Rowland Jones

“ The human will being the sole energy of all voluntary motions in man, and motions continuing in direct lines or courses, if not diverted therefrom, most probably would have continued its pure intuitive course and direction towards goodness, virtue, and true happiness, without the power of nilling or depravely contradicting its original nature, as the tree of life, had not the serpent interposed and put the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in its way. ”

“ And however different our reasonings may be concerning the attributes of the infinite Creator, from the variousness of objects and different degrees of volition, there can be nothing more absurd than to affirm that the human soul cannot be impressed with the image of its Creator, because at times it expresses or affects no consciousness of it; consciousness being rather an energic affirmation or quality of the soul, than its essence, as an involuntary animal or vegetable motion is an act, rather than the cause of motion. ”

“ Verbs are either simple or compound. The simple are those springs or energic signs in human speech, which, mark the relation and connection of the subject and attribute of a proposition; and affirm or deny the agreement or disagreement betwixt things, as, man is an animal. ”

“ Nor does it appear to be less so, to imagine dumb men, without inspiration, capable of fixing upon arbitrary signs of language, or advancing in knowledge, or at least, of forming so perfect a system, without being previously taught the use of letters and characters, the elements and principles of languages; more especially such of the sounds and figures, as were not to be met with in any other parts of nature, and the unintuitive, vicious, privative, and negative parts both of knowledge and language, which depend on the hieroglyfic, sacred, or secret characters. ”

“ A Noun Substantive denotes a substance, as a spirit, an animal, a vegetable, or any other thing that may be conceived to subsist, as agreeableness, agility, acceleration; which, tho’ their qualities, agreeable, agile, accelerate, are indefinite or indeterminate, yet by the signs, ness, ty, ion, signifying substances, properties, and the sun’s motion, acquire such a determinate meaning as to become substantives, and to shew their meaning without being joined with any other word. ”

“ Man, in the sense of language, is to be considered as a compound of all beings, a microcosm in his form, and a general intelligent echo of the divine fiat by his speech; a vegetable, by his manner of growth and nourishment ”

“ These are the smallest or elementary parts of language, as atoms are of matter and action of motion; an assemblage thereof form particles, as of atoms do those of matter; and a combination of either form more sensible bodies, and so on to the construction of larger forms, masses or sentences; letters having been formed in their shapes and sounds, agreeable to ideas and things, and having a natural connection therewith; and length and breadth affecting the eye in the same manner as their vibrations do the ear, and a combination of both the human will and perception. ”

“ But whatever necessity there may be for a great variety of modes and tenses in dialects, constructed upon arbitrary principles, it does not appear that any more than one is needful for a natural language, or that the modes of conjugating verbs or any other, are in fact expressible by human speech any otherwise than by the whole form or order of inflection and things. ”

“ It is yet the general opinion that human speech derives its origin solely from the arbitrary composition or invention of man, without any connexion with nature or the intervention of Providence. However true such bold and presumptuous doctrines may be with respect to some of the corrupt compounded parts, which chiefly occasioned the great variety and confusion of languages, yet articulate sounds, the materials of speech, clearly appear to have been the gift of Providence, and always the same in all countries ”

“ The characters of the first language were without doubt simple, requiring but few rules for their combination and construction; and yet must have been expressive of all the natural signs and sounds of things; for such certainly ought to be the construction of a language proposed for an universal assent; and such in my opinion is the English, whose vocables are hieroglyfic; and their meaning agreeing with the picturesque combination. These were the ancient characters, engravings, or γραμματα; and their sounds were the στοιχα, the chief sounds ”

“ It is therefore probable that the human will, agreeable to the notes or ideas impressed on the memory, plays upon the fibres, the simple tones of articulation; which in their passage, with respiration, thro’ the lungs, stomach, windpipe, larynx, and mouth, are by the glotis, tongue, lips, muscles, and other organical powers, which assume literal figures, modulated into articulate sounds, both simple and compound, agreeable to the nature of things and their ideas, as impressed in the human sensory. ”

“ Persona, are defined in the former Lexicon, to signify sweet sound from pêr-son; but pêr also signifies an apple or any other ripe sweet fruit, as figgs or figes, according to the Welsh, which resemble that which perhaps gives man the denomination of person, or the sound of the apple; and the word vices seems to derive its origin from figes; the v consonant and the digamma being of the same signification, and g its other half, only the inflection of the radical c, and diafal and fall, the Welsh names of the devil or fallen angel, being from afal an apple, as the English word fall seems to be. ”

