The philosophy of life, and philosophy of language, in a course of lectures

by Friedrich von Schlegel

Now, if I may venture to suggest the course in which some such progression may, in idea at least, be projected and traced in the entire system of the vast multitudes of languages which exist on the face of the earth, I would set out with the Sanscrit. For this is the best known and understood of the whole Hindoo family, among which it holds the foremost rank as the oldest and most complete. To the same class would belong first of all the old Persian, the Gothic-German, and the Scandinavian, all of which are most intimately related to the former; then the Greek, and the Latin with its many derivatives; and lastly, according to the opinion of competent judges, nearly the whole of the Slavonic dialects. All these languages, each in its measure, and in proportion to the cultivation it had enjoyed, are marked, especially in their earliest stages, by a very artificial structure and a beautiful grammatical arrangement, but pre-eminently by a highly noble poetic shape, combined with an equal degree of scientific precision. This, however, is but one family among many others which make up the whole system. The latter, however, stand at a far lower grade of development and perfection. Among those which, like the Tartaric-Chinese and the African, belong to the latter class, the highly remarkable dialects of America occupy an important and characteristic place. The traveler[64] best acquainted with the American races and dialects has described the former as singularly remarkable for the degradation to which their mental faculties have fallen below the original standard, while he speaks of the latter as resembling the relics of some great ruin or mighty devastation. On this expression of the famous traveler, which agrees so accurately with the idea I am here developing, and with the result of my own investigation into the course of the human mind since the old and primal times, I am disposed to lay very great stress. For with him it was the conviction impressed upon his mind by personal observation alone, unbiassed by any preconceived opinion or hypothesis favorable to my views. This character of deep degradation belongs, perhaps, to the better class of languages, since they present but little analogy to each other in their material elements, and admit scarcely of any classification. At least it forms a distinctive mark of them, and awakens a melancholy impression.

The Egyptian, which, since the partial deciphering of its hieroglyphics, is no longer totally inaccessible, belongs, I think, to this second class. In it, however, it holds a very important place, and is eminently distinguished. For its hieroglyphical mode of writing, by combining the alphabetical with the symbolical mode of indication, gave it, consequently, great liberty of choice among the different phonetic figures which might stand for the same alphabetic character, so that the phonetic word was, as it were, invested with a symbolical garb, and all alike assumed an hieroglyphical tone. Some of the Greeks regarded the hieroglyphical as the oldest of all human languages; and, indeed, that somber melancholy which seems to reign in all the monuments of ancient Egypt, might well be regarded as a silent witness to the great event of the ruin of a primeval world.

In order to complete our subject, the Hebrew still remains for a general notice in that brief review which alone our limits admit of. We must, however, give such a characteristic view of it as will enable us correctly to determine the place which it is to assume among the rest. Apparently, it stands isolated by itself, belonging altogether to neither of the two classes we have described. It seems to favor the conjecture, that a new and peculiar class is necessary to embrace all the phenomena in this first and oldest epoch of language. This, then, with the two already considered, will form three classes. In its radical words, the Hebrew exhibits only a slight relationship to the Indo-European family. This, however, on further examination, will probably be found to be still more considerable. For it is often impossible to recognize it at once beneath a totally different grammatical form and structure, and it is, moreover, withdrawn from immediate notice by the difference of its predominant mental tendency. We know, however, as an historical fact, that the Phœnician, which differed from the Hebrew only as one dialect from another, was not without some connection with the Greek, on which it exercised no inconsiderable influence. Now, with respect to the peculiar character of the Hebrew, every thing in it is directed to the attainment of the highest vividness and profound significance. This is even the case with its grammatical principle, which makes all its other terms, whether names of objects or qualities, subordinate to the verb. The triplicity, also, of the roots, which, with very few exceptions, consist of three letters—which again, for the most part, constitute as many syllables—was, assuredly, not without a significant design, and possessed, collaterally, a certain mystic allusion. In its profound significancy and compressed brevity—in its figurative boldness and prophetical inspiration, far more than in any chronological precedence of antiquity, consists the peculiar character and high prerogative of the Hebrew. On the other hand, it is somewhat inferior to many others, as, for example, the Greek, in poetical forms and shape, in richness and variety of development, and in precision of scientific diction. In its essential character, the Hebrew language is prophetical, like the people itself, even in the present evil days of their dispersion—the people in whom the living word of the twofold ancient prophecy, now that the Jews have handed it over to the Gentiles, has first attained its perfect accomplishment.

The whole system of the languages of man is but the external and visible copy and true mirror of his inmost consciousness. The different epochs of their ancient production are but so many terms in the progression observed by the human mind in its development. Consequently, language in general, as the clew of memory, and tradition, which binds together all nations in their chronological series and succession, is, as it were, the common memory and organ of recollection for the whole human race. It is only in this relation, which is certainly important, and also essential to the problem before us, that I have thought it allowable to enter upon this episode. Many of the particulars may perhaps have been unattractive enough. Still I trust that the general result, as throwing light upon the origin, or, rather, the historical rise and oldest development of language, has proved universally interesting, even though at most it has but suggested matter for future meditation.

