feel ashamed, excited,
elated, proud, humble, envious, jealous, etc.; thus denoting
that the words designate severally an internalfeeling. We
talk of an ability or inability, as the case may be, to conceive how the soul is united to the body; how the dead are
to appear bodily in another world; how effects are united
to causes, etc.; thus denoting that the words designate
severally intellectual conceptions, not sensible perceptions.
We talk of hearing thunder, seeing lightning, }perceiving or
smelling odours, feeling cold, etc.; thus denoting that the
words designate sensible perceptions, and of different
senses. The litany of the Episcopal church prays for deliverance from temptations of "the world, the flesh, and
the devil;" which expressions recognise, as I suppose, the
three generically different departments of our unverbal
knowledge-the " world" designating sensible temptations;
the "flesh" designating temptations of the internal feelings; and the " devil" designating temptations from intellectual suggestions. The Bible, in many places, triplicates
thus its allusions to our triple organism; and often, though
not always, employs the word flesh as in the above example: —"the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak"; the
spirit denotes the intellect; the flesh, the feelings. A
volume might be written of such biblical generic discriminations, and profitably written, I think, to familiarise us
with the unverbal triplicity of man's nominal oneness.
~ 3. The foregoing are all that I will recapitulate of




200            THlE' MEANING OF WORDS.
what I have yet accomplished, if I may hope a full fruition
of what I have attempted.  But now arises the most pregnant and subtile difficulty that is connected with rny speculations, or with speculations generally.  I alluded to it in
my introductory lecture, and said I should speak more on
the subject thereafter; and I am now to fulfil that promise.
The five senses yield unverbal utterances, sights, sounds,
tastes, feels, smells, which every person can understand
unverbally. The utterance of each sense is known also
to be peculiar; and we can readily translate into such
unverbal sensible utterances, any word that relates to
sensible revelations.  The internal feelings also possess
unverbal emotional utterances, and into the unverbal
emotions we can readily translate anger, and every
other word that relates to any internal feeling; but the intellect conceives in words, and thus the intellect seems to
possess no unverbal utterances. A very important question
therefore arises, whether our intellectually conceived words
possess any unverbal meaning-any meaning ulterior to
the conceived words. I, at one period, supposed they possess no ulterior meaning, and that all abstract speculations
are mere words. Twice one house is two houses, and
twice one fairy is two fairies. The first proposition is significant of more than words, because it refers to something
unverbal; but the second is mere words, I said, because it
refers to nothing that is unverbal. I should probably have
continued in this short-sighted belief, had I not found that
a vast amount of human learning, including all natural




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 201
theology, is involved in the-issue; and perhaps all revealed
theology. When, for instance, I look at the sun, my intellect will irresistibly conceive that its existence had a
commencement, that its origin needed a maker, that it is a
design of some designer, a contrivance of some contriver,
an effect of some cause; hence, as affirmed by natural
theology, any intellect will be forced onward and upwards
to the conception in words of a first cause, a first contriver,
designer and maker, who is himself uncaused, uncontrived,
undesigned, uncreated. Indeed, all the fundamental tenets'
of theology, with an after-life retribution of bliss or woe,
have been conceived (variously modified) by all men in all
ages; so that to doubt whether such conceptions belong to
the human intellect is as irrational, as to doubt whether
walking, seeing, tasting, feeling, hope, fear, and hunger,
belong to our sensible and moral nature.
~ 4. To find that such verbal conceptions are indigenous
to the human intellect, not foreign grafts thereon by priestcraft, as some suppose, is one step gained in the direction
of right knowledge, and probably the most important
step; but are such intellectual conceptions verbal only, or
possess the conceived words a meaning that is unverbal?
We can look behind words that relate to sensible perceptions and internal feelings, and find objects that are unverbal; but can we look behind intellectually conceived words
and find anything unverbal? Revelation, I think, answers
the question; and though I mean not to found my doctrine thereon, but contrariwise the interpretation is founded
9*




202          THE MEANING OF WORDS.
on my doctrine; yet I deem the coincidence valuable and
remarkable: St. Luke "was demanded of the Pharisees
when the kingdom of God should come;" and he answered
them and said, "the kingdom of God is within you;" which
signifies, as I suppose, that " the kingdom of God" are intellectually conceived words whose unverbal meaning is
subjective, not objective; in our intellect, and not anything
physical, though we seem to suppose the meaning to be
physical, when we point our finger upwards when we
speak of the kingdom of God; and point our finger downwards, when we speak of the kingdom of Satan; whose
meaning also is within us.
But what is in tus besides the conceived words? that is
the question which I am to consider. The organism is
within us, from which the conceived words proceed. A
man's imprecations of curses on his eyes, body and soul,
are words; but they are also signs of an unverbal internal
feeling in the organism of the imprecator: —So " the
kingdom of God" are words, but the words are also signs
of an unverbal impulse or tendency in the organism of our
intellect; as, therefore, the internal organic feeling which
prompts an imprecation is the unverbal meaning of the
imprecation; so the organism of the intellect that conceives
any given words is the unverbal meaning of the verbal
conception.
Many commentators interpret the text of St. Luke as
referring to the internal feelings which predominate in devout Christians, and " the kingdom of God" may doubtless




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 203
be in a man unverbally in both ways; but in both ways the
unverbal meaning is alike subjective, not objective; in one
case the unverbal meaning is in the organism of the feelings, and in the other in the organism of the intellect; and
in both cases the organisms are part of every man's nature,
hence the conceived words possess an unverbal meaning as
truly as the words horse or orange. Remember that our
disquisitions relate to only the unverbal meaning of words,
or rather of sounds, (which all words are,) in themselves
as unmeaning as the bellow of a bull or the crow of a
cock; and as little intelligible, except in the country whose
people have converted the given sounds into words, by attaching to the sounds something that is. unverbal; a something that must have reference to the organism of the
speakers, for we can no more invent a word whose unverbal meaning can surpass the purview of our organisms,
than we can invent a new sense.
~ 5. In further corroboration that the above interpretation of the unverbal meaning of intellectually conceived
words is not repugnant to the Scriptures, revelation coatinually warns us against affixing an objective meaning to
such of its tenets as the intellect can conceive in words
only. A remarkable warning of this kind, in relation to
Deity, is contained in the second commandment of the
Decalogue. The intellect alone can conceive Deity unphysically, but the intellect can manifest the conception only
by words; and such words will be vox et preterea nihil,
unless we find for them an unverbal meaning in the int&e



204           THE MEANING OF W.ORDS.
lectual organism from which the conceived words proceed.
Indeed, revelation characterizes as mysteries, all of its
tenets that like omniscience, omnipotence, trinity in unity,
etc., are, objectively, only intellectually conceived words;
and towards them, nothing is required of us but faith,
which is an internal feeling that we know, experimentally,
the intellectual conceptions are capable of exciting.
I will add in further illustration of the above interpretation of intellectually conceived words, and not to make
innovations in theology, that St. John says, " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God." Now I suppose the text to affirm that
our meaning of God, apart from the word God, was only
subjective; till, as St. John says, subsequently, "The
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," and thereby
gave the word God an objective meaning.
Let us present another illustration of the unverbal meaning of intellectually conceived words: the intellect insists
on conceiving that what We see, feel, taste, hear, and smell,
are not physical copies of any external things, but only
subjective effects produced on our senses by some external
objective " substance," which we are incapable of knowing
sensibly except by. the sensible effects on us it thus produces. This doctrine philosophers deem entirely satisfactory. But the conceived "substance," which is thus knowable only verbally by the intellect, bears the same subjective relation to the intellect that conceives it as-sensible
qualities bear to the senses;' the intellectually conceived




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 205
verbal " substance" being an effect only of our intellectual
organism, as sensible qualities are effects only of our sensible organs. What then is ultimate to the verbal " sub.
stance" which the intellect thus conceives? The organism
of our intellect, of which the verbal conception is an effect;
and we can know no more in relation thereto. Our verbal conceptions of Deity, and of every kindred truth, are
like the above verbally conceived "substance;" they belong to the nature of our intellect, and are, unverbally, part
of every man's ego. The intellect organically craves to
know more in relation to its conceptions, and may conceive
thereon more words; but all such words will only be further effects of the organism of the intellect, and that organism will constitute the ultimate meaning of the conceived
words, proceed with such conceptions as far as our dictionaries and other vocabularies will supply words.
~ 6. When we deem intellectually conceived words a
manifestation of the organism of our intellect, as just stated,
we obtain theemost satisfactory understanding of them that
we are capable of obtaining. Instead, however, of being
satisfied with this subjective meaning, we often seek an
objective meaning; and from an inability of finding any
objective meaning, many intellectually conceived words
are deemed insignificant. Men, thus influenced, scoff at
the words spirit, immateriality, immortality, resurrection,
heaven, hell, etc.; but, properly understood, the words denote an organism of the intellect, or the intellect could
not habitually, in all. ages of the world and in all places




