Sir Francis says, ‘Something of this sort I can easily perceive, but not to the extent you carry it. I see that those sham deities, Fate and Destiny, aliquid fatum, quelque chose destinée, are merely the past participles of fari and destiner. That Chance (“high arbiter,” as Milton calls him) and his twin-brother Accident are merely the participles of escheoir, cheoir, and cadere. And that to say, it befell me by chance or by accident, is absurdly saying it befell me by falling.
‘I agree with you, that Providence, Prudence, Innocence, Substance, and all the rest of that tribe of qualities (in ence and ance) are merely the neuter plurals of the present participles of ordere, nocere, stare, &c. &c. That Angel, Saint, Spirit, are the past participles αγγελλειυ, sanciri, spirare. That the Italian cucolo, a cuckoo, gives us the verb to cucol, and its past participle cuckold.’
And what if it does: will Mr. Tooke therefore pretend to say that there is no such thing? This is indeed turning etymology to a good account. It is clearing off old scores with a vengeance, and establishing morality on an entirely new basis. For my own part, I can only say of the whole of the reasoning of this author, with Voltaire’s Candide, ‘la tête me tourne: on ne sait ou l’on est.’ Whether any or all of those metaphysical beings enumerated by Mr. Tooke do or do not exist, what their nature or qualities are, whether modes, relatives, substances, I shall not here undertake to determine, but I do conceive that none of these questions can be resolved in any way by inquiring whether the names denoting them are not the past participles of certain verbs. A shorter method would I think be to say at once that all metaphysical and moral terms, whether participles or not, are but names, that names are not things, and that therefore the things themselves have no existence. It is upon this philosophical principle that the heroical Jonathan Wild proceeds in his definition of the word Honour, for after losing himself to no purpose in the common metaphysical jargon on the subject, and in moral causes and qualities, he comes at last to this clear and unembarrassed conclusion,—‘That honour consists in the word honour, and nothing else.’
I will only give one instance more of this reformed system of logic and metaphysics.
‘Burdett. I still wish for an explanation of one word more: which on account of its extreme importance ought not to be omitted. What is Truth? You know when Pilate had asked the same question, he went out and would not stay for an answer, and from that time to this no answer has been given. And from that time to this mankind have been wrangling and tearing each other to pieces for the truth, without once considering the meaning of the word.’
‘Tooke. This word will give us no trouble. Like the other words, true is also a past participle of the Saxon verb treowan, confidere, to think, to believe firmly, to be thoroughly persuaded of, to trow. True, as we now write it, or trew, as it was formerly written, means simply and merely that which is trowed, and instead of its being a rare commodity upon earth, except only in words, there is nothing but truth in the world.
‘That every man, in his communication with others, should speak that which he troweth, is of so great importance to mankind, that it ought not to surprise us, if we find the most extravagant and exaggerated praises bestowed upon truth. But truth supposes mankind; for whom and by whom alone the word is formed, and to whom only it is applicable. If no man, no truth. There is therefore no such thing as eternal, immutable, everlasting truth; unless mankind, such as they are at present, be also eternal, immutable, and everlasting. Two persons may contradict each other, and yet both speak truth. For the truth of one person may be opposite to the truth of another. To speak truth may be a vice as well as a virtue; for there are many occasions when it ought not to be spoken. If you reject my explanation, find out if you can some other possible meaning of the word, or content yourself with Johnson, by saying that true is not false, and false is—not true. For so he explains the words.’—Vol. ii. p. 407.
In a note the author adds, ‘Mr. Locke, in the second book of his Essay, chapter xxxii., treats of true and false ideas, and is much distressed throughout the whole chapter, because he had not in his mind any determinate meaning of the word true. If that excellent man had himself followed the advice which he gave to his disputing friends concerning the word liquor; if he had followed his own rule, previously to writing about true and false ideas, and had determined what meaning he applied to true, being, thing, real, right, wrong, he could not have written the above chapter, which exceedingly distresses the reader, who searches for a meaning where there is none to be found.’
Whether Mr. Locke would have been satisfied with Mr. Tooke’s account of these words, I cannot say. I know that I am not. I do not think it the true one. It is therefore not the true one. Mr. Tooke thinks it is, and therefore it is the true one. Which of us is right? That what a man thinks, he thinks, and that if he speaks what he thinks, he speaks truth in one principal sense of the word, is what does not require much illustration; but whether what he thinks is true or false, whether his opinion is right or wrong, or whether there is not another possible and actual meaning of the terms besides that given by Mr. Tooke, is the old difficulty, which remains just where it was before, in spite of etymology.
The application of the theory of language to the philosophy of the mind, Mr. Tooke has reserved for a volume by itself: the principle, however, which he means to establish, he has very explicitly laid down in the beginning of his first volume. ‘The business of the mind,’ he says, ‘as far as it concerns language, appears to me to be very simple. It extends no farther than to receive impressions, that is, to have sensations or feelings. What are called its operations, are merely the operations of language. The greatest part of Mr. Locke’s Essay, that is, all which relates to what he calls the composition, abstraction, complexity, generalization, relation, &c. of ideas, does indeed merely concern language. If he had been sooner aware of the inseparable connexion between words and knowledge, he would not have talked of the composition of ideas; but would have seen that the only composition was in the terms; and consequently that it was as improper to talk of a complex idea as of a complex star. It is an easy matter, upon Mr. Locke’s own principles and a physical consideration of the senses and the mind, to prove the impossibility of the composition of ideas; and that they are not ideas, but merely terms which are general and abstract.’—Vol. i. pp. 39, 51, &c.