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• Errata—vol. VIII.
• Chrestomathia: Being a Collection of Papers, Explanatory of the Design of an Institution, Proposed to Be Set On Foot Under the Name of the Chrestomathic Day School, Or Chrestomathic School, For the Extension of the New System of Instruction to the High
• Introduction By the Editor.
• First Preface to the First Edition.
• Second Preface to the First Edition.
• Chrestomathic (a) Instruction Tables. Table I.
• Chrestomathic Instruction Tables. Table II.
• Appendix. No. I.
• Appendix.—no. II.
• Appendix.—no. III.
• Appendix.—no. IV.: Essay On Nomenclature and Classification. *
• Appendix.—no. V.: Sources of Motion.
• Appendix.—no. VI.
• Appendix.—no. VII.
• Appendix.—no. VIII.
• Appendix No. IX.
• A Fragment On Ontology; Now First Published, From the Manuscripts of Jeremy Bentham.
• Note By the Editor.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: Classification of Entities.
• Chapter II.: Fictitious Entities Classified.
• Essay On Logic: Now First Published, From the Manuscripts of Jeremy Bentham.
• Note By the Editor.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: Logic—what ?
• Chapter II.: Logic, Its Characteristics.
• Chapter III.: Præcognita: Or, Preliminary and General Indications Concerning Logic, According to the Aristotelians.
• Chapter IV.: Of Aristotle’s Predicaments and Postpredicaments.
• Chapter V. *: Mode of Discussion.
• Chapter VI.: Relation of Logic to the Business of Human Life In General, and Therein to Arts and Sciences, I. E. to Disciplines.
• Chapter VII.: Clearness In Discourse, How to Produce It? and Hence of Exposition.
• Chapter VIII.: Of Division.
• Chapter IX.: Of Methodization, Otherwise Termed Arrangement. † ‡
• Chapter X.: Of the Art of Invention.
• Appendix.—a.: Phenomena of the Human Mind.
• Appendix B. Division of Art and Science. †
• Essay On Language; Now First Published, From the Manuscripts of Jeremy Bentham.
• Note By the Editor.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: Modes Or Forms of Which Discourse Or Language Has Been Found Susceptible, Viz. Audible, Visible, and Their Respective Substitutes.
• Chapter II.: Uses of Language.
• Chapter III.: Operations Which, In the Character of an Art, Are Performable In Relation to Discourse, Or Language In General.
• Chapter IV.: Properties Desirable In a Language.
• Chapter V.: Of Improvement Considered As Applicable to Language, Or the Means By Which, In So Far As the Particular Language Employed By an Individual Admits of the Possession of Them, the Properties Desirable In Language May, On Each Occasion, Be Secured
• Chapter VI.: Analytical View of the Matter of Thought and Internal Action; Correspondent View of the Matter of Language.
• Fragments On Universal Grammar; Now First Published, From the Manuscripts of Jeremy Bentham.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: Definitions.
• Chapter II.: Uses of Universal Grammar.
• Chapter III.: Of the Parts of Speech.
• Chapter IV.: Of the Noun-substantive.
• Chapter V.: Of the Adjective.
• Chapter VI.: Of Pronouns. *
• Chapter VII.: Of Verbs.
• Chapter VIII.: Of Government and Concord.
• Chapter IX.: Of Prepositions, Adverbs, and Conjunctions.
• Chapter X.: Of Interjections.
• Tracts On Poor Laws and Pauper Management.
• Note By the Editor On the Tracts On Poor Laws.
• Situation and Relief of the Poor.
• Observations On the Pauper Population Table Hereunto Annexed.
• Outline of the Non-adult Value Table.
• Outline of a Work Entitled Pauper Management Improved.
• Book I.: Political Arrangements.
• Book II.: Plan of Management.
• Book III.: Collateral Benefits.
• Book IV.: Pauper Comforts.
• Observations On the Poor Bill. Introduced By the Rt. Hon. William Pitt (feb, 1797). : Chapter I. Introduction
• Chapter II.: 1. Under-ability, Or Supplemental-wages Clause.
• Chapter III.: 2. Family-relief, Or Extra-children Clause.
• Chapter IV.: 3. Cow-money Clause.
• Chapter V.: 4. Relief-extension, Or Opulence-relief Clause.
• Chapter VI.: 5. Apprenticeship Clause.
• Three Tracts Relative to Spanish and Portuguese Affairs; With a Continual Eye to English Ones.
• Advertisement For Tract the First and Second; of This Second * Publication, Namely, On the Then Proposed Spanish House of Lords. ( Anno 1820.)
• Tract, No. I.: Letter to the Spanish Nation On a Then ( Anno 1820) Proposed House of Lords.
• Advertisement to Tract the Second.
• Tract, No. II.: Observations On Judge Advocate Hermosa’s Panegyric On Judicial Delays; On the Occasion of the Impunity As Yet Given By Him to the Loyal Authors of the Cadiz Massacre, a Counterpart to the Manchester Massacre; Explaining, Moreover, the Effe
• Advertisement to Tract the Third.
• Tract, No. III.: Letter to the Portuguese Nation, On Antiquated Constitutions; On the Spanish Constitution Considered As a Whole, and On Certain Defects Observable In It; In Particular, the Immutability-enacting, Or Infallibility-assuming, the Non-re-elig
• Letters to Count Toreno, On the Proposed Penal Code, Delivered In By the Legislation Committee of the Spanish Cortes, April 25th, 1821.
• Advertisement.
• Letter I.
• Letter II.: On the Course Taken By the Legislative Committee, to Prevent, Otherwise Than By Punishment Eo Nomine, the Free Examination of Their Proposed Penal Code.
• Letter III.
• Letter IV.
• Letter V.
• Letter VI.
• Letter VII.
• Supplemental Advertisement.
• Securities Against Misrule, Adapted to a Mahommedan State, and Prepared With Particular Reference to Tripoli In Barbary.
• Note By the Editor.
• Chapter I.: Preliminary Explanations.
• Chapter II.: Public Opinion the Sole Remedy—parallel Between the Public-opinion Tribunal and the Official Judicatories.
• Chapter III.: Notification and Publication In Reference to Securities.
• Chap. IV.: The Securities In Detail.
• Part I.: Securities In Favour of the Nation Considered In the Aggregate.
• Part II.: Securities In Favour of Individuals.
• Chapter V.: Hopes of Success For Any Project Having Such Securities For Its End.

