substance which caused them, they become a part of the mind, and are called conceptions. Now the mind of man is so constituted that, whenever a perception is recollected or a conception arises, it instantly awakes some other similar conception, or perhaps a whole train of them, connected by the relations of resemblance or contrast. This habit or tendency is called association or suggestion. We can also combine those conceptions at pleasure, so as to form new conceptions existing only in the mind, and this faculty is called imagination. Now all these powers, with the exception of the last, are confessedly enjoyed by the lower animals, and we class them all under the name Understanding, the faculty of rules, or the faculty of judging according to sense*. But there is also a higher faculty, which we alone possess, which presides over and regulates the understanding, and which we call Reason, or the faculty of principles. By this faculty we compare our conceptions with one another, we estimate their similarity or incongruity, we arrange the objects of our perception in classes, and these classes again under more general subdivisions; we compare these ultimate generalizations with one another, and so arrive analytically at absolute truth: or, in some cases, we seize upon the principles of science synthetically, à priori, and at once. It is this faculty which constitutes our humanity; it is to this that speech ministers as an indispensable, but subordinate, adjunct. The knowledge of his own existence and the simultaneous belief in an external world, this is the first act of man's consciousness. But this consciousness is itself subjected to two * It will be observed that we use the term "understanding" in a more limited sense than others, Coleridge for instance, give to the "human understanding." Coleridge attributes to the understanding many operations which we consider as peculiar to the reason discourse, abstraction, generalization, &c. (Aids to Reflection, p. 215.) We adopt the Kantian distinction, in general, but we are rather disposed to comprehend under the term reason every faculty which is peculiar to the mind of man, excepting the imagination, which, however, in its truest and highest form can exist only in a reasoning and speaking creature. For imagination, when it really deserves the name, is intimately connected and blended with the reason. It is in fact the poetical reason, or the realistic element in the reason. In its lower form it constitutes the fancy, which ministers to the hope and fear of infants and dumb animals. other primary intuitions: it is subordinated to the intuition of space, for he is here, and everything else is there, and these are two positions; it is subordinated to the idea of time, for the very belief in his own existence presumes a continuance. This then is the sum of psychology. Man is, and the world is, there is a here and a there, a me and a not-me, the knowledge of this fact is consciousness. He has perception, conception, association, which constitute his Understanding. He compares, generalizes, knows, and discourses; these are the operations of his Reason. And all his thoughts are modified by and subordinated to his primary intuitions of space and time. 52 Now if language be, as we say it is, the genuine product of the reason, we should expect to find traces of all these conformations of the mind in the structure of our speech. And so it is. Our analysis of the Greek and cognate languages has taught us that there are two primary elements of speech; the first, an organizing element which enters into all words, and which we call a pronoun; the second, a material element which constitutes the basis of all significant terms which are not pronouns. The pronoun expresses in the first instance the relation of the thinking being to the external world, of the subject to the object, of the me to the not-me; and this is formally put as an opposition of here to there. The first general and vague idea of there is soon split up into a number of modifications, of which the first is a distinction of objects in the there or outward world, according as they are nearer to or farther from the subject, and subsequently a designation of all the different directions in which they stand with regard to the subject. The pronoun therefore in its different forms is an expression of the first great fact of consciousness,—that we are and that there is something without us. 53 The material element of language includes the names of all the objects which present themselves to us in the outward world, and to our contact with which we owe the experiences that are the staple for our understanding. We find on examination that all names of things are generic terms, that they describe some particular quality or attribute of the object, which strikes us as most remarkable in it, and by which we at once see its resemblance to the other objects of the same class. We observe, too, that even the words which we call proper names were originally generic terms, designating some qualities, and consecrated to certain particular objects possessing those qualities in a remarkable degree. It is, therefore, clear that the very act of naming implies classification and abstraction, or reasoning power; and when Adam is said to have named all the animals, this is only another way of expressing the fact, that by his reasoning power, which is identical with the power of speech, he divided them according to the prima facie classes of natural history. Of course, this use of general instead of special names has a great effect on the