Lectures on The Science of Language 44

Lectures on The Science of Language 44

and afterwards similar

places, whether dug in the earth or cut in a tree, would be designated by

the same name. The same general idea, however, would likewise supply other

names, and thus we find that the _entrails_ were called _antra_ (neuter)

in Sanskrit, _enteron_ in Greek, originally things within.

 

Let us take another word for cave, which is _căvea_ or _căverna_. Here

again Adam Smith would be perfectly right in maintaining that this name,

when first given, was applied to one particular cave, and was afterwards

extended to other caves. But Leibniz would be equally right in maintaining

that in order to call even the first hollow _cavea_, it was necessary that

the general idea of _hollow_ should have been formed in the mind, and

should have received its vocal __EXPRESSION__ _cav_. Nay we may go a step

beyond, for _cavus_, or hollow, is a secondary, not a primary, idea.

Before a cave was called _cavea_, a hollow thing, many things hollow had

passed before the eyes of men. Why then was a hollow thing, or a hole,

called by the root _cav_? Because what had been hollowed out was intended

at first as a place of safety and protection, as a cover; and it was

called therefore by the root _ku_ or _sku_, which conveyed the idea of to

cover.(340) Hence the general idea of covering existed in the mind before

it was applied to hiding-places in rocks or trees, and it was not till an

__EXPRESSION__ had thus been framed for things hollow or safe in general, that

caves in particular could be designated by the name of _cavea_ or hollows.

 

Another form for _cavus_ was _koilos_, hollow. The conception was

originally the same; a hole was called _koilon_ because it served as a

cover. But once so used _koilon_ came to mean a cave, a vaulted cave, a

vault, and thus the heaven was called _cœlum_, the modern _ciel_, because

it was looked upon as a vault or cover for the earth.

 

It is the same with all nouns. They all express originally one out of the

many attributes of a thing, and that attribute, whether it be a quality or

an action, is necessarily a general idea. The word thus formed was in the

first instance intended for one object only, though of course it was

almost immediately extended to the whole class to which this object seemed

to belong. When a word such as _rivus_, river, was first formed, no doubt

it was intended for a certain river, and that river was called _rivus_,

from a root _ru_ or _sru_, to run, because of its running water. In many

instances a word meaning river or runner remained the proper name of one

river, without ever rising to the dignity of an appellative. Thus

_Rhenus_, the Rhine, means river or runner, but it clung to one river, and

could not be used as an appellative for others. The Ganges is the Sanskrit

_Gangâ_, literally the Go-go; a word very well adapted for any majestic

river, but in Sanskrit restricted to the one sacred stream. The Indus

again is the Sanskrit _Sindhu_, and means the irrigator, from _syand_, to

sprinkle. In this case, however, the proper name was not checked in its

growth, but was used likewise as an appelative for any great stream.

 

We have thus seen how the controversy about the _primum cognitum_ assumes

a new and perfectly clear aspect. The first thing really known is the

general. It is through it that we know and name afterwards individual

objects of which any general idea can be predicated, and it is only in the

third stage that these individual objects, thus known and named, become

again the representatives of whole classes, and their names or proper

names are raised into appellatives.(341)

 

There is a petrified philosophy in language, and if we examine the most

ancient word for name we find it is _nâman_ in Sanskrit, _nomen_ in Latin,

_namo_ in Gothic. This _nâman_ stands for _gnâman_, which is preserved in

the Latin _co-gnomen_. The _g_ is dropped as in _natus_, son, for

_gnatus_. _Nâman_, therefore, and name are derived from the root gnâ, to

know, and meant originally that by which we know a thing.

 

And how do we know things? We perceive things by our senses, but our

senses convey to us information about single things only. But to _know_ is

more than to feel, than to perceive, more than to remember, more than to

compare. No doubt words are much abused. We speak of a dog _knowing_ his

master, of an infant _knowing_ his mother. In such __EXPRESSION__s, to know

means to recognize. But to know a thing, means more than to recognize it.

We know a thing if we are able to bring it, and any part of it, under more

general ideas. We then say, not that we have a perception, but a

conception, or that we have a general idea of a thing. The facts of nature

are perceived by our senses; the thoughts of nature, to borrow an

__EXPRESSION__ of Oersted’s, can be conceived by our reason only.(342) Now the

first step towards this real knowledge, a step which, however small in

appearance, separates man forever from all other animals, is the _naming

of a thing_, or the making a thing knowable. All naming is classification,

bringing the individual under the general; and whatever we know, whether

empirically or scientifically, we know it only by means of our general

ideas. Other animals have sensation, perception, memory, and, in a certain

sense, intellect; but all these, in the animal, are conversant with single

objects only. Man has sensation, perception, memory, intellect, and

reason, and it is his reason only that is conversant with general

ideas.(343)

 

Through reason we not only stand a step above the brute creation: we

belong to a different world. We look down on our merely animal experience,

on our sensations, perceptions, our memory, and our intellect, as

something belonging to us, but not as constituting our most inward and

eternal self. Our senses, our memory, our intellect, are like the lenses

of a telescope. But there is an eye that looks through them at the

realities of the outer world, our own rational and self-conscious soul; a

power as distinct from our perceptive faculties as the sun is from the

earth which it fills with light, and warmth, and life.