APPENDIX No. IX.

Introduction.

The purposes for which Grammar, as applied to languages other than the vernacular one, is proposed to be included in the Chrestomathic Course, have already been brought to view.*

With a view to these same purposes it is supposed, that now in the present state of the field of Art and Science, to the leading principles of what is called Universal Grammar, admission might in this same seminary be given, and that with sufficient facility and adequate practical advantage.

Of a plan of the kind in question, the general principles of Mathematics will, it is taken for granted, be universally recognised as forming a proper part. But, it is confidently anticipated, that, with the rules of particular grammar to afford explanation to them, the general principles of universal grammar will not, on the part of the student, require either more labour or a greater maturity of intellect than the general principles of Mathematics; while, on the other hand, by the more extensive command which will thus be given to him over the powers of his mind, the use derived from a given quantity of labour will, in this case, be at least equal to any that can reasonably be expected to have place in that other case.

A consideration from which this expectation has received additional strength is, that upon the plan in question, to the exposition of the leading principles of the art and science of universal grammar upon the plan in question, the exposition of a correspondent part of the principles of Logic would be necessary. Considerations of the logical cast, forming all along the basis of such considerations of the grammatical cast as would be brought to view. If, by this connexion, the access to an acquaintance with so much of the connected matter as belongs to the head of Grammar, would be clogged with difficulty and the progress retarded, here would pro tanto be an objection. But the notion is, that from the two branches of art and science in question, mutual light would by each other be reflected, and that by means of the conjunction, a given degree of acquaintance with both would be attained with less labour than, supposing separation practicable, would be necessary to the attainment of an equal degree of acquaintance with no more than one.

