In a preceding paper, published in the May number of The Continental, the possibility, the necessity, and the characteristics of a Scientific Universal Language were considered. In the present paper it is proposed to examine more at large the relations of Language to the total Universe; not merely in respect to Elements or the Alphabetic Domain of Language, and that which corresponds with it in the Universe; but in respect equally to all that rises above these foundations of the two edifices in question which are to be compared.
The term Edifice or Structure will be found to be alike applicable to each. It will be found, likewise, that both arise in parallel development through a succession of stages or stories (French, étages, ESTAGES, STAGES), and that this and other similar repetitions, in the development of the one, of all the facts and features of the development of the other, is what is meant by the Analogy of one with the other, and by the affirmation implied in the title of this article, that Language is a Type of the Universe.
We shall begin, therefore, by a general distribution of these two Domains or Spheres or Structures—for the facts of the analogy will justify the occasional use and interchange of all these terms—and shall pursue the relationship between them into so much of detail as space will allow.
What the Universe is in itself we have no other means of knowing than as it impresses itself upon our minds, modified as it may be by the reactive or reflectional element supplied by the mind itself. In preponderance, then, or primarily, the Universe is for each of us, what the totality of Impression made by the Universe is within each of us; and the Universe in that larger and generalized sense in which we speak of it as one, and not as many individual conceptions, is the mean aggregate or general average of the Impression made upon all minds, in so far as it has a general or common character.
The whole of what man individually or collectively puts forth, as the product of his mind or of all minds, is the totality of Expression, in a sense which exactly counterparts the totality of Impression. Impression is related to Nature, external to man, and acting on him. Expression has relation to Art, externalized from within man, and taken in that large sense which means all human performance whatsoever. Science is systematized knowing, and is a middle term, or stands and functionates mediatorially between Impression or Nature and Expression or Art.
Nature or the external world impresses itself upon mind, primarily, through the Senses, and predominantly stands related with the sense of Feeling, of which all the other special senses are merely modified forms or differentiations. Feeling as a sense (the sense of Touch), is allied again with Affection, the internal counterpart of the mere external sensation, as testified to etymologically by the use of the same word to express both; namely, Feeling as the synonyme of Touch, and Feeling as the synonyme of Affection. Conation, from the Latin conari, TO EXERT ONESELF, TO PUT FORTH EFFORT, is the term employed by metaphysicians to signify both Desire and Will, the last being the determination of the mind which results in action. Conation is therefore related to action, which is again Expression, and is also Art, in the large definition of the term above given.
The grand primary distribution of the Mind made by Kant, followed by Sir William Hamilton, and now concurred in by the students of the mind generally, is into: 1. Feeling; 2. Knowing; and 3. Conation (or Will and Desire). In accordance with this is Comte's famous epitome of the business of life: AGIR PAR AFFECTION, ET PENSER POUR AGIR; the three terms here being again, 1. Affection (or Feeling); 2. Knowledge (or Reflection); and 3. Action (or Performance).
If now, instead of distributing the Mind, we enlarge the sphere of our thinking, and distribute upon the same principle the total Universe (as if it were a mind or a mirror of the mind), for Feeling or Affection we shall put Impression or Nature; for Knowing or Reflection we shall put Science or Systematized Knowledge; and for Conation or Action we shall put Art.
The following table will exhibit the two series of distribution, that of the Universe at large, and that of the Human Mind, in their parallelism, reading the two columns from below upward:
| I. Universe. | II. Mind. |
|---|---|
| 3. Art (or Expression). | 3. Conation (or Will and Desire). |
| 2. Science. | 2. Knowing. |
| 1. Nature (or Impression). | 1. Feeling (or Affection). |