Page:Observations on Man 1834.djvu/233

 grammarians and critics, afford innumerable attestations to the doctrine of association, and may, conversely, be much illustrated by it. But the full detail of this must be left to those who are well skilled in the several ancient and modern languages.



we suppose mankind possessed of such a language, as that they could at pleasure denote all their conceptions adequately, i.e. without any deficiency, superfluity, or equivocation; if, moreover, this language depended upon a few principles assumed, not arbitrarily, but because they were the shortest and best possible, and grew on from the same principles indefinitely, so as to correspond to every advancement in the knowledge of things, this language might be termed a philosophical one, and would as much exceed any of the present languages, as a paradisiacal state does the mixture of happiness and misery, which has been our portion ever since the fall. And it is no improbable supposition, that the language given by God to Adam and Eve, before the fall, was of this kind; and though it might be narrow, answered all their exigencies perfectly well.

Now there are several methods, in which it does not seem impossible for mankind in future ages to accomplish so great a design.

Thus, first, They may examine all the possible simple articulations of which their organs are capable, with all the combinations, or complex articulate sounds, that result from them, and the relations which these bear one to another, and assign to each respectively such simple and complex ideas, and such variations of the last, as a deep insight into the nature of things, objects, ideas, the powers of the human mind, &c. shall demand by a natural claim, so as to make every expression the shortest and best possible. And though this, in our present state of ignorance, cannot but seem an impracticable project, yet the same ignorance should teach us, that we can form no notions at all of the great increase of knowlege, which may come in future ages, and which seems promised to come in the latter happy times predicted by the prophecies. However, the great, and to former times inconceivable, advancement of knowledge, which has been made in the two last centuries, may help a little to qualify our prejudices.

Secondly, If all the simple articulate sounds, with all the radical words, which are found in the present languages, were appropriated to objects and ideas agreeably to the present senses of words, and their fitness to represent objects and ideas, so as to make all consistent with itself; if, farther, the best rules of etymology and syntax were selected from the present languages, and applied to the radical words here spoken of, so as to render