206           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
form such conceptions. I have drawn most of my illustrations of this tenet of my doctrines from subjects connected with theology, not because intellectually conceived
words on theology differ essentially from other verbal conceptions of the intellect, but because literature is full of
splendid wrecks, in proof that no teachings can be useful
or durable unless they are reconcileable with revelation.
All intellectually conceived words, whether relating to
sacred subjects or profane, must alike find their ultimate
unverbal meaning in the organism of the intellect; just as
all sounds produced by a piano must rest ultimately on the
organism  of the piano; and as all sensible perceptions
must rest ultimately on the organism of our senses; and as
all we eat must depend for its effects on the organism of
our stomach.
The tenets of geology, that anticipate sensible researches
in relation to the stratification of the earth, etc., my intellect recognizes as consonant to its organism; hence, my
intellect assents to them; and my intellect conceives just
as necessarily that the earth is the product of some maker;
that its existence had a commencement, and will have a
termination; but if I fail to see that these intellectual conceptions are all subjective knowledge, not objective, I have
yet to learn the correct unverbal interpretation of intellectually conceived words.  Vitality, gravitation, wisdom,
electricity, etc., are also words that the intellect is organized to conceive; but not otherwise than it is organized to
conceive the words soul, Deity, conscience, heaven, hell,




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 207
immortality, resurrection, etc.; hence we discover how
vain are all hopes or fears in relation to the permanence
of religion. It possesses an unverbal subjective reality,
which is as organic, and hence as little dependent for its
permanence on- fashion and caprice, as hunger, hope, fear,
or the perception of colours and figures.
When we deem religion a human contrivance-a device of priestcraft-two essentially different things are
confounded; namely, forms of worship and verbal creeds
are confounded with the intellectual and moral organisms
from which creeds and forms originate. Creeds and forms
are only an objective verbal manifestation of a subjective unverbal impulse or state of the intellect and feelings. Creeds
and forms of worship have changed repeatedly, and are.changing continually; but the intellectual organism from
which creeds and forms of worship proceed, must insure
the perpetuity of creeds in some form; and our internal
feelings are so organized, that the feelings which give unction to present creeds and forms, and which formerly made
sacred the nominal units Jupiter and Pluto, must continue
to give unction to any future creeds and forms that the
intellect may conceive in substitution of the present; if we
may, for illustration, conceive a radical change practicable,
after our nearly two thousand years' experience to the contrary, and after attempts thereto by men of the most celebrated intellects. The ultimate results, therefore, which
infidelity in existing creeds and forms can ever permanently accomplish, is the substitution of some new creeds




208           TEE MEANING OF WORDS.
and forms for those which exist at the time of the substitution.
As different men groan and imprecate differently, under
the influence of the same internal feeling, so different men
may conceive different verbal creeds, etc, under the influence of the same intellectual impulse; but the intellectual organic impulses of all men are probably alike unverbally, just as the internal feelings of all men are probably
alike unverbally. When, however, we would look for a
meaning behind the words which the intellect conceives on
any such occasion, we can find nothing unverbal but the
organism of the intellect; just as we can find nothing behind sensible perceptions but the organism of the senses.
All beyond the purview of our three (sensible, intellectual,
and moral) organisms is a terra incognita, which revelation
doubtless alludes to, but which we can understand objectively no -better than the blind can understand colours, or
the deaf sounds; and even such a verbally conceived terra
incognita is also, unverbally, only a result of our intellectual organism; and so is the further verbal conception, that
the organization which relates to religious conceptions would
not have been given to us were it not to be hereafter objectively realized.
~ 7. But while I am striving to discriminate, generically,
intellectually conceived words from sensibly perceived objects, etc., I desire not to be understood as deeming intellectually conceived words inferior to sensible objects in
dignity, purport, and character. We possess three ge



UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF'LANGUAGE. 209
nerically different organisms —the intellect, the senses, and
the internal feelings. Every man's verbal ego is thus essentially triune unverbally; and while e'very thing we can
know must be subjective to one of these three sets of organs, no extra limitary criterion exists beyond the said
organs by which we can decide which set of organs is most
authoritative, or most entitled to our respect. Each is ultimate within its own sphere, and around each "a great
gulf is fixed," which will not permit any one of the three
sets of organs to invade unverbally the province of either
of the other sets. We, however, continually employ the
intellect to yield us physical information where our senses
cease their purview. We desire to know what exists in
the centre of the eartjh-when came it there-how, and
whence; and to look forward into the undeveloped future,
and backward down the unrecorded and even antediluvian
past. But though the intellect will in such cases seem to
yield us physical responses, yet the responsive words, in
all such speculations, possess no unverbal meaning but
what is subjective to the intellect that conceives them.
The words will reflexly exhibit, to every man that conceives them, the organism of his intellect-its aspirations,
its impulses, its conceptions; and they constitute to him
the only unsophistical unverbal meaning of his intellectually conceived words in the cases above described. I censure no such use of our intellect, for the use is as inevitable
and organic as any other, and the results are irresistibly
operative on our internal feelings; hence, intellectually




210           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
conceived words, in even the above cases, and in all cases,
influence our conduct, and constitute as substantive a part
of our knowledge as sensible information, though of a different generic character. In short, when a man has analyzed his intellectually conceived words into what is unverbal in relation thereto, he is at the end of his unverbal
knowledge in the premises; and if we say of such intellections as possess no sensible reference, that they are what
they are, we shall speak of them more unsophistically than
by characterizing them verbally in any other way; the
ultimate elements of our knowledge being not words but
unverbal things. The intellect strives to end every discussion with words-it organically struggles for the last
word; but the end of every disquisition must be unverbal,
if we would obtain an end that is unsophistical.
~ 8. I much suspect that deeming all intellectually conceived words objective in their signification, makes us
underestimate the intelligence of deaf mutes. We mistake
in the mutes an absence of intellectually conceived words,
for an absence of the intellectual unverbal impulses, etc.,
from which verbal conceptions proceed. The intellect of
a deaf mute will, of course, not know that " the whole is
greater than a part," but he will possess the unverbal intellectual impulse from which the verbal axiom originates;
and he will resist as pertinaciously any subtraction from
his possessions, as we whose intellect can conceive the
maxim  in words. His intellect will not conceive that
"things equal to the same, are equal to each other;" yet




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 211
he will possess the unverbal intellection which alone gives
the axiom its intellectual signification; and he will evince
that his unverbal intellection or impulse, is as influential
over his physical conduct, as the axiom is over yours who
can conceive the axiomatic words. His intellect will not
conceive that " everything requires a maker;" that "everything is the effect of some cause," and that " every existence had a beginning, and must have a termination;" yet
we can know from his general physical conduct, that he
possesses the intellectual impulses which constitute the
unverbal meaning of even such1 intellectually conceived
words. Creeds he will, of course, not know; but the intellectual impulse or tendency which is unverbal in creeds,
and which constitutes _their unverbal cogency, unction and
signification, he may know as well as we. Dickens'
"Household Words" contains an article on idiots, as he
saw them "-at the Essex Hall Asylum for idiots, near Colchester," and the article countenances a belief that even
idiots, who usually, in addition to their other intellectual
defects, know no language, may possess measurably the
unverbal impulses which constitute the subjective meaning of intellectually conceived words that possess no sensible meaning.  He says the idiots "are very fond of
attending prayers in a body. What dim religious impressions they connect with public worship it is impossible to
say; but the struggling soul would seem to have some instinctive aspirations towards its Maker."
~ 9. I will now assume that all intellectually conceived




212           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
words possess a meaning which is unverbal. In view of
the vast significance of the tenet, I feel that I have not
manifested it as fully as it deserves; but if I have succeeded
in malking my meaning intelligible, I have accomplished
all that I have contemplated in relation to the unverbal
meaning of intellectually conceived words. Indeed, I only
say'enough on any topic to merit the character of suggestions; the full development of the topics-knowledge being
progressive-I confidently expect, in the course of time,
from men who may succeed me. My efforts must be considered as mere inklings of a new analysis of language,
attempted in the briefest manner compatible with an exposition of my design. I have opened a mine which contains much precious metal, but what I exhibit are only rude
specimens of the ore.
I will close this Lecture with a few collateral suggestions
on the formation and nature of theories. The words which
the intellect of any man conceives as a theory on any occasion are responses of his intellect to given premises; and
the words that constitute every such theoretical response
are as independent of the man's volition, as the pulsations
of his heart, or the processes of his digestive organs. Were
the responses not thus involuntary, the intellect would be
like an oracle that could speak only what the interrogator
should direct; and hence be useless. But while the theoretical responses of the intellect are involuntary, every verbal response of a man's intellect is derived from his objective knowledge; the intellect, in conceiving words, being




