Major Prict’s Extracts from the Mualijat-i-Dara Shekohi 39 
the soul to that which is the soul of writing, and speech is to meaning as 
the body, just as writing is the body to speech; in other words, speech 
embodies meaning, as writing embodies speech, From the same consider- 
ations it must appear that meaning has a more immediate connection with 
speech than it has with what is written. But the object of both writing 
and speech is the meaning of a thing; and that which is nearest to the 
object is nobler or more excellent than that from which the object is more 
remote. Now the object of every wise man is the meaning, and we have 
demonstrated that speech is more closely connected with meaning than 
what is written. 
If it should be asked, ‘* what then is speech ?” the answer is, “‘ speech is 
an arrangement of words or names, under which is invested some certain 
meaning. Should it be asked, ‘‘ what is name?” I would say that it is 
composed of letters, regularly united, to indicate certain essential principles 
or sources of things. And should it further be demanded, “ what, then, is 
letter?” I should answer, that letter is in the same degree of relation to 
name, as the point is to a straight line. A letter has in itself no meaning, 
although a meaning may exist under letters, when produced by intelligent 
minds, in combination, and under names generally known to a certain 
class of men, just as a point, which has no extension until itis manifested 
in length, when it becomes a straight line ; and this consists, we know, of 
points accumulated together, ad infinitum. Of length I shall observe, that is 
called the primary extension. 
In the next place I shall state that, to the specific form of the faculty of 
speech names or words are the matter, and to the specific forms of names 
letters are the matter; just as to my shirt a piece of cloth is the material 
principle, and the material principle of a piece of cloth is a certain vege- 
table production called cotton, of which the material principle is in nature 
itself. t 
Further, I shall state that the faculty of speech can exist no where 
but in man, through the medium of sound, and there can be no sound but 
that which is produced by the escape of air between two substances in col- 
lision. Until, however, sound has obtained extension, the specific form of 
speech cannot rest upon it; that is to say, until the air included within 
certain substances by which it is retained, shall, by collision of such sub- 
stances, be forced to escape through some channel, narrow and confined, 
