Opuscula: Essays chiefly Philological and Ethnographical

by R. G. Latham

INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

DELIVERED
AT THE MIDDLESEX HOSPITAL,
OCTOBER 1, 1847.

There are certain facts of such paramount importance, that they not only bear, but require, repetition. The common duties of every-day life, and the common rules of social policy, are matters which no moralist states once for all: on the contrary, they are reiterated as often as occasion requires—and occasion requires them very often.

Now it is from the fact of certain medical duties, both on the part of those who teach and those who learn, being of this nature, that, with the great schools of this metropolis, every year brings along with it the necessity of an address similar to the one which I have, on this day, the honour of laying before you.

You that come here to learn, come under the pressure of a cogent responsibility—in some cases of a material, in others of a moral nature—in all, however, most urgent and most imperative.

To the public at large—to the vast mass of your fellow-creatures around you—to the multitudinous body of human beings that sink under illness, or suffer from pain—to the whole of that infinite family which has bodily, not unmixed with mental affliction, for its heritage upon earth—to all who live, and breathe, and feel, and share with yourselves the common lot of suffering—here, in their whole height and depth, and length and breadth, are your responsibilities of one kind. You promise the palliation of human ailment: but you break that high promise if you act unskilfully. You call to you all those that are oppressed; but you may aggravate the misery that you should comfort and relieve. You bear with you the outward and visible signs, if not of the high wisdom that heals, at least of the sagacious care that alleviates. Less than this is a stone in the place of bread; and less than this is poison in the fountain-springs of hope.

Not at present, indeed, but within a few brief years it will be so. Short as is human life, the period for the learning of your profession is but a fraction of the time that must be spent in the practice of it. A little while, and you may teach where you now learn. Within a less period still, you will practise what you are now taught.

And practice must not be begun before you have the fitness that is sufficient for it. Guard against some of the current commonplaces of carelessness, and procrastination. Lawyers sometimes say "that no man knows his profession when he begins it." And what lawyers say of law, medical men repeat about physic. Men of that sort of standing in medicine which, like the respectability of an old error, is measured by time alone, are fondest of talking thus; and men of no standing of any sort are fondest of being their echoes. It is the current paradox of your practical men, i. e. of men who can be taught by practice alone. Clear your heads of this nonsense. It will make you egotists, and it will make you empirics: it will make you men of one idea: it will make you, even when you fancy it would do you just the contrary, the wildest of speculators. The practice of practical men, in the way I now use the words, is a capital plan for making anything in the world, save and except practitioners.

Well! this has seemed excursive, but it is not so: it is a reason against the putting off of your learning-time. When your first case comes, you must be as fit for it as you are ready for it.

A difference between old practitioners and beginners there always will be—so long at least as there is value in experience, and a difference between age and youth; but this difference, which is necessary, must be limited as much as possible, must be cut down to its proper dimensions, and must by no means whatever be permitted to exaggerate itself into an artificial magnitude. If it do so, it is worse than a simple speculative error,—it is a mischievous delusion: it engenders a pernicious procrastination, justifies supineness, and creates an excuse for the neglect of opportunities: it wastes time, which is bad, and encourages self-deception, which is worse.

A difference between old practitioners and beginners there always will be: but it should consist not so much in the quality of their work as in the ease with which it is done. It should be the gain of the practitioner, not the loss of the patient.

Now, if I did those whom I have the honour to address the injustice of supposing that the moral reasons for disciplinal preparation, during the course of study now about to be entered into, were thrown away upon their minds and consciences, I should be at liberty to make short work of this part of my argument, and to dispose of much of it in a most brief and summary manner. I should be at liberty to say, in language more plain and complimentary, and more cogent than persuasive, that you must be up to your work when you begin it. If you stumble at the threshold, you have broken down for after-life. A blunder at the commencement is failure for the time to come. Furthermore; mala praxis is a misdemeanor in the eyes of the law, for which you may first be mulcted by a jury, and afterwards be gibbeted by the press. This fact, which there is no denying, ought to be conclusive against the preposterous doctrine which I have exposed: conclusive, however, as it is, it is one which I have not chosen to put prominent. Let a better feeling stand instead of it. Honesty is the best policy; but he is not honest who acts upon that policy only.

All this may be true; yet it may be said that the responsibility is prospective. "'Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.' We'll think about this when we have got through the Halls and Colleges. You must give us better reasons for sacrificing our inclinations to our duty than those of a paulo-post-futurum responsibility." Be it so: you have still a duty, urgent and absolute—not prospective, but immediate—not in the distance, with contingent patients, but close at hand, with the realities of friend and family—not abroad with the public, but at home with your private circle of parents, relatives, and guardians. By them you are entrusted here with the special, definite, unequivocal, undoubted object—an object which no ingenuity can refine away, and no subtlety can demur to—of instruction, discipline, preparation. You not only come up here to learn, but you are sent up to do so: and anxious wishes and reasonable hopes accompany you. You are commissioned to avail yourself of a time which experience has shewn to be sufficient, and of opportunities which are considered necessary: and there is no excuse for neglect.

Great as are the opportunities, they are not numerous enough to be wasted; and limited as is the time in the eyes of those who only know it in its misapplication, it is the period that a considerable amount of experience has sanctioned as a fair and average time for fair and average abilities, and for fair and average industry:—not a minimum period made for iron assiduity on the one hand, or for fiery talent on the other, but a period adapted to the common capacities of the common mass of mankind—a common-sense time,—a time too long or too short only for the extremes of intellect—too short for the slowness of confirmed dulness, too long for the rapid progress of extraordinary and rarely-occurring genius.

Of this time you are bound to make the most. It is your interest to do so for your own sakes; it is your duty to do so for the sake of your friends.

You come to the hospital to learn—you come to the hospital to learn in the strictest sense of the word. You come to learn medicine, as you would go—if instead of physic your profession were the law—to the chambers of a special pleader, a common lawyer, or an equity draughtsman. In this strict sense does your presence here imply study—study exclusive, and study without any loss of time, and without any division of attention. You do not come here as a clergyman goes to the University; but as artists go to Rome—not to keep terms, but to do work.

I must here guard against the misinterpretation of an expression used a few sentences back. I wish to let nothing drop that may encourage the germs of an undue presumption. I expressed an opinion—which I meant to be a decided one—that the time allowed for your medical studies was full, fair, and sufficient,—so much so that if it prove insufficient the fault must lie in the neglect of it. Sufficient, however, as it is, it gives no opportunity for any superfluous leisure. It must not be presumed on. You have no odd months, or weeks, or days, or even hours, to play with. It is a sufficient space for you to lay in that knowledge of your profession which the experience and opinion of your examining boards have thought proper to require. I believe the amount thus required, to be, like the time granted for the acquisition of it, a fair amount. But it is not a high one, and it is not right that it should be so. Standards of fitness that are set up for the measure of a body of students so numerous as those in medicine, rarely err on the side of severity. They favour mediocrity; and they ought to favour it. It is safe: and that is all they have a right to look to. What they profess is never very formidable; and what they require is generally less than what is professed. But the time that is sufficient for this modicum (or minimum) of professional learning is not the time sufficient for the formation of a practitioner of that degree of excellence which the competition of an open profession, like that of medicine, requires as the guarantee of success. An examining board has but one point to look to—it must see that you can practise with safety to the public. It never ensures, or professes to ensure, that you shall practise with success to yourself, or even that you shall practise at all. In the eyes of an Examiner, as in those of a commissioner of lunacy, there are but two sorts of individuals; those that can be let loose upon the public, and those that cannot. In the eyes of the public there is every degree of excellence, and every variety of comparative merit or demerit.

Now as to the way of attaining these higher degrees of merit, and the rewards, moral or material, which they ensure—which follow them as truly as satisfaction follows right actions, and as penalties follow wrong ones. The opportunity we have spoken of. It consists in the whole range of means and appliances by which we here, and others elsewhere, avail ourselves of those diseases that humanity has suffered, and is suffering, for the sake of alleviating the misery that they seem to ensure for the future. Disease with us is not only an object of direct and immediate relief to the patient who endures it, but it is an indirect means of relief to sufferers yet untouched. Out of evil comes good. We make the sick helpful to the sound; the dead available to the living. Out of pestilence comes healing, and out of the corruption of death the laws and rule of life. Suffering we have, and teaching we have, and neither must be lost upon you. It is too late to find that these objects, and objects like them, are repugnant and revolting. These things should have been thought of before. Your choice is now taken, and it must be held to. The discovery that learning is unpleasant is the discovery of a mistake in the choice of your profession; and the sooner you remedy such a mistake the better—the better for yourselves, the better for your friends, the better for the public, and the better for the profession itself.

Steady work, with fair opportunities—this is what makes practitioners. The one without the other is insufficient. There is an expenditure of exertion where your industry outruns your materials, and there is a loss of useful facts when occasions for observation are neglected.

See all you can, and hear all you can. It is not likely that cases will multiply themselves for your special observations, and it is neither the policy nor the practice of those who are commissioned with your instruction to open their mouths at random.

See all you can. If the case be a common one, you get so much familiarity with a phenomenon that it will be continually presenting itself. If a rare one, you have seen what you may seldom see again. There is every reason for taking the practice of the hospital exactly as you find it. It represents the diseases of the largest class of mankind—the poor; and, although in some of the details there may be a difference, upon the whole the forms of disease that are the commonest in hospitals are the commonest in the world at large; and vice versâ. Hence, what you see here is the rule rather than the exception for what you will see hereafter. The diseases are not only essentially the same, but the proportion which they bear to one another is nearly so. I mention this, because there is often a tendency to run after rare cases to the neglect of common ones; whilst, on the other hand, remarkable and instructive forms of disease are overlooked, simply because they are thought the curiosities rather than the elements of practice. You may carry your neglect of common cases, on the strength of their being common, too far. You may know all about catalepsy and hydrophobia, and nothing about itch or measles. You may find that, of the two parties concerned, the patient and yourself, it is the former that knows the most about his complaint. You may live to have your diagnosis corrected by the porter, your prognosis criticised by the nurse. On the other hand, by missing single instances of rare disease, you may miss the opportunity of being able to refer to your memory rather than to your library.

I have given you reasons against being afraid of over-observation, and against the pernicious habit of neglecting this case because it is common, and that because it is rare—a common excuse for neglecting all diseases, and a popular reason for doing so. Medicus sum, nihil in re medicâ a me alienum puto, &c. Some minds, indeed, are so constituted that they can make much, very much, out of single cases, out of solitary specimens of diseases. The power of minute analysis is the characteristic of this sort of observation. It is just possible so to seize upon the true conditions of a disease, as to satisfy yourself, once for all, of its real permanent attribute—of its essence, if I may so express myself. And this being seen, you may, for certain purposes, have seen enough; seen it at one glance; seen it at a single view as well as others see it at a hundred. I say that certain minds are thus constituted; but they are rarely the minds of many men in a single generation, and never the minds of beginners. Before this power is attained your observation must be disciplined into the accuracy and the rapidity of an instinct; and to this power of observation—attainable only by long practice, and after long practice—a high power of reflection must be superadded.

