I can imitate very closely the buzz of a bee, by forcing the breath through my nearly-touching teeth. A mimic can imitate the natural sounds of many animals, and other sounds heard in Nature. This mere imitation is what Lingual Scholars have dignified by the high-sounding and rather repulsive technicality, Onomatopoieia. In the early and simple period of Lingual Science much has been made, in striving to account for the Origin of Language, of this faculty of imitation, and of the fact that there are undoubtedly certain words in every language consisting of such imitations. It is against this simple and superficial theory that Professor Müller has argued so well. But in these words sucre, sucré, incautiously included by him as instances of the same thing, we are in the presence of a very different problem. To imitate one sound by another sound is a mere simple, external, and trivial imitation; onomatopoieia, and nothing more than that. But to imitate a sound, by a taste, or to recognize that such an imitation has occurred, is a testimony to the existence of that recondite and all-important echo of likeness through domains of Being themselves the most unlike, which we call Analogy.
That we do recognize such analogy or correspondence of meaning, that Professor Müller himself does so, is admitted when he tells us that another form of the words in question is 'not at all sweet-sounding.' It is not in this perception, therefore, that we deceive ourselves, but only in supposing that these particular words came to mean sugar, because they were sweet-sounding. That there is this perception of the analogy in question is again confessed by the fact that we have the same feeling in respect to the German süsse, sweet; while the English words sugar and sweet, notwithstanding any greater familiarity of association, do not convey the same ideas in the same marked degree. The words mellifluous (honey-flowing) and melody (honey-sound) are themselves standing witnesses in behalf of the existence of the same perception. The fact that we instinctually speak of a sweet voice, is another witness.
If, then, there is an echo of likeness (real analogy) between these two unlike spheres of Thought and Being, Sound and Taste, may there not be precisely a similar echo through other and all spheres; so that there shall be a Something in Number, in Form, in Chemical Constitution, in the Properties of Mind, in Ultimate Rational Conceptions, in fine, that echoes to this idea, which, by a stretch of the powers of Language, we call sweet, both in respect to Sound and Taste? May it not have been precisely this Something and the other handful of primitive Somethings, each with its multitudinous echoes, that the Nascent Intuition of the race laid hold of and availed itself of irreflectively for laying the foundations of Speech? Again, may it not happen that the Reflective Intellect should in turn discover intelligently (or reflectively) just that underlying system of Analogy which the primitive Instinct was competent to appreciate unintelligently; and, by the greater clearness of this intelligent perception, be able to elevate the Science of Language, and found it upon a new and constructive, instead of upon this merely instinctual plane? To all these questions the Universologists return an affirmative answer. They go farther, and aver that this great intellectual undertaking is now fully achieved, and is only awaiting the opportunity for elaborate demonstration and promulgation.
A word further on this subject. To pronounce the words sucre, sucré, süsse, the lips are necessarily pinched or perked up, in a certain exquisite way, as if we were sucking something very gratifying to the taste. This consideration carries us over to the further analogy with shapes or forms, and, hence, with the Organic or Mechanical production of sounds; another grand element, the main one, in fact, of the whole investigation.
Among the infinite contingencies of the origin and successive modifications of words, it is very possible that the word 'sarkhara, although meaning sugar in a particular tongue, may not have primarily related to its property of sweetness; and that, therefore, its phonetic form should not be accordant with that property. It may have meant the cane-plant, for instance, before its sweetness was known. Then it is possible that a derivative and modified form of the same word should happen to drift into that precise phonetic; form which is accordant with that property. But the marvel, and the point of importance is, that so soon as this happens, the 'instinct' of the race, even that of Professor Müller himself, remains good enough to recognize the fact. 'Who does not imagine,' he says, 'that he hears something sweet in the French sucre, sucré?' But why do we all imagine that we hear what does not exist? The uniformity of the imagination proves it to be a real perception. If the universal consciousness of mankind be not valid evidence, where shall we hope to find it?
The consideration of Analogy as existing between the Ultimate Elements of Sound and Ultimate Rational Conceptions will be the subject of the next paper.
FLOWER ODORS.
There is a sheltered nook in a certain garden, where, on a sunny spring morning, the passer-by inhales with startled pleasure the very soul of the 'sweet south,' and, stooping down, far in among brown and crackling leaves, lo the blue hoods of English violets! The fragrance of the violet! What flower scent is like it? Does not the subtle sweetness—half caught, half lost upon the wind—at times sweep over one a vague and thrilling tenderness, an exquisite emotion, partly grief and partly mild delight?
The violet is the poet's darling, perhaps because its frail breath seems to waft from out the delicate blue petals the rare imaginings native to a poet's soul.