The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864: Devoted To Literature And National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864: Devoted To Literature And National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
There is, therefore, ample scope and a peremptory demand for both
methods of lingual development. The New Scientific Language herein
suggested would be universal within the limit within which Science
itself is universal. But there is another sphere within which Science,
born of the Intellect, has only a subordinate sway, and in which
instinct, or that faculty which, in the higher aspect of it, we
denominate Intuition, is supreme. This faculty has operated as instinct
in the first stage of the growth of Language, the Natural or
Instinctual; it should now give place to the Intellect, in the second
stage, the Scientific; after which it should regain its ascendency as
Intuition, in the final finish and perfectionment of the Integral Speech
of Mankind, the Artistic.
Such a Language would be, to all other Languages, precisely what a
unitary Science would be to all the special Sciences; and we have seen
how it might happen that the same discovery should furnish both the
Language and the Science. Without rudely displacing any existing
Language, it would, besides filling its own central sphere of uses,
furnish a rallying point of unity between them all. It would ally them
to itself, not by the destruction of their several individualities, but
by developing the genius of each to the utmost. It would enrich them
all, by serving as the common interpreter between them, until each would
attain something of the powers of all, or at least the full capacity for
availing itself of the aid of all others, and chiefly of the central
tongue, in all those respects in which in consequence of its own special
character it should remain individually defective. The new Scientific
and Central Language might thus plant itself in the midst of the
Languages; gradually assimilate them to itself; drawing at the same time
an augmentation of its own materials from them, until they would become
mere idioms of it, and finally, perhaps, in a more remote future,
disappear altogether as distinct forms of speech, and be blended into
harmony in the bosom of the central tongue.
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