No such power must be presumed on. If the student delude himself, the disease will undeceive him. The best practitioners, in the long run, are those whose memory is stored with the greatest number of individual cases—individual cases well observed, and decently classified. It is currently stated that the peculiar power of the late Sir Astley Cooper was a power of memory of this sort, and I presume that no better instance of its value need be adduced. Now the memory for cases implies the existence of cases to remember; and before you arrange them in the storehouse of your thoughts you must have seen and considered; must have used both your senses and your understanding; must have seen, touched, and handled with the one, and must have understood and reflected with the other.

I am talking of these things as they exist in disciplined intellects, and in retentive memories; and, perhaps, it may be objected that I am talking of things that form the exception rather than the rule; that I am measuring the power of common men by those of extraordinary instances. I weigh my words, when I deliberately assert, that such, although partially the case, is not so altogether; and that it is far less the case than is commonly imagined. In most of those instances where we lose the advantage of prior experience, by omitting the application of our knowledge of a previous similar case, the fault is less in the laxity of memory than in the original incompleteness of the observation. Observe closely, and ponder well, and the memory may take care of itself. Like a well-applied nick-name, a well-made observation will stick to you—whether you look after it or neglect it. The best way to learn to swim is to try to sink, and it is so because floatation, like memory, is natural if you set about it rightly. Let those who distrust their remembrance once observe closely, and then forget if they can.

There are good reasons for cultivating this habit at all times, but there are especial reasons why those who are on the threshold of their profession should more particularly cultivate it. Not because you have much to learn—we have all that—nor yet because you have the privilege of great opportunities—we have all that also—must you watch, and reflect, and arrange, and remember. Your time of life gives you an advantage. The age of the generality of you is an age when fresh facts are best seized: and best seized because they are fresh. Whether you are prepared to understand their whole import, as you may do at some future period, is doubtful. It is certain that the effect of their novelty is to impress them more cogently on your recollection.

And this is practice—practice in the good sense of the term, and in a sense which induces me to guard against the misconstruction of a previous application of it. A few sentences back I used the phrases practical men, adding that those so called were men who could be taught by practice only. I confess that this mode of expression was disparaging. For the purpose to which it was applied it was meant to be so. It is a term you must be on your guard against. Practice is so good a thing of itself that its name and appellation are applied to many bad things. Slovenliness is practice; if it suits the purpose of any one to call it so; contempt for reading is practice; and bleeding on all occasions when you omit to purge is practice;—and bad practice too. Be on your guard against this: but do not be on your guard against another sort of practice: the practice of men who first observe, and then reflect, and then generalise, and then reduce to a habit their results. This is the true light for you to follow, and in this sense practice is not only a safe guide but the safe guide. It is experience, or, if you choose a more philosophic term, induction. Theoretical men can be taught by this, and the wisest theories are taught by it. When I said that practical men were taught by practice only, I never implied that they were the only men that practice could teach. Experience makes fools wise; but fools are not the only persons who can profit by experience.

See and hear—the senses must administer to the understanding. Eye, and ear, and finger—exercise these that they may bring in learning.

See and hear—the senses must administer to their own improvement. Eye, and ear, and finger—exercise these, that they may better themselves as instruments. The knowledge is much, but the discipline is more. The knowledge is the fruit that is stored, but the discipline is the tree that yields. The one is the care that keeps, the other the cultivation that supplies.

The habit of accurate observation is by no means so difficult as is darkly signified by logicians, nor yet so easy as is vainly fancied by empirics. It is the duty of those who teach you to indicate the medium.

The tenor of some of my observations runs a risk of misrepresentation. It has been limited. It has spoken of cases, as if there was nothing in the whole range of medical study but cases; and of observation, as if the faculties of a medical man were to take a monomaniac form, and to run upon observation only; of hospitals, as if they consisted of beds and patients alone; and of clinical medicine and of clinical surgery, as if there was no such a paramount subject as physiology, and no such important subsidiary studies as chemistry and botany. It is all hospital and no school—all wards and no museum—all sickness and no health. This has been the line that I have run on; and I feel that it may be imputed to me that I have run on it too long and too exclusively. Whether I undervalue the acquisition of those branches of knowledge which are collateral and subordinate to medicine, rather than the elements of medicine itself—which are the approaches to the temple rather than the innermost shrine—will be seen in the sequel. At present I only vindicate the prominence which has been given to clinical observation, by insisting upon the subordinate character of everything that is taught away from the bed, and beyond the sensible limits of disease. No single subject thus taught is the direct and primary object of your learning. The art of healing is so. You learn other things that you may understand this; and in hospitals at least you learn them with that view exclusively. If you wish to be a physiologist, chemist, or botanist, irrespectively of the medical application of the sciences of physiology, chemistry, and botany, there are better schools than the Middlesex Hospital, or, indeed, than any hospital whatever. There they may be studied as mathematics are studied at Cambridge, or as classics at Eton—simply for their own great and inherent values. But here you study them differently, that is, as mathematics are taught at a military college, or as classics are taught at the College of Preceptors, for a specific purpose, and with a limited view—with a view limited to the illustration of disease, and with the specific purpose of rendering them indirect agents in therapeutics. If you could contrive the cure of disease without a knowledge of morbid processes, it would be a waste of time to trouble yourself with pathology; or if you could bottom the phenomena of diseased action without a knowledge of the actions of health, physiology would be but a noble science for philosophers; or if you could build up a system of physiology, determining the functions of organs and the susceptibilities of tissues, independent of the anatomy of those organs and those tissues, scalpels would be as irrelevant to you as telescopes; and if these three sciences received no elucidation from chemistry, and botany, and physics, then would chemistry, and botany and physics, have the value—neither more nor less—of the art of criticism or of the binomial theorem. What you are taught in the schools is taught to you, not because it is worth knowing—for Latin, and Greek, and Mathematics are worth knowing—but because, before patients can be cured, they are necessary to be learned.

And, in order to be taught at all, they must be taught systematically. It is an easy matter to ask for a certain amount of these two collateral sciences—to pick and choose just the parts wanted for use, to require just that modicum of botany which illustrates the Pharmacopœia, and just those fragments of chemistry that make prescriptions safe, and urine intelligible. It is easy, I say, to ask for all this; but the art of thus teaching per saltum has yet to be discovered. The whole is more manageable than the half. What it may be with others is more than I can tell; but, for my own particular teaching, I would sooner take the dullest boy from the worst school, and start him in a subject at the right end, than begin at the wrong end with the cleverest prizeman that ever flattered parent or gratified instructor. Bits of botany and crumbs of chemistry are less digestible than whole courses.

Thus much for those studies that make your therapeutics rational. Some few have spoken slightly of them—as Sydenham, in the fulness of his knowledge of symptoms, spoke slightingly of anatomy, or as a Greek sculptor, familiar with the naked figure, might dispense with dissection. They are necessary, nevertheless, for the groundwork of your practice. They must serve to underpin your observations.

And now we may ask, whether, when a medical education has been gone through, you have collected from it, over and above your professional sufficiency, any secondary advantages of that kind which are attributed to education itself taken in the abstract? Whether your knowledge is of the sort that elevates, and whether your training is of the kind that strengthens?

Upon the whole, you may be satisfied with the reflex action of your professional on your general education—that is, if you take a practical and not an ideal standard. It will do for you, in this way, as much as legal studies do for the barrister, and as much as theological reading does for the clergyman; and perhaps in those points not common to the three professions medicine has the advantage. Its chemistry, which I would willingly see more mixed with physics, carries you to the threshold of the exact sciences. Its botany is pre-eminently disciplinal to the faculty of classification; indeed, for the natural-history sciences altogether, a medical education is almost necessary. Clear ideas in physiology are got at only through an exercised power of abstraction and generalization. The phenomena of insanity can be appreciated only when the general phenomena of healthy mental function are understood, and when the normal actions of the mind are logically analyzed. Such is medical education as an instrument of self-culture: and as education stands at present, a man who has made the most of them may walk among the learned men of the world with a bold and confiding front.

I insist upon thus much justice being done to the intellectual character of my profession—viz. that it be measured by a practical, and not an ideal, standard. Too much of the spirit of exaggeration is abroad—of that sort of exaggeration which makes men see in the requisites for their own profession the requisites for half-a-dozen others—of that sort of exaggeration which made Vitruvius, himself an architect, prove elaborately that before a man could take a trowel in his hand he must have a knowledge of all the sciences and a habit of all the virtues. Undoubtedly it would elevate medicine for every member in the profession to know much more than is required of him—yet this is no reason for our requiring much more than we do. Such a notion can be entertained only through a confusion of duty on the part of those who direct medicine. Their business is the public safety; and the position of their profession is their business only so far as it affects this. Trusts are intended for the benefit of any one rather than the trustee.

Two objections lie against the recommendation of extraneous branches of learning in medicine: in the first place, by insisting upon them as elements of a special course of instruction, they are, by implication, excluded from a general one; in the second place, they are no part of a three years' training.

Concentrate your attention on the essentials. I am quite satisfied that as far as the merits or demerits of an education contribute to the position of a profession, we may take ours as we find it, and yet hold our own. Nevertheless, lest the position given to medicine by its pre-eminent prominence, in conjunction with the church and bar, as one of the so-called learned professions, should encourage the idea that a multiplicity of accomplishments should be the character of a full and perfect medical practitioner, one or two important realities in respect to our position should be indicated. We are at a disadvantage as compared with both the church and the bar. We have nothing to set against such great political prizes as chancellorships and archbishoprics. We are at this disadvantage; and, in a country like England, it is a great one: so that what we gain by the connection, in the eyes of the public, is more than what we give; and the connection is itself artificial, and, as such, dissoluble. It is best to look the truth in the face—we must stand or fall by our own utility.

Proud to be useful—scorning to be more

—must be the motto of him whose integrity should be on a level with his skill, who should win a double confidence, and who, if he do his duty well, is as sure of his proper influence in society, and on society—and that influence a noble one—as if he were the member of a profession ensured to respectability by all the favours that influence can extort, and all the prerogatives that time can accumulate. As compared with that of the church and bar, our hold upon the public is by a thread—but it is the thread of life.

Such are the responsibilities, the opportunities, and the prospects, of those who are now about to prepare themselves for their future career. We who teach have our responsibilities also; we know them; we are teaching where Bell taught before us; we are teaching where ground has been lost; yet we are also teaching with good hopes, founded upon improved auguries.

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ON THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE AS A
BRANCH OF EDUCATION.

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN.

MAY 13, 1854.

The subject I have the honour of illustrating is The Importance of the Study of Language as a means of Education for all Classes.

I open it by drawing a distinction.