The circumstance by which, at the present time in particular, the prospect of being able in relation to this at present abstruse branch of art and science, to administer instruction on terms of hitherto unprecedented advantage, is the discovery made by Horne Tooke:—that discovery by which the relation which has place between certain till then incomprehensible parts of speech on the one part and certain of the better understood parts of speech on the other part, has been brought to view;—by which the import of certain till then incomprehensible parts of speech was made known, by showing their identity with other parts of speech, the import of which was not thus abstruse.

The explanation of this discovery of his, having been left by him in an unfinished state, may, perhaps, in some measure, have been the cause, why no new system of universal Grammar, constructed with the lights thrown on the subject by that discovery, hath as yet been given to the world. But to the purpose here in question, to any one who will be at the pains of availing himself of them, the light afforded by that discovery will, it is believed, be found quite sufficient.

Should the expectations here spoken of be sanctioned by the event, two results, one theoretical, the other practical, both of them in a more particular degree gratifying to an English heart will, it is believed, be found deducible from the branch of instruction here proposed.

The theoretical one is, that to all the purposes of discourse taken together, Latin and Greek not excepted, the English language is better adapted than any other language.

The practical result is, that in the seminary which, so much to the honour of this country, is at work for the training up of young persons to be sent abroad in the character of missionaries, in the hope of that glory which is to be reaped from the propagation of Christianity and civilisation among barbarous nations, by whom, when taken in the aggregate, a prodigiously diversified multitude of languages afford respectively the only medium they have through which instruction can be transmitted to them by the generosity of their intended benefactors,—an institutional treatise on the principles of universal Grammar would, if grounded on the foundation here in question, be found a useful assistant, substracting, at the same time, from the quantity of the correspondent part of such their literary labour, and at the same time in respect of strength of mind and mastery of the subject, making addition to their capacity for it.

Section I.

Of Language.

A communication made by language is either simple or complex.

It is simple when the matter of thought communicated by it is no more than what is contained in one proposition—one logical proposition.*Complex, if any more.

For the making of any communication,—in other words, for the framing a proposition, if every necessary part of it be expressed—no part of it understood, as the phrase is, i. e. left to be supplied by the person addressed—several parts, called words or terms, are necessary; or, at any rate, if no more than a single word be employed, and the import of an entire proposition be expressed by it, it is because, by means of a certain letter or letters, forming part of that word, an import is given to it the same as that, for the expression of which more words than one are in other cases employed, viz. without making any addition to the sense of it.

Every complex communication is resolvable into two or more simple ones. Every complex proposition is resolvable into two or more simple ones.

Every simple proposition, if the expression given to it be complete, contains in it the import of at least three different sorts of words, the import of each of them bearing a particular relation to that of the rest.

To the import, for the expression of which three words are necessary and sufficient, if the import of any other word, having a separate import of its own, be added, the import of this additional word is expressible by, and when fully expressed, equivalent to, that of an entire proposition.

For the giving expression to the different propositions of which discourse is, or is capable of being composed, different sets of words, different sets of sounds, together with correspondently different sets of visible signs, employed for presenting to the sense of sight, or that of touch, the import of those sounds, with or without the sounds themselves, are employed by different portions of the human population of this earth, each set of sounds forming a separate language.

But for giving expression to all the different sorts of relations,† which, for the composition of discourse, i. e. of every possible assemblage of propositions, simple and complex, the sorts of words necessary and sufficient are the same in every language. These different sorts of words are what are called the parts of speech.

Into the import of a simple proposition of the most simple sort of proposition, three different sorts of words as already stated must enter. These are—

1. The name of the subject of the discourse, of the communication made by it.—

2. The name of some attribute, attributed or ascribed to the same subject.

3. The name of the copula,—the attributive copula by which the attribution is performed.

Of Language, the primary use is by means of expression to make communication of thought. By the necessity of making this communication it was, that the original demand for language was created.

