date

27 July 1814 Logic 2
27 July 1814

Logic

2

Ch.3.III. Operations

'.7.VI. Communication

18

2

The hearing - its organ, the ear - the sight - its organ, the eye - the touch - its organ, the skin, and more particularly the skin of the hand - to all these senses has what is called discourse been made to address itself. Audible, visible, and tangible - such accordingly has respectively been the nature of the signs of which in these several cases discourse, this organ of the mind, has been composed.

Till a comparatively late point in the time[?] of human existence, of all those sorts of signs, those which address themselves to the ear were almost the only ones in actual existence: to the infinite multitude and variety of these, the few that as yet in those days addressed themselves immediately to the eye formed but a feeble supplement, and a still more feeble and inadequate succedaneum.

Through the medium of the French word Langue - a tongue, Language - in French Langage - the discourse of the tongue - is derived from the Latin, lingua, a tongue. When addressed to the ear, it is from the tongue that the discourse addresses itself. For discourse, for the product of the operation called discourse, in the form in which it addresses itself to the eye, as contradistinguished from that in which it addresses itself to the ear, neither the French, nor the Latin, nor the English, affords any proper appellative.

French or English language - French or English tongue - if applied to the contents of a manuscript or a printed book - a palpable contradiction and inconsistency will, upon consideration, be found involved in any one of these expressions.

Yet for these solicisms however palpable as they are, the demand is frequent, and so urgent, as scarcely to be resisted.
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    Writing, including its comparatively recent improvements such as printing, engraving, &c., is in every case discourse addressed to the eye. But to this organ discourse in this form has been found capable of addressing itself in either of two ways. 1. in an unimmediate way, through the medium and intervention of discourse addressed to the ear - i.e. of articulate sounds, or in an immediate way, without the intervention of discourse in that form or any other form.

    In the first case, sounds - audible signs, are the immediate signs of thought - it is of these audible signs that visible characters are the signs - and it is only in this comparatively remote way that the function of signs of thought is performed by the visible characters.

    In the other case, thought is some how or other performed in an immediate way by the visible characters.

    Of these two modes the former is the only one familiar to the generality of civilized nations:

    The other is exemplified in the vast empire of China - in the empire of Japan, and in some of the states subject to the dominion or ascendancy of the Chinese.
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    That the signs which address themselves to the ear were the first in use, several considerations concur in rendering manifest.

    One is that the audible form is alike natural to mankind and to the inferior animals. The visible, though, as experience testifies, not altogether incapable of being employed by man in his intercourse with some of the most intelligent species of animals, is not, as far as appears, at any rate, in a degree approaching to that in which the audible is, natural to any of them.

    The other proof is - that of all the denominations by which in any of the civilized languages this mode of communication is designated, the organs of speech are the only ones by which it is ever, in any direct way, designated. Witness this very word language, derived, as it is, from the Latin name for a tongue, lingua. Witness also the other word speech, by which, from what root soever derived, the audible mode /form/ and that to the exclusion of the visible mode /form/ never fails to be presented.

    True it is that for the designation of both alike, there exists in the English the word discourse; which word is moreover derived /[...?]/ from the Latin discursus, having for its logical conjugate the verb discurro. But of the verb discurro, the original import is by far, more extensive, and, at the same time, less appropriate. By it is meant to run over or to run on and accordingly so far is it from being, in any sufficient degree on all occasions appropriate that on many occasions notwithstanding the seeming contradiction, even in speaking of discourse in its visible form, it has been found necessary to put aside that appellation, and, instead of it, to employ the word speech or the word language.

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  • Title: [26 July 1814 '.7.VI + Logic]
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    1. Purposes for which it is employ'd {1. Teaching or Information. 2. Enquiring. 3. Persuading by address to undisturbed judgement. 4. d o. by address to Passion, Emotion, Affection, &c.

    Information - viz. 1. of the general state of things present, past, future.}

    2. of events - i.e. actions or other motions present, past or future.

    {3. Of the import of words. Information concerning the import of words is Propositio[?]. See Ch. its modes

    4. Consultation for the purpose of 1. Recollection. 2. Judgment.}

     14 Oct. 1814. Quere whether to leave in this place the doctrine of Signs, or to post it off to { Ontology}, to Methodization,{?} or to { Language}?

    V. Class VI. Operations, by the performance of which, by means of the operation of designation, and expression, communication of the ideas formed in one mind, is made to, and these ideas are as it were transferred into, another.

    1. Discourse or discoursing. In the course of this operation, ideas, having been in one mind formed or lodged, and therein associated with and as it were attached and fastened to certain of the signs, of which discourse or language is composed, are out of that mind expressed, i.e. pressed out, for the purpose of their being received into - or say finding reception in - another.

    1. Signs by means of which the operation is performed. - 2. Minds to which, and modes in which application is made of these signs,- from these two sources taken together, may the operation be seen to[?] receive whatsoever modifications it admitts of.

    A difference, in the nature of the signs capable of being employed, is produced by a correspondent difference in the nature of the sense: of that one of the five senses to which the discourse is made to address itself.