conciseness and perfection of language as an instrument of thought. But the process does not stop here; not only are individuals described by general names, but all the relations which bear any resemblance to the attribute from which the body of the name, or the root as it is called, is derived, are expressed by words into which that root enters; nay more, very many words expressing contrasted relations have the same root perhaps slightly modified. This is an exemplification in language of the principle of association or suggestion, which all psychologists recognise as one of the most important operations of the mind. All writers on suggestion or the association of ideas admit, either directly or by implication, that contrast or contrariety is a species of connexion among ideas; indeed, Brown makes it one of the primary laws of suggestion. Now, if we recollect that suggestion or association depends upon previous coexistence or previous proximate succession, we shall not wonder, that, in this natural and necessary process of expressing the greatest number of thoughts or modifications of thought with the fewest possible words or modifications of words, ideas of contrast, as well as ideas of resemblance, should be expressed by words, into which the same, or a slightly modified root enters; for all contrasts and resemblances are relations, and no idea of a relation could be formed unless we had seen the related objects together, or experienced the related feelings in close succession; but in this case, where the perceptions have taken place together, the recollection of one perception awakens a remembrance of the other; consequently, if we have got a word to express one of these related ideas, that word suggests the other idea to our mind; therefore, the root of that word, or a slight modification of it, would naturally be adopted to express the other idea, whether it be an idea of contrast or an idea of resemblance. And thus we find that a word may bear two contrasted significations, or there may be two or more words, containing the same or slightly modified roots, which denote contrasted or contrary objects or feelings, when the objects or feelings have been seen, felt, or experienced, always or generally, in connexion or in immediate succession*. 54 Every word containing a root, or belonging to the material element of language, also contains by way of prefix, suffix, or both, a pronominal element. This is the counterpart in language of the psychological fact, that every act of consciousness is subordinated to the two conditions of thought, the intuitions of space and time. The old Epicureans maintained that the only real existences in the world were matter and space†, and that every thing else was either a property (con * The following are a few instances of the principle of association as it manifests itself in the same or a cognate language. Contrast. havere, wish, habere, have. cupio, desire, capio, take. law, wish, law, take. Cause and Effect. aio, speak, too, hear. avdáw, speak, audio, hear. καλέω, call, κλύω, hear. χρήσιμος, χραιμεῖν, assist, χῆρος, χρηΐ- video, see, οἶδα, know. ge, want assistance. carus, possessed and valued, carere, want. "dear" (prized), because you have it, "set" (place), "sit" (be placed). déw, bind, daío, burn. dñuos, dηuós, do. do. "dear" (expensive), because you want it. άnto, fasten, anτw, set on fire. junctum) or an accident (eventum) of these*. Time, for instance, was an accident of matter, not perceptible in itself, but to be inferred from the rest or motion of things. With what connexion with this materialistic view we know not, but all people, whether philosophers or not, seemed to have made up their minds, till Kant appeared, that space at all events was something external, empirical, and real. Kant, however, deduces his critical philosophy from the position that space and time are à priori intuitions, because we cannot form a conception of outward objects without a presupposition of space and time; they necessarily form the basis of all outward phenomena; they are, both of them taken together, pure forms of all perception, and consequently make synthetical positions à priori possible. It is true that the intuitions of Space or Position, and of Time or Continuity, are equally original and equally necessary, but if we analyze them more rigorously, we shall find that the intuition of Time is only a refinement and modification of that of Space. These two primary notions may be otherwise stated as an intuition on the one hand of positon or fixedness of objects with isolations or intervals, which is the intuition of Space; and an intuition on the other hand of continuousness or motion of objects, or of such a closeness and proximity in their positions that the intervals are not perceived, or not taken into account, and this is the intuition of Time. Now it is clear even from common language, that this is the whole distinction between space and time; for the words which we use as indications of position, such as "before" and "after," "backwards" and "forwards," are also indicative of time. We shall, however, make our meaning clearer by an example. 55 That these primary forms of thought necessary to perception are the basis of pure mathematics, is distinctly stated by Kants, and it is indeed obvious to every one who * Lucretius, 1. 450: Nam quæquomque cluent aut his conjuncta duabus Rebus ea invenies aut horum eventa videbis. tv.463: Nec per se quemquam tempus sentire fatendum est Semotum ab rerum motu placidaque quiete. Kritik der reinen Vernunft, pp. 28-43. agrees § Ibid. p. 41. with |