Of the nature of language no clear, correct, and instructive account can be given but with reference to thought.

But the arrangement which, on this occasion, and for this purpose, is given to the materials, may have all along a view to, and be such as is prescribed by the arrangement that seems requisite to be given to the materials of language.

The origin of language being the demand created for it by the need men found themselves under of making communication of their thoughts, the next consideration is that of the modifications of which that demand is susceptible.

Here comes the inquiry, in what ways, by language in general, and by the different known languages in particular, or rather, by particular languages, and thence by language in general, satisfaction has been given to that demand.

All along it will be matter not less of instruction than of curiosity and amusement, to go back, and, in the remaining fragments, as in exuviæ of lost species of plants and animals, to observe the features of language and languages in their earliest state.

Throughout the whole field of language, two languages, as it were, run all along in a state of parallelism to each other,—the one material, the other immaterial;—the material all along the basis of the immaterial:

The same stock of words serves for each,—each word serving, or being capable of serving, in both senses;—at any rate, every word originally employed in a material sense, is capable of being employed in an immaterial sense.

Saving the class of real entities distinguished by the appellation of inferential, the entities of which the words of the immaterial language are designative, are all fictitious entities.

Fictitious entities may be distributed according to the branch of Art and Science for the purpose of which the names of them require to be employed.

Thus we have, 1. Somatic, or Somatological fictitious entities: 2. Noological fictitious entities: 3. Ethical fictitious entities.*

All language is employed in announcing the existence, absolute or conditional, past, present, or future of some event or state of things, or say of some state of things quiescent or moving, real or imaginary, i. e. meant to be represented as real, or meant to be represented as imaginary.

In this case, the distinction between reality and imaginariness may apply as well to the things themselves as to the state, whether of motion or rest, in which they are represented as existing.

No state of things can have been in existence but in some place and some time,—in some portion of the field of space, and in some portion of the field of time.

Place and time are, accordingly, both of them adjuncts to all existence. Existence is a field or ocean which spreads itself at once over both these subjacent fields, the field of space and the field of time.

But though, in fact, neither space nor time can, in any instance, fail to be the actual accompaniments of existence, yet, by language, expression may, on any occasion, be given to existence without being given either to place or to time, or at any rate, without being given to both.

The ideas, in the designation of which language is employed, are reducible to two heads:—1. Ideas of subjects, i. e. of entities, real or fictitious, considered as subjects; and, 2. Ideas of relations—of relations between subject and subject.

For the designation of ideas of relations, adjuncts, and modifications attached to the principal idea—the idea of the subject—two modes are employed in language, viz.—1. Separate accessory words; 2. Modifications of the signs of the principal idea or subject—the principal word.

For the giving an account of these different modifications of ideas, the most commodious of all languages will be that in which the greatest use is made of separate words. Why? Because, in this case, for the separate designation of each such modification, there is a separate and apposite word already provided by the language.†

The more of these separate words a language possesses, the less the demand it has for, and naturally the less the number it will have of the above-mentioned verbal modifications.

These modifications have, by Grammarians, been termed inflections.

In proportion as the number which it furnishes of these modifications or inflections is small, the language may be said to be a sparingly inflected—in the opposite case, a copiously inflected, language.

Section II.

Systematical Sketch of the Parts of Speech.

Under the universally applying appellation of Parts of Speech, are included the whole number of the words of which the language in question is composed, classed and denominated according to the several relations which they bear, or are capable of bearing, one to another, in the composition of a grammatical sentence.

A sentence, in the language of grammar, is not the same thing with a proposition in the language of Logic. A sentence, when all the words belonging to it are inserted, cannot contain less than an entire proposition, but it may contain any number of propositions.

The different species of relations which, for the purposes of discourse, have need of so many different classes of words for giving expression to them, are the same in all languages. The parts of speech are, therefore, the same in all languages, the scantiest and most inconveniently constructed as well as the richest and most cultivated,—the Hottentot and Chinese as well as the Greek and English.

