as far as we are able to trace it, is altogether simple, and incapable of analysis; and that the elements into which we flatter ourselves we have resolved it, are nothing more than the grammatical elements of speech ;-the logical doctrine about the comparison of ideas bearing a much closer affinity to the task of a schoolboy in parsing his lesson, than to the researches of philosophers able to form a just conception of the mystery to be explained.

These observations are general, and apply to every case in which language is employed. When the subject, however, to which it relates, involves notions which are abstract and complex, the process of interpretation becomes much more complicated and curious; involving, at every step, that species of mental induction which I have already endeavoured to describe. In reading, accordingly, the most perspicuous discussions, in which such notions form the subject of the argument, little instruction is received, till we have made the reasonings our own, by revolving the steps again and again in our thoughts. The fact is, that, in cases of this sort, the function of language is not so much to convey knowledge (according to the common phrase) from one mind to another; as to bring two minds into the same train of thinking; and to confine them, as nearly as possible, to the same track.-Many authors have spoken of the wonderful mechanism of speech; but none has hitherto attended to the far more wonderful mechanism which, it puts into action behind the scene.

The speculations of Mr. Horne Tooke, (whatever the conclusions were to which he meant them to be subservient) afford, in every page, illustrations of these hints, by showing how imperfect and disjointed a thing speech was in its infant state, prior to the development of those various component parts, which now appear to be essential to its existence. But on this particular view of the subject I do not mean to enlarge at present.

CHAPTER SECOND.

If the different considerations, stated in the preceding chapter, be carefully combined together, it will not appear surprising, that in the judgment of a great majority of individuals, the common analogical phraseology concerning the mind should be mistaken for its genuine philosophical theory. It is only by the patient and persevering exercise of reflection on the subjects of consciousness, that this popular prejudice can be gradually surmounted. In proportion as the thing typified grows familiar to the thoughts, the metaphor will lose its influence on the fancy; and while the signs we employ continue to discover, by their etymology, their historical origin, they will be rendered, by long and accurate use, virtually equivalent to literal and specific appellations. A thousand instances, perfectly analogous to this, might be easily produced from the figurative words and phrases which occur every moment in ordinary conversation. They who are acquainted with Warburton's account of the natural progress of writing, from hieroglyphics to apparently arbitrary characters, cannot fail to be struck with the similarity between the history of this art, as traced by him, and the gradual process by which metaphorical terms come to be stripped of that literal import, which, at first, pointed them out to the selection of our rude progenitors. Till this process be completed, with respect to the words denoting the powers and operations of the understanding, it is vain for us to expect any success in our inductive researches concerning the principles of the human frame.

In thus objecting to metaphorical expressions, as solid data for our conclusions in the science of mind, I would not be understood to represent them as of no use to the speculative inquirer. To those who delight to trace the history of language, it may, undoubtedly, form an interesting, and not unprofitable employment, to examine the circumstances by which they were originally suggested, and the causes which may have diversified them

in the case of different nations. To the philologer it may also afford an amusing and harmless gratification, (by tracing, to their unknown roots, in some obscure and remote dialects, those words which, in his mother tongue, generally pass for primitives,) to show, that even the terms which denote our most refined and abstracted thoughts, were borrowed originally from some object of external perception. This, indeed, is nothing more than what the considerations, already stated, would have inclined us to expect a priori; and which, how much soever it may astonish those who have been accustomed to confine their studies to grammar alone, must strike every philosopher, as the natural and necessary consequence of that progressive order in which the mind becomes acquainted with the different objects of its knowledge, and of those general laws which govern human thought in the employment of arbitrary signs. While the philologer, however, is engaged in these captivating researches, it is highly necessary to remind him, from time to time, that his discoveries belong to the same branch of literature with that which furnishes a large proportion of the materials in our common lexicons and etymological dictionaries ;-that after he has told us, (for example) that imagination is borrowed from an optical image, and acuteness from a Latin word, denoting the sharpness of a material instrument, we are no more advanced in studying the theory of the human intellect, than we should be in our speculations concerning the functions of money, or the political effects of the national debt, by learning from Latin etymologists, that the word pecunia, and the phrase as alienum had both a reference, in their first origin, to certain circumstances in the early state of Roman manners.*