“ The letter i is an indefinite line, representing man in his primitive state of innocence, as it does still his body, as a line, without its extension, and his head and senses by its dot; and in a secondary sense are expressed by this line and dot, length or heighth towards the sun, the sun-beams, fire, heat, and other qualities both spiritual and animal, as still flowing upon man, and other things as relative to him, and originally perhaps centering in himself, and since his fall only relatively. ”

“ Some sketches of the creation, the original and present state of men and animals in our system of beings, the fall of man and other obscure scenes of antiquity, have been drawn from the sacred characters made use of by the Priests and Druids to preserve their original, ancient and secret knowledge, in order to illustrate the present subject, and setting the present confused, deluded, or enchanted state of language and knowledge in a right course and direction. ”

“ And as to the active qualities of matter, they seem to be all intentional, as fluidity, softness, rarity, heat, and other modes of motion; all the rest being passive, and arising merely from the different texture, disposition, and combination of bodies; or a privation of the former; as, firmness, hardness, density, coldness, dryness, and rest. Motion is the successive passage or change from once place or state to another. Of which there are three sorts expressible by language, viz. the energic, generative, and local; which with their various modes or actions are expressible by verbs. ”

“ A Preposition is a substantive part of speech set before other names, most commonly substantives, either in apposition, as, before a noun, or in composition, as, preposition, to denote the situation or place of action, or rest of the things, to which they are joined ”

“ There are in the English language more substantive names than seem to be necessary for an universal language, besides the synonymas of various other dialects, which are incongruous in sense, with the hieroglyfic signs, and tend to darken and confound the natural sense and sounds of names and things. Tho’ the English vocables are explained elsewhere, we shall here take notice of some peculiarities of that nature in the English substantives. ”

“ Nor do the English adjectives or pronouns vary as to genders, numbers, or cases, as has been supposed; but naturally agree in concord, without any variation or inflection thereof, from their primitive state.
Indeed if the Welsh modes of inflection derive their origin from the original language, which was musical, and vocables could be reduced to their true primitive state, perhaps it might be the best way, but as that might be impracticable or too arduous a task, we may as well stick to our old English voices, which deviate so very little from the primitive language. ”

“ But the English doth so only from the sense of the words, without any variation of terminations, except that es or s signifying the feminine gender, is sometimes added to form the plural number of substantives, and the substantive verb is, or the pronouns it, with its inflections, to form the third person singular of verbs, and as and es in some instances, to express the masculine and feminine genders. ”

“ But with respect to their modes, properties, and forms, space is distance every way, whether with or without body; with it, it is extension or capacity; without it, a vacuum; quantity, mensuration, number, place or matter extended, a continent, an island, length, breadth, figure, thickness, an inch, a foot, a yard and such things being its modes. Matter, whatever its essence may be, is an indivisible impenetrable atom or corpuscule ”

“ Verbs are farther distinguished by grammarians into active, passive, and neuter, as being expressive of actions, passions, or neither the one or the other, but mere being or existing, as, I love, am loved, live, walk, or stand; tho’ according to the signification of words, there does not seem to be any real ground for the latter distinction, for to love, to be loved, to live, sleep or rest, must signify either actions, active passions and energies, or their privation and passiveness. ”

“ The Modes of Conjugating VERBS.
[43]
The feminine or endearing inflections of the second persons thou and ye have been omitted, as needless, since they all agree with the pronouns you and ye, and the only changes are from are and be to art and beest, have to hast, were to wert, shall and will to shalt and wilt, and might to mightest, and do to dost; but to make use of them in the masculine gender, would be depreciating it. ”

“ And the degrees, like adjectives, are compared by adding er and est, as comparative and superlative, to the positive or the state or degree of beings and things in act, or putting more or most in apposition thereto.
The degrees of distance and situation, are reckoned like prepositions, upon lines, upright, across, or slantways, extended from the centre of action or existence in our system where man is supposed to stand; or upon man as a mikrocosm standing up with arms extended ”

“ But should the contrary happen after an impartial and candid examination, he must then acquiesce with the common fate of his fellow-labourers, and impute his errors or mistakes to the intensity of his zeal for the service of mankind, more particularly Britons of all denominations. But to be condemned unheard, in a country that boasts so much of its liberties, especially those of the press, must be without a precedent. ”

“ Ar, er, ir, or, ur, are properties of earth, water, fire, extension, and human nature, as in clear, the action of light upon, dear, upon thee, near, the not upon, bitter, the biting water, eager, water from action, tender, thin water, dire, he is hot, intire, in possession, sore, from the lower, future, the man in embrio to be born, pure, a man’s part, immature, too soon at man. ”

