UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR.
This science unfolds the principles by which man is di rected in the contrivance of the varieties of words. Its utility is extended by the opportunities which it gives of tracing the connection which the phenomena of language, considered as a production of the human mind, have with the other principles of our nature.
As the term Grammar has been currently applied to a much inferior department of knowledge, some have thought proper to give Universal Grammar the apparently more elegant designation of the THEORY OF LANGUAGE. This latter designation, however, comprehends all the general branches of inquiry connected with language, which are treated under various articles of this work, such as AL PHABET, ETYMOLOGY, PHILOLOGY, and LANGUAGE. Its most interesting branch consists of those inquiries which, under the name of UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR, we here pro pose to lay before our readers.
Language being the leading instrument by which men communicate their thoughts to one another, it is to it that we undoubtedly owe the most important improvements of which our intellectual character is susceptible. It might therefore have been expected that an inquiry into its na ture would necessarily imply an elucidation of all the laws of thought. But its province does not extend altogether so far; and, by keeping it within its due bounds, we shall do greater justice both to this science and to those with which it is connected. We shall find that the points of view in which man appears in thinking and in speaking are not so perfectly identical as has been imagined. It is not true that Universal Grammar implies the whole theo ry of human thought; yet it implies a great and im portant part of it: and the habit which the study of it gives us of investigating the subject, and the analogies which it furnishes for the prosecution of the rest, may, un der judicious management, contribute materials towards a perfect knowledge of the general philosophy of mind.
We have intimated that this science originates in the comparison of different languages. It is not indeed very flattering to the pride of human intellect, and it will ap pear to many inaccurate, as well as undignified, to ascribe the discovery of the principles of Universal Grammar to a circumstance which might be regarded as accidental, viz. the multiplicity of languages existing among man kind. Its principles must operate in the formation of each individual language; and the science might therefore ap pear to admit of being investigated with sufficient certainty, by a direct inquiry into the operations of the human mind, or by the obvious analysis of any single language. This
might be thought sufficient to distinguish all that is requi site to the purposes of speech from every thing whimsical or peculiar, that is, from those turns of words and of phraseology which ought to be reckoned idiomatic. It might, at least, seem reasonable to expect that the princi ples would be discovered by paying attention to the varia tions and analogies existing among those words of any lan guage which are not immediately and evidently borrowed from a foreign source. It might even be thought possible to collect them by recording the early operations of a child in learning the use of his native language. That the prin ciples of this science could have been so discovered, it would be rash to deny. But the well known obstructions opposed to science by the delicacy and proneness to error which mark the human faculties, and the various external biases which the mind receives, operate in all ages to pre vent scientific inquiry from being made, and in corrupting the accuracy of the results obtained. Hence we arc some times indebted to fortunate accidents for an introduction to the right path of inquiry, and for the discovery of truths which had otacrwise a chance of remaining for ever un known. One of these fortunate accidents, as relating to the subject of our present article, is the existence of vari ous languages in the world, and the access which indivi duals have to compare them together. The success which philosophers have met with in these inquiries has arisen from the study of languages the most diversified from each other in their structure. Those of ancient Greece and Rome have, for example, been compared with those of modern Europe, and both these with the languages of the East, and the great differences apparent in their origin and structure have afforded a valuable opportunity of tracing, with a scientific hand, the general operations of man in this conspicuous department of his active efforts. An exten sive erudition in literature confers emancipation from that enthralling influence, which any single language exercises over those whose knowledge is confined to it. The errors which the habits of one would produce receive correction from the attention exacted by the varying genius of ano ther. These inquiries might even lead us a step higher. They might enable us to discover whether or not there are any circumstances in which the habits common to all lan guages mark a prevailing erroneous bias in our nature, and might lead us to improve and purify in this department the perspicacity of our intellect.