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 213
like a man who is playing whist, and who can play such
cards only as happen to have been dealt to him. WVe accordingly find that the intellect, in conceiving theories,
conceives French words on one side of the British Channel, and English words on the other side; and in a rude
age conceives rude theories, and in a refined age conceives
subtile theories. A mani's objective employments also regulate to a great degree the words that his intellect will
conceive in its theoretical responses to given premises: —a
chemist's intellect responding with words which relate to
chemistry; a mechanic's, with words that relate to mechanics; and a mathematician's, with words that relate to mathematics, etc. Still, while the intellects of different men
vary thus in the words which they conceive as theories on
any given occasion, the intellectual organism that gives an
~unverbal meaning to the conceived words, may be much
alike in all men, whatever difference exists being in quality rather than in kind; just as the physical actions of different men vary in modes of performance rather than in
variety of actions; and just as an Esquimaux Indian and a
London alderman differ in the food which they eat, while
the organic impulse which craves food, and for which the
food is eaten, is alike in both the persons. Hence, though
the gravitation which the intellect conceives now as upholding the earth, is different, verbally, from the Atlantean
shoulders that the intellect' conceived formerly as upholding it; yet, except in differences that are sensibly perceptible, the two verbal theories signify unverbally only the




214           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
organism of the intellect. We may repeat the same remark
of all theories.'" The horror of a vacuum," and "the pressure of the atmosphere," differ not from each other in the
relation of truth and fiction; the modern theory may be
more useful than the old, and its sensible meaning may
refer to a greater number of sensibly perceptible particulars; but so much of both theories as is not sensibly perceptible, but only intellectually conceived, is subjective,
and signifies, unverbally, nothing but the organism of the
intellect-both the theories referring probably to the same
organic unverbal impulse.
~ 10. As a consequence of the circumscription which
thus seems to pertain to men's intellectual conceptions, the
intellect is continually superseding old theories with new,
as it acquires new objective knowledge. When earthquakes
were felt in a rude age, the intellect of the observers responded thereto by conceiving, verbally, that imprisoned
Titans were struggling to liberate themselves; but the discovery of gunpowder enabled the intellect to conceive that
earthquakes were caused by spontaneously generated and
spontaneously ignited gunpowder. On the discovery of
steam power, the intellect was enabled to again amend its
verbal theory by substituting steam as the conceived cause
of earthquakes, and new verbal causes will continue to be
conceived therefor to the end of time, as the intellect shall
become acquainted with new objective agencies; the agency whose results the intellect shall deem most analogous




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 215
to earthquakes, will always be the cause therefor which the
intellect will verbally assign.
But I desire particularly to remark in relation to theories —and I solicit for the remark much attention-that
every theory is a fiction to the extent that we employ it to
materialize a modus operandi that is only intellectually
conceived, and such a materialization is the object of every
theory. The object is in its nature a fallacy, and unattainable; the intellect being organically incapable of revealing
to us new physical existences: for instance, when I see a
needle rush towards a magnet, my intellect is not satisfied
with merely the sensible facts; it will organically insist on
conceiving some physical modus operandi which shall assimilate what I see in the needle and magnet to what I
experience in myself when I draw towards me a chair or
some other object. To satisfy this organic impulse, the intellect will conceive some physical emanation from the
magnet to the needle, or some other theoretical physical
machinery; but the attempt becomes a delusion the moment we deem physical the intellectually conceived verbal
theory. If a philosopher were to tell'me that by means
of a powerful microscope, he had become able to see the
emanation from the magnet to the needle, I should knowthe statement was like the moon hoax, heretofore alluded
to, and that he was labouring under. some delusion. The
emanation is only a conception of the intellect, and cannot
be transmuted into a sensible reality, the two things being
generically different, heterogeneous, and inconvertible, On




216           THE MIEANING OF WORDS.
this principle, I entertain no doubt that some fallacy exists
in relation to the late pendulous experiments at Paris, and
which seem to materialize unverbally the intellectually conceived diurnal motion of the earth-a conception as little
likely to be realized physically as the once intellectually
conceived residence of the soul in the pineal gland is likely
to be realized physically; or as the intellectual conception
of spectres, ghosts, fairies, and kindred beings, is likely to
be realized physically. I shall not be surprised if, eventually, we discover also that some fallacy exists in the experiment of Dr. Maskelyn, in Perthshire, that a mountain
will so attract a plummet as to prevent the plummet from
falling perpendicularly, and a kindred experiment made
by Mr. Cavendish in 1788. The experiments materialize
too literally to be reasonable the physical attraction towards
each other which is intellectually conceived to exist universally in physical bodies. If I am correctly informed, a
fallacy has been discovered in the experiments that seemed
to realize unverbally the intellectual conceptions of Newton, that diamonds and carbon are physically homogeneous.
The only intellectual conceptions of which we ought to expect a physical realization, are such as are analogous to
existing sensible perceptions: as, for instance, when we
conceive of a newly discovered lake that it contains fish,
our conception will be more likely to be realized physically than to be disappointed. In such conceptions, the
intellect is performing its proper common-sense functions.
So, also, when astronomers conceived. that the great nebu



UJNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 217
la in Orion was produced by indistinct stars, the intellect
was only assimilating the nebula to what had previously
been realized in the galaxy; hence, in that case also, the
intellect was only performing its proper common-sense
functions; and when the improved telescope of Lord Rosse
subsequently materialized the conception, the materialization no way conflicts with the foregoing skepticism in relation to the pendulous experiments at Paris, etc.
10




LECTURE IXo
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
CONTENTS.
1. The subjective nature of intellectual verbal conceptions, as contradistinguished from objective things, is urged upon our notice by the
necromantic dilemmas to which the intellect organically arrives in
predicating verbal conceptions to their ultimate results.
2. Conceptions of the intellect are organic, but not innate; their evolvement depending on accidental objective occurrences.
~1. Locke says, "'that every person who possesses an
idea of a foot, finds he can repeat the idea, and, joining it
to the former, make the idea of two feet."  "I e may,"
says Locke, " continue the process without ever arriving at
an end of his increase, whether the idea so enlarged be a
foot, a mile, the diameter of the earth, or the orbis magnus."  In my last Lecture I showed, that words which the
intellect thus conceives on any occasion mean, physically,
the sensibly perceptible objects only to which the words
refer, and that the residue of meaning possessed by such intellectually conceived words is subjective, and exists in the
organism of the intellect. I suppose this limitation in the
sensible signification of words is not recognized in our spec



UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 219
ulations, and that we fallaciously deem the meaning of such
words wholly physical. The error is very consequential,
and surrounds our verbal knowledge with much mystery;
just as the word ghost becomes mysterious when we deem
it more than a verbal conception of the intellect, and especially when we mistake it for an objective existence. Our
intellect, whose organization permits Locke's process of addition illimitably, and irrespectively of whether the addenda possess any physical archetype or not, may be likened
to the wind, which is organized to blow whether any ships
be wafted by it or not, and to fill the exposed sails of a
ship whether the ship be moored to a dock or drifting on
the ocean.
The intellectual organization, which permits the intellect
to thus add whether the addenda be physical or not, is as
useful as the physical organization which permits the wind
to blow, whether any ship is, or not, propelled thereby;
but the usefulness of neither organic process is impaired by
our discrimination of what is subjective in the processes
from what is objective. Indeed, Providence, as if to force
on us the discrimination in the organism of the wind, compels our senses to note that a moored ship remains stationary, notwithstanding the continued bellying of her sails by
the wind; and as if to force on us the discrimination in the
organism of the intellect, between what is subjective and
what is objective, compels the intellect to note that the
continued process of addition leads ultimately to an extension without a terminus, or a terminus that no extension




220            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
can reach; either result being as evincive that the process
is not objective, but relates only to the organism of the intellect, as the immobility of the ship is evincive that the
continued bellying of her sails relates only to the organism
of the wind.
~ 2. Equally evincive with the above, of the distinction
between sensibly objective things and intellectually subjective conceptions, is the intellectually conceived boundlessness of space. Soar in imagination ever so high, plunge
ever so low, or extend laterally ever so far, the intellect
can arrive at no end of its conception of space. Even if
we imagine adamantine barriers in any direction, we are
sure, says Locke, "that space exists to the extent of the
barriers; and where the barriers terminate, space must commence again."  But now, I say, if the foregoing results be
not merely subjective (evincive of the organism of the intellect), a dilemma arises as necromantic as what we arrived at above, in extension; and we must admit the existence of an objective space without bounds, or objective
bounds without space. To me the dilemma would be conclusive of the merely subjective character of the process,
if I possessed no other criterion of its purely intellectual
character. But a criterion exists entirely sufficient for me,
irrespective of the above: whatever my senses cannot perceive must be intellectual, and cannot be physical. If I
am incorrect in this, my whole treatise is a fallacy; for I
assume throughout that words are unmeaning, except as
they refer to some thing that is unverbal; and that unver



UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 221
bal things are heterogeneous, being intellectual, sensible,
and emotional.
~ 3. That the earth needs no support is also an intellectual conception that depends for its unverbal signification
on only the organism of the intellect; for if we adopt the
Indian tradition, that the earth rests on an elephant, and
the, elephant on a tortoise, the intellect will still organically
insist that the tortoise must rest on something, and so ad
infinitum. Nor can the earth hang on any thing. The
intellect may verbally suspend the earth with a chain from
the sky, but the intellect will insist on a support to sustain
the sky; and so again ad infinitum. The intellect is thus
brought to the necromantic dilemma that usually attends
such verbal processes; the intellect being compelled to
choose between a conceived ultimate support that is unsupported, or a conceived ultimate suspension that is unsuspended. Modern astronomers select the latter alternative,
and dismissing both Atlas and the elephant, conceive, intellectually, that the earth is suspended in space without a
suspension on any thing, and mistake this logical subjective
result of their intellectual organism for a physical reality:
much like the fabled dog, who mistook for a rival quadruped what was only a subjective creation of the water into
which he was looking.
~ 4. That every given time must have been preceded-by
a past, and must be followed by a future, are among the
most inevitable conceptions of the intellect; but when the
intellect proceeds illimitably with the past, the process




222           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
brings us to the usual necromantic dilemma of a past without any antecedent, or an antecedent which had no beginning. Nor is our intellectual process with reference to a
future any less necromantic, for we ultimately arrive at an
end without any future, or a future without any end.
~ 5. That every thing required in its construction some
material, is another conception that the intellect is organically incapable of avoiding; but when the intellect continues such conceptions abstractedly and illimitably, it arrives as usual at a necromantic dilemma, which presents us
with a first material that was made out of nothing, or an
eternity of things without any beginning to the series. The
latter conclusion was held by the ancients; the creative
power of Deity, said they, extends no farther than the arrangement of pre-existing materials. The moderns reject
this circumscription of Divine power, and, taking the opposite alternative, insist that God created every thing out of
nothing. Spinoza deemed both results unsatisfactory, and
insisted that Deity was the material out of which all things
are created. This he esteemed a great physical discovery
of the intellect, and by which the maxim, nihil fit ex nihilo, was reconciled with the sole eternity of Deity. In
view of such intellectual speculations which differ only in
topics, not in kind, from any others that confound what pertains to the intellect subjectively with what pertains to the
senses objectively, we may see that the wisdom of the
world may well be accounted " foolishness with God." The
intellect, by conceiving words in logical forms, cannot dis



EUNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 223
cover physical things which our senses have not revealed
to us, any more than we can, "by taking thought, add a
cubit to our stature."
~ 6. The intellect is organically compelled to conceive
also, that nothing can exist without a maker; but when weintellectually predicate a maker illimitably, we arrive at a
dilemma of the usual character, and must choose between
a succession of makers without a beginning, or a beginning
without a maker. The same may be repeated, severally,
of the intellectual conceptions of a cause,-a contriver, a designer; in each case we must choose between the conception of an endless succession of causes, contrivers, designers, without a first; or we must arrest the succession by an
intellectually conceived first, that is uncaused, uncontrived,
and undesigned, etc. A celebrated European philosopher,
in lecturing on the above topics, was in the habit of prefacing his introduction by saying to his class, " Now, gentlemen, we will make God 1" The remark was probably
a sarcasm, for he belonged to the school which deems words
insignificant when they refer to no sensible object; not seeing that intellectually. conceived words derive an unverbal
subjective meaning from the intellect whose aspirations
and organism generally the conceived words manifest: just
as the words scarlet, sweet, loud, fragrant, etc., derive an
unverbal meaning from only the senses whose perceptions
they designate; and just as the words anger, love, and pity,
derive an unverbal meaning from only the internal feelings
the words refer to.




224           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
~ 7. The indestructibility of matter is another conception:
of the intellect similar to the foregoing; the intellect being
organically compelled to admit it, or to admit, ultimately,
that something is nothing. The infinite divisibility of matter is another intellectual necessity of the same character;
the intellect being organically necessitated to admit it, or
to admit, ultimately, that a whole is not greater than a
part. But while I endeavour to show that intellectually
conceived words result from, and signify unverbally an
intellectual organism, I mean not to assert that any verbal
conceptions are innate, even when, like most or all the foregoing, they are found in all ages of the world and among
all races of men. I claim only that given verbal conceptions are a result of the organism of the intellect when
placed under given objective circumstances; and that the
universality of any given verbal conception is a result of
only the universality of the excitive objective circumstances; just as you will find language wherever you find
human society-apple-eaters, wherever you find applesclimbers, wherever you find hills-swimmers and fishers,
wherever you find water —and walkers every where, the
earth being co-extensive with man.




LECTURE X.
OF THE UNFALLACIOUS PROSECUTION OF INQUISITIOA~.
CONTENTS.
1. Retrospect of the preceding Lecture.
2. Questions analysed into an inquirer, inquiree, and object.
3. Each of the three is unverbally triform, and only verbally a unit.
4. The error exemplified of seeking sensibly what is only intellectual, and
of seeking intellectually what is only sensible.
5. Inquisition is limited by the purview of our sensible, intellectual, and
moral organisms.
6. All physical inquisition is unanswerable that is not within the purview
of the senses; all intellectual inquisition is unanswerable that is not
within the purview of the intellect; and all inquisition that relates
to the internal feelings is unanswerable that is not within the purview of our consciousness therein.
7. Knowledge, except of language, is, in its ultimate -form, unverbal, not
verbal.
8. Conclusion.
Retrospect of the preceding Lecture.
~ 1. The preceding Lecture teaches that when the intellect premises that any thing is a contrivance, the intellect
is organically constrained to see in the premises that they
include the agency of a contriver; when the intellect premises that any thing is an effect, the intellect is organically
constrained to conceive that the effect required a precedent
10'




226           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
cause; when the intellect premises that any thing is a
whole, the intellect is organically compelled to conceive it
is more than a part; when the intellect premises that A
and B are severally equal to C, the intellect is constrained
to conceive that A is equal to B; when the intellect premises that a mark which exists on a sandy shore is a footprint, the intellect is organically forced to conceive that
some foot imprinted it; and when the intellect conceives
that any thing is an existence, the intellect is organically
compelled to conceive that the existence had a beginning,
and must suffer a termination, etc. Wherein the cogency
consists of given premises to compel the intellect to conceive therefrom given conclusions, I shall not inquire, for
I am not writing a treatise on the intellect. The rationale
of the process is, however, I think obvious; and in pages
164 to 206, of a former publication (entitled "A Treatise
on Language," etc., published by the Harpers, of New
York, for me in 1836), I manifested my views thereon
elaborately; biut the subject is not properly within my present design, which is limited to the unverbal meaning of
words. Conclusions of the intellect, like the foregoing examples, are words, and only as such are they within my
purview; and I have shown, in Lecture VIII., that, except
what the senses can perceive, the ultimate unverbal meaning of intellectually conceived words is the organism of the
intellect; just as the ultimate unverbal physical meaning
of paralysis, beyond what is sensible, is the organism of
our physical formation.




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF- LANGUAGE. 227
By means of our intellectual organism, my intellect is
compelled to conceive, that what I behold in certain rocks
and stones are the fossilized remains of an extinct species
of animals that existed anterior to the Deluge; that certain
existing ravines are extinct rivers; certain existing rocks,
extinct volcanoes; certain distantly separated existing eminences, parts of a former entirety; that the centre of the
earth is fire, and the surface of the earth a cool crust of
what was originally a mass in fusion. Astronomy presents
to my intellect premises which constrain it to conceive that
the Asteroids are fragments of a large planet burst asunder
by some unknown natural convulsion; though other premises will compel my intellect to conceive that the above
is an unreasonable hypothesis, and to supersede it by conceiving that the Asteroids were made in their present form
and for just the purposes they now subserve. A sermon
will present to my intellect premises from which it will
conceive the mode in which the dead are to be re-animated
at the last day, and whether friends are to recognize each
other, or remain unrecognized. The conclusions are all
very reasonable, I may say. They accord with my intellectual organism as satisfactorily as a well prepared omelet
accords with my physical organization. The conclusions
signify, unverbally, the organism of my intellect, just as
ventriloquism, whistling, talking, singing, and screaming,
evince the organism of my viocal powers; and just as pain,
smart, burn, etc., evince the organism of my physical formation. Now, I admit, that I can but postulate this doe