From these slight hints, considered in their connexion with the subject which introduced them, some of my readers must have anticipated the use of them I intend to make, in prosecuting the argument concerning the origin of human knowledge. To those, however, who have not read Mr. Tooke's work, or who, in reading it,

*See Note (0).

have not been aware of the very subtile and refined train of thinking which latently connects his seemingly desultory etymologies, it may be useful for me to select one or two examples, where Mr. Tooke himself has been at pains to illustrate the practical application, of which he conceived his discoveries to be susceptible, to philosophical discussions. This is the more necessary, as, in general, he seems purposely to have confined himself to the statement of premises, without pointing out (except by implication or inuendo) the purposes to which he means them to be applied;-a mode of writing, I must beg leave to observe, which, by throwing an air of mystery over his real design, and by amusing the imaginanation with the prospect of some wonderful secret afterwards to be revealed, has given to his truly learned and original disquisitions, a degree of celebrity among the smatterers in science, which they would never have acquired, if stated concisely and systematically in a didactic form.

"RIGHT is no other than RECT-um, (regitum) the past participle of the Latin verb regere. In the same manner, our English verb JUST is the past participle of the verb jubere.

"Thus, when a man demands his RIGHT he asks only that which it is ordered he shall have.

"A RIGHT Conduct is, that which is ordered.

"A RIGHT reckoning is, that which is ordered.

"A RIGHT line is, that which is ordered or directed(not a random extension, but) the shortest distance between two points.

"The RIGHT road is, that ordered or directed to be pursued (for the object you have in view.)

"To do RIGHT is, to do that which is ordered to be done.*

*The application of the same word to denote a straight line, and moral rectitude of conduct, has obtained in every language I know; and might, I think, be satisfactorily explained, without founding the theory of morality upon a philological nostrum concerning past participles. The following passage from the Ayeen Akberry (which must recall to every memory the line of Horace, Scilicet ut possem curvo dignoscere rectum) deserves to be quoted, as an additional proof of the universality of the association which has suggested this metaphor.

"In the beginning of the reign, Mollana Muksood, seal engraver, cut on steel, in the Roka character, the name of his majesty, with those of his predecessors, up

"To be in the RIGHT is, to be in such situations or circumstances as are ordered.

"To have RIGHT or LAW on one's side is, to have in one's favour that which is ordered or laid down.

"A RIGHT and JUST action is, such a one as is ordered and commanded.

"A JUST man is, such as he is commanded to bequi leges juraque servat-who observes and obeys the things laid down and commanded.".

"It appears to me highly improper to say, that God has a RIGHT, as it is also to say, that God is JUST. For nothing is ordered, directed, or commanded concerning God. The expressions are inapplicable to the Deity; though they are common, and those who use them have the best intentions. They are applicable only to men; to whom alone language belongs, and of whose sensations only words are the representatives to men, who are by nature, the subjects of orders and commands, and whose chief merit is obedience."

In reply to the objection, that, according to this doctrine, every thing that is ordered and commanded is RIGHT and JUST, Mr. Tooke not only admits the consequence, but considers it as an identical proposition.

"It is only affirming," he observes, "that what is ordered and commanded is-ordered and commanded." *

With regard to WRONG, he observes afterwards, that "it is the past participle of the verb to wring, wringan, torquere. The word answering to it in Italian is torto, the past participle of the verb torquere; whence the French also have tort. It means merely wrung, or wrested from the RIGHT, or ordered, line of conduct."

Through the whole of this passage, Mr. Tooke evidently assumes, as a principle, that, in order to ascertain, with precision, the philosophical import of any

to Timur; and after that, he cut another in the Nustaleek character, with his majesty's name alone. For every thing relative to petitions, another seal was made, of a semicircular form. On one side was,

"Rectitude is the means of pleasing God:
I never saw any one lost in a straight road."

Ayeen Akberry, Vol. I. p. 67.

* It must not, however, be concluded from this language, that Mr. Tooke has any leaning to Hobbism. On the contrary, in the sequel of the discussion, he lays great stress on the distinction between what is ordered by human authority, and what the laws of our nature teach us to consider as ordered by God.