WORDS. As we proposed, in Pinto sopa; mental, §•104, we shall lay before our readers a view of Ilartley's very im portant principles, respecting some of the leading phenomena of the understanding ; and we beg to refer our readers to UN DERSTANDING, for another branch of those phenomena. These principles illustrate and apply the doctrine of association ; and we deem it certain, that the philoso phy of language can be pursued with complete success, only by those who have closely attende.l, practically, if not theo retically, to the influence of that ever ac tive principle.
Words may be considered in four lights : first, as impressions upon the car ; secondly, as the actions of the organs of speech ; thirdly, as impressions made up on the eye by characters ; fourthly, as the actions of the hand in writing. We learn the use of them in this order ; for children first get an imperfect knowledge of the meaning of the words of others ; then learn to speak themselves ; then to read ; and, lastly, to . write. Now it is evident, that in the first of these ways, many sensible impressions, and external feelings, are associated with particular words and phrases, so as to give these the power of raising the corresponding ideas ; and that the three following ways increase and improve this power, with some additions to the ideas and variations of them. The second is the reverse of the first, the fourth of the third. The first ascertains the ideas belonging to words and phrases in a grass manner, ac cording to their usage in common life. The second fixes this, and makes it ready and accurate. The third has the same ef fect as the second ; and also extends the ideas and significations of words and phrases, by new associations, and in par ticular, by associations with other words, as in definitions, descriptions, &c. The fourth, by converting the reader into a writer, helps him to be expert in distin guishing, quick in recollecting, and faith ful in retaining, these new significations of words. The action of the hand is not, indeed, an essential in this fourth method ; composition by persons born blind having nearly the same effect ; it is, however, a common attendant on composition, and has a considerable use deducible from association, at the same time making the analogy between the four methods more. conspicubus and complete.
Deuce it appears, that words and phrases must excite ideas in its by ation ; and if further appears, that they can do it by no other means, since all the ideas which any word excites are deduci ble from some of the sources above men tioned, most usually from the first or third : and because words of unknown languages, terms of art not yet explain ed, barbarous words, &c. have either no ideas connected with them, or only. such as some fancied resemblance, or prior association, suggests. It deserves
to be remarked, that articulate sounds are, by their variety, number, and ready use, peculiarly fitted to signify and sug gest, by association, both our • simple ideas, and our complex'ones formed from them.
We now proceed to describe the man ner in which ideas are associated with words, beginning with childhood.
First, then, the association of the names of visible objects, with the impressions which these objects make upon the eye, seems to take place more early than any other, and to be effected in the following manner. The name of the visible object, the mother, for instance, is pronounced and repeated by the attendants to the child, more frequently when his eye is fixed upon his mother, than when upon any other objects, and much more so than when upon any particular one. The word mamma is also sounded in an einphatical manner, when the child's eye is directed. to his mother with earnestness and desire: The association, therefore, of the sound, mamma, with the visible the mother on the retina, will be far stronger than that with any other visible, impression, and thus overpower all the other accidental associations ; and these will also themselves contribute to the same end, by opposing one another. And when the child has acquired so much voluntary power over his motions, as to direct his head and eyes towards the nurse, upon hearing her name, this pro cess will go on with accelerated velocity : and thus, at last, the word will excite the visible idea readily and certainly. The same association of the visible impression of the mother with the sound, mamma, will, by degrees, overpower all the acci dental associations of this visible impres sion with other words ; and, at last, be so closely confirmed, that the visible impres sion will excite the audible idea of the. word. This, however, is not to our pro sent purpose, but it is a process which takes place at the same time with the other, and contributes to illustrate and confirm it. Both together furnish a com plete instance of one of the classes of connections. (§ 21.) Secondly, this association of words with visible appearances, being made under many particular circumstances, must af fect the visible ideas with a like particu larity. Thus the mother's dress, and the situation of the fire in the child's nursery, make part of the child's ideas of his mo ther and fire. But then, as his mother often changes her dress, and the child often sees a fire in a different place, and surrounded by different visible objects, these opposite associations must be less strong than the part which is common to them all ; and consequently we may suppose, that while his idea of that part which is common, and which we may call essential, continues the same, that of the particularities, circumstances, and ad juncts, varies.