Universal grammar is that sort of grammar which treats of those relations in so far as they are common to all languages.

When, upon a correct foundation, an all-comprehensive institute of universal grammar has once been formed, supposing it framed with that degree of skill which has been exemplified in so many particular grammars, it will serve as a common standard of comparison, and as a source of explanation for all languages, and as a foundation-model for the several particular grammars, which take for their respective subjects these same languages.

Without, and therefore, before, the discoveries made by Horne Tooke, no such universal grammar, it will be seen, could have been formed. By him the way has been prepared for a work of this sort; but, for the framing of it, one of the requisites has been a clear view of that logic in which, when taken in its most extended sense, grammar, even universal grammar, has its foundation; and so it has happened that no professed Grammarian seems, as yet, to have given himself this qualification.

An acquaintance with universal grammar, as above-described, will naturally be among the acquisitions to be made in a Chrestomathic school. So far from adding to, it will substract from, the quantity of labour necessary to the acquisition of a given degree of acquaintance with the particular languages therein proposed to be taught.

Words are the signs of thoughts,—proportioned only to the degree of correctness and completeness with which thoughts themselves have been conceived and arranged, can be the degree of correctness and completeness given to their respective signs.

Of speech, though the correction, extension, and improvement of thought be, and that to a prodigious degree a consequence, yet the more immediate and only universally regarded object, is but the communication of thought.

But by anything less than an entire proposition, i. e. the import of an entire proposition, no communication can have place. In language, therefore, the integer to be looked for is an entire proposition,—that which Logicians mean by the term logical proposition. Of this integer, no one part of speech, not even that which is most significant, is anything more than a fragment; and, in this respect, in the many-worded appellative, part of speech, the word part is instructive. By it, an intimation to look out for the integer, of which it is a part, may be considered as conveyed. A word is to a proposition what a letter is to a word.

A sentence,—in that which, by Grammarians, is meant by the word sentence,—the matter either of no more than a single proposition, or that of any number of propositions, may be contained.

Not unfrequently, by no more than a single word, the import of an entire proposition is expressed. But the case in which this happens is that in which, as to all that is not supplied by modification, as above, that omission of words, of which, at the same time, it is necessary that the import should be present to the mind, that omission which, by Grammarians, is called ellipsis, has place.

Of the existence of an ellipsis, or any omission, the test is this:—Look out for the words, the import of which, though the terms themselves are not inserted, is supposed to be intended to be conveyed. In so far as this is the case, then, so it is that, by the insertion of these words, no addition will appear to have been made to the sense.

Without a gap in the sense, an ellipsis can no otherwise be left than in so far as, by the nature of the subject, or of the context, i. e. the words of which the circumjacent proposition are composed, the import of the words omitted is suggested.

Arranged in the order of simplicity and conceptibility, and denominated by their usual names, the several parts of speech that are essentially different from one another, and not included any one of them under any other, will stand as follows:

1. Substantive. Noun-substantive.

2. Adjective. Noun-adjective.

3. Verb. Verb-substantive, called also the copula.

4. Preposition.

5. Conjunction.

If considered as distinct from all the above, and not including in itself the import of several of them, the interjection does not form a part of organized language. It is no more than part and parcel of that unorganized language which is common to man and the inferior animals.

In the above list, the word substantive must be considered as unfurnished with those several additaments and other modifications by which the relations designated by the words gender, number, and case, are expressed.

So likewise the noun-adjective.

So likewise the verb, as distinct from those by which the relations designated by the words person, number, moods, and tense, are expressed.

The pronoun-substantive will be found to coincide in its import and properties with the noun-substantive, and that as perfectly as any one noun-substantive with another common substantive, that is, the sort of relation it bears to the several other parts of speech is the same.

The pronoun-adjective will, in like manner, be found to coincide in its import and properties with the noun-adjective.

The article, whether definite or indefinite, will be found in like manner to be but a species of noun-adjective.

