The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, August, 1864: Devoted To Literature And National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, August, 1864: Devoted To Literature And National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
It is clear enough that the analysis must be carried to the very
ultimate in order to reach the true foundation for an effective and
sufficient alphabetic _Representation_ of Language. Precisely the same
necessity is upon us in order that we may lay a secure and adequate
foundation for a _True Science of Language_. This will explain more
fully what was meant in a preceding paragraph, when it was stated that
the labors of Mr. Andrews begin, in this department of Language, just
where the labors of the whole school of Comparative Philologists have
ended. He first completes the analysis of Language, by going down and
back to the Phonetic _Elements_, the ulterior roots, the Vowels and
Consonants of Language. Then by putting Nature to the crucial test, so
to speak, to compel her to disclose the hidden meaning with which each
of these absolute (ultimate) Elements of Speech is inherently laden, he
discovers--what might readily be an _a priori_ conception--that these
_Elements_, and not any compound root-syllables whatsoever, are the true
'_Phonetic Types_,' representative in Nature of '_the Rational
Conceptions_ of the human mind.'
The ultimate Rational Conceptions of the Human Mind are confessedly,
among all Philosophers of the Mind, not four or five hundred, but like
the Alphabetic Sounds of Language, a mere handful in number. Precisely
how many they are and how they are best distributed has not been agreed
upon. Aristotle classed them as _Ten_. Kant tells us there are _Twelve_
only of the Categories of the Understanding. Spencer, while finding the
Ultimate of Ultimates in the idea of _Force_ alone, admits its immediate
expansion into this handful of Primitive Conceptions, but without
attempting their inventory or classification. The discoverer of
UNIVERSOLOGY, first settling and establishing the fact that the Elements
of Sound in Speech are the natural Phonetic Types, equal in number to
the inventory of the Primitive Rational Conceptions of the Human Mind,
is then enabled to work the new discovery backward, and, by the aid of
the classifications which Nature herself has clearly introduced among
these Sounds (into Vowels, Consonants, Liquids, etc.), to arrive at a
classification of all the Primitive Rational Conceptions, which cannot
fail to be completely satisfactory and final. The same discovery leads,
therefore, to the reconstruction of the Science of Language, on the one
hand, and of Ontology, the Science of the highest Metaphysical domain,
on the other.
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