Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864: Devoted to Literature and National PolicyVarious
Religion
Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
The Qualities, the Relations, the Numerical Character, and the Modal
Condition of Things, are conjointly an Adjunct World to the Real World
of Persons and Things, in the Universe at Large; and taken collectively,
it is that domain or aspect of the total Universe which is the
scientific echo to or analogue of the Part of Speech called Adjective in
the Grammar of Language. The Substantivity and the Adjectivity, taken
again collectively with each other, are the totality of the _Concrete_
Universe considered in a state of Rest. The _Movement_ of the Universe
is expressed by the verbal department of Language, and will receive our
subsequent attention. It is, therefore, from within this department that
our concrete analogues of the larger Abstractions of the Universe,
Nature, Science, and Art, namely, The World, Man, and the Product of
Man's labor, were taken. They belong to the Substantivity (Kant's
Substance) of the Universe, and their qualities, relations, number, and
mode of being belong to the Adjectivity of the Universe (Kant's
Inherence); and these two departments of Universal Being or of the
possible aspects of Universal Being are the Scientific Analogues, in the
Universe at large, of Nouns Substantive and Nouns Adjective, in the
Grammar Department of the total distribution of the little Universe of
Language; which is the point to be here specially illustrated and
insisted upon.
We pass now to the consideration of the Verb and Participle, related to
Movement. The Great Noun Class of Words, including the Nominative Noun
Substantive, not yet brought into action and made to functionate as
Subject or Agent, together with the whole Adjective Family of Words as
above defined, is _without Action_. These words, and
correspondentially, the Things and their Attributes which they represent
in the Universe at large, are _static_ or _immovable_. The Universe,
viewed in the light of them solely, is a Universe _at rest_, or, as it
were, _arrested_ in its progression through Time, and existing only in
Space; _for_ TIME _has relation to_ MOTION, _as_
SPACE _has relation to_ POSITION _or_ REST.
This aspect of the Universe or of Language may therefore be
appropriately denominated _Statoid_ (or Spaceoid). The relations between
the Parts of this Aspect, denoted by the Prepositions and Conjunctions,
are inert or _static_ relations, concerning predominantly Position in
Space, as _above_, _below_, etc.
When the Substantive proper (the Nominative Case) passes over and
becomes functionally a SUBJECT (we will consider, first, the
case where the Verb is Active Transitive, and the Subject therefore an
Agent), we pass from _Statism_ to _Motism_; or from Rest to Movement.
This is, at the same time, to pass from the Domain or Kingdom of _Space_
to the Kingdom or Domain of _Time_ (or Tense).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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