date

27 July 1814 Logic 5
27 July 1814

Logic

5

Ch.3.III. Operations

'.7.VI. Communication

21

5

The touch has been mentioned above as one of the three senses through the medium of which the operations of discourse are capable of being performed. This accordingly is a medium through which in the case of the blind, {by the help of modern ingenuity} it is customarily carried on, in many well-known instances. But where one of the three conversible senses is in this way employed, it is never any otherwise than in a remote way, viz. through the intervention of one of the other two conversible ones if such they may be called. (a)

In the case even of a blind person, this medium may be composed not only of the ordinary audible, but of the ordinary visible signs, if so it be that he was once in possession of the sense of sight, and in that time obtained an acquaintance with the use and import of the ordinary visible characters.

Of late years, the faculty of discourse has even been communicated to persons who from their birth were deaf, and from that cause or any other at the same time dumb: but in all these cases he has been in possession of the sense of seeing, and thereby has been rendered susceptible of discourse and converse by means of visible characters.

Should a human being ever be found, unfortunate enough to have been from its birth destitute of the sense of sight, as well as of that of hearing, to communicate to him the faculty of converse or discourse in any degree or to any purpose will, it seems evident, be necessarily found altogether impractical.

In the same deplorable case will any person be, who being born dumb or deaf, shall have lost his sight without having as yet received in any competent degree that sort of intellectual instruction and literary instruction of which persons labouring under that complicated imperfection are susceptible.

(a)  Exemplify: viz.

1. Finger language.

2. Tangible diagrams.

3. Tangibly marked cards.

4. Tangible musical-notes.
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    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.
  • Title: [27 July 1814 Logic 3]
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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:

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  • Title: [28 July 1814 '.2 + Logic Ch]
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     Refer here to title Operations in which the composition of language has been described.

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    Grand Instruments of thought, in general, and of thought directed to the purposes of logic in particular,- the faculty of discourse, including the faculty of speech.

    Under the head of the operations, in or to the performance of which logic is capable of being rendered serviceable, mention was made of the faculty of expression, of discourse, of converse. Correspondent to this as to any other operation, a demand may exist, as at any rate in the present instance does exist, for the mention of a correspondent faculty - say the faculty of giving expression to thought - the faculty of carrying on discourse - the faculty of holding converse with other persons - or say more concisely the faculty of discourse, the faculty of converse; of which the faculty of speech is but a modification - and no more but one out of several modifications.

    By means of this faculty - by the performance of the correspondent operations, a correspondent product has in every nation - in every tribe or groupe of human beings, howsoever barbarous and uninstructed - been brought into existence. Numberless are the shapes in which the product has among different assemblages and races of men made its appearance: and in whatsoever of these shapes it has made its appearance, one general appellation language - a language - is applicable to designate the assemblage of audible signs, of which, with or without a correspondent collection of visible signs or characters it is composed: so many different collections of these signs employed by so many different tribes in the designation of the same collections of ideas, so many different languages.