We see, then, how the new combinations of ideas in one mind can be conveyed to another. The two persons must both have the _same ideas_ attached to the _same sign_ of language, and must each understand the _mode of combination_ to be employed. When this is done, if one person sees a new object, he can send to his friend the signs which represent all its qualities, circumstances, and changes arranged in a proper manner. The absent person will then arrange the _conceptions_ recalled by these words, so as to correspond with those of his correspondent. In all languages, the same word often is used to recall different ideas, and the meaning of words depends often on their _mode of combination_. The _art of interpreting_ consists in ascertaining the particular ideas conveyed by words _in a given combination_. There are two modes of using language which need to be distinctly pointed out, viz., _literal_ and _figurative_. In order to understand these modes, it is necessary to refer to the principles of _association_. Neither our perceptions or conceptions are ever single, disconnected objects except when the power of abstraction is employed. Ordinarily, various objects are united together in the mind, and those objects which are most frequently united in our perceptions, as a matter of course, are those which are most frequently united in our conceptions. Now, by the power of _abstraction_, the mind can regard the same object sometimes as a unit or whole, and sometimes can disconnect it, and consider it as several distinct things. Thus it happens that ideas which are connected by the principles of association are sometimes regarded as a whole, and sometimes are disconnected, and considered as separate existences. Language will be found to be constructed in exact conformity to this phenomenon of mind. We shall find that objects ordinarily united together, as cause and effect, have the _same name_ given, sometimes to the _cause_, sometimes to the _effects_, and sometimes it embraces _the whole_; or the thing, its causes and its effects. As an example of this use of language may be mentioned the term _pride_. We sometimes hear those objects which are the _cause_ of pride receiving that name. Thus a child is called the pride of its parents. The same name is applied simply to the _state of mind_, as when a man is said to be under the influence of pride, while the _effects_ of pride receive the same appellation when we hear a haughty demeanor and consequential deportment called pride. The term is used in its most extended signification as including the thing, its causes, and its effects, when we hear of the "pride of this world," which is soon to pass away, signifying equally the causes of this feeling, the feeling itself, and the effects of it. _Literal language_ is that in which all words have the ordinary meaning as commonly used.