A little consideration will show that that difference between the study of a given subject in its general and abstract, and the study of one in its applied or concrete, form, which finds place in so many departments of human knowledge, finds place in respect to Language and Languages. It finds place in the subject before us as truly as it does in that science, which one of my able successors will have the honour of illustrating,—the science of the laws of Life—Physiology or Biology. Just as there is, therein, a certain series of laws relating to life and organization, which would command our attention, if the whole animal and vegetable world consisted of but a single species, so the study of Speech would find place in a well-devised system of education, even if the tongues of the whole wide world were reduced to a single language, and that language to a single dialect. This is because the science of life is one thing, the science of the forms under which the phenomena of life are manifested, another. And just as Physiology, or Biology, is, more or less, anterior to and independent of such departments of study as Botany and Zoology, so, in the subject under notice, there is the double division of the study of Language in respect to structure and development, and the study of Languages as instances of the variety of form in which the phenomenon of human speech exhibits, or has exhibited, itself. Thus—

When (as I believe once to have been the case) there was but a single language on the face of the earth, the former of these divisions had its subject-matter. And—

When (as is by no means improbable) one paramount and exclusive tongue, developed, at first, rapidly and at the expense of the smaller languages of the world, and, subsequently, slowly and at that of the more widely-diffused ones, shall have replaced the still numerous tongues of the nineteenth century; and when all the dialects of the world shall be merged into one Universal Language, the same subject-matter for the study of the structure of Language, its growth and changes, will still exist.

So that the study of Language is one thing, the study of Languages, another.

They are different; and the intellectual powers that they require and exercise are different also. The greatest comparative philologists have, generally, been but moderate linguists.

A certain familiarity with different languages they have, of course, had; and as compared with that of the special scholar—the Classic or the Orientalist, for instance—their range of language (so to say) has been a wide one; but it has rarely been of that vast compass which is found in men after the fashion of Mezzofanti, &c.—men who have spoken languages by the dozen, or the score;—but who have left comparative philology as little advanced as if their learning had been bounded by the limits of their own mother tongue.

Now this difference, always of more or less importance in itself, increases when we consider Language as an object of education; and it is for the sake of illustrating it that the foregoing preliminaries have been introduced. No opinion is given as to the comparative rank or dignity of the two studies; no decision upon the nobility or ignobility of the faculties involved in the attainment of excellence in either. The illustration of a difference is all that has been aimed at. There is a difference between the two classes of subjects, and a difference between the two kinds of mental faculties. Let us make this difference clear. Let us also give it prominence and importance.

One main distinction between the study of Language and the study of Languages lies in the fact of the value of the former being constant, that of the latter, fluctuating. The relative importance of any two languages, as objects of special attention, scarcely ever remains steady. The value, for instance, of the German—to look amongst the cotemporary forms of speech—has notably risen within the present century. And why? Because the literature in which it is embodied has improved. Because the scientific knowledge which, to all who want the key, is (so to say) locked up in it, has increased some hundred per cent.

But it may go down again. Suppose, for instance, that new writers of pre-eminent merit, ennoble some of the minor languages of Europe—the Danish, Swedish, Dutch, &c. Such a fact would divide the attention of savans—attention which can only be bestowed upon some second, at the expense of some first, object. In such a case, the extent to which the German language got studied would be affected much in the same way as that of the French has been by the development of the literature of Germany.

Or the area over which a language is spoken may increase; as it may, also, diminish.

Or the number of individuals that speak it may multiply—the area being the same.

Or the special application of the language, whether for the purposes of commerce, literature, science, or politics, may become changed. In this way, as well as in others, the English is becoming, day by day, more important.

There are other influences.

High as is the value of the great classical languages of Greece and Rome, we can easily conceive how that value might be enhanced. Let a manuscript containing the works of some of the lost, or imperfectly preserved, writers of antiquity be discovered. Let, for instance, Gibbon's desiderata—the lost Decads of Livy, the Orations of Hyperides, or the Dramas of Menander—be made good. The per-centage of classical scholars would increase; little or much.

Some years back it was announced that the Armenian language contained translations, made during the earlier centuries of our era, of certain classical writings, of which the originals had been lost—lost in the interval. This did not exactly make the Armenian, with its alphabet of six-and-thirty letters, a popular tongue; but it made it, by a fraction, more popular than it was in the days of Whiston and La Croze, when those two alone, of all the learned men of Europe, could read it.

Translations tell in another way. Whatever is worth reading in the Danish and Swedish is forthwith translated into German. E. g. Professor Retzius of Stockholm wrote a good Manual of Anatomy. He had the satisfaction of seeing it translated into German. He had the further satisfaction of hearing that the translation ran through five editions in less time than the original did through one.

Now, if the Germans were to leave off translating the value of the language in which Professor Retzius wrote his Anatomy would rise.

Upon the whole, the French is, perhaps, the most important language of the nineteenth century; yet it is only where we take into consideration the whole of its elements of value. To certain special savans, the German is worth more; to the artist, the Italian; to the American, the Spanish. It fell, too, in value when nations like our own insisted upon the use of their native tongues in diplomacy. It fell in value because it became less indispensable; and another cause, now in operation, affects the same element of indispensability. The French are beginning to learn the languages of other nations. Their own literature will certainly be none the worse for their so doing. But it by no means follows that that literature will be any the more studied. On the contrary, Frenchmen will learn English more, and, pro tanto, Englishmen learn French less.

If all this have illustrated a difference, it may also have done something more. It may have given a rough sketch, in the way of classification, of the kind of facts that regulate the value of special languages as special objects of study. At any rate (and this is the main point), the subject-matter of the present Address is narrowed. It is narrowed (in the first instance at least) to the consideration of that branch of study whereof the value is constant; for assuredly it is this which will command more than a moiety of our consideration.

This may be said to imply a preference to the study of Language as opposed to that of Languages—a singular preference, as a grammarian may, perhaps, be allowed to call it. It cannot be denied that, to a certain extent, such is the case; but it is only so to a certain extent. The one is not magnified at the expense of the other. When all has been said that logic or mental philosophy can say about the high value of comparative philology, general grammar, and the like, the lowest value of the least important language will still stand high, and pre-eminently high that of what may be called the noble Languages. No variations in the philological barometer, no fluctuations in the Exchange of Language, will ever bring down the advantage of studying one, two, or even more foreign languages to so low a level as to expel such tongues as the Latin, the Greek, the French, or the German, one and all, from an English curriculum—and vice versâ, English from a foreign one.

Now, if this be the case, one of the elements in the value of the study of Language in general will be the extent to which it facilitates the acquirement of any one language in particular, and this element of value will be an important—though not the most important—one.

The structure of the human body is worth knowing, even if the investigator of it be neither a practitioner in medicine nor a teacher of anatomy; and, in like manner, the structure of the human language is an important study irrespective of the particular forms of speech whereof it may facilitate the acquirement.

The words on the diagram-board will now be explained. They are meant to illustrate the class of facts that comparative philology supplies.

The first runs—

Klein : Clean :: Petit : Petitus.

It shows the extent to which certain ideas are associated. It shows, too, something more; it shows that such an association is capable of being demonstrated from the phenomena of language instead of being a mere à priori speculation on the part of the mental philosopher.

Klein is the German for little; clean is our own English adjective, the English of the Latin word mundus. In German the word is rein.

Now, notwithstanding the difference of meaning in the two tongues, clean and klein are one and the same word. Yet, how are the ideas of cleanliness and littleness connected? The Greek language has the word hypocorisma, meaning a term of endearment, and the adjective hypocoristic. Now, clean-ness, or neat-ness, is one of the elements that make hypocoristic terms (or terms of endearment) applicable. And so is smallness. We talk of pretty little dears, a thousand times, where we talk of pretty big dears once. This, then, explains the connexion; this tells us that clean in English is klein in German, word for word.

You doubt it, perhaps. You shake your head, and say, that the connexion seems somewhat indefinite; that it is just one of those points which can neither be proved nor disproved. Be it so. The evidence can be amended. Observe the words petit and petitus. Petit (in French) is exactly what klein is in German, i. e., little. Petitus (in Latin) is very nearly what clean is in English, i. e., desired, or desirable. That petit comes from petitus is undeniable.

Hence, where the German mode of thought connects the ideas of smallness and cleanness, the Latin connects those of smallness and desirability; so that as petit is to petitus, so is klein to clean. In the diagram this is given in the formula of a sum in the Rule of Three.

The words just noticed explain the connexion of ideas in the case of separate words. The forthcoming help us in a much more difficult investigation. What is the import of such sounds as that of the letter s in the word father-s? It is the sign of the plural number.

Such is the question—such the answer; question and answer connected in the word fathers solely for the sake of illustration. Any other word, and any other sign of case, number, person, or tense, would have done as well.

But is the answer a real one? Is it an answer at all? How come such things as plural numbers, and signs of plural numbers, into language? How the particular plural before us came into being, I cannot say; but I can show how some plurals have. Let us explain the following—

Ngi = I.	Ngi-n-de = we.
Ngo = thou.	Ngo-n-da = ye.
Ngu = he.	Nge-n-da = they.
Da = with.
Me-cum = me.

The da (or de) in the second column, is the sign of the plural number in a language which shall at present be nameless. It is also the preposition with. Now with denotes association, association plurality. Hence

Ngi-n-de	= I	+ = we.
Ngo-n-da	= thou	+ = ye.
Nge-n-da	= he	+ = they.

This is just as if the Latins, instead of nos and vos, said me-cum and te-cum.

Such is the history of one mode of expressing the idea of plurality; we can scarcely say of a plural number. The words plural number suggest the idea of a single word, like fathers, where the s is inseparably connected with the root; at least so far inseparably connected as to have no independent existence of its own. Ngi-n-de, however, is no single word at all, but a pair of words in juxta-position, each with a separate existence of its own. But what if this juxta-position grow into amalgamation; What if the form in da change? What if it become t or z, or th, or s? What if, meanwhile, the separate preposition da change in form also; in form or meaning, or, perhaps, in both? In such a case a true plural form is evolved, the history of its evolution being a mystery.

So much for one of the inflections of a noun. The remaining words illustrate one of a verb.

Hundreds of grammarians have suggested that the signs of the persons in the verb might be neither more nor less than the personal pronouns appended; in the first instance, to the verb, but, afterwards amalgamated or incorporated with it. If so, the -m in inqua-m, is the m in me, &c. The late Mr. Garnett, a comparative philologist whose reputation is far below his merits, saw that this was not exactly the case. He observed that the appended pronoun was not so much the Personal as the Possessive one: that the analysis of a word like inqua-m was not so much, say+I, as saying+my; in short, that the verb was a noun, and the pronoun either an adjective (like meus) or an oblique case (like mei), agreeing with, or governed by, it.

It is certainly so in the words before you. In a language, which, at present, shall be nameless, instead of saying my apple, thy apple, they say what is equivalent to apple-m, apple-th, &c.; i. e., they append the possessive pronoun to the substantive, and by modifying its form, partially incorporate or amalgamate it. They do more than this. They do (as the diagram shows us) precisely the same with the verbs in their personal, as they do with the nouns in their possessive, relations. Hence, olvas-om, &c., is less I read than my-reading; less read+I, than reading+my.

