DUCTION OF THOUGHT BY NRANS OF ORAL SIGNS.
By adopting this more comprehensive view of the sub ject, we avoid all difficulty about the nature of such sen tences as are the reverse of the belief of the speaker. We avoid the necessity of any inquiry into the propriety of con sidering them as in some sense exhibitions of the thoughts -which he entertains for the moment, or as partial repre sentations of his habitual thoughts. We consider them, in common with all sentences, in a point of view in which they maintain the same unquestionable ground ; that is, as instruments fabricated to execute our designs ; and our universal design in language is, to produce in one another such mental impressions as we please. Its ulterior pur poses, being censiderably diversified, admit of subdivision.
The General Nature of Sentences to the author of the Diversions of Purley, two parts of speech are necessary to language, the noun and the verb, and every sentence must contain both. The reason assigned for this is, that one part of speech is re quired as the sign of the idea, and another as the instru ment of communication. The views which this author entertained of the characteristic nature of the verb, and the act of communication as distinct from the exhibition of the signs of ideas, are not fully developed in his writ ings. We have not, therefore, sufficient data for appre ciating- their merits. The opinion maintained by some of his most acute followers is, that affirmation is the proper character of all sentences. This is considered as closely connected with the doctrine which makes the object of language to consist in the communication of our thoughts ; and by this communication seems to be understood, the act of conveying to our neighbours the same connections betwixt ideas, (formerly known to both,) which they pos sess in our own minds. This conveyance, and the act of affirmation, are reckoned equivalent. Affirmation, from ad firmare, means the establishing of a connection betwixt one idea and another. The doctrine which resolves lan guage into assertion does not depend on the truth of the theory, that its object is the communication of our thoughts. Our readers will perhaps agree with us in denying that sentences intended to deceive are communications of the thoughts of the speaker. It must, however, be allowed by all, that these sentences are assertions, and the inquiry still remains open, whether or not assertion is the proper character of sentences ? To this inquiry the present Chap ter is devoted.
A sentence of assertion includes two ideas expressed by two signs, and another sign to indicate the affirmation, or the establishment of their mutual connection. in the
sentence " man is rational," " man" expresses one idea, the first two syllables of the word 44 rational" another, and the last syllable of "rational" along with the word "is" constitutes a sign expressing the connection betwixt the two. These different signs are not always expressed in separate words. Sometimes two of them are contained in one, as in the last word of the sentence " John walks." Sometimes all the three are contained in a single one, as in the Latin word loquitur, for 44 he speaks ;" or rubet, for " he is red." On a full consideration, however, of the variety of ar rangement which words assume in the use of language, and the various kinds of words employed, assertion does not appear essential to it. NVe may produce thought with out making any assertion. We may, for instance, merely call the attention of another person to an object formerly known to him. A very extensive department in the uses to which it is applied is .that of exciting the person ad dressed to the performance of voluntary acts. This is done by Imperatives, which certainly differ from assertions. Attempts have indeed been made to reduce them under this head, and to regard them in the same light ifith those affirmations in which an abbreviation is produced by con densing a plurality of signs into one. This attempt suc ceeds in so far as it appears to establish a fact, that, ac cording to the habits of speaking and understanding one another which we now possess, the same meaning may be conveyed by an affirmation and by an imperative sentence. The sentence, I nunc ct versus tecum mcditare canoros, is of the same import with the affirmative sentence, Jubeo to nunc ire et tecum meditari versus canoros. But the ques tion recurs, which of these modes of expression is likely to have been the original one in the contrivance of words ? We formerly observed that the contrivances of language are founded on the known relations existing, on different occasions, betwixt the speaker and the person addressed, and are so adapted as to enable the former to avail himself of these relations for accomplishing some definite purpose. An answer to the inquiry, what forms of sentences are likely to be the earliest and the simplest, is not obtained by determining what connections of thoughts are simplest in relation to the mind of the solitary individual, but by finding what those purposes arc which he is likely soonest to have in view in employing the influence which language gives him over others.