The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society: A Poem, with Philosophical NotesDarwin, Erasmus
Philosophy
The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society: A Poem, with Philosophical Notes
Darwin, Erasmus
Cosmology -- Poetry; Life -- Origin -- Poetry
For the greater dispatch of conversation many words suggest more than
one idea; I shall therefore arrange them according to the number and
kinds of ideas, which they suggest; and am induced to do this, as a
new distribution of the objects of any science may advance the
knowledge of it by developing another analogy of its constituent
parts. And in thus endeavouring to analyze the theory of language I
mean to speak primarily of the English, and occasionally to add what
may occur concerning the structure of the Greek and Latin.
I. _Conjunctions and Prepositions._
The first class of words consists of those, which suggest but one
idea, and suffer no change of termination; which have been termed by
grammarians CONJUNCTIONS and PREPOSITIONS; the former of which connect
sentences, and the latter words. Both which have been ingeniously
explained by Mr. Horne Tooke from their etymology to be abbreviations
of other modes of expression.
1. Thus the conjunction _if_ and _an_, are shown by Mr. Tooke to be
derived from the imperative mood of the verbs to give and to grant;
but both of these conjunctions by long use appear to have become the
name of a more abstracted idea, than the words give or grant suggest,
as they do not now express any ideas of person, or of number, or of
time; all which are generally attendant upon the meaning of a verb;
and perhaps all the words of this class are the names of ideas much
abstracted, which has caused the difficulty of explaining them.
2. The number of Prepositions is very great in the English language,
as they are used before the cases of nouns, and the infinitive mood of
verbs, instead of the numerous changes of termination of the nouns and
verbs of the Greek and Latin; which gives greater simplicity to our
language, and greater facility of acquiring it.
The prepositions, as well as the preceding conjunctions, have been
well explained by Mr. Horne Tooke; who has developed the etymology of
many of them. As the greatest number of the ideas, we receive from
external objects, are complex ones, the names of these constitute a
great part of language, as the proper names of persons and places;
which are complex terms. Now as these complex terms do not always
exactly suggest the quantity of combined ideas we mean to express,
some of the prepositions are prefixed to them to add or to deduct
something, or to limit their general meaning; as a house with a party
wall, or a house without a roof. These words are also derived by Mr.
Tooke, as abbreviations of the imperative moods of verbs; but which
appear now to suggest ideas further abstracted than those generally
suggested by verbs, and are all of them properly nouns, or names of
ideas.
II. _Nouns Substantive._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account