1.

Olvas—om		= I read.	= reading-my.
——	od	= thou readest.	= reading-thy.
——	uk	= we read.	= reading-our.
——	atok	= ye read.	= reading-your.

2.

Almá—m		= my apple.	= apple-my.
——	d	= thy apple.	= apple-thy.
——	nk	= our apple.	= apple-our.
——	tok	= your apple.	= apple-your.

I submit, that facts of this kind are of some value, great or small. But the facts themselves are not all. How were they got at? They were got at by dealing with the phenomena of language as we found them, by an induction of no ordinary width and compass; for many forms of speech had to be investigated before the facts came out in their best and most satisfactory form.

The illustration of the verb (olvasom, and almám, &c.) is from the Hungarian; that of the plural number (nginde, &c.), from the Tumali—the Tumali being a language no nearer than the negro districts to the south of Kordovan, between Sennaar and Darfur, and (as such) not exactly in the highway of literature and philology.

Now I ask whether there be, or whether there be not, certain branches of inquiry which are, at one and the same time, recognised to be of the highest importance, and yet not very remarkable for either unanimity of opinion, precision of language, or distinctness of idea on the part of their professors. I ask whether what is called, with average clearness, Mental Philosophy, and, with somewhat less clearness, Metaphysics, be not in this predicament? I ask whether, in this branch of investigation, the subject-matter do not eminently desiderate something definite, palpable, and objective, and whether these same desiderated tangibilities be not found in the wide field of Language to an extent which no other field supplies? Let this field be a training-ground. The facts it gives are of value. The method it requires is of value.

As the languages of the world, as the forms of speech mutually unintelligible, are counted by the hundred, and the dialects by the thousand, the field is a large one—one supplying much exercise, work, and labour. But the applications of the results obtained are wide also; for, as long as any form of mental philosophy remains susceptible of improvement, as long as its improved form remains undiffused, so long will a knowledge of the structure of language in general, a knowledge of comparative philology, a knowledge of general grammar (for we may choose our term), have its use and application. And, assuredly, this will be for some time.

As to its special value in the particular department of the ethnologist, high as it is, I say nothing, or next to nothing, about it; concerning myself only with its more general applications.

Let it be said, then, that the study of language is eminently disciplinal to those faculties that are tasked in the investigation of the phenomena of the human mind; the value of a knowledge of these being a matter foreign to the present dissertation, but being by no means low. High or low, however, it measures that of the studies under notice.

But how is this general philology to be taught? Are youths to seek for roots and processes in such languages as the Hungarian and the Tumali? No. The teaching must be by means of well-selected suggestive examples, whereby the student may rise from particulars to generals, and be taught to infer the uncertain from the certain. I do not say that the s in fathers arose exactly after the fashion of the Tumali plural; but, assuredly, its development was the same in kind, if not in detail. At all events, language must be dealt with as a growth.

In the first stage of speech, there are no inflections at all, separate words serving instead of them:—just as if, instead of saying fathers, we said father many, or father father; reduplication being one of the make-shifts (so to say) of this period. The languages allied to the Chinese belong to this class.

In the second stage, the separate words coalesce, but not so perfectly as to disfigure their originally separate character. The Hungarian persons have illustrated this. Language now becomes what is called agglutinate. The parts cohere, but the cohesion is imperfect. The majority of languages are agglutinate.

The Latin and Greek tongues illustrate the third stage. The parts originally separate, then agglutinate, now become so modified by contact as to look like secondary parts of a single word; these original separate substantive characters being a matter of inference rather than a patent and transparent fact. The s in fathers (which is also the s in patre-s and [a]πάτερε-ς]) is in this predicament.

Lastly, inflections are replaced by prepositions and auxiliary verbs, as is the case in the Italian and French when compared with the Latin.

Truly, then, may we say that the phenomena of speech are the phenomena of growth, evolution, or development; and as such must they be taught. A cell that grows,—not a crystal that is built up,—such is language.

But these well-devised selections of suggestive examples, whereby the student may rise from particulars to generals, &c., are not to be found in the ordinary grammars. Indeed, it is the very reverse of the present system; where there are twenty appeals to the memory in the shape of what is called a rule, for one appeal to the understanding in the shape of an illustrated process. So much the worse for the existing methods.

Moulds applied to growing trees—cookery-book receipts for making a natural juice—these are the parallels to the artificial systems of grammar in their worst forms. The better can be excused, sometimes recommended; even as the Linnæan system of botanical teaching can, in certain cases, be used with safety, provided always that its artificial character be explained beforehand, and insisted on throughout.

To stand on the level of the Linnæan system, an artificial grammar must come under the following condition:—It must leave the student nothing to unlearn when he comes to a natural one.

How can this be done? It can be done, if the grammarian will be content to teach forms only, leaving processes alone. Let him say (for instance) that the Latin for—

I call is	voc-o.
Thou callest,	voc-as.
Calling,	voc-ans.
I called,	voc-avi &c.

But do not let him say that active aorists are formed from futures, and passive ones from the third person singular of the perfect. His forms, his paradigms, will be right; his rules, in nine cases out of ten, wrong. I am satisfied that languages can be taught without rules and by paradigms only.

This recognition of what has been called artificial grammar for the teaching of special languages, as opposed to the general grammar of the comparative philologist, should serve to anticipate an objection. 'Would you,' it may be asked, 'leave the details of languages like the Latin, Greek, French, German, &c.—languages of eminent practical utility—untaught until such time as the student shall have dipped into Chinese, touched upon Hungarian, and taken a general idea of the third stage of development from the Latin, and of the fourth from the French? If so, the period of life when the memory for words is strongest will have passed away before any language but his own mother-tongue has been acquired.'

The recognition of such a thing as artificial grammar answers this in the negative. If a special language be wanted, let it be taught by-times: only, if it cannot be taught in the most scientific manner, let it be taught in a manner as little unscientific as possible.

In this lies an argument against the ordinary teaching (I speak as an Englishman) of English. What do we learn by it?

In the ordinary teaching of what is called the grammar of the English language there are two elements. There is something professed to be taught which is not taught, but which, if taught, would be worth learning; and there is something which, from being already learned better than any man can teach it, requires no lessons. The one (the latter) is the use and practice of the English tongue. This the Englishman has already. The other is the principles of grammar. With existing text-books this is an impossibility. What then is taught? Something (I am quoting from what I have written elsewhere) undoubtedly. The facts, that language is more or less regular; that there is such a thing as grammar; that certain expressions should be avoided, are all matters worth knowing. And they are all taught even by the worst method of teaching. But are these the proper objects of systematic teaching? Is the importance of their acquisition equivalent to the time, the trouble, and the displacement of more valuable subjects, which are involved in their explanation? I think not. Gross vulgarity of language is a fault to be prevented; but the proper prevention is to be got from habit—not rules. The proprieties of the English language are to be learned, like the proprieties of English manners, by conversation and intercourse; and a proper school for both, is the best society in which the learner is placed. If this be good, systematic teaching is superfluous; if bad, insufficient. There are undoubted points where a young person may doubt as to the grammatical propriety of a certain expression. In this case let him ask some one older and more instructed. Grammar, as a art, is, undoubtedly, the art of speaking and writing correctly—but then, as an art, it is only required for foreign languages. For our own we have the necessary practice and familiarity.

The true claim of English grammar to form part and parcel of an English education stands or falls with the value of the philological knowledge to which grammatical studies may serve as an introduction, and with the value of scientific grammar as a disciplinal study. I have no fear of being supposed to undervalue its importance in this respect. Indeed, in assuming that it is very great, I also assume that wherever grammar is studied as grammar, the language which the grammar so studied should represent, must be the mother-tongue of the student; whatever that mother-tongue may be—English for Englishmen, Welsh for Welshmen, French for Frenchmen, German for Germans, &c. The study is the study of a theory; and for this reason it should be complicated as little as possible by points of practice. For this reason a man's mother-tongue is the best medium for the elements of scientific philology, simply because it is the one which he knows best in practice.

Limit, then, the teaching of English, except so far as it is preparatory to the study of language in general; with which view, teach as scientifically as possible.

Go further. Except in special cases, limit the teaching of the classical tongues to one out of the two. One, for all disciplinal purposes, is enough. In this, go far. Dead though the tongue be, and object of ridicule as the occupation is becoming, go to the length of writing verses, though only in a few of the commoner metres. Go far, and go in one direction only. There are reasons for this singleness of path. I fear that there is almost a necessity. As long as men believed that the ordinary Latin and Greek grammars were good things of themselves, and that, even if they did not carry the student far into the classics, they told him something of value respecting language in general, a little learning in the dead languages was a good thing. But what if the grammars are not good things? What if they are absolutely bad? In such a case, the classical tongues cease to be learnt except for themselves. Now, one of the few things that is more useless than a little Latin is a little Greek.

Am I wrong in saying that, with nine out of ten who learn both Latin and Greek, the knowledge of the two tongues conjointly is not greater than the knowledge of one of them singly ought to be?

Am I wrong in believing that the tendencies of the age are in favour of decreasing rather than increasing the amount of time bestowed upon classical scholarship?

Unless I be so, the necessity for a limitation is apparent.

To curtail English—to eliminate one of the classical tongues—possibly that of Pericles, at any rate, either that of Pericles or of Cicero—to substitute for the ordinary elements of a so-called classical education illustrations from the Chinese, the Hungarian, or the Tumali—this is what I have recommended.

I cannot but feel that in so doing I may seem to some to have been false to my text, which was to eulogize things philological. They may say, Call you this backing your friends? I do. It is not by glorifying one's own more peculiar studies that such studies gain credit. To show the permanent, rather than the accidental, elements of their value, is the best service that can be done for them. It is also good service to show that they can be taught with a less expenditure of time and labour than is usually bestowed on them. But the best service of all is to indicate their disciplinal value; and to show that, instead of displacing other branches of knowledge, they so exercise certain faculties of the mind as to prepare the way to them.

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[II.]
LOGICA.

ON THE WORD DISTRIBUTED, AS USED IN LOGIC.

READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

DECEMBER THE 18TH 1857.

The present paper is an attempt to reconcile the logical and etymological meanings of the word Distributed.

Speaking roughly, distributed means universal: "a term is said to be distributed when it is taken universally, so as to stand for everything it is capable of being applied to."—Whately, i. § 5.

Speaking more closely, it means universal in one premiss; it being a rule in the ordinary logic that no conclusion is possible unless one premiss be, either negatively or affirmatively, universal.

Assuredly there is no etymological connexion between the two words. Hence De Morgan writes:—"By distributed is here meant universally spoken of. I do not use this term in the present work, because I do not see why, in any deducible meaning of the word distributed, it can be applied to universal as distinguished from particular."—Formal Logic, chap. vii.