 

At the very point where man parts company with the brute world, at the

first flash of reason as the manifestation of the light within us, there

we see the true genesis of language. Analyze any word you like, and you

will find that it expresses a general idea peculiar to the individual to

which the name belongs. What is the meaning of moon?—the measurer. What is

the meaning of sun?—the begetter. What is the meaning of earth?—the

ploughed. The old name given to animals, such as cows and sheep, was

_pasú_, the Latin _pecus_, which means _feeders_. _Animal_ itself is a

later name, and derived from _anima_, soul. This _anima_ again meant

originally blowing or breathing, like spirit from _spirare_, and was

derived from a root, _an_, to blow, which gives us _anila_, wind, in

Sanskrit, and _anemos_, wind, in Greek. _Ghost_, the German _Geist_, is

based on the same conception. It is connected with _gust_, with _yeast_,

and even with the hissing and boiling _geysers_ of Iceland. _Soul_ is the

Gothic _saivala_, and this is clearly related to another Gothic word,

_saivs_,(344) which means the sea. The sea was called _saivs_ from a root

_si_ or _siv_, the Greek _seiō_, to shake; it meant the tossed-about

water, in contradistinction to stagnant or running water. The soul being

called _saivala_, we see that it was originally conceived by the Teutonic

nations as a sea within, heaving up and down with every breath, and

reflecting heaven and earth on the mirror of the deep.

 

The Sanskrit name for love is _smara_; it is derived from _smar_, to

recollect; and the same root has supplied the German _schmerz_, pain, and

the English _smart_.

 

If the serpent is called in Sanskrit _sarpa_, it is because it was

conceived under the general idea of creeping, an idea expressed by the

word _srip_. But the serpent was also called _ahi_ in Sanskrit, in Greek

_echis_ or _echidna_, in Latin _anguis_. This name is derived from quite a

different root and idea. The root is _ah_ in Sanskrit, or _anh_, which

means to press together, to choke, to throttle. Here the distinguishing

mark from which the serpent was named was his throttling, and _ahi_ meant

serpent, as expressing the general idea of throttler. It is a curious root

this _anh_, and it still lives in several modern words. In Latin it

appears as _ango_, _anxi_, _anctum_, to strangle, in _angina_,

quinsy,(345) in _angor_, suffocation. But _angor_ meant not only quinsy or

compression of the neck; it assumed a moral import and signifies anguish

or anxiety. The two adjectives _angustus_, narrow, and _anxius_, uneasy,

both come from the same source. In Greek the root retained its natural and

material meaning; in _eggys_, near, and _echis_, serpent, throttler. But

in Sanskrit it was chosen with great truth as the proper name of sin. Evil

no doubt presented itself under various aspects to the human mind, and its

names are many; but none so expressive as those derived from our root,

_anh_, to throttle. _Anhas_ in Sanskrit means sin, but it does so only

because it meant originally throttling,—the consciousness of sin being

like the grasp of the assassin on the throat of his victim. All who have

seen and contemplated the statue of Laokoon and his sons, with the serpent

coiled round them from head to foot, may realize what those ancients felt

and saw when they called sin _anhas_, or the throttler. This _anhas_ is

the same word as the Greek _agos_, sin. In Gothic the same root has

produced _agis_, in the sense of _fear_, and from the same source we have

_awe_, in awful, _i.e._ fearful, and _ug_, in _ugly_. The English

_anguish_ is from the French _angoisse_, the Italian _angoscia_, a

corruption of the Latin _angustiæ_, a strait.

 

And how did those early thinkers and framers of language distinguish

between man and the other animals? What general idea did they connect with

the first conception of themselves? The Latin word _homo_, the French

_l’homme_, which has been reduced to _on_ in _on dit_, is derived from the

same root which we have in _humus_, the soil, _humilis_, humble. _Homo_,

therefore, would express the idea of a being made of the dust of the

earth.(346)

 

Another ancient word for man was the Sanskrit _marta_,(347) the Greek

_brotos_, the Latin _mortalis_ (a secondary derivative), our own _mortal_.

_Marta_ means “he who dies,” and it is remarkable that where everything

else was changing, fading, and dying, this should have been chosen as the

distinguishing name for man. Those early poets would hardly have called

themselves mortals unless they had believed in other beings as immortal.

 

There is a third name for man which means simply the thinker, and this,

the true title of our race, still lives in the name of _man_. _Mâ_ in

Sanskrit means to measure, from which you remember we had the name of

moon. _Man_, a derivative root, means to think. From this we have the

Sanskrit _manu_, originally thinker, then man. In the later Sanskrit we

find derivatives, such as _mânava_, _mânusha_, _manushya_, all expressing

man. In Gothic we find both _man_, and _mannisks_, the modern German

_mann_ and _mensch_.

 

There were many more names for man, as there were many names for all

things in ancient languages. Any feature that struck the observing mind as

peculiarly characteristic could be made to furnish a new name. The sun

might be called the bright, the warm, the golden, the preserver, the

destroyer, the wolf, the lion, the heavenly eye, the father of light and