228           THE MEAlNING OF WORDS.
trine. The doctrine is a verbal conception of my intellect
as organic and subjective only, in its ultimate unverbal signification, as the other intellectual conceptions that I have
alluded to, and possessing neither more unverbal significancy than they, nor less. I insist only, as positive knowledge, that intellectually conceived words can mean, physically, nothing but what is sensibly perceptible, and that
all their other signification, except what is emotional, is
intellectual, deriving its whole unverbal unction'from the
organism'of the intellect.
But wherein is the above doctrine new? In this: other
men fail to recognize that nearly every word may relate to
three heterogeneous unverbal things.  The fire, for instance, with which I am warming my boots, is sensiblethe fire of lust, zeal, hate, opinion, etc., is an internal feeling; but the fire which the intellect conceives, verbally, in
the centre of the earth, is an intellectual conception. The
three fires are not homogeneous unverbally, though they
are verbally, and I postulate no more. The difference between the three fires is precisely what it is; and thus to
designate the difference is more accurate than any verbal
designation-the unverbal difference being always ultimate
to the verbal (underlying the verbal), select what verbal
designation you may.
~ 2. I have now concluded all that I contemplated saying on the unverbal meaning of intellectually conceived
words, and, indeed, of the unverbal meaning of words in
every other use of them. I have endeavoured to only




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 229make men cease from contemplating unverbal things
through the medium of language. I have endeavoured
that unverbal things shall, on the contrary, occupy in creation the rank and precedence to which they are entitled
as elder brothers of words. The unverbal thing to which
the word man applies, is certainly older and more consequential than the word man: the unverbal thing should,
therefore, be deemed the interpretation or exposition of
the meaning of the word man; not, vice versa, the word be
deemed the interpretation of the unverbal thing. The like
may be said of every other unverbal thing, and I have accordingly endeatoured that the unverbal multiplicity of
any unverbal thing shall be no longer obscured by its verbal oneness; and that the unverbal diversities of any two
things shall be no longer estimated by their verbal sameness or identity. These are, in brief, my whole doctrine,
if you add thereto that I have throughoutt assumed for man
a treble organization-sensible, intellectual, and emotional;
and that every word of all languages must be bounded in
its unverbal signification by the purview of our said three
organisms, and be deemed as heterogeneous in its unverbal
signification as the said three sets of organisms are heterogeneous in their functions. Words apply indiscriminately
to the operations of the three species of organs; hence,
words possess a verbal homogeneity that prevents us from
seeing the heterogeneity of their unverbal meaning. Various phases of this verbal delusion I have adduced, but
only for the purpose of illustrating the result on intellec



230           TIE MEANING OF WORDS.
tual verbal speculations. With a final view to the same
purpose, I will terminate the present speculations with an
investigation of the unverbal signification of verbal inquisition. I have touched on no subject more practically useful, and on none so little understood; for as the eye sees
every visible thing but itself, so questions have interrogated everything but interrogation.
~ 3. Every question presupposes an inquirer, an inquiree, and an object sought. The inquirer we will assume to
be a man, and the inquiree a man also. Language deems
every man a unit, but we have repeatedly shown that the
nominal unit man is unverbally triune-sensible, intellectual, and internal feelings. Every question, therefore, addressed to verbal Peter, is addressed to three inconvertibly
different urnverbal Peters. We can readily conceive some
mystification, were we questioning three Dromios, without
suspecting their want of personal identity; but the mystification is greater with the three Peters that constitute the
nominal unit of every inquiree; the three differing from
each other even more heterogeneously and inconvertibly
than the three Dromios-the senses being organically unable to perform the office of the intellect, and the intellect
being organically unable to perform the offices of the senses,
and the feelings being unable to perform the offices of the
senses or the intellect. If we disregard this latent triplicity
of the inquiree, our questions on any occasion may seek
sensible information from the intellect, or intellectual information from the senses, etc.




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 231
~ 4. The difficulty becomes still more complicated, and
the danger of mystification still more imminent, by the unverbal triplicity that characterizes the objects also of inquisition-the object sought being sometimes sensible information, sometimes intellectual information, and sometimes
emotional information-three entirely distinct and inconvertibly different objects unverbally, but which language
frequently deems an homogeneous unit.
Nearly all the perplexing questions of speculation are
produced by verbal equivokes like the above. Our senses,
for instance, cannot discover how the soul is united to the
body, how effects are united to their causes, how our actions are united to our will, etc. But nothing in these disabilities ought to surprise us; the unions alluded to, being
all conceptions of the intellect, are, by the nature of our organization, not discoverable by our senses, any more than
the wings are which "riches take unto themselves when
they fly away," or any more than sounds are discoverable
by our sight, or colours by our ears. An astronomer, mystified by such indiscriminations, may admire, as a great
physical enigma, that attraction, which pervades the universe, upholds the earth, and keeps the sun, moon, and
planets in their respective orbits, can by no ingenuity of
man be discovered in its physical personality, though its
effects are ever present. The explanation of this enigma
is precisely like the last. The attraction alluded to is a
conception of the intellect, hence not discoverable by our
senses any more than lead is digestible by our stomachs,




232            THE MEANING OF WORI)S.
thoughts tangible by our fingers, or dreams measurable by
the gallon.
What we have said of attraction we may say of vitality.
We are conscious of it, but its sensible personality constantly eludes our senses. The soul also, the mind, the
intellect, severally elude all sensible searches-conscious
of them continually, our senses can nowhere discover them.
Such equivokes pass usually for profound mysteries; but
all mystery vanishes when we know that the respective
words name only conceptions of the intellect, and of course
their meaning is not within the purview of our senses. The
fallacy shows itself often in the science of medicine. Medical theories are intellectual conceptiols; but physicians
are continually striving to realize them physically; just as
persons who seek to discover perpetual motion are endeavouring to realize sensibly a. notion which exists only intellectually. The theories of diseases, of contagion, of generation, of alimentation, are severally conceptions of the
intellect; and to the extent that the conception in each
case is only intellectually conceived words, the mystery of
our inability to realize it physically is a delusion. That
inoculation will prevent small-pox, that vaccination is equivalent to inoculation, are conceptions of the intellect; but
when sensible results conflict therewith in any particular,
we need not be surprised-the theory and the sensible results belonging to two generically and inconvertibly different compartments of our knowledge; hence their conflict
unverball y is no mysterious duality of any unverbal iden



UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 233
tity, the identity being only a verbal equivoke. A universal panacea, an elixir of life, a universal dissolvent, the
transmutations of alchemy, are all conceptions of the intellect; but men who sought them as physical existences,
were deluded by the verbal homogeneity of sensible objects
and intellectual conceptions.  That physical results habitually conform measurably to theoretical anticipations
evinces only the beneficial design of our intellectual organization, and no way subverts the utility of our knowing
the unverbal heterogeneity of intellectual conceptions and
sensible perceptions.
~ 5. The intellect insists, imperatively and irresistibly,
that every occurrence is the effect of some cause; hence,
when a disease occurs, our intellect will insist that a cause
has preceded it; but we are not always able to discover
any sensible cause. We rarely recognize that the necessity which insists on a cause belongs only to the organismof our intellect, and that the undiscoverability of any sensible cause is not a conflicting fact, but an additional fact:
both facts are equally true, but they relate to different organisms; the necessity for a cause being intellectual, while
the undiscoverability of a cause is physical. This distinction I deem highly important, and it removes much speculative mystery; for when we deem a cause as much a physical necessity as it is an intellectual necessity, we are certainly involved in a delusive indiscrimination between the
organic duality of our knowledge.
But I have been asked, whether the iundiscoverability of




234           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
a physical cause is equivalent to the non-existence of a
physical cause? I answer, that the two propositions possess different intellectual meanings, but not necessarily different physical meanings. Every proposition means physically the physical facts only to which it refers; hence, to
affirm of any given occurrence, that no physical cause exists
therefor or to affirm that no physical cause therefor is discoverable, will in both cases possess but one physical meaning, if they both refer to the same physical fact. I am
anxious to manifest only that when we deem a cause as
much a physical necessity as it is an intellectual necessity,
we are identifying things that are generically different, and
hence we are mystifying our knowledge by means of a
misunderstanding of the nature of language. We are viewing unverbal things through the veil which, the oracle says,
has never been taken off.
The intellect will insist'also, that the generation of a
foetus, the germination of a seed, the assimilation of nourishment into the substances of our body, etc., must result
from -some processes analogous to sensible creative operations; and when such processes are not discoverable sensibly, we deem the processes peculiarly mysterious; but our
knowledge will be less sophistical by understanding the
generic intransmutability of intellectual conceptions into
sensible things, and hence, that the disagreement of the
two, as above, is only a manifestation of our knowledge in
its unverbal truth.
That on the earth some point exists where magnetic at



UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 235
traction is fixedly located, is a conception of the intellect;
and such a locality is said to have been discovered physically by some late Arctic navigator, though I much doubt:
it. The discovery will, however, only show the possibility
of a sensible realization of an intellectual conception; just
as the search after hidden treasure, founded on a dream,
may also be occasionally realized. The cases are, however,
wholly different, inasmuch as the intellect was organized
to prompt and aid our physical researches, and hence, intellectual conceptions of a given analogy to sensible perceptions are often realized sensibly; while dreams were not
made to facilitate the discovery of buried treasures, and are
rarely realized.
The intellect conceives that all sensible perceptions are
but qualities of some physical substratum. What this intellectually conceived substratum is physically, philoso
phers say the senses cannot discover-the senses being able
to know only the effects produced in them by this undiscoverable substratum. That such a substance exists, and
that no efforts of the senses can discover it, seems very mysterious till we find that it is only a conception of the intellect; hence, like thought, it is organically out of the purview of the senses, and to say we cannot discover it, is onlry
equivalent to saying that the senses cannot discover what
is not sensible. Language speaks, however, of substance,
as it would speak of a horse; and when we look only
verbally, the inability of the senses to discover the intellectually conceived  substance seems as mysterious




236           THE 1EANING OF WORDS.
as would be our inability to discover a postulated horse.
The intellect conceives that terrestrial creation constitutes
a chain, which ascends by links of so insensible a gradation
from unorganized matter to man, the climax of organized
materiality, that we cannot discover, sensibly, where inorganic matter ends and organic commences, where vegetable life ends, and animal commences, or where any
species of animality terminates and another species commences-including even the link which separates man from
some other animals. Our inability to discover the postulated links and gradations constitutes the mystery. But
we have discovered them, or we should be unable to talk
about them! This explains the mystery: what we have
discovered are intellectual, but what we cannot discover
are sensible.  We cannot discover, sensibly, the chain,
links, gradations, etc., that we conceive intellectually. The
inability proceeds from no defect of the senses, from no inscrutableness of unverbal things, but simply from the heterogeneity of our organisms. What is conceived intellectually, and what is perceived sensibly, may be nominally
identical and verbally homogeneous; but, unverbally, they
belong to different worlds-the world of the intellect, and
the world of the senses. Instead of contrasting the discoverability and undiscoverability as mysterious antagonists,
we should note the antagonism as parts of our experinental knowledge, and thereby obey the ancient injunction,
"Know thyself." And here we may note how insidiously,
in cases like the above, we play a game of bo-peep with




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 237
the word "' discover," using it at one moment to designate
an intellectual operation, and the next moment to designate
a sensible operation, without recognizing that we are talking of two processes that are unverbally heterogeneous,
though verbally homogeneous.
In a treatise, entitled." The Theory of Agreeable Sensations," a recent writer says: "Actors, when they either
laugh or weep, affect spectators with the sensations which
the drama expresses; but who can discover the mechanism
by which the fibres of the actor's brain transmit themselves to that of the spectators!" The discovery spoken
of as mysteriously impracticable is, of course, to be physical; while the things to be discovered are only conceptions
of the intellect, namely, "the mechanism by which the
fibres of the actor's brain transmit themselves to the brain
of other persons." The delusion becomes apparent the
moment we penetrate through the homogeneity of words,
and analyze unverbal things into their generic differences.
In the same fallacious way we may marvel that we cannot
find, sensibly, how animal life commences-how something becomes nothing, or nothing becomes somethinghow external objects or their impressions are carried by the
nerves to the brain, etc.; and for the simple reason, that
the things to be found sensibly, are not sensible but intellectual conceptions.
~ 6. The great instruments of verbal inquisition are the
words what and how; as when we say, what is gravity?how is the soul united to the body? The moment we




238           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
clearly understand the "what" and "how" as inquiring
after some physical thing, we see why we cannot tell what
gravity is personally-its personality being not a physical
thing, but a conception of the intellect; hence, the question
is equivalent to asking what physical thing is a thing that
is not physical. We may repeat the same remarks of how
the soul is united to the body. The question, as usually,propounded, is equivalent to asking what physical modus
operandi is a modus operandi that is not physical.
~ 7. I discover in the work of Auguste Comte, as translated by Harriet Martineau (the only form in which I have
seen any work of his), that he deprecates all inquiries like
the above, they being, as he thinks, beyond the purview
of human knowledge. He says: "As to what weight and
attraction are, we have nothing to do with that question,
for it is not a matter of knowledge at all." That so recent
a philosopher as Comte, so acute, learned, and discriminating, is still so bewildered by the homogeneity of words,
as to mistake an error of inquisition for a mystery transcending human knowledge, is to me an encouraging proof
that the present work is not unnecessary. He says, again:
"Mr. Fourier, in his fine researches on heat, has given us
the most important and precise laws of the phenomena of
heat, and many large and new truths, without once inquiring into the nature of heat, as his predecessors had done,
when they disputed about calorific matter and the action
of an universal ether." Certainly, if we are to mistake for
physical the "calorific matter" and the "universal ether,"




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 239
which are only intellectual conceptions, Mr. Fourier was
wise in not disputing about such delusive misconstructions;
but his researches would not have been injured, they would
have been more definite, had he stated that his inquiries
were not directed to the physical personality of heat, as
contradistinguished from heat's sensible manifestationssuch physical personality being not physical, but caily a
conception of the intellect.
Like the above is the assertion of Comte, that we are
"without data about the constitution of bodies."  I infer
from the context, that he means we possess no physical data
in relation to the constituents which the intellect conceives
to be the components of physical bodies. Of course we
possess no such physical data, and never can possess any;
the components being not physical, but intellectual conceptions. He also quotes, approvingly, somebody as saying,
that the " miniature picture" which is painted on the retina
of the eye in vision, and by which distant external objects
are brought to the notice of the intellect, cannot avail
the intellect, unless the intellect possesses another eye to
see the miniature. This sarcasm is pretty, but far prettier
is an elucidation of the mistake which deems the optical
theory in relation to the miniature a physical modus operandi, instead of only an intellectual conception. Our indiscrimination between intellectual conceptions and sensible
perceptions, seems proportioned in degree to the marvel
that can be produced by the indiscrimination. Every person talks of the above optical theory with apparently an




240           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
entire unsuspicion of the difference between what is sensibly perceptible in relation thereto, and what is intellectually conceived. The same may be said of the theoretical
agency of our nerves in general, in fetching information
from external objects to our brain, and carrying volitions'from the brain to the other members of our body; of our
supporting severally on our bodies a physical pressure bf
fourteen tons of atmosphere; of being physically whirled
through space every hour about a thousand miles in one
direction' and about fifty-eight thousand miles in another
direction. Infidelity sneers at the prophet Joshua, and we
laugh at all the ancients who supposed the earth was at
rest, and that the sun and other celestial bodies revolved
around our earth, as we now conceive that the earth revolves around the sun; and no man can be found who
supposes that the difference is not physical, and that we
differ from the ancients in only our intellectual conceptions
on the subject. Our internal feelings relish the indiscrimination which we practise between what is intellectual and
what is physical; and to this encouragement, more than to
any obtuseness of the intellect, we doubtless owe the undisturbed prevalence of the indiscrimination; just as we
owe to the same encouragement feats of legerdemain, the
tales of the Arabian Nights, and the growing tendency to
fabulize all history and all biography. We relish the
equivoke in the Arabian tales and in legerdemain, though
our intellect detects it; and we may continue to relish also
our historical, biographical, and-our scientific indiscrimina



UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 24-1
tions between what is physical and what is intellectual,
after our intellect shall detect them; and continue their
employment as a provocative to reading and to scientific
studies, an end for which, more than any other probably,
they have so long remained unchallenged.
How mysterious are the ways of Providence! This is a
familiar expression. iPhysical events will not conform to
our conceptions of the order in which they ought to transpire, and we deem the physical variance quite mysterious,
and ask the intellect what the variance means. It means
that we fail to discriminate the generic difference between
intellectual conceptions and sensible perceptions. The intellect will conceive according to either its organic or indoctrinated tendencies-its conceptions being subjective,
not objective; hence the variance between our conception
of how events ought to transpire, and our sensible perception of the order in which they occur, are no way antagonistic to each other-the two belonging to different branches
of our ego.  WTVonld we understand accurately the "ways
of Providence," we must learn them from our sensible experience if we desire a sensible fruition of the search; but
if we desire an intellectual fruition, we must accept such
intellectually conceived words as different intellects will
conceive under different conditions or under different indoctrinations. The above is what my intellect conceives
on the subject, and I give it for nothing more.
~ 8. YHaving thus given many examples of questions
which seek sensibly what is intellectual, I will adduce some
11




