John Haslam

“ In our survey of the Creation endowed with life and intellect, we are impelled to the conclusion, that the human mind is, beyond all comparison, the most perfect specimen that the Divine Author has chosen to allot to his creatures. ”

“ Nature indeed could not have bestowed on us a gift more precious than the human voice, which, possessing sounds for the expression of every feeling, and being capable of distinctions as minute, and combinations as intricate as the most complex instrument of music; is thus enabled to furnish materials so admirable for the formation of artificial language. The greatest and most important discovery of human ingenuity is writing ”

“ The history of our species unfolds the splendid catalogue of man's achievements: many monuments, reared by his patriotism and piety, and elaborated by his tasteful ingenuity, that have resisted the corrosions of time, and the spoliations of conquest, remain in our possession: and we still preserve those intellectual treasures that embalm the poetry, the eloquence, and the wisdom of the enlightened nations of antiquity. ”

“ To those who have not attentively considered the subject, there is considerable difficulty in understanding how a determinate number of words can include the intelligence contained in a proposition or sentence: and especially how these components of separate significations can become connected for such general and comprehensive meaning. It should be recollected that such is the amazing inclosure of language, that it comprehends all the living and inanimate materials of this world, all that perception can detect, memory recall, or thought elaborate. ”

“ And when I have enumerated these, I imagine I have comprehended almost every thing which can enter into the composition of the intellectual life of man. With the single exception of reason, (and reason can scarcely operate without the intervention of language,) is there any thing more important to man, more peculiar to him, or more inseparable from his nature than speech? ”

“ It is however to be lamented, that Thought is not the constant or habitual exercise of the mind on the phenomena of Nature, the occurrences of life, or the subjects we listen to and peruse: but is only occasionally awakened by difficulties, excited by contention, or invoked by the promise of fame and by the hope of emolument. The usual course of education is but little calculated to promote the habitudes of thinking, and especially that teaching where authority dictates, and demonstration is neglected. ”

“ Let it be kept in view, that Ideas, the frail associates of a perception, possess no permanence, are incapable of being transferred, and must fade away when our existence terminates. It is the word that forms the nucleus, and contains the intellectual deposit, that may become the inheritance of future generations. ”

“ Hitherto we have been principally trained according to the ancient models. The Greek and Latin historians, orators, and poets, have consumed, to a great extent, the docile season of youth: when perception is active, and memory most permanently retains its various deposits, to the dereliction of the great presentations of Nature, the operations of numbers, the foundations of science, and more especially the exercise of thought. ”

“ When the power and intelligence of the supreme Artificer is conspicuous in the ultimate particles of matter, we ought to be more temperate in our invectives against the doctrine of materialism.
Ideas have been generally employed, and held competent, by many of the tribe of metaphysicians, to explain the phenomena and operations of our intellectual nature: but they have failed in the attempt. They have endeavoured to confer on them an agency they do not possess, and have given the mind a dominion over them that it cannot exert. ”

“ Some of the more docile animals have been supposed capable of comprehending the meaning of a few individual words, but no one worthy of belief, has affirmed that they could understand a sentence or distinct proposition: still less, has any person, however confiding in the marvellous, ever ventured to assert that they were able to read. The important feature, and obvious utility of language, consists in the commutation of our perceptions for a significant sound or word, which by convention may be communicated to others, bearing a common and identical meaning. ”

“ This process, in no manner or degree tends to subvert the spiritual nature of Thought, which has its source in the capacities whereby we perceive, remember, and comprehend that significant sounds or words are the commuted representatives of the objects of intelligence. The perceptive organs of many animals are more exquisitely endowed than man, and their local memory more retentive; yet they are wholly incapable of comprehending language or calculating numbers;—capacities by which the Creator has exclusively dignified the human race. ”

“ If the perceptions of the eye, and its associated phantasms, or memorial visions, under the name of Ideas, are to be viewed as the effective materials of our Thoughts; such inference is directly confuted by the instances of those born blind, and continue through life without sight, and who must necessarily be deficient of such materials. If Thought be the result of any immediate spiritual dictation, which the difficulty of accounting for it without such mysterious agency, has led many to suppose: and of which we are not conscious, the responsibility of our species is destroyed. ”

“ For a mental proposition, being nothing but a bare consideration of the Ideas, as they are in our minds stripped of names, they lose the nature of purely mental propositions, as soon as they are put into words. And that which makes it yet harder to treat of mental and verbal Propositions separately, is, that most men, if not all, in their THINKING, and reasonings within themselves, make use of Words, instead of Ideas, at least when the subject of their meditation contains in it complex Ideas. ”

“ The same regularity is required in the construction of a sentence; and it appears fortunate that the English language reconciles this direct location of words, on which, its conformity to natural events and human transactions principally depends. From this straight-forward expression of meaning we may expect a future excellence of composition, and a more direct elaboration of thought. This distant prospect which imagination paints, and hope promotes, can only be realized under a system where light streams uncontrolled, and the atmosphere we breathe is free. ”

“ As Ideas can be nothing more than the mere phantasms attendant on visual perception, which, like the perceptions of the other senses, are commuted for words, that, by the aid of memory, recall in their absence the objects that have been perceived; it would be difficult to suppose that Ideas could fortuitously or voluntarily assemble in a more rapid succession, than the words for which they have been commuted, without producing confusion. ”

“ Ideas are the memorial phantasms of visual perception, a largess bestowed, perhaps exclusively, on the sense of sight, and this bounty contributes essentially to the acquirement and retention of knowledge. ”

