On Figurative Language. “79 
the nature of thing's, be any communication of 
ideas. External objects are the only things 
with which the senses can be impressed ; they 
‘are the. first things with which men could 
‘become acquainted, and they must be regarded 
as the primary objects of knowledge and 
attention: The invention of those elements 
of speech, which grammarians have denomi- 
nated nouns, was at once the most obvious and 
the most necessary. "I shall therefore consider 
‘myself authorized to assume it as a fact, that 
the appropriation of articulate sounds to spe- 
cify different sensible objects, is the ground- 
owork of all language.. 
_» Dr. Blair, however, is of opinion, “ that 
- those exclamations, which by grammarians 
are called interjections, uttered in a strong 
and passionate manner, were beyond doubt 
the elements of speech.” But after these 
inarticulate cries, he gives the next place to 
nouns. — Bi 
If by interjections Dr. Blair meant onty 
inarticulate cries, we observe, that they are 
not to be deemed any legitimate part of 
language; but if those broken fragments of 
speech be meant, to which grammarians may 
-have sometimes given the appellation of in- 
terjections, it is sufficiently evident that these 