Neither can it be so applied. It is nevertheless an accurate term.

Let it mean related to more than one class, and the power of the prefix dis-, at least, becomes intelligible.

For all the purposes of logic this is not enough; inasmuch as the particular character of the relation (all-important in the structure of the syllogism) is not, at present, given. It is enough, however, to give import to the syllable dis-.

In affirmative propositions this relation is connective on both sides, i. e. the middle term forms part of both the others. In negative propositions this relation is connective on one side, disjunctive on the other.

In—

All men are mortal,
All heroes are men,

the middle term men forms a part of the class called mortal, by being connected with it in the way that certain contents are connected with the case that contains them; whilst it also stands in connexion with the class of heroes in the way that cases are connected with their contents. In—

No man is perfect,
Heroes are men,

the same double relation occurs. The class man, however, though part of the class hero, is no part of the class perfect but, on the contrary, expressly excluded from it. Now this expression of exclusion constitutes a relation—disjunctive indeed, but still a relation; and this is all that is wanted to give an import to the prefix dis- in distributed.

Wherever there is distribution there is inference, no matter whether the distributed term be universal or not. If the ordinary rules for the structure of the syllogism tell us the contrary to this, they only tell the truth, so far as certain assumptions on which they rest are legitimate. These limit us to the use of three terms expressive of quantity,—all, none, and some; and it is quite true that, with this limitation, universality and distribution coincide.

Say that

Some Y is X,
Some Z is Y,

and the question will arise whether the Y that is X is also the Y that is Z. That some Y belongs to both classes is clear; whether, however, it be the same Y is doubtful. Yet unless it be so, no conclusion can be drawn. And it may easily be different. Hence, as long as we use the word some, we have no assurance that there is any distribution of the middle term.

Instead, however, of some write all, and it is obvious that some Y must be both X and Z; and when such is the case—

Some X must be Z, and
Some Z must be X.

Universality, then, of the middle term in one premiss is, by no means, the direct condition that gives us an inference, but only a secondary one. The direct condition is the distribution. Of this, the universality of the middle term is only a sign, and it is the only sign we have, because all and some are the only words we have to choose from. If others were allowed, the appearance which the two words (distributed and universal) have of being synonymous would disappear. And so they do when we abandon the limitations imposed upon us by the words all and some. So they do in the numerically definite syllogism, exemplified in—

More than half Y is X,
More than half Y is Z,
Some Z is X.

So, also, they do when it is assumed that the Y's which are X and the Y's which are Z are identical.

Y is X,
The same Y is Z,
Some Z is X.

In each of these formulæ there is distribution without universality, i. e. there is distribution with a quality other than that of universality as its criterion. The following extract not only explains this, but gives a fresh proof, if fresh proof be needed, that distributed and universal are used synonymously. The "comparison of each of the two terms must be equally with the whole, or with the same part of the third term; and to secure this, (1) either the middle term must be distributed in one premiss at least, or (2) the two terms must be compared with the same specified part of the middle, or (3), in the two premises taken together, the middle must be distributed, and something more, though not distributed in either singly."—Thompson, Outline of the Laws of Thought, § 39.

Here distributed means universal; Mr. Thompson's being the ordinary terminology. In the eyes of the present writer "distributed in one premiss" is a contradiction in terms.

Of the two terms, distributed is the more general; yet it is not the usual one. That it has been avoided by De Morgan has been shown. It may be added, that from the Port Royal Logic it is wholly excluded.

The statement that, in negative propositions, the relation is connective on one side, and disjunctive on the other, requires further notice. It is by no means a matter of indifference on which side the connexion or disjunction lies.

(a.) It is the class denoted by the major, of which the middle term of a negative syllogism is expressly stated to form no part, or from which it is disjoined. (b.) It is the class denoted by the minor, of which the same middle term is expressly stated to form part, or with which it is connected.

No man is perfect—

here the proposition is a major, and the middle term man is expressly separated from the class perfect.

All heroes are men—

here it is a minor, and the middle term man is expressly connected with class hero.

A connective relation to the major, and a disjunctive relation to the minor are impossible in negative syllogisms. The exceptions to this are only apparent. The two most prominent are the formulæ Camestres and Camenes, in both of which it is the minor premiss wherein the relation is disjunctive. But this is an accident; an accident arising out of the fact of the major and minor being convertible.

Bokardo is in a different predicament. Bokardo, along with Baroko, is the only formula containing a particular negative as a premiss. Now the particular negatives are, for so many of the purposes of logic, particular affirmatives, that they may be neglected for the present; the object at present being to ascertain the rules for the structure of truly and unquestionably negative syllogisms. Of these we may predicate that—their minor proposition is always either actually affirmative or capable of becoming so by transposition.

To go further into the relations between the middle term and the minor, would be to travel beyond the field under present notice; the immediate object of the present paper being to explain the import of the word distributed. That it may, both logically and etymologically, mean related to two classes is clear—clear as a matter of fact. Whether, however, related to two classes be the meaning that the history of logic gives us, is a point upon which I abstain from giving an opinion. I only suggest that, in elementary treatises, the terms universal and distributed should be separated more widely than they are; one series of remarks upon—

a. Distribution as a condition of inference, being followed by another on—

b. Universality of the middle term in one premiss as a sign of distribution.

So much for the extent to which the present remarks suggest the purely practical question as to how the teaching of Aristotelian logic may be improved. There is another, however, beyond it; one of a more theoretical, indeed of an eminently theoretical, nature. It raises doubts as to the propriety of the word all itself; doubts as to the propriety of the term universal.

The existence of such a word as all in the premiss, although existing therein merely as a contrivance for reconciling the evidence of the distribution of the middle term with a certain amount of simplicity in the way of terminology, could scarcely fail, in conjunction with some of its other properties, to give it what is here considered an undue amount of importance. It made it look like the opposite to none. Yet this is what it is not. The opposite to none is not-none, or some; the opposite to all is one. In one and all we have the highest and lowest numbers of the individuals that constitute a class. In none and some we have the difference between existence and non-existence. That all is a mere mode of some, has been insisted on by many logicians, denied by few or none. Between all and some, there is, at best, but a difference of degree. Between some and none, the difference is a difference of kind. Some may, by strengthening, be converted into all. No strengthening may obliterate the difference between all and not-all. From this it follows that the logic of none and some, the logic of connexion and disjunction (the logic of two signs), is much more widely different from the logic of part and whole (the logic of three signs) than is usually admitted; the former being a logic of pure quality, the latter a logic of quality and quantity as well.

Has the admixture done good? I doubt whether it has. The logic of pure and simple Quality would, undoubtedly, have given but little; nothing but negative conclusions on one side, and possible particulars on the other. Nevertheless it would have given a logic of the Possible and Impossible.

Again, as at present constituted, the Quantitative logic, the logic of all and some, embraces either too much or too little. All is, as aforesaid, only a particular form of more than none. So is most. Now such syllogisms as—

Most men are fallible,
Most men are rational,
Some men are both frail and fallible;

or,

Some frail things are fallible,

are inadmissible in the Aristotelian paradigms. A claim, however, is set up for their admission. Grant it, and you may say instead of most—

Fifty-one per cent., &c.;

but this is only a particular instance. You may combine any two numbers in any way you like, provided only that the sum be greater than unity. Now this may be arithmetic, and it may be fact; but it is scarcely formal logic; at any rate it is anything but general.

It is the logic of some and its modifications one, all, and anything between one and all, as opposed to the logic of the simple absolute some (some the opposite to none), and a little consideration will show that it is also the logic of the probable, with its modification the proven, (proven is probable, as all is some,) as opposed to the logic of the possible and impossible. Let, in such a pair of propositions as—

Some of the men of the brigade were brave,
Some of the men of the brigade were killed,

the number expressed by some, as well as the number of the men of the brigade, be known, and the question as to whether

Some brave men were killed,

is a problem in the doctrine of chances. One per cent. of each will make it very unlikely that the single brave man was also the single killed one. Forty-nine per cent. of each will make it highly probable that more than one good soldier met his fate. With fifty on one side, and fifty-one on the other, we have one at least. With all (either killed or brave), we have the same; and that without knowing any numbers at all.

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[III.]
GRAMMATICA.

ON THE RECIPROCAL PRONOUNS,
AND
ON THE RECIPROCAL POWER OF THE
REFLECTIVE VERB.

READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY,
MARCH 22. 1844.

The present paper is upon the reciprocal pronouns, and upon certain forms of the verb used in a reciprocal sense. It is considered that these points of language have not been put forwards with that prominence and care which their value in the solution of certain problems in philology requires. Too often the terms Reciprocal and Reflective have been made synonymous. How far this is true may be determined by the fact that the middle verbs in the Icelandic language have been called by so great a philologist as Rask reciprocal instead of reflective. This is equivalent to treating sentences like we strike ourselves, and we strike each other, as identical. Yet the language with which Rask was dealing (the Icelandic) was the one of all others wherein the difference in question required to be accurately drawn, and fully pointed out. (See Anvisning till Isländskan, pp. 281, 283.)

In all sentences containing the statement of a reciprocal or mutual action there are in reality two assertions, viz. the assertion that A strikes (or loves) B, and the assertion that B strikes (or loves) A; the action forming one, the reaction another. Hence, if the expression exactly coincided with the fact signified, there would always be two propositions. This, however, is not the habit of language. Hence arises a more compendious form of expression, giving origin to an ellipsis of a peculiar kind. Phrases like Eteocles and Polynices killed each other are elliptical for Eteocles and Polynices killed—each the other. Here the second proposition expands and explains the first, whilst the first supplies the verb to the second. Each, however, is elliptic. The first is without the object, the second without the verb. That the verb must be in the plural (or dual) number, that one of the nouns must be in the nominative case, and that the other must be objective, is self-evident from the structure of the sentence; such being the conditions of the expression of the idea. An aposiopesis takes place after a plural verb, and then there follows a clause wherein the verb is supplied from what went before.

When words equivalent to each other coalesce, and become compound; it is evident that the composition is of a very peculiar kind. Less, however, for these matters than for its value in elucidating the origin of certain deponent verbs does the expression of reciprocal action merit the notice of the philologist. In the latter part of the paper it will appear that for one branch of languages, at least, there is satisfactory evidence of a reflective form having become reciprocal, and of a reciprocal form having become deponent; this latter word being the term for those verbs whereof the meaning is active, and the form passive.

Beginning with those methods of denoting mutual action where the expression is the least explicit and unequivocal, it appears that in certain languages the reciprocal character of the verb is implied rather than expressed. Each man looked at his brother—or some equivalent clause, is the general phraseology of the Semitic languages.