A part of speech is either, 1. Aplonoctic,—Simple in its import. Or, 2. Syncraticonoctic,—composite in its import.

A part of speech, simple in its import, is either, 1. Significant by itself. Or, 2. Not significant by itself.

The only part of speech which is perfectly simple in its import, and at the same time integrally significant, is the noun-substantive. The noun-substantive, not as it exists in Greek and Latin, complicated with literal modifications indicative of logical relations, such as gender, number, and case, but such as it exists in English, as in the words man, woman, horse.

A noun-substantive is a name, as in the Latin the word noun truly imports.

The entity of which it is the name, belongs either to the class of real entities, or to the class of fictitious entities.

Incorporeal as well as corporeal substances being included, real entities are those alone which belong to that universal class designated by the logicians by the name of substances.

Substances are divided by them into corporeal and incorporeal. Under the name of corporeal, are included all masses of matter, howsoever circumstanced in respect of form, bulk, and place.

Of corporeal substances, the existence is made known to us by sense. Of incorporeal, no otherwise than by ratiocination,—they may on that account be termed inferential.*

To the class of inferential entities belong, 1. The soul of man in a state of separation from the body. 2. God. 3. All other and inferior spiritual entities.

Substantives are either proper names or common names. A proper name is a sign by which some individual object is alone signified. A common name is a name by which some class of objects is signified.

In the order of time, the use of proper names cannot but have preceded the use of common names.

Common names cannot have been formed without a course of experience, whereby the identity or resemblance of properties or qualities, as between individual and individual, among all such individuals as belong to the class so constituted and designated, has been made known.

The import of a proper name is intelligible to the inferior animals, to all animals, for example, who for the purpose of their being fed are accustomed to be called. If it be never addressed on any other occasion, or for any other purpose, the sound by which it is called becomes, in the animal’s mind, the animal’s name. To the animal it is but a proper name, howsoever, to the man who on that occasion uses it, it may be a common name. To the man who, intending to give food to a cat, cries puss, puss may be a common name, and be accordingly applied to the purpose of feeding several cats at once. But to each respective cat it is but a proper name,—what each cat understands is that itself is named by it. What no cat understands is that any other cat is named by it.

Among names of fictitious entities, the foremost, and those the designation of which is of most immediate necessity to mind-expressing converse, are qualities.†

Taking the word proposition in its simplest acceptation, by every proposition the existence of some quality in some subject is asserted. A proposition is any portion of discourse by which the existence of some quality in some subject is asserted. The name of the substance is the noun-substantive. The name of the quality is the noun-adjective. The word by which the relation between the quality and the substance is indicated, viz. the existence of the one in the other, is by logicians called the copula.

By grammarians, on some of the occasions on which by logicians the term copula is employed, the term verb is employed. But it would not by any means be true to say that the word copula, and the word verb are synonymous,—interconvertible—indicative of precisely the same object, and nothing more. By the word copula no more than one single class of words is indicated, viz. the class of words by which intimation is conveyed that in the opinion of the speaker the quality named by him exists in the subject, the name of which is pronounced by him at the same time. By the word verb is indicated the cluster of objects the names of which are by grammarians put together, and spoken of as constituting all of them together but one verb.

The import of the word copula is the same in all languages. The import of the word verb is different in different languages. In the copiously inflected languages, it includes a much greater number of words than in the sparingly inflected languages.

In the import of the copula is included nothing more than the one idea just brought to view.

In the language of grammarians one verb is by the name of the verb-substantive distinguished from all others,—it may be termed the verb in which are contained indications of simple existence. In Latin, the verb sum; in English, the verb to be; for in Latin one of the many species of conjugates included under that complex denomination, in English another of those species of conjugates, is employed as the name of the whole aggregate.

In every other verb throughout all its modifications, to the import of the copula is added the import of some name of a quality. In the verb-substantive no such additament has place unless the objects designated by the words person, number, mood, tense, be regarded as capable of being included under, and designated by, the word quality.*

The following are the accessory ideas of which the principal ones expressed by the several parts of speech in question must be divested. Why? Answer.—Because of these several accessory ideas, the several signs will be found to be equivalent to the import of so many entire propositions.