“ Ai, ei, ii, oi, ui, and their transponents, signify motions local as of moving, walking, or driving, actions and affections of generation and growth, man out of possession, man’s visage, and affirmations of yea, and the sun’s motion darting its rays by io; but an h is commonly added to the radical as an additional energy.
Al, el, la, le. The extension of earth and water, or place in general, and qualities and animal sounds as extended, as al high in alps and altus, el low or in hell, el-egy, la-nd or surface, le or p-la-ce, terresti-al, aquati-le, c-all, kn-ell, la-ment, le-gible. ”

“ But though man and nature have been impaired [16] by original sin, they still seem to be invested with certain springs, energies, or returns of those ilations and qualities, as, thinking, willing, voice articulate, powers generative and growth; whereby the human species may be extended, and acquire so much knowledge and virtue, as, with the blessing of Providence, to be capable of being reinstated. ”

“ Im, mi, are expressive of man’s present existence or state in this world, with respect to his superior and more excellent qualities, than his animal state, as in im-agination, im-mense, im-mortal, im-pulse, im-pio to shoot upwards, im-adel to depart, mi, me, mi-di-le, me in the divided place, that is, the line betwixt his superior and inferior beings, myn or mi-in, by my life. ”

“ Ac, ec, ic, oc, uc, and their softer inflections, are expressive of the different modes of motion, as local, generative, and energic actions and their contraries, as in, weak, our action, black, shut from the light, slack and lag, a low or earthly action, meek, a feminine action, epic, an action past, like the first action of light, high, man acting, light, its active property, coasting, acting along the edge or lower part of the possessions, big, a thing swoln with heat, nigh, acting in, mock, the motion of the cheek, strong, the property of the sun’s motion below, much, the upper parts. ”

“ The possessives express all things to be in man, as one universal possessor; and to relate to his descendents as their qualities and properties. The relative and interrogative which is a compound of wch-ich signifying the above action, as ich means the first act of motion or creation, and uch man’s utmost return of that act or spring upwards. And so used as a general relative and interrogative of all actions, as who is of persons, and what of things, and as to the rest they are particularly explained in the vocabulary. ”

“ There are no adjectives terminating in b except ib, which signifies life to beings, as in glib liquid, and bib to drink; for ab, eb, ob, ub, signifying from or out of life, would be improper to express life to things, as descending upon, and penetrating them, so as to give them motion, growth, generation, and sensation. ”

“ Tho’ the English, Welsh, Greek, and Latin pronouns are, with the other parts of speech, all defined in the vocabulary at the end of this essay, it may not be improper here to observe in general, as to their signification, that the first personal pronoun substantively, and not substitutionally signifies man as an indefinite line placed alone or by himself in the centre of things before his extension or division into U the male and female spring; the 2d, the-o-U or y-o-U, the off man or woman; 3d, man extended into T, or in his race and possessions ”

“ The letters a, e, h, ε, η, Η, in their primary sense signify the male and female posteriors, the clitoris, erectores, &c. the impulse and springs of generation, and the earth and water place of man; whence a came to be an expression for the element earth or matter and things hard, rough, or interjectory, and ε for the element of water and any feminine, soft, or passive parts or things, but the interjectory aspirate e or he is masculine, and the ε has one spring resembling that of rain. The a has properly two sounds, as in animal, have, or name, but not that of o or the northern a in all ”

“ In, signifies man placed in the center of existences, as a middle [37] being, partaking of, and connecting matter with spirit; with is the spring of i into male and female, and T their possessions inflected; within is the same in the circle of possession: to is T-O, the property of motion from T to the circle of motion; into the same within the possessions; unto, at, and towards, the same towards man or the line of possession; afore, before, against, signify things or parts in and out of the borders of possession. ”

“ Then if the first man or any other perfectly understood the meaning of all other names and energies, which appear to be as equally related to the nature of things as these, he could have no difficulty of putting them together according to true concord, as the meaning and signification would not permit him to err; nor indeed is the English to be taught by any other significant rules. ”

“ And altho’ it may be also attended with some labor to mankind, except those already skilled in languages, yet it may be attained by any English reader, that will endeavour it, for, however languages may differ, as to the manner of combination or construction of names and sentences, they are certainly one and the same in their principles, and likewise in their particles; because the letters and particles of all languages appear by this essay to be still the same. Besides, as human speech derives its origin from a supernatural cause, its various dialects cannot differ as to their materials. ”

“ Simple verbs or affirmatives are all substantive and incapable of being inflected themselves, but serve as auxiliaries in the affirmations and inflections of compound verbs, tho’ alone, without the assistance of compound verbs sufficient to express every mode of affirmations, of actions and things, and fully correspond with the nouns and pronouns, as for instance, I am doing, have done, may, can, will, shall, must, or ought to do ”