408 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 



Ty conclusions that prevail among mankind. Its tendency has 

 appeared to be to shake our belief in the existence of a mate- 

 rial world. Verbs have been considered as mere expressions 

 of certain temporary modifications to which matter is liable, 

 and therefore a subordinate class of words compared to the 

 names of substantial beings. It has been thought a degrada- 

 tion of the truths received by the testimony of our senses, to 

 suppose that permanent objects should derive their names from 

 words of so fugitive a character as verbs, which represent mere 

 events, or phenomena that disappear the moment after they 

 are presented. This apprehension will vanish if we attend to 

 the distinction betwixt the early history of thought and the 

 early history of language. Our first ideas are acquired, and 

 extensively combined, long before we express them. The first 

 words of which language consists represent, in the form of 

 compendious signs, assemblages of ideas, or features of these 

 assemblages, mutually understood among men. The etymo- 

 iooy of each derivative word depends on the motives which di- 

 rect us to select those definite assemblages to which it will be 

 useful to assign names. Accordingly, we find that the volun- 

 tary motions of mankind, which have already been considered 

 as the earliest objects that suggest the use of language, and 

 which are first used in the form of Imperatives, have a predo- 

 minant influence in regulating the interest which we take in 

 directing the attention of those around us to other objects, and 

 in contriving names to represent them. Let us take for an 

 example the word " road." The surface of the earth presents 

 us with one continued series of colours and tangibilities which 

 we call the qualities of matter. We wish to direct the atten- 

 tion of another to a part of this scene, which has the form of a 

 lengthened stripe, differing somewhat in appearance from the 

 adjoining parts; and we know that the difference which we 



observe 