I. Noun-substantive; accessory ideas attached to it in some languages.

The ideas designated by the words, 1. Gender. 2. Number. 3. Case.†

II. Noun-adjective; the same.

III. Verb. Accessory ideas attached to it, as above, in some languages.‡

1. Person, (relation had to the speaker, and the being spoken to.)

2. Number.

3. Mood or mode, which is either, 1. Absolute; or, 2. Conditional.

4. Tense, i. e., the sign of time.

I.Gender. Proposition involved in the import of the termination by which gender, i. e. sex, is designated.

1. The person in question; viz. the person in the designation of whom the noun-substantive, to which the termination is attached, is employed, is of the sex thus designated,—either male or female; applied to human, and most other animated beings, the proposition thus expressed may always be true.

2. The thing in question is of the sex so designated. Applied to unorganized beings, this is never true; and so among organized beings, with few exceptions, if applied to vegetables. By this absurd falsehood, useless complication to a vast amount, and conception not only erroneous but pernicious to a considerable amount, are infused into the composition of the languages in which this excrescence is contained, and in particular the Latin, the Greek, and the modern languages, of which these ancient languages form respectively the main roots.

II.Number. Proposition involved in the import of the termination by which number is designated.

Objects of the same kind, more than one are meant to be indicated by the noun-substantive, to which with or without the addition of the noun-adjective, the termination in question is attached.

In the same way may be brought to view the propositions respectively indicated by the terminations or other modifications expressive of case, mood or mode, and tense.

Two cases there are, in and by the import of which no such adscititions and accessory idea is necessarily involved. There are, 1. The nominative. 2. The accusative. In these cases there is not any proposition of the import of which the designation is added to that of the import of the noun, to which the termination, or other modification, is attached.

Those in the instances of which there is always some proposition, of the import of which the designation is always involved in that of the termination in question, are, 1. The genitive. 2. The dative. 3. The ablative.

In certain sparingly inflected languages, the import of the genitive is indeed expressed by a termination. But in those same languages it is in every instance expressed also by a proposition.

In every language in which it has place, the substitution made of terminations or other inseparable modifications to separate words, such, for example, as prepositions, is, on several accounts, a great blemish. 1. It is a source of prodigious complication,—the whole of it useless. 2. It is a most copious source of ambiguity; one such modification being in these copiously inflected languages applied of necessity to convey indiscriminately a multitude of different imports, which being essentially different, present a correspondently urgent demand for these instruments of distinction, of which so correct and complete a stock is afforded by the sparingly inflected languages.

3. From the multitude of these separate adjuncts which in the sparingly inflected languages are capable of being conjoined with the same principal part of speech, and the multitude of the changes capable of being rung upon them, by arranging them in different orders, may be seen a copious source of energy, variety, and thence of beauty, of which the copiously inflected languages are not susceptible.

Section III.

Properties Desirable in Language.

The properties desirable in the case of any particular language will be correspondent to, and dependent on, the properties desirable in all language or discourse taken in the aggregate.

Different properties are in different degrees desirable in a human discourse on different occasions; the properties desirable in a mass of discourse will, in some degree, as to some of them, depend on the nature of the discourse, that is, on the sort of end which it has in view, and the occasion on which,—the state of things,—the conjuncture in which it is uttered.

The properties desirable in language in general will then be the sum of all the properties which can be desirable in it, on the sum of all the different occasions that are capable of having place.

One all-comprehensive property may, therefore, be stated as desirable in any particular language, viz. the capacity of being, according to the nature of each occasion, endowed with all the several properties which on that particular occasion are desirable in language,—would be desired by, would be serviceable to, any and every person who on that occasion should have need to employ the faculty of discourse.

Properties of the first order, or primary properties,—properties of the second order, or secondary properties; under these different heads may be ranked all the several properties desirable in language or discourse taken at large.

