PAGE Genders Catachresis The Pathetic Fallacy' Personification Human relationships attributed to things inanimate The Unseen described by analogy . Analogies to describe the Soul, &c. Localisation of the passions Hieroglyphics Colours in metaphor Metaphor among the Numerals Which is a knowledge impossible to us And they teach us nothing about our abstract nature A knowledge no less impossible to us They merely express relations 286 287 287 288 289 290 291 291 292 293 And even as the signs of our conceptions they are essentially imperfect Instances. They are the starting-point of the full-grown Intelligence But the goal of its earlier development Their immense historical, intellectual, and moral importance ERRATA AND ADDENDA. Page 42, line 11, for which read whom. 43. See some examination of the question about races with a deficient language in Mr. E. Burnet Tylor, Researches into the Early History of Mankind (p. 77 sq.), who also has some admirable chapters on gesture language, picture writing, &c. Unfortunately Mr. Tylor's work appeared after my own was in print. I am glad to find in his two chapters on myths abundant confirmations of the arguments which I have used in a paper on 'Traditions real and fictitious' in the Trans. of the Ethnol. Soc. 1865. 156. The Essay of Buschmann's here referred to will be found translated in the sixth volume of the Philological Society's Transactions (1852-1853). Buschmann shows that even as far back as the Etymol. Magnum these sounds had been noticed, thus : πάππος δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς τῶν παίδων τῶν μικρῶν προσφωνήσεως, ὥς φησιν Ομηρος, ποτὶ γούνατα παππάζουσιν (Π. ν. 406). ὀνοματοπεποίηται οὖν ἡ λέξις. 197, line 5. Similarly parts of speech' have little or no existence in the gesture-language of deaf mutes. 212. Mr. Mayhew has collected some amusing anomalies to which the German genders are liable: thus, Der Löffel, the spoon; die Gabel, the fork; das Messer, the knife: Der Anfang, the beginning; die Mitte, the middle; das Ende, the end; die Tinte, the ink; das Papier, the paper, &c. Obviously there is no universal principle at work here, but only the play of a bizarre and arbitrary fancy. 233. For some specimens of Australian metaphors, see the Transactions of the Ethn. Soc. 1865, p. 292. 281. In the passage of M. Vämbéry's travels here alluded to, he says that the value of a dress is in Turkestan mainly estimated by the stiffness of the sound which it makes. 'The Oriental,' he observes,' is fond of the Tchak-tchuck or rustling tone of the dress.' (Travels, p. 173.) ON LANGUAGE. CHAPTER I. LANGUAGE, A HUMAN DISCOVERY. Πάντα θεῖα καὶ ἀνθρώπινα πάντα.Hippokrates. GOD, who, in the words of Lactantius,' was 'the artificer alike of the intelligence, of the voice, and of the tongue,' gave to man, with those three gifts, the power of constructing a language for himself. Now we are entitled to conclude from the widest possible observation of God's dealings with the human race, that He never bestows directly what man can obtain for himself by the patient and faithful use of intrusted powers. Science, for instance, by which we mean the sum total of all that has been discovered respecting the laws of nature, has furnished the human race with blessings of inestimable value; and yet its secrets were never 2 revealed by a voice from heaven, and, although within the reach of human industry, were absolutely unknown " I 'Deus et mentis, et vocis, et linguæ artifex.'-Lactant. Instt. vi. 21. 2 The Scriptures have never yet revealed a single scientific truth.'Hugh Miller, Testimony of the Rocks, p. 265. B |