284 Onan Universal writien Characier. 
tiful device, renders very doubtful) is worthy of ad- 
miration. By it the neéd of a new sign for every 
new perception of the human mind is superseded, 
and language made copious, without fatiguing the ° 
memory. There are two divisions of this class of 
signs. The one contains those which are perma- 
nently fixed to, and constitute part of words; the 
others are occasionally employed in denoting the 
relation words bear to each other, as in the declen- 
sion of nouns, &c. I shall take no notice of this 
division of modifying signs here: it is evident they 
could be easily provided for in visible language. 
The permanent modifying signs may be divided 
into prepositional and terminational. If we com- 
pare the prepositions of one language with those of 
another we shall find, that if the simple arbitrary 
signs are not equal in number, yet there are, in 
¢very tongue, either simple or compounded ones to 
express all the possible circumstances which can be 
denoted by this kind of sign. 
It must be allowed that every preposition has 
net always the same determinate meaning in every 
compound word into which it enters. This cannot, 
however, be admitted as an argument against this 
scheme of an universal character, because the mean. 
ing of a preposition is oral, and in characteristic 
language must be determined by the same means. 
The absolute meaning of a word is determined. by 
the precise signification of the parts of which it is 