By properties of the first order, understand all such properties as in a direct way are respectively conducive to one or other of all the several sorts of ends, to the accomplishment of which language is in any part of it, on any occasion capable of being employed and directed; and which, supposing them possessed, need not for that purpose the intervention or addition of any other properties.

By properties of the second order, understand such properties as are indeed conducive to the same ends, but no farther, nor any otherwise than as being respectively contributory to the endowing of the language with one or more of the properties above designated and distinguished by the appellation of properties of the first order.

The several properties of the first order which, with reference to all ends, and on all occasions taken together, are desirable in language, may be thus enumerated:—

1. Clearness. 2. Correctness. 3. Copiousness. 4. Completeness. 5. Non-redundance. 6. Conciseness. 7. Pronounciability. 8. Melodiousness. 9. Discibility. 10. Docibility. 11. Meliorability. 12. Impressiveness. 13. Dignity. 14. Patheticalness.

The several properties of the second order, which in respect of their conduciveness to the same ends, but through the medium each of them of one or more of the particulars standing in the above list of primary properties, are desirable in language, may be thus enumerated.

1. The relations expressed by it, expressed as much as may be by distinct words in contradistinction to modifications of other words.

In proportion as it is endowed with this property, a language may be termed, a sparingly inflected language.

A word being assumed as the basis or root of these several modifications, they will consist either of additions to, substractions from, or changes of some one or more of the letters of the fundamental or radical word.

These may be made, 1. At the beginning. 2. At the end. 3. At any intermediate part.

All such modifications may be termed inflections, in proportion to the multitude of these modifications, it may be called a copiously inflected language.*

A FRAGMENT ON ONTOLOGY; NOW FIRST PUBLISHED, FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS OF JEREMY BENTHAM.

[* ] Vide supra, pp. 33, 34.

[* ] Example: in Latin, sto, and so stes, stet, &c. Of sto, the equivalent, in which every member of the communication has a word for the designation of it, is, Ego sum stans—I am standing, or in a standing posture.

[† ] It belongs to the abstract or unapplied part of universal Grammar, to present to view the import of these several relations considered in themselves.

It belongs to the Grammar of each particular language to present to view the different forms of words, by which these relations are respectively expressed in that same language.

It belongs to the concrete, or applied part of universal Grammar, to present comparative views of the different modes in which expression is given to these same relations in different languages.

[* ] See this subject at length in the immediately following tract.

[† ] Of all languages, the language in which, for this purpose, the greatest use is made of separate words is, it is believed, the English.

[* ] According to those who agree with Bishop Berkeley, matter belongs to the class of those entities of which the existence is inferential; impressions and ideas being, in that case, the only perceptible entities. But, in the case of matter, the justness of the inference is determinable, at all times determinable by experimental proof: if of the wall opposite me, I infer the non-existence, and run that way as if there were no wall, the erroneousness of the inference will be but too plainly perceptible on my forehead; which is not the case in any one of these other instances.

[† ]Quality being taken in the largest sense of which the word is susceptible, is that which, in its import, is co-extensive with the applicability of the word so much used in the Aristotelian Logic school, predication.

[* ] A sign designative of present time, is it to be considered as designative of a relation? Is not the present the standard of all relations of time? The copula, it should seem, must be considered as including the designation of present time, unless in so far as intimation is given of the contrary.

[† ] In the copiously inflected languages, (ex. gr. Greek, Latin, Sclavonian, and their derivatives,) all these three accessory ideas are all of them distinguished by terminations, letters, or combinations of letters, added or substituted to those expressive of the principal object. In the sparingly inflected, for example: Gender, not; number, yes; case, the Genitive, and no other.

[‡ ] In the Russian, a dialect of the Sclavonian, instances are not wanting in which, not only the noun, but the verb also, is encumbered with variations of termination indicative of sex.

[* ] Here the MS. terminates with this notandum:—“Another secondary property,—Affording facility to the construction of composite words. State the use of composite words.”