When the proposition or sentence is formed, it ought to bear evidence of the most direct connexion, for the purposes of being readily comprehended and enduringly retained. From the nature of our minds, we recollect events, however unconnected, in the order of their occurrence, and we acquire by heart any passage, of level construction, with greater facility than where the natural sequence is disarranged; we repeat lines from Pope with superior fidelity than quotations from Milton.
To compress this Essay into the smallest compass, citations have been studiously avoided; yet there is a temptation to illustrate this subject by the introduction of an Epigram from Martial, Lib. 5, Epig. 1.
13 14 18 15 17 16 18
"Hoc tibi Palladiæ seu collibus uteris Albæ,
2 19 20 22 21 23 24
Cæsar et hinc Triviam prospicis inde Thetin:
25 28 26 27 28 26
Seu tua veridicæ discunt responsa sorores,
30 31 29 32 30 31
Plana suburbani qua cubat unda freti:
33 30 35 34 37 38 39
Seu placet Æneæ nutrix, seu filia solis,
40 42 41 41 42
Sive salutiferis candidus anxur aquis;
12 1 6 3 8 5 4
Mittimus o rerum felix tutela salusque,
7 7 12 8 10 9
Sospite quo gratum credimus esse Jovem."
The figures pointing out the "ordo verborum" are according to the subjoined interpretation of Mons. Collesson, who prepared this Delphine edition. The same figures have been placed where the adjective agrees with the substantive or pronoun; and for this clew to the consecutive arrangement of these disbanded and dispersed members of the sentence, some young gentlemen at school, and many who have finished their education, will be under considerable obligations.
It is of considerable moment that this question should be fully discussed in order to be finally determined. The groundwork is physiological, the superstructure involves some moral considerations: and the conclusions will have an extensive influence on the system of education that ought to be adopted. If the perceptions of the eye, and its associated phantasms, or memorial visions, under the name of Ideas, are to be viewed as the effective materials of our Thoughts; such inference is directly confuted by the instances of those born blind, and continue through life without sight, and who must necessarily be deficient of such materials. If Thought be the result of any immediate spiritual dictation, which the difficulty of accounting for it without such mysterious agency, has led many to suppose: and of which we are not conscious, the responsibility of our species is destroyed. If Thought be effected by the selection and arrangement of words, each of which possesses a definite meaning, and is capable when conjoined with other words, of adding to their significance: of which process, and the individual steps that compose it, we are conscious under due attention, the mystery vanishes, and the act of thinking becomes unfolded in the progressive formation of a perspicuous sentence.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The eye is the only organ of sense that affords a connected phantasm, vision or Idea. In the other senses, there is a memorial connection, by which the perception is recognised as having previously occurred, and consequently a consciousness of former perception. Without these adjuncts the repetition of these perceptions would be useless as instruments of knowledge. Avoiding a lengthened detail concerning the other senses, it will be sufficient to instance the olfactory organ. If we scent the essences of rose or jasmine, on the second presentation, they are recognised as having occurred before: should we have smelled the same perfumes from the living plants that exhale them, and by the eye noticed them, we should experience a phantasm or Idea of the figure of the plants, but there would be no phantasm of the odour. The excitation of the phantasm associated with the perception, and the recollection of the perception without the phantasm, by the attribution of a name, is, for the present, purposely concealed.
[2] Modification. A word of useless application, unless the modus in quo agit, be defined.
[3] Of the supposed operations of these Ideas, and the purposes to which they are subjected, a few, among abundant instances, are selected from Mr. Locke's Essay. "Some Ideas forwardly offer themselves to all men's understanding; some sorts of truths result from any Ideas, as soon as the mind puts them into propositions: other Truths require a train of Ideas placed in order."—Vol. I. p. 63.