More explicit than this is the use of a single pronoun (personal, possessive, or reflective) and of some adverb equivalent to the words mutually, interchangeably, &c. This is the habit of the Latin language,—Eteocles et Polynices invicem se trucidaverunt: also of the French, although not invariably, e. g. s'entr'aimer, s'entredire, s'entrebattre: also of the Mœso-Gothic—galeikái sind barnam tháim vôpjandam seina missô =[a] ὁόμοιοί ἐισι παιδίοις τοῖς προσφωνοῦσιν ἁλλήλοις] = loquentibus ad invicem.—Luc. vii. 32. Deutsche Grammatik, iv. 322, and iii. 13. The Welsh expressions are of this kind; the only difference being that the adverb coalesces with the verb, as an inseparable particle, and so forms a compound. These particles are dym, cym, or cy and ym. The former is compounded of dy, signifying iteration, and ym denoting mutual action; the latter is the Latin cum. Hence the reciprocal power of these particles is secondary: e. g. dymborthi, to aid mutually; dymddadlu, to dispute; dymgaru, to love one another; dymgoddi, to vex one another; dymgredu, to trust one another, or confide; dymguraw, to strike one another, or fight; çyçwennys, to desire mutually; cydadnabod, to know one another; cydaddawiad, to promise mutually; cydwystlaw, to pledge; cydymadrawn, to converse; cydymdaith, to accompany; ymadroddi, to discourse; ymaddaw, to promise; ymavael, to struggle; ymdaeru, to dispute, &c.

The form, which is at once current, full, and unequivocal, is the one that occurs in our own, and in the generality of languages. Herein there are two nouns (generally pronouns), and the construction is of the kind exhibited above—[a]ἁλλήλους], each other, einander, l'un l'autre, &c.

Sometimes the two nouns remain separate, each preserving its independent form. This is the case in most of the languages derived from the Latin, in several of the Slavonic and Lithuanic dialects, and in (amongst others) the Old Norse, the Swedish, and the Danish,—l'un l'autre, French; uno otro, Span.; geden druheho, Bohemian; ieden drugiego, Polish; wiens wienâ, Lith.; weens ohtru, Lettish; hvert annan (masc.), hvert annat (neut.) Old Norse. See D. G. iii. 84.

Sometimes the two nouns coalesce, and form words to which it would be a mere refinement to deny the name of compounds: this is the case with the Greek—[a]ἁλλήλον], [a]ἁλλήλοις], [a]ἁλλήλους].

Sometimes it is doubtful whether the phrase consist of a compound word or a pair of words. This occurs where, from the want of inflection, the form of the first word is the same in composition as it would have been out of it. Such is the case with our own language: each-other, one-another.

Throughout the mass of languages in general the details of the expression in question coincide; both subject and object are almost always expressed by pronouns, and these pronouns are much the same throughout. One, or some word equivalent, generally denotes the subject. Other, or some word equivalent, generally denotes the object, e. g. they struck one another. The varieties of expression may be collected from the following sketch:—

1. a. The subject is expressed by one, or some word equivalent, in most of the languages derived from the Latin, in several of the Slavonic dialects, in Lithuanic and Lettish, in Armenian, in German, in English, and doubtlessly in many other languages—l'un l'autre, Fr.; uno otro, Sp.; ieden drugiego, Polish; wiens wienâ, Lith.; weens ohtru, Lett.; me mæants, Armenian; einander, Germ.; one another, Engl.

b. By each, or some equivalent term, in English, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages—each other, English; elkander, Dutch; hverandre, Icelandic, Danish, Swedish.

c. By this, or some equivalent term, in Swedish and Danish (hinanden); in Lithuanic (kitts kittâ), and in Lettish (zitts zittu).

d. By other, or some equivalent term, in Greek and Armenian; [a]ἁλλήλους], irærats.

e. By man, used in an indefinite sense and compounded with lik in Dutch, malkander (mal-lik manlik).

f. By a term equivalent to mate or fellow in Laplandic—gòim gòimeme.—Rask, 'Lappisk Sproglære,' p. 102. Stockfleth, 'Grammatik,' p. 109.

2. a. In the expression of the object the current term is other or some equivalent word. Of this the use is even more constant than that of one expressive of the subject—l'un l'autre, French; uno otro, Spanish; [a]ἁλλήλους], Greek; geden druheho, Bohemian; ieden drugiego, Polish; weens ohtru, Lettish; irærats, Armenian; einander, German; each other, one another, English.

b. In Lithuanic the term in use is one; as, wiens wienâ. The same is the case for a second form in the Armenian mimœan.

c. In Laplandic it is denoted in the same as the subject; as gòim gòimeme.

Undoubtedly there are other varieties of this general method of expression. Upon those already exhibited a few remarks, however, may be made.

1. In respect to languages like the French, Spanish, &c., where the two nouns, instead of coalescing, remain separate, each retaining its inflection, it is clear that they possess a greater amount of perspicuity; inasmuch as (to say nothing of the distinction of gender) the subject can be used in the singular number when the mutual action of two persons (i. e. of one upon another) is spoken of, and in the plural when we signify that of more than two; e. g. ils (i. e. A and B) se battaient—l'un l'autre: but ils (A, B, C and D,) se battaient—les uns les autres. This degree of perspicuity might be attained in English and other allied languages by reducing to practice the difference between the words each and one; in which case we might say A and B struck one another, but A, B and C struck each other. In the Scandinavian languages this distinction is real; where hinanden is equivalent to l'un l'autre, French; uno otro, Spanish: whilst hverandre expresses les uns les autres, French; unos otros, Spanish. The same is the case in the Laplandic.—See Rask's Lappisk Sproglære, p. 102.

2. An analysis of such an expression as they praise one another's (or each other's) conduct, will show the lax character of certain forms in the Swedish. Of the two pronouns it is only the latter that appears in an oblique case, and this necessarily; hence the Swedish form hvarsannars is illogical. It is precisely what one's another's would be in English, or [a]ἄλλων ἄλλων] for [a]ἁλλήλων] in Greek. The same applies to the M. H. G. einen anderen. D. G. iii. 83.

3. The term expressive of the object appears in three forms, viz. preceded by the definite article (l'un l'autre), by the indefinite article (one another), and finally, standing alone (each other, einander). Of these three forms the first is best suited for expressing the reciprocal action of two persons (one out of two struck the other); whilst the second or third is fittest for signifying the reciprocal action of more than two (one out of many struck, and was struck by, some other).

The third general method of expressing mutual or reciprocal action is by the use of some particular form of the verb. In two, and probably more, of the African languages (the Woloff and Bechuana) this takes place. In the Turkish there is also a reciprocal form: as sui-mek, to love; baki-mek, to look; sui-sh-mek, to love one another; baki-sh-mek, to look at one another; su-il-mek, to be loved; sui-sh-il-mek, to be loved mutually.—David's Turkish Grammar.

The fourth form of expression gives the fact alluded to at the beginning of the paper: viz. an instrument of criticism in investigating the origin of certain deponent verbs. In all languages there is a certain number of verbs denoting actions, reciprocal or mutual to the agents. Such are the words embrace, converse, strive against, wrestle, fight, rival, meet, and several more. There are also other words where the existence of two parties is essential to the idea conveyed, and where the notion, if not that of reciprocal action, is akin to it; viz. reproach, compromise, approach, &c. Now in certain languages (the Latin and Greek) some of these verbs have a passive form; i. e. they are deponents,—loquor, colloquor, luctor, reluctor, amplector, suavior, osculor, suspicor, Latin; [a]φιλοτιμέομαι], [a]φιλοφρονέομαι], [a]μάχομαι], [a]διαλέγομαι], [a]ἁλέομαι], [a]διαλύομαι], [a]ἁμείβομαι] &c., Greek. Hence arises the hypothesis, that it is to their reciprocal power on the one hand, and to the connexion between the passive, reflective and reciprocal forms on the other, that these verbs owe their deponent character. The fact essential to the probability of this hypothesis is the connexion between the reflective forms and the reciprocal ones.

Now for one branch of languages this can be shown most satisfactorily. In Icelandic the middle voice is formed from the active by the addition of the reflective pronoun, mik, me, sik, him or self. Hence it is known by the terminations mc and sc, and by certain modifications of these affixes, viz. st, s, z, mz, ms. In the oldest stage of the language the reflective power of the middle voice, to the exclusion of a passive sense, is most constant: e. g. hann var nafnadr=he had the name given him; hann nefnist=he gave as his name, or named himself. It was only when the origin of the middle form became indistinct that its sense became either passive or deponent; as it generally is in the modern tongues of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Now in the modern Scandinavian languages we have, on the one hand, certain deponent forms expressive of reciprocal action; whilst on the other we have, even in the very earliest stages of the Old Norse, middle or reflective forms used in a reciprocal sense. Of some of these, examples will be given: but the proof of their sense being reciprocal will not be equally conclusive in all. Some may perhaps be looked on as deponents (ættust, beriast, skiliast, mödast); whilst others may be explained away by the assumption of a passive construction (fundoz=they were found, not they found each other). Whatever may be the case with the words taken from the middle and modern stages of the language, this cannot be entertained in regard to the examples drawn from the oldest Norse composition, the Edda of Sæmund. For this reason the extracts from thence are marked Edd. Sæm., and of these (and these alone) the writer has attempted to make the list exhaustive. The translations in Latin and Danish are those of the different editors.

1. Ættust, fought each other.

2. Beriaz, strike each other.

brödur muno beriaz.
fratres invicem pugnabunt.

Voluspa, 41. Edd. Sæm.

This word is used in almost every page of the Sagas as a deponent signifying to fight: also in the Feroic dialect.

3. Bregþaz, interchange.

orþom at bregþaz.
verba commutare.

Helga-Qviþa Hundlingsbana, i. 41. ii. 26. Edd. Sæm.

4. Drepiz, kill one another.

finnuz þeir báder daudir—— en ecki vapn höfþu þeir nema bitlana af hestinum, ok þat hygia menn at þeir (Alrek and Eirek) hafi drepiz þar med. Sva segir Ðiodolfr.; "Drepaz kvádu."—Heimskringla. Ynglinga-Saga, p. 23.

The brothers were found dead—and no weapons had they except the bits of their horses, and men think they (Alrek and Eirek) had killed each other therewith. So says Thiodolf.: "They said that they killed each other."

5. Um-faþmaz, embrace each other. See Atla-Quiþa hin Grænslenzko, 42.—Edd. Sæm.

6. Földes, fell in with each other.—Om morgonet effter földes wy in Kobenhaffn.—Norwegian Letters in 1531, A. D. See Samlingar til det Norske Folks Sprog og Historie, I. 2. 70. The morning after we fell in with each other in Copenhagen.

7. Funduz, found each other, met. See Vafþrudnis-mal 17.—Sigurd-Quiþ. i. 6. Edd. Sæm.—Fareyingar-Saga, p. 44. Ðeir funduz is rendered de fandt hverandre=they found each other, in Haldorsen's Lexic. Island.

ef iþ Gymer finniz.
if you and Gymer meet.

Harbards-l: 24. Edd. Sæm.