242            THE MEANING OF WORDS,
of the correlative errors.of seeking intellectually for something that is physical. tHow mysterious, we exclaim, is
death! What can it be?  We desire the intellect to tell
us what death is physically-the death which the intellect
conceives. This desire in us to have the intellect materialize its conceptions of death, and, indeed, all its concep
tions, is organic in our feelings, and is the source of all
theories and hypotheses.  That this organic tendency is
useful we know, from the practical purposes which theories
subserve, and from the faith we possess that all our organic
powers and aspirations subserve important practical utilities. But while we thus accord importance to such inquiries of the intellect as ask of it what death is in material
personality?-what life, spirit, mind, soul are respectively?
-we shall gain nothing by not recognizing that, though
the intellect may conceive some theory or hypothesis by
which to assimilate its conceptions of death, etc., to personalities sensibly perceptible, yet the theoretical assimilation
will still be intellectual, not physical. The inherent distinction, and the inconvertible difference, are insurmountable between the unverbal things of the three great departments.into which are divisible all we know or can know.
Language can assimilate the three heterogeneous things
verbally, but not unverbally; language can transmute unverbal things Due into another verbally; but, unverbally,
they are untransmutable.
"When," says Comte, "any attempt has been made to
explain what is attraction and weight, it has ended only in




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 243.
saying, that attraction is universal weight, and that weight
is terrestrial attraction: that is, that the two orders of
phenomena are identical, which is the point from which
the question set out." Of course, if you ask the intellect
what (physical thing understood) weight and attraction
are, the intellect can answer by only some intellectually conceived words. If you desire any other answerespecially if you desire a physical answer —your question
must be directed, not to the intellect, but to the senses.
If we Want figs, we must not go to a thistle; and if we
want thistles, we must not seek them on fig-trees: this obvious scriptural precept applies to our unverbal knowledge
in its threefold heterogeneity.
"The little bodies which compose water, and which are
so loose one froml another that the least force separates
them, and which bodies, from their perpetual motion, seem
to possess no cohesion, will unite under a sharp cold, and
not be separated without great force." I quote the above
from Locke, who adds, "that he who could make known
the cement that makes the little bodies adhere so closely
together, would discover a great and yet unknown secret."
What cement makes the particles of frozen water adhere
together so closely, is the above question mooted by Locke.
His intellect conceived that water was composed of " little
particles," and that ice was produced by some "cement"
which solidified the conceived particles. The intellectually
conceived particles and cement he, being misled by language, deemed homogeneous with physical particles and




244           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
physical cement. This was error number one, and under
the influence thereof, he deemed very mysterious that his
senses could neither feel nor see in ice the little particles
nor the cement that his intellect conceived to be therein.
Baffled in his ability to thus discover sensibly what are
only intellectual, he committed error number two, by seeking from his intellect the physical personality of the fallaciously assumed physical particles and cement. But his
intellect could, of course, yield him no perceptions thereof;
his intellect could yield him only its own intellectual conceptions thereon; and thus he deemed the particles and
cement " a great and yet unknown mystery." Had Locke
said that in his mind was some thought that no man's
senses could discover, no person would have suffered surprise, the terms of the proposition evincing sufficiently.
that he alluded to an intellection; but when Locke speaks
of cement, particles, etc., the threefold meanings which
such words can bear, unverbally, prevents us from seeing that Locke is employing them in only their intellectual meaning, and hence necessarily, that our senses cannot discover them.
~ 9. Hume says, "Our senses inform us of the colour,
weight, and consistence of bread; but neither sense nor
reason can inform us of the qualities which fit bread for the
nourishment and support of the human body." Certain
qualities are here postulated which neither the senses nor
the intellect can inform us of. How, then, do we know
they exist?  We must know from the intellect; for if the




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 245
senses cannot discover them, they are intellectually conceived qualities, and this accounts for why we cannot be
informed of them by the senses. But why not by the reason or intellect?  Because we require the answer to be
physical, consequently we cannot obtain it through the
intellect. The intellect and the senses can inform us what
fits bread for the nourishment and support of the body;
but we must ask from the senses only sensible information,
and from the intellect only intellectual information; and
not permit the duplicity of the word "qualities" to mislead
us into an inquiry after sensible qualities from the intellect,
or intellectually conceived qualities from the senses.
Locke says, further: " Our body possesses the power of
communicating motion by impulse, and our soul the power
of exciting motion by thought; but if we would inquire
how the soul and body produce these effects, we are entirely in the dark."  Let us separate the above soul and
body. The body communicates motion by impulse, but
"of the modus operandi we are entirely in the dark." The
question, therefore, must inquire after some modus operandi that is not sensible, but an intellectually conceived
modus operandi; and we cannot find it sensibly of course.
But we cannot find "how our soul excites motion by
thought."  The modus operandi that is now sought is
physical, and of course we cannot find it intellectually.
In ordinary inquiries, however, of the intellect after a
physical modus operandi, the intellect will conceive a theory which will verbally satisfy our inquiry; but when the




246           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
inquiry relates to how "the soul excites by thought the
physical motion of our limbs," the process of volition,
which is the object of the inquiry, is so unique that sensible experience supplies'the intellect with no sensible materials out of which it can conceive a satisfactory theoretical
modus operandi. Our bodily power to communicate sensible motion by impulse is equally unique; hence, in both
cases, an intellectually conceived modus operandi is equally
difficult, and the difficulty is the fallacious mystery.
We cannot find how " light passes through solid crystal;" that is, the senses cannot perceive the modus operandi which the intellect conceives, and which, of course, is
not sensible, but ani intellectual conception; or we may
reverse the enigma, and seek in the intellect for a physical
modus operandi; and of course we cannot find it, unless
we accept therefor a theory, and mistake it for a physical
revelation.
~ 10. I have, as yet, said nothing of questions in which
the object sought relates to an internal feeling. Burke inquires, " Vhy visible objects of great dimensions are sublime?"  Let us assume that he meant an internal feeling
by the word sublime. The reason, then, why visible objects
of great dimensions excite such a feeling, is like inquiring
why sugar excites the taste that we call sweetness. We
are so organized as to have the feeling of sublimity excited
by what does excite it, and the taste of sweetness excited
by what does excite it. But Burke meant more. He
wanted the intellect to find some modus operandi, and his




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 247
intellect accordingly conceived a mode which I will not
quote; but it answered his question in the way he desired
an answer, and he was accordingly satisfied. But another
person may not be satisfied, but may want to find sensibly
Burke's intellectually conceived modus operandi; and being unable to discover it sensibly, may deem the inability
a great mystery.
~ 11. What is pride, vanity, ambition, wisdom, wit, folly,
anger, rage?  Books have been written to answer these
questions, not, however, by enabling our consciousness to
recognize the internal feeling which each word names, but
to state what the intellect conceives of the materiality and
corporeity of.the various personalities —for such the intellect conceives them to be; and the writers seem to possess
no suspicion that the intellect can tell no more in the premises than its conceptions thereon. They evidently imnpute to the feeling named anger, and the intellectual conception of its personality, etc., an homogeneity and oneness
that exists verbally only. The like may be said of each
other nominal feeling.
~ 12. Can we prove the existence of an external universe?  Can a man prove his own existence?  Nothing
which philosophy has debated is perhaps so mysterious as
these questions; but the whole mystery exists in the duplicity, or rather triplicity, of the word prove. When it
refers to the intellect, it alludes to an intellectual proof;
when it refers to the senses, it means a sensible proof; and
when it refers to the internal feelings, it means an emo



248           THE MiEANING OF WORDS,
tional proof, a feeling of consciousness. When, therefore,
Descartes commenced his investigations with a determination to assent to nothing that he could not prove, and began with the logical enthymeme, "I think, therefore I am,"
he was alluding to an intellectual proof. "But," replies
Dr, Reid, "how do you prove that you think?  If you
assume this without proof, you may assume your own existence without proof." Dr. Reid maintains that only consciousness can prove the existence of an external universe,
or of a man's own persona] existence. Of course, therefore,
Dr. Reid is alluding to an emotional proof-not to the
proof that Descartes alluded to.  " But," says a subsequent
writer, "how do you prove the existence of consciousness
of which you speak?" He doubtless referred to a sensible
proof, and consciousness is not sensibly perceptible, nor is
the cogency of logic sensibly perceptible; therefore, this
writer can maintain that neither the external world, nor his
own personality, iS provable by consciousness or logic.
Of the Nunverbal limitation of verbal inquisition.
g 1. Having, I hope, sufficiently shown the errors which
are involved in verbal inquisition, when we disregard the
heterogeneity which exists among unverbal things that are
verbally homogeneous, I will subjoin a few remarks on
the limits of verbal inquisition. To inquire of the blind
in relation to colours, or of the deaf in relation to sounds,
is known to be ineffectual; but we know not with equal
clearness that all inquisition is bounded by man's intellect,




