LECTURE III.

LANGUAGE IMPLIES A ONENESS TO WHICH NATURE CONFORMS NOT IN ALL CASES.

§ 1.-The existence which we name a shadow, possesses more natural oneness, than the existence which we name gold.

HAVING, in my last discourse, divided the sensible universe into sights, sounds, tastes, feels, and smells; the analysis shows that language implies a oneness to which nature conforms not in all cases—for instance, the word shadow implies a unit. If we refer to nature for the meaning of the word shadow, we discover a sight. Here language implies a unit, and nature presents one. But the word gold implies a unit also; and if we refer to nature for the meaning of the word gold, we discover a sight and á feel:-two distinct existences.

§ 2.—The oneness of natural existences must not be interpreted by their names, but by our senses.

Each of our senses is known to be so peculiar, that its loss is irremediable by the others. That no sense but seeing can inform me of sights,-that no sense but hearing can inform me of sounds, that no sense but feeling can inform me of feels, &c. are obvious truths. Still, the obviousness exists only while we use the words sights, sounds, feels, &c.; for if I assert that no sense but seeing can reveal to you gold, I shall be told that feeling can reveal it as well as seeing. The oneness of the information exists, however, in language only. A man void of sight, and another void of feeling, (if we may imagine such a man,) could possess a definite meaning for the word gold, without possessing in common any sensible knowledge of gold. To the blind man, the word would name a feel

only; and to the other, a sight only. The knowledge which they might seem to possess in common, would be verbal and not physical.

3. We must subordinate language to what we discover in

nature.

You may ask whether I mean to assert that gold is not a unit? It is a unit, but its oneness must be interpreted by what our senses reveal. In all the uses of language, to thus subordinate it to nature, is the object of all my lectures. Language has usurped over nature a superiority which is so inveterate and unsuspected, that we constantly appeal to words for the interpretation of natural existences, instead of appealing to natural existences for the interpretation of words.

§ 4.-Verbally, the oneness of every existences is equally simple, but the natural oneness varies in different existences.

The English language contains but a few thousand words, while the objects to which we apply the words are innumerable. To effect these infinite appliances, every word receives many meanings snow is white, paper is white, silver is white, the air is white, glass is white, you are white, and the floor is white; hence, after you are satisfied of the propriety of calling an object white, I shall know but little of its appearance, without I take an actual view of the object. The word white names, you perceive, certain general characteristicks, and disregards less obvious individualities. The generality of language is an irremediable defect in its structure; for were we to invent a separate name for every sight which we now denominate white, language would be too voluminous for utility, and perhaps for our memory. The same remarks apply to every word. To know, therefore, the sensible meaning of the word unit in any given case, our senses must examine the case, and we shall find that the oneness of a shadow differs from the oneness of gold; the oneness of gold differs from the oneness of water; and the oneness of water differs from the oneness of an orange. Imagine, for instance, four men so misformed, that each possesses only one sense.

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Let the senses which they possess be seeing, tasting, feeling, and smelling. To one of the men, the word orange will name a sight; to another, a taste; to another, a smell; and to the other, a feel four dissimilar existences. An orange is, however, one existence, as appropriately as a shadow; but we must interpret the oneness by what we discover in the orange, and not interpret what we discover in the orange by the word one. Such a misinterpretation is common, and it has exceedingly perplexed speculative inquiries.

§ 5. In all our speculations, we estimate created existences by the oneness of their name.

Bishop Berkeley perceived that the word roundness signifies a sight and a feel. He knew not that the duality of nature controls the oneness of the name. He supposed that the oneness of the name proves the duality of nature to be fallacious; and, that either the sight is the true roundness, or the feel. He decided in favour of the feel, and hence he proclaimed roundness to be invisible :-invisible, because he restricted the name to the feel!

§ 6. Because nature exhibits not the oneness which we find in language, we impute the discrepancy to a fallacy of nature, instead of knowing that it is simply a provision of language.

When we look at roundness, we know the feel with which nature has associated the sight. This knowledge is derived from experience, for seeing cannot inform us of a feel; but we need not mysterize a truth which is founded on the organization of our senses, and is applicable to all their information. Saint Pierre states that a philosopher who lost his sight by gazing too intently at the sun, imagined that the darkness which ensued, proceeded from a sudden extinction of the sun. This ingenious sarcasm is frequently applicable to human conclusions, and thus Berkeley never imagined that invisibility was predicable of roundness by means of our restricting the name to the feel; but he accused vision with the production of a fallacy.

§ 7. Instead of employing our experience to teach us that the oneness of language is fallacious, we employ it to show that the duality of nature is fallacious.

Rees's Cyclopedia* records a sudden acquisition of sight by a person who had been always blind. "When he had learned to distinguish bodies by their appearance, he was surprised that the apparent prominences of a picture were level to the touch." The experience of this person is adduced by the Cyclopedia to show that the senses are fallacious, hence the person is made to ask which sense deceived him. Neither sense, however, deceived him. The sight prominence, and the feel prominence, are so generally associated, that we expect the feel when we see the sight; but they are distinct phenomena, and may be separated, as the picture evinces. If we assume that the sight and the feel are invariably associated, the mistake is in our inexperience, and not in our senses, nor in nature. A deaf mute, when he should first observe, in either a picture or a mirror, the sight prominence separated from the feel, would be as much disappointed as we; but he would immediately learn the duality of nature, and be satisfied. But we contrast the duality of nature with the oneness of the word prominence; and instead of employing the discrepancy to show that the oneness of language is fallacious, we employ it to show that the duality of nature is fallacious. The delusion is extraordinary by which we thus exalt language above nature:-making language the expositor of nature, instead of making nature the expositor of language.

§ 8.—We make language the expositor of nature, instead of making nature the expositor of language.

In the Gentleman's Magazine of July, 1796, published in London, another blind person testifies that figure is not visible. "When he first acquired vision, he knew not one shape from another." We are prepared to hear him announce, that he

* Title, Philosophy.

knows not the name of colours; but a different ignorance seems implied by an inability to determine by sight a globe from a plain. Our surprise proceeds less from any practical ignorance of the duality of nature, than from unsuspicion of the fallacious oneness of language; an unsuspicion which induces us to believe that when a blind man knows globes and plains by the feel, he knows the same units that he subsequently may be made to see. But I introduced the above quotation to show that the blind man's experience is not employed to expose the fallacious oneness of the word shape, but to convict either nature or our senses of a fallacy in not exhibiting the same oneness that the word shape implies. We assume that language is the expositor of nature; and as language implies that shape is a unit, we restrict the word to the feel, and announce (not as a conventional provision of language, but as a detected fallacy of nature,) that figure is invisible :-invisible, because we restrict the name to the feel.

§ 9.—We invent theories to reconcile the duality of nature to the oneness of language.

"When I look at a book," says Professor Reid, "it seems to possess thickness, as well as length and breadth; but we are certain that the visible appearance possesses no thickness, for it can be represented exactly on a piece of flat canvass." The painting exhibits the sight thickness without the feel. If we had always supposed thickness a unit, this experiment ought to have undeceived us. But we are not accustomed to subordinate language to the revelation of our senses; hence we invent theories to reconcile the revelation of our senses with the implications of language. The theory in the above case consists in restricting the word thickness to the feel, and pronouncing the sight a delusion. That seeing cannot acquaint us with the feel thickness, is an interesting item of experimental knowledge. We need not give it an artificial piquancy by limiting the signification of the word thickness to the feel, and asserting that thickness is invisible. The feel thickness and the sight are equally realities of the external universe ;-equally entitled to honour;-equally inconvertible. We may, if we choose,