8. Gættuz, consult each other. See Voluspa, 6. 9. 21. 23. Edd. Sæm.

9. Glediaz, rejoice each other.

vapnom ok vádom
skulo vinir glediaz,
þæt er á sialfom sæmst:
vidr-géfendr ok endi gefendr
erost lengst vinir
ef þat biþr at verþa vel.

Rigsmal. 41.

armis ac vestibus
amici mutuo se delectent,
queîs in ipso (datore) forent conspicua:
pretium renumerantes et remunerantes
inter se diutissime sunt amici
si negotium feliciter se dat.

The middle form and reciprocal sense of erost is remarkable in this passage.

10. Hauggvaz, hack each other, fight.

allir Einheriar
Oþins túnom i
hauggvaz hverian dag.
all the Einheriar
in Odin's towns
hack each other every day.

Vafþrudnis-Mal. 41. Edd. Sæm.

ef þeir högvaz orþom á.
si se maledictis invicem insectentur.

Sig-Qvið. ii. 1. Edd. Sæm.

11. Hættaz, cease.

hættomc hættingi.
cessemus utrinque a minaciis.

Harbardslióð, 51. Edd. Sæm.

Such is the translation of the editors, although the reciprocal power is not unequivocal.

12. Hittaz, hit upon each other, meet. Hittoz, Voluspa, 7. Hittomk, Hadding-skata, 22. Hittaz, Solar-l: 82. Edd. Sæm. Hittust, Ol. Trygv. Sag. p. 90. Hittuz oc beriaz, Heimskringla, Saga Halfd. Svart. p. 4. Hittuz, Yngl. Sag. p. 42. alibi passim þeir hittu is rendered, in Bjorn Haldorsen's Islandic Lexicon, de traf hinanden, they hit upon each other.

13. Kiempis, fight each other,

gaar udi gaarden oc kiempis, oc nelegger hver hinanden, goes out in the house and fight each the other, and each knocks down the other.

Such is the translation by Resenius, in modern Danish, of the following extract from Snorro's Edda, p. 34.—Ganga ut i gardinn og beriast, og fellar huor annar. Here the construction is not, they fell (or knock down) each the other, but each fells the other; since fellar and nelegger are singular forms.

14. Mælast, talk to each other, converse. Talast, ditto.

Mæliz þu. Vafþrudnismal, 9.

melomc i sessi saman=colloquamur sedentes. ib. 19. Edd. Sæm.

mælast þeir vid, ádr þeir skiliast, at þeir mundi þar finnast þa,—Fóstbrædra-Saga, p. 7.

they said to each other before they parted from each other that they should meet each other there.

Yngvi ok Bera satu ok töluduz vidr.—Heimskr. Yngl. S. p. 24.

Griss mælti; hverír ero þessir menn er sva tulast vid bliðliga? Avàldi svarar; þa er Hallfreydr Ottarson ok Kolfinna dóthir min. Ol. Trygyv. Saga, p. 152. Griss said, who are these persons who talk together so blithely? Avaldi answers, they are Halfrid Ottarson and Kolfinna my daughter. Talast is similarly used in Feroic. Kvödust, bespoke each other, occurs in the same sense—þat var einn dag at Brand ok Finbogi fundust ok kvödust blídliga.—Vatnsdæla-Sag. p. 16.

15. Mettæst, meet each other, meet.

Kungen aff Ffranchriche, kungen aff England, oc kungen aff Schottland skule motes til Chalis.—Letter from Bergen in 1531, from Samlinger til det Norske Folks Sprog og Historie, i. 2. p. 53. The king of France, the king of England, and the king of Scotland should meet each other at Calais.

Throughout the Danish, Swedish and Feroic, this verb is used as a deponent.

16. Rekaz, vex each other.

gumnar margir
erosc gagn-hollir,
enn at virþi rekaz.

Rigsmal. 32. Edd. Sæm.

multi homines
sunt inter se admodum benevoli,
sed tamen mutuo se (vel) in convivio exagitant.

17. Sakaz, accuse each other, recriminate.

at vit mynim siafrum sacaz,
ut nos ipsi mutuo insectemur.

Hamdis-Mal. 28.

ef viþ einir scolom
sáryrþom sacaz.
si nobis duobus usu veniat
amarulentis dicteriis invicem
nos lacessere.

Ægis-drecka, 5.

sculoþ inni her
sáryrþom sacaz.

Ibid. 19. Edd. Sæm.

18. Saz, looked at each other.

saz i augv
fadir ok módir.

Rigsmal. 24.

they looked at each other in the eyes, father and mother.

19. Sættaz, settle between each other, reconcile.—Atla-Mal. 45. Edd. Sæm.

Komu vinir þveggia þvi vid, at þeir sættuz, ok lögdu konungar stefnu med sér, ok hittuz ok gérdo frit mellum sin.—Heimsk. Yngling-S. 42.

There came friends of both in order that they should be reconciled, and the kings sent messages between them, and met and made peace between them.—Also Vatnsd. S. p. 16.

20. Seljas, to give to each other.

seldz eiþa.

Sig. Qv. iii. 1. Edd. Sæm.

juramenta dederunt inter se.

21. Sendaz, send, or let pass between each other.

sato samtýnis,
senduz fár-hugi,
henduz heipt-yrþi
hvarki sér undi.

Atla-Mal. 85.

They sat in the same town (dwelling),
They sent between each other danger-thoughts,
They fetched between each other hate-words,
Not either way did they love each other.

Here, over and above the use of senduz and henduz, ser is equivalent to hinanden.

22. Skiliaz, part from each other.

Skiliumz.

Solar-Lioð. 82.

Skiliaz.

Sigurd-Qviþ. i. 24.

Skiliomc.

Ibid. 53. Edd. Sæm.

Vit sjiljiast, we two part—

Occurs in the poem Brinilda (st. 109) in the Feroic dialect. In Danish and Swedish the word is deponent.

23. Skiptust, interchange.

Ðeir skiptust mörgum giöfum vid um vetrinn—Vatns-dæla-S. 10. they made interchanges with each other with many gifts for the winter.

Also in the Feroic.

24. Strujast, strike one another, fight. Feroic.

og mötast tair, og strujast avlaji lanji.—Fareying-Sag. 18. Feroic text.

ok mætast þeir, ok berjast mjök leingi.—Icelandish text.

de mödtes og strede meget længe imod hinanden.—Danish text.

they met and fought long against each other.

at e vilde vid gjordust stålbröir, og strujast ikkji longur.—Feroic text, p. 21.

at við gerðimst fèlagar, en berjumst eigi leingr.—Icelandic text.

at vi skulle blive Stalbröde og ikke slaaes længer—Danish text.

that we should become comrades and not fight longer.

The active form occurs in the same dialect:

tajr struija nú langji.

18.

25. Truasc, trust each other.

vel mættern þæir truazc.

För Skirnis. Edd. Sæm.

26. Unnaz. See Veittaz.

27. Vegiz, attack each other.

vilcat ec at iþ reiþir vegiz.

Ægisdrecka 18. Edd. Sæm.

I will not that ye two angry attack each other.

28. Veittaz, contract mutually.

þav Helgi ok Svava veittuz varar, ok unnoz forþo mikit=Helgius et Svava pactum sponsalitium inter se contraxerunt, et alter alterum mirifice amarunt.—Haddingia-Sk. between 29 and 30.

29. Verpaz, throw between each other.

urpuz á orþom.

Atl.-M. 39. Edd. Sæm.

verba inter se jaciebant.

Such is a portion of the examples that prove the reciprocal power of the reflective or middle verb in the language of Scandinavia; and that, during all its stages and in each of its derived dialects. It cannot be doubted that to this circumstance certain verbs in Danish and Swedish owe their deponent form: viz. vi slåss, we fight (strike one another); vi brottas, we wrestle; vi omgass, we have intercourse with; vi mötas, we meet, Swedish; vi slaaes, we fight; vi skilles, we part; vi mödes, we meet, Danish. In the latest Swedish grammar, by C. L. Daae, this reciprocal (vekselvirkende) power is recognized and exhibited. See Udsigt over det Svenske Sprogs Grammatik. Christiana, 1837. The same is the Molbech's Danske Ordbog in vv. skilles, slaaes, mödes.

Next to the Norse languages the French affords the best instances of the reciprocal power of the reflective verb; as se battre, s'aimer, s'entendre, se quéreller, se reconcilier, se disputer, and other words of less frequent occurrence.

Ces enfans s'aimaient, s'adoraient, se sont jetés à mes pieds en pleurant.—Les Inséparables, A. 1. S. 1.

Les Républics Italiens acharnés à se détruire.—Pardessus II. 65.

This has been recognized by an old grammarian, Restaut, who insists upon the use of the adverb entre, in order to avoid the ambiguity of such phrases as "vous vous dites des injures;" "nous nous écrivons souvent;" "Pierre et Antoine se louent à tout moment."

By a writer in the Museum Criticum the reciprocal power of the Greek middle has been indicated. For the classical languages the question has not met with the proper investigation. Passages where the sense is at least as reciprocal as in the line

[a]Χεῖρος τ' ἁλλήλων λαβήτην καὶ μιστώσαντο].—Il. vi. 233,
must be numerous.

In the Dutch language the use of zich for elkander is a peculiarity of the Guelderland and Overyssel dialects; as "zij hebt zich eslagen," for "zij hebben elkander geslagen." See Opmerkingen omtrent den Gelderschen Tongval, in Taalkundig Magazijn ii. 14. p. 403.

Of the use of ser for hinanden or hverandre, when uncombined with the verb, we have, amongst other, the following example in the Icelandic version of the Paradise Lost:—

Ef frá tilsyndar-
punkti hleyptu ser
planetur fram,
ok mættust miklum gny
ó midjum himni.

B. 6.

Similar to this are the phrases vi se os igjen, we see us (each other) again, in Danish, and wir sehen uns wieder, in German. Examples from the M. H. G. are given in the D. G. iv. The Turkish sign of the reciprocal verb is identical with the demonstrative pronoun, i. e. [a]ش]. This may possibly indicate a connection between the two forms.

Other points upon the subject in hand may be collected from the Deutsche Grammatik, iii. 13. 82; iv. 454. Here the adverbial character of the M. H. G. einander for einandern, the omission of ein, as in anander for an einander, and the omission (real or supposed) of ander in "wider ein=wider einander," are measures of the laxity of language caused by the peculiarity of the combination in question. At present it is sufficient to repeat the statement, that for one group of languages at least there is satisfactory proof of certain deponents having originally been reciprocal, and of certain reciprocal expressions having originally been reflective.

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ON THE CONNEXION BETWEEN THE IDEAS OF ASSOCIATION AND PLURALITY AS AN INFLUENCE IN THE EVOLUTION OF INFLECTION.

READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY.
MARCH 9, 1849.