This result may be expressed or briefly comprised in the following words: on our side of that obscure interval or great chasm which separates us from the hidden and inaccessible history of the first formation of language, the first grade in its growth is indicated by a deep state of decline and a melancholy sense of the fact. And yet even from this state a highly significant art is not altogether excluded, since we see it expressing itself in the beautiful symbols of the figurative language of Egypt. The second step in the further development of human speech is formed by the lofty flight which the poetic spirit took in the ancient languages, which greatly excel all others in beauty of form and perfection of structure, in richness of poetical ornament, and perspicuity of scientific precision. Some of the oldest fragments in those languages are also marked with a peculiarly beautiful tone of sarcerdotal solemnity, as is the case with many a relic from the earliest period of the Latin.

But the fuller and higher initiation in divine lore, and a bold, religious enthusiasm, form another and a peculiar grade in the historical development of language; and this was the third step that it took in this earliest and primeval time. And, as a proof that the characteristic just alluded to is not derived solely from the spirit and tone of the holy writings of the Hebrews, and that I have not, without further corroboration, transferred it at once to language in general, I will add one more remark, tending to show that in some degree it has its foundation in the very nature and grammatical structure of human speech itself. In the Arabic, which in many other respects is closely akin to the Hebrew, many of these characteristic properties may likewise be traced, even though the Arabians at a very early date, turning aside from the simple faith of the old patriarchs, gave themselves up to the superstitions of magic and astrology, and, since the times of Mohammed, have been animated with an inextinguishable and fanatical hatred of a profounder truth of godliness and the religion of love.

I called language in general—as being the store-house of tradition, where it lives on from nation to nation, and as being the clew of material and spiritual connection which joins century to century—the common memory of the human race. Now, it is this faculty of memory which I would here seek to give a more precise characteristic of. For the present seems its appropriate place in our series of psychological inquiries, according to the relative position which it holds in the general system of the mental faculties. Before entering upon this topic, however, the position that language must not be thought of as being in the first instance produced piecemeal by the concretion of several atomistic and unconnected parts, but as molded in one cast, and in its totality, similarly to a poetical or other creation of art, requires proof and corroboration. For this purpose, then, I would bring to your remembrance a fact or phenomenon which is closely connected with the investigation into the nature of memory, though it involves a marvelous leap of the memory, or at least of its usual method of operation: I am alluding to what, by an old phrase, is called the gift of languages—or that natural gift by which certain individuals seem enabled to enter all at once into the spirit and structure of foreign languages, and that not merely in the case of very simple ones, but even the highly-cultivated and artificial languages of modern Europe.

This phenomenon of the soul transporting itself, or, as it were, transported all at once into a language previously quite strange to it, so as to understand any spoken or written composition in it, is certainly not one of ordinary occurrence; and, in truth, whenever it manifests itself strongly and decidedly, it closely borders on the marvelous. Still it is a fact sufficiently well known, and neither unheard of nor rare. On the other hand, the higher and active case of the same phenomenon, which is marked, not merely by the understanding but also by the speaking of a language never before learned, and which was meant by the gift of tongues in the old sense, is certainly a really miraculous fact. But even this is acknowledged and believed, and there is no sufficient reason for calling in question the ancient witnesses to the fact, merely on account of the nature of it.

I called this fact a wonderful leap of the memory. For however subordinate this faculty may in other respects appear relatively to those which every where make prominent claim to the spontaneous burst of genius, still, even in the case of memory, its first spring and origin is often veiled and inexplicable, and it presents many points of view leading to profoundest questioning, and suggesting grave investigation.

In our psychological survey of the whole human mind, we set out with its four leading faculties, as arranged under the two contrarieties of understanding and will, of reason and fancy. Besides these four leading faculties, there are several, perhaps, just as many others, derived indeed from the former, but still not so much subordinate to them (for in another relation they appear equally important and not less essential than them) as rather co-ordinate with them and having a peculiar function assigned to them. Of these I have in my former Lectures analyzed and described the conscience as the moral instinct for right and wrong, when I named it the reason applied to the will, or, rather, as I preferred to consider it, as a peculiar and independent faculty, intermediate between reason and will, and being an immediate feeling and judgment as to what is good and evil in human desires and actions. Now, just as conscience is a mean between reason and will, so is memory intermediate between reason and understanding. With both of them it is closely connected. Memory, on the one hand, is the treasure-house of the understanding; indeed, it is the understanding hitherto acquired and worked out, now laid and stored up. On the other hand, as the clew and thread of recollection, memory furnishes that ground and principle of association in the consciousness, on which reason itself and its exercise is dependent. So entirely is this the case, that the partial or total loss of memory, from sickness or old age, though producing no derangement of the reason, is, nevertheless, followed by a partial decline and slowness of rational thought, which occasionally amounts to a general deadening and extinction of the rational faculty. The close connection between memory and understanding is especially visible in children, in whom the first faint opening of intellect is generally simultaneous with the first apperception of self and retention of external impressions or signs. The understanding is that thinking and cognition of individuals, which is even the act of intellection. Consequently, the individual mark and characteristic sign in the function of memory belongs to the understanding; but the combining link between these individual conceptions or signs—their permanent association—is the reason’s share in memory; for the latter is the knowing and consciousness which, in the coherent whole of associated and illative thought, is conversant about general notions.