date

29 July 1814 Logic 1
29 July 1814

Logic

1

Ch. Language

20

7

'.2 Minds to which - modes in which application is made of these signs - {of the signs of which discourse or language is composed.}

The mind to which on any occasion application is made of these signs, is either the mind of the person /that person alone/ by whom they are employed, or the mind of some other person: in the former /latter/ case, the use made of them may be termed /stiled/ the intransitive /transitive/ use; in the other case, the transitive / intransitive/. (a)

Thus it is that, howsoever /how/ intimately /soever/ connected, designation /(simple designation)/ and discoursing are different operations: without designation, discoursing {it is true} can /could/ not have taken place; but, without discoursing, designation may, and it frequently does, at present, to a great extent, take place.

Not that, had it not been for the purpose of discourse, designation, there seems reason to think, would ever have taken place; it is, accordingly, as it should seem to its intransitive use, that discourse or language is indebted for its existence.

Note (a)

(a) By some of the grammarians whose works are in present use, verbs stand distinguished into transitive and intransitive

transitive are those which are most commonly termed active, intransitive those which are commonly termed neuter. An instance of the active or transitive verb is ferio, I strike; an instance of the neuter or intransitive verb is curro, I run. Not but that in the neuter /intransitive/ verb action /agency/ is expressed; but in this case so is passion, or say, to avoid ambiguity, patiency likewise; and so it is that in one and the same person the agent and the patient are comprised: the agent, the volitional part of his mind; the patient or patients, those parts of his bodily frame by which the action or operation called running is performed.

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