It is well-known that by referring to that part of the Deutsche Grammatik which explains those participial forms which (like y-cleped in English, and like ge-sprochen and the participles in general in German) begin with ge or y, the following doctrines respecting this same prefix may be collected:—

1. That it has certainly grown out of the fuller forms ka or ga.

2. That it has, probably, grown out of a still fuller form kam or gam.

3. That this fuller form is the Gothic equivalent of the Latin cum=with.

Such are the views respecting the form of the word in question. Respecting its meaning, the following points seem to be made out:—

1. That when prefixed to nouns (as is, not rarely, the case), it carries with it the idea of association or collection:—M. G. sinþs=a journey, ga-sinþa=a companion; O. M. G. perc=hill; ki-pirki=(ge-birge) a range of hills.

2. That it has also a frequentative power. Things which recur frequently recur with a tendency to collection or association:—M. H. G. ge-rassel=rustling; ge-rumpel=crumpling.

3. That it has also the power of expressing the possession of a quality:—

A.-S.	Eng.	A.S.	Latin.
feax	hair,	ge-feax	comatus.
heorte	heart,	ge-heort	cordatus.

This is because every object is associated with the object that possesses it—a sea with waves=a wavy sea.

The present writer has little doubt that the Tumali grammar of Dr. Tutshek supplies a similar (and at the same time a very intelligible) application of a particle equivalent to the Latin cum.

He believes that the Tumali word=with is what would commonly be called the sign of the plural number of the personal pronouns; just as me-cum and te-cum would become equivalents to nos and vos, if the first syllables were nominative instead of oblique, and if the preposition denoted indefinite conjunction. In such a case

mecum would mean I conjointly=we,
tecum would mean thou conjointly=ye.

Such is the illustration of the possible power of a possible combination. The reasons for thinking it to have a reality in one language at least lie in the following forms:—

1. The Tumali word for with is da.

2. The Tumali words for I, thou, and he respectively are ngi, ngo, ngu.

3. The Tumali words for we, ye, they are ngin-de, ngon-da, ngen-da respectively.

4. The Tumali substantives have no such plural. With them it is formed on a totally different principle.

5. The Tumali adjectives have no plural at all.

6. The Tumali numerals (even those which express more than unity and are, therefore, naturally plural) have a plural. When, however, it occurs, it is formed on the same principle as that of the plurals of the substantive.

7. The word da=with is, in Tumali, of a more varied application than any other particle; and that both as a pre-position and a post-position:—daura=soon (da=in, aura=neighbourhood); datom=in (with) front (face); d-ondul=roundabout (ondul=circle); dale=near (le=side), &c.

8. Prepositions, which there is every reason to believe are already compounded with da, allow even a second da, to precede the word which they govern:—daber deling=over the earth (ber=earth).

9. The ideas with me, with thee, with him, are expressed by ngi-dan, ngo-dan, and ngu-dan respectively; but the ideas of with us, with you, with them are not expressed by nginde-dan, ngonda-dan, ngenda-dan; but by peculiar words—tinem=with us; toman=with you; tenan=with them.

On the other hand, the following fact is, as far as it goes, against this view, a fact upon which others may lay more stress than the present writer. "Da admits of a very varied application. Respecting its form the following should be observed: (a.) That a may be elided when it happens to stand as a preposition before words which begin with a vowel: for instance, ardgen, 'the valley'; dardgen, 'in the valley'; ondul, 'the circle'; dondul, 'round about in the circle'. (b.) It changes its a into ê, e, i, o, u, according to the vowel of the syllable before which the da is placed, or even without any regard to it. Instances of this are found in diring, dorong, &c.; further instances are, doromko, 'into the hut' (rom); dètum or dotum, 'in the grave.' (c.) As a postposition it appends an n: adgdan, 'on the head'; aneredan, 'on the day.'" Taking the third of these rules literally, the plural pronouns should end in dan rather than in da and de.

It is considered that over and above the light that this particular formation (if real) may throw upon the various methods by which an inflection like that of the plural number may be evolved, and more especially upon the important but neglected phænomena of the so-called inclusive and exclusive plurals, many other points of general grammar may be illustrated.

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ON THE WORD CUJUM.

READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY,
MARCH 9, 1849.

The writer wishes to make the word cujum, as found in a well-known quotation from the third eclogue of Virgil,—

Dic mihi Damæta cujum pecus?

the basis of some remarks which are meant to be suggestions rather than doctrines.

In the second edition of a work upon the English language, he devoted an additional chapter to the consideration of the grammatical position of the words mine and thine, respecting which he then considered (and still considers) himself correct in assuming that the current doctrine concerning them was, that they were, in origin, genitive or possessive cases, and that they were adjectives only in a secondary sense. Now whatever was then written upon this subject was written with the view of recording an opinion in favour of exactly the opposite doctrine, viz. that they were originally adjectives, but that afterwards they took the appearance of oblique cases. Hence for words like mine and thine there are two views:—

1. That they were originally cases, and adjectives only in a secondary manner.

2. That they were originally adjectives, and cases only in a secondary manner.

In which predicament is the word cujum? If in the first, it supplies a remarkable instance of an unequivocally adjectival form, as tested by an inflection in the way of gender, having grown out of a case. If in the second, it shows how truly the converse may take place, since it cannot be doubted that whatever in this respect can be predicated of cujus can be predicated of ejus and hujus as well.

Assuming this last position, it follows that if cujus be originally a case, we have a proof how thoroughly it may take a gender; whereas if it be originally an adjective, ejus and hujus (for by a previous assumption they are in the same category) are samples of the extent to which words like it may lose one.

Now the termination -us is the termination of an adjective, and is not the termination of a genitive case; a fact that fixes the onus probandi with those who insist upon the genitival character of the words in question. But as it is not likely that every one lays so much value upon this argument as is laid by the present writer, it is necessary to refer to two facts taken from the Greek:—

1. That the class of words itself is not a class which (as is often the case) naturally leads us to expect a variation from the usual inflections. The forms [a]οὗ], [a]οἷ], [a]ἕ], and [a]ὅς], [a]οὗ], [a]ὧ], are perfectly usual.

2. That the adjectives [a]ὃς] = [a]ἑὸς],[1] [a]κοῖος] = [a]ποῖος], and [a]ὁῖος], are not only real forms, but forms of a common kind. Hence, if we consider the termination -jus as a case-ending, we have a phænomenon in Latin for which we miss a Greek equivalent; whilst on the other hand, if we do not consider it as adjectival, we have the Greek forms [a]ὁῖος], [a]κοῖος] = [a]ποῖος] and [a]ὃς] = [a]ἑὸς], without any Latin ones. I do not say that this argument is, when taken alone, of any great weight. In doubtful cases, however, it is of value. In the present case it enables us to get rid of an inexplicable genitival form, at the expense of a slight deflection from the usual power of an adjective. And here it should be remembered that many of the arguments in favour of a case becoming an adjective are (to a certain extent) in favour of an adjective becoming a case—to a certain extent and to a certain extent only, because a change in one direction by no means necessarily implies a change in the reverse one, although it is something in favour of its probability.

Probably unius, ullius, illius, and alterius, are equally, as respects their origin, adjectival forms with ejus, cujus, and hujus.

Now it must not be concealed that one of the arguments which apply to words like mine and thine being adjectives rather than genitives, does not apply to words like ejus, cujus, and hujus. The reason is as follows; and it is exhibited in nearly the same words which have been used in the work already mentioned.—The idea of partition is one of the ideas expressed by the genitive case. The necessity for expressing this idea is an element in the necessity for evolving a genitive case. With personal pronouns of the singular number the idea of partition is of less frequent occurrence than with most other words, since a personal pronoun of the singular number is the name of a unity, and, as such, the name of an object far less likely to be separated into parts than the name of a collection. Phrases like some of them, one of you, many of us, any of them, few of us, &c., have no analogues in the singular number, such as one of me, a few of thee, &c. The partitive words that can combine with singular pronouns are comparatively few, viz. half, quarter, part, &c.; and they can all combine equally with plurals—half of us, a quarter of them, a portion of us. The partition of a singular object with a pronominal name is of rare occurrence in language. This last statement proves something more than appears at first sight. It proves that no argument in favour of the so-called singular genitives, like mine and thine, can be drawn from the admission (if made) of the existence of the true plural genitives ou-r, you-r, the-ir. The two ideas are not in the same predicament.

Again, the convenience of expressing the difference between suus and ejus, is, to a certain extent, a reason for the evolution of a genitive case to words like is; but it is a reason to a certain extent only, and that extent a small one, since an equally convenient method of expressing the difference is to be found in the fact of there being two roots for the pronouns in question, the root from which we get ea, id, eum, ejus, &c., and the root from which we get sui, sibi, suus, &c.

Here the paper should end, for here ends the particular suggestion supplied by the word in question. Two questions however present themselves too forcibly to be wholly passed over:—

I. The great extent to which those who look in Latin for the same inflections that occur in Greek, must look for them under new names. That two tenses in Greek (the aorist like [a]ἔ-τυπ-σα], and the perfect like [a]τέ-τυφ-α]) must be looked for in the so-called double form of a single tense in Latin (vic-si, mo-mordi) is one of the oldest facts of this sort. That the Greek participle in [a]-μενος] ([a]τυπτόμενος]) must be sought for in the passive persons in -mini is a newer notice.

II. The fact that the character of the deflection that takes place between case and adjective is not single but double. It goes both ways. The change from case to adjective is one process in philology; the change from adjective to case another; and both should be recognized. This is mentioned for the sake of stating, that except in a few details, there is nothing in the present remarks that is meant to be at variance with the facts and arguments of five papers already laid before this Society, viz. those of Mr. Garnett on the Formation of Words from Inflected Cases, and on the Analysis of the Verb.

The papers alluded to really deal with two series of facts:—(A.) Deflection with identity of form.—In this the inflection is still considered an inflection, but is dealt with as one different from what it really is, i. e. as a nominative instead of an oblique one. Some years back the structure of the Finlandic suggested to the present writer:—

1. A series of changes in meaning whereby such a term as with waves might equal wavy.

2. The existence of a class of words of which sestertium was the type, where an oblique case, with a convertible termination, becomes a nominative.

3. The possible evolution of forms like fluctuba, fluctubum=fluctuosa, fluctuosum, from forms like fluctubus.

Mr. Garnett has multiplied cases of this kind; his illustrations from the Basque being pre-eminently typical, i. e. like the form sestertium. If the modern vehicle called an omnibus had been invented in ancient Rome, if it had had the same name as it has now, and if its plural form had been omnibi, it would also have been a typical instance.

Words of the hypothetical form fluctuba, fluctubum, have not been discovered. They would have existed if the word just quoted had been (if used in ancient Rome at all) used as an adjective, omnibus currus, omniba esseda, omnibum plaustrum.

(B.) Deflection with superaddition.—Here the inflection is dealt with as if it were not inflectional but radical. This is the case with [a]ἴφιος]. Words like it-, as proved by the genitive i-t-s, and the so-called petrified (versteinerte) nominative cases of the German grammarians, are of this class.

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