“ The human body is a material fabric: the brain and nerves, together with those delicate organs that are the instruments of our perceptions,—whereby we receive light, detect fragrance, apprehend sounds, relish viands, and enjoy the gratifications of contact, are all of material structure: and when that state, called Death, has ensued, their offices cease, and they undergo the decompositions to which all animal matter is subjected. ”

“ When words can represent all that is evident and all that is conjectural—the works of Omnipotence, and the fabrications of man—we need to seek no further for the necessary materials of thought. The difficulty that has perplexed many persons respecting the compactness and unity of intelligence that a sentence contains, principally arises from their ignorance of the precise meaning of individual words. ”

“ Thought requires knowledge as its basis, and in proportion to its extent on any given subject, the investigation will be productive. This knowledge may be acquired by conversation, reading, or experiment, and these require Language, or a composition of words. Knowledge supplies the materials for thought, and every thought must be a distinct proposition, or sentence composed of words. ”

“ When it is considered that language is composed of words adapted by position to represent all the phenomena and contingencies of human affairs, and that we employ them, by commutation, for all that we can experience as sentient and intellectual beings, we shall be able to understand that they are the mental currency previously described, and that they are the only instruments of intelligence to which we can resort for the communication of our thoughts, or for the process of their elaboration. ”

“ This reciprocal substitution or mutual exchange, forms the basis, and affords a reason for Language. Whoever will take the trouble to watch the progress of the child from the commencement of its efforts to speak, will be surprised with its display of curiosity and intelligence. It feels delighted with the existence it enjoys, and with the power its senses possess to examine the objects of the world that surrounds it. Every organ, in succession, is occupied in noticing the wonders and mysteries that are presented. ”

“ So inseparable indeed are mind and language, so identically one are thought and speech, that although we must always hold reason to be the great characteristic and peculiar attribute of man, yet language also, when we regard its original object and intrinsic dignity, is well intitled to be considered as a component part of the intellectual structure of our being. ”

“ The acquirement of language does not wholly consist in the imitation of the word, but likewise in the comprehension that the articulate sound is the representative of the object perceived. There are some persons of defective intellect that I have seen, whose hearing was perfect, and who could whistle some tunes, but who were unable to learn their native language so as to understand what was said to them, and consequently incompetent to afford an answer. ”

“ There are two faculties or capacities that are peculiar to the human intellect, by which our species has attained a supremacy that leaves all other animated beings in a distant rear: the possession of which has rendered man a progressive being, and the race of animals so nearly stationary, that however they may be tortured into improvement, they feel no emulation to proceed, and the acquirement perishes where the brute expires. ”

“ Systems prematurely constructed, and under the impression of authority, have been especial impediments to our intellectual progress: and this truth has been remarkably exemplified in the works that have treated of the human mind. ”

“ The Capacities, by which we feel, experience pleasure and pain, perceive, remember, exercise volition, and become conscious, may be termed Spiritual, or if it be preferred, Divine endowments; and it is not probable that we shall ever detect the immediate agency by which these operations are performed. The state of Life, the indispensable medium for the display of the phenomena of intelligence in our present condition of existence, is equally inscrutable by human sagacity, although different hypotheses have been adventured for its solution. ”

“ Even a living language, when not exercised, fades from the recollection. The indirect location of words which prevails in Latin, can be no model for English composition, where regular and consecutive meaning constitute the perspicuity of the sentence; and according to the reasoning that has been adopted, of the thought itself. Words, and the meaning which resides in each individual, are the only media by which our thoughts can be conveyed ”

“ Most persons concur that the human mind is the noblest subject of investigation; but few will be at the trouble of undertaking its analysis. With the multitude there is neither leisure nor inclination, and the doctrines that have been dictated concerning our intellectual faculties and their operations, have tended rather to stifle than to promote inquiry. ”

“ The connexion that exists in a perspicuous sentence, is the conjunction of meaning, a further proof of the individual signification of words, and which bearing a definite sense, are selected for the purpose of that composition, which we term the process of thinking. ”

“ By calculation, the progress of light from the sun and other luminaries is said to be ascertained; and likewise the rate at which sound travels: but hitherto no contrivance has been fabricated to estimate the rapidity of thought. If the succession of our thoughts should be more rapid than they can be distinctly apprehended, confusion must ensue, and their rapidity would render them useless. Our perceptions are regulated by the same law. If the prismatic colours be painted on a surface which is revolved with great rapidity, the individual colours will not be apparent. ”

“ There is no evidence of Thought without it be perspicuously expressed in words addressed to the ear, or by their characters presented to the eye; and the vain consciousness we may feel that our mind is teeming with important Thoughts, is little to be relied on, until we are capable of expressing them orally, or exhibiting them in writing. ”

“ Before we attribute such vast powers to these Ideas or phantasms, the shadows of visual perception, it will be convenient to inquire into their nature, and endeavour to ascertain the laws by which they are regulated. In that state of mental relaxation, when the intellect is not intently occupied on any particular subject, numberless phantasms will involuntarily intrude: for, during the [Pg 17] time we are awake, the mind is never wholly unoccupied, and such irregular presentations of Ideas constitute our reveries. ”

“ These words, and the intelligence that resides in them, are the only sources of his knowledge, (his perceptions being commuted for words,) and the meaning they import is all that it is necessary for him to comprehend. It may here be repeated that the capacity by which man exclusively exercises the range of thought by sounds that are significant, and receives from others the same oral intelligence, has no material basis that we can possibly detect or logically infer: but must be considered an endowment of infinite power and wisdom. ”

“ Speech, and its representation by characters, are exclusively comprehensible by man; and these have been the sources of his vast attainments and rapid progression. The ear receives the various intonations that convey intelligence, and the characters or symbols of these significant sounds are detected by the human eye. ”