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 249
his senses, and his internal feelings; and that any question
that relates not to one of these three departments of our
ego is as unanswerable as an inquiry of the blind and deaf
above alluded to, and for precisely the same reason. I will,
however, assume as a result, now sufficiently evident, that
every question is unanswerable whose object is not within
the purview of some one of our three organic inquirees;
as, for instance, the question asked ironically by Sterne:
" What if the sun should wander from the zodiac?"  But
some intellects may be able to conceive consequences from
even such premises; hence, to them, the question of Sterne
will not be unanswerable intellectually, though it is unanswerable sensibly and morally. Indeed, language can frame
no question that the intellect may not answer with some
conceived words, even were we to ask the effect which
would result should a spark of fire fall amid the satellites
of Jupiter. This illimitability of intellectual inquisition
we can more readily understand when we consider that the
intellect which asks questions is the intellect that answers;
the questioner and questionee being, therefore, identical in
personality, are identical in purview.
Examples are, however, easily given of unanswerable
physical inquisition; as, for instance, what is the shape of
a taste, or the colour of a sound?  These questions are
unanswerable, by reason that their object, if you admit it
to be physical information, is not within the purview of
the senses-the senses being the inquiree to whom the
questions are addressed. In addition, therefore, to the gen1*




250            THE MEANING OF WORDS.
eral postulate; that all solvable inquisition is limited to the
purview of our senses, our intellect, and our internal feelings, we arrive at the more definite -conclusion, that all
physical inquisition is unanswerable, that is not within
the purview of our senses; all inquisition that -relates to
the internal feelings is unanswerable, that is not within
the purview of the internal feelings; and all intellectual
inquisition is unanswerable, that is not within the purview
of the intellect-if any such intellectual inquisition can be
conceived.
~ 2. A distinction, not noted above, may be made between all insignificant question and a question that is unanswerable. To ask what is the shape of a taste is unanswerable, if the information sought be physical-such
information not being within the purview of our senses:
still the question may be significant to the intellect. All
verbal inquisition is thus embarrassed with the threefold
reference of words to our threefold organization; unless
we avoid the embarrassmentby postulating which of our
three organisms is to be the inquiree, and to which of our
three organisms belongs the object that is sought by the
inquiry. A man, while recently perforating the earth in
search of a salt spring, came to water from which ascended
a stream of inflammable gas; and he employs a newspaper
to solicit from philosophers an answer as to whether the
gas proceeds from a decomposition of the water, or exists
independently thereof. The querist, probably, never reflected whether he was seeking an answer from the intel



UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 251
lects of philosophers or from their senses, though the
answers of the two inquirees must differ generically, the
intellect being as unable to originate sensible information as the senses are to originate intellectual conceptions.
In certain essays on human knowledge (Ogilvie's Essays), published in New York some years since, the author
asserts that "he will endeavour to explain the extent to
which mind and matter are knowable." The phrase "mind
and matter" is not deemed by him to be limited in its signification by our knowledge; but our knowledge is deemed
capable'of teaching' us a certain portion only of the signification of the phrase. W.hat a curious mystification! We
know "mind and matter" beyond the extent to which we
can know them. The mystification, however, terminates
the moment we analyze the word " know," and find it possesses'three wholly different and inconvertible meaningssensible; intellectual, and emotional. We can know mind
and matter intellectually, beyond what we can know them
sensibly; and this, instead of being mysterious, is a simple
exposition of our triform organization. The verbal announcement of the result -seems mysterious by reason that
we fail to postulate that the organs which know mind and
matte; are not the organs which know them not. The different organs are like two Dromios; one may tell us he knows
certain facts of mind and matter, while the other may tell
us he knows them not. The contradiction seems mysterious, if we suppose the two answerers to be identical; but




252           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
the contradiction is simple enough when we know their
distinct individuality.
The significance of language can be made as capacious
as the purview of our organisms, but not more capacious.
I may deem very mysterious that I cannot taste the flavour of moonshine, nor smell its odour; nor feel the texture of the molecules of which it is composed. If I catch
a handful of them, they elude my grasp before I can convey them into a dark closet for closer inspection. This is
exceedingly wonderful to a person who sees not that the
flavour which I cannot taste, the odour which I cannot
smell, the molecules' texture and particles which I cannot
catch and feel, are all intellectual conceptions, not sensible
things; and hence, of course, I can neither taste, smell,
catch, nor feel them. The true mystery is, not that I cannot accomplish such requirements, but that the error of
such a use of language has remained so long unexplained.
I have discussed the present topic too briefly; but I
hope sufficiently to manifest that no man can inquire intelligibly without he knows whether he is seeking sensible
information, or some intellectual conception, or some emotional feeling; and that no man can answer understandingly without he knows which of his three organic inquirees is to furnish the answer; and. I may add, that no snswer
can be correctly interpreted till we know to which class of
unverbal things the answer refers-to the- things of the
iatellect, the senses, or the emotional feelings. I referred
in my preface to the ancient oracle that was engraved on




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 253
the pavement of a temple of Minerva, " I am all that has
been, that is, and that shall be, and none among mortals
has hitherto taken off my veil."  I may not have succeeded
in the attempt which the oracle announces as never having
been accomplished, but I fully believe the accomplishment
will be consummated when the mode of interpreting language is correctly understood.
The ultimate unzverbal signification of words.
~ 1. I am now arrived at the last topic of my analysis of
words-their ultimate unverbal signification. I have anticipated the topic in several places, but it properly belongs
here, and unless we possess definite knowledge on the
subject, we shall not know when verbal inquisition is properly at an end. Would we know, for instance, the unverbal meaning of the word anger, the feeling itself alone
can yield us the information. It can say as God said from
the flaming bush, " I am that I am," no verbal answer being
free from fallacy. We may repeat the like of every other
internal feeling, and when consciousness presents the feeling unverbally, the question is answered unverbally, which
is the only answer that cannot deceived-the only answer
that is not fallacious.
~ 2. So the ultimate unverbal signification of every
word that names anything sensible, is the sensible perception itself to which the word refers. Our ultimate unverbal sensible knowledge of death, for instance, our
senses alone can reveal to us in their mute unverbal rev



254           THE MEANING OF WORDS.
elations. And what we have thus said of death applies
equally to every other sensible thing, and to all sensible
agencies and modes of operation. - Would we know the
agency of our brain over our actions, the agency of electricity over matter, the agency of volition over our limbs,
we may employ our senses in every way we can on these
several subjects, and every perception they yield is an answer to our investigations-an answer unverbal and not
ambiguous, and the only answer that is unfallacious.
~ 3. If, however, we want an intellectual answer as to
what death is, or what anger is, or how volition acts
on our limbs, etc., we must accept such intellectually
conceived words as the intellect shall be able to present
to us in the premises; and they will constitute the
answer of the intellect-but not the ultimate answerfor behind all slich intellectually conceived words exists
the' organism of the intellect; in which organism alone
exists the unverbal meahing of intellectually conceived
words. In the discovery of such an ultimate unverbal
signification of intellectually conceived words, lies, probably, the original distinction between nominalists and realists-realists recognizing such an unverbal signification,
and nominalists not delving quite deep enough to reach it.
~ 4. Finally, our unverbal knowledge consists of what
our senses can perceive, what our internal feelings call
manifest, and what our intellect (interpreted as above)
can conceive; and if we keep each class distinct, so as not
to confound them by means of theirverbal transmutability




UNFALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE. 255
into each other, we shall possess our knowledge devoid of
all fallacy; and shall no longer deem perplexingly mysterious, that we cannot discover sensibly what we conceive
intellectually, or commit any kindred solecism; and we
shall pass through life exempt from all mystery except
the one great common mystery that attaches equally and
alike to all we know, or can luknow-an ennobling consummation abundantly remunerative of all the intellectual
labour it may cost the man who shall attain it. The world
also, when the consummation shall become general (and
general it must become at some future day), will understand distinctly the kind of information it is seeking on
any occasion, and by which of our three organisms to seek
it; and will look back at our present indiscrimination
of unverbal heterogeneities in things verbally homogeneous,
etc., etc., as a man looks back at the speculations of his
childhood. Then will be known the new logic and critic
which Locke began to suspect at the close of his Essay on
the Human Understanding, when he said (in Book IV.,
chap. 21, ~ 4), " Perhaps if ideas and words were distinctly
weighed, and duly considered, they would afford'us another sort of logic and critic than what we have hitherto
been acquainted with." What a painful, but too late -a
dawning of light, must this have been! He had just completed his great intellectual labour " concerning the Human
Understanding," when he probably began to see that what
is unverbal in human knowlege reveals itself to us spontaneously, and in the most unmistakable form; and that




256          THE MEANING OF WORDS.
all about which men can differ, and about which he had
been differing from others, must relate to only the words
with' which we shall talk and speculate concerning un
verbal things, and the mode in which words shall be in
terpreted into the unverbal things to which the words
refer.




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