4 i4 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1874- 



one idea, and receives as his reward a revelation of truth 

 where other men find only illusion. 



From the conception that the earliest creative thought 

 is to be regarded as a lyrical reflection of the impressions 

 of internal and external nature, the inference is obvious 

 that the growth of language, so far as it rose above the 

 crude expression^ daily needs, was at first wholly shaped 

 by poetic necessities, and urged forward by poetic motives. 

 This remark is not only true of language in general, but 

 finds a just application to the characters that distinguish 

 one language from another. The beginnings of prose 

 composition, in any higher sense than that in which 

 M. Jourdain spoke prose in any sense therefore which 

 can influence the subtler qualities of language are long 

 posterior to the differentiation of national tongues ; and, 

 in fact, prose composition is possible only after the 

 individuality of the language has been clearly stamped 

 by a rich national poetry. Thus the quality of the poetic 

 thought of each people is imprinted on its speech, while re 

 ciprocally the psychological and artistic peculiarities of the 

 speech permanently control the national poetry, and form 

 perhaps the strongest influence towards the preservation 

 of a fixed character in the nation itself. If we desire, then, 

 to grasp the peculiar qualities of Hebrew poetry, we can 

 not begin better than by following Herder in his admirable 

 remarks on the poetical character of the language of Israel. 



&quot; Since action and delineation are of the essence of 

 poetry, and since the verb is the part of speech that depicts 

 action, or rather sets action directly before us, the language 

 that is rich in expressive pictorial verbs is a poetical 

 language, and is more poetical the more fully it can turn 

 nouns to verbs. What a noun sets forth is dead, the verb 

 sets all in motion. . . . Now in Hebrew almost every 

 thing is verb that is, everything lives and acts. . . . The 

 language is a very abyss of verbs, a sea of waves, where 

 action rolls surging into ever new action. 1 . . . Nor does 



1 This acute observation receives fresh force from the exacter 

 doctrine of the Hebrew verb forms which we owe to that scientific school 



