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XX. — Philosophy of Language. By Emeritus Professor J. S. Blackie. 



(Eead 7th April 1884.) 



The Universe, as we have it, is an organised system of rational or reasonable 

 forces and forms ; of which the former are the product of the plastic, self- 

 energising, productive power within, the latter the external presentation or 

 manifestation of that power. 



I. Language is a form of the fluid element, the air, moulded into shape by the 

 vital forces of any living creature acting under the constraint of a determined 

 organism, and significant of the sensations, emotions, sentiments, or thoughts of 

 the creature; transmitted to and made appreciable to other similarly consti- 

 tuted creatures by the instrumentality of the ear, an organ nicely sensitive to 

 all the affections of the fluid element, and thus naturally fitted to be the 

 medium of intelligible communication between creature and creature in a 

 system of social interdependence. 



II. The simplest elements of language which we have in common with the 

 lower animals are of the nature of cries ejaculated or instinctively sent forth 

 from the vocal organs of the creature, under the stimulus of some sensations of 

 pain or pleasure, either arising altogether from within, or called into action by 

 some external agency, as the pricking of a pin, — such cries as the cawing of 

 rooks, the purring of cats, the grunting of pigs, the braying of asses, the cackling 

 of geese, the shrieking of women, and the roaring of men, — cries which arise 

 necessarily from the nervous constitution and vocal organism of the creature, 

 and which are naturally intelligible to all creatures of a kindred nature, and 

 endowed with a responsive susceptibility. These cries in human language 

 are, in the language of grammar, interjections : such as ha, ha ! ho, ho ! £> poi, 

 fiafiaL But they are in fact verbs, or at least the soul of a certain class 

 of verbs, performing, as a means of communication between creature and 

 creature, the complete function of verbs, and becoming perfect verbs in 

 grammatical form directly they are tied down by certain modifications to 

 definite relations of personality and time ; of which anon. 



III. Were a human being only a bundle of sensibilities, human language would 

 consist merely of such ejaculatory words; but this sensibility is only the starting 

 point of his existence, the point which he has in common with a mouse, a midge, 

 or a monkey ; he soon becomes a perceptive animal, and after that a mimetic or 

 imitative animal ; being moved by an unfailing instinct to reproduce, in some 

 form or other, whatever striking forms or energising forces from without may 



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