JB_101_017.xml

Title: [11 Aug. 1814 Ch.1 + Logic 1]

Description: 11 Aug. 1814 Ch.1 +

Logic

1

Language

Ch. 1. Operations

'.1. Operations, their precedence

- its limitations

Ch.

Of Discourse or Language in general - Operations which in its character of an art are performable in relation to it.- Qualities which in every language are desirable in it.

'.1. Operations performable in relation to discourse or Language considered in its character of an art - learning - practising - teaching - improving.

In speaking of art in general a mention has been already made of the several operations performable in relation to it: viz. teaching, learning, employing, and improving, and of the order of priority which seems to have been planted as it were by the hand of Nature, as between those several operations: warning has at the same time been given of the limitations necessary to be applied to all propositions connative[?] of that order {of precedence} and of the practical ill consequences that have never ceased to result from the want of due attention to the propriety of these limitations - to the considerations which call for the observance of those limitations - to the practical mischiefs which have been the result of the non-application of these limitations.

Applying to art in general these same instructions would be found applicable with indisputable propriety to that master art, the art of discoursing, of which the product [is] discourse itself or language. The art itself - the fruit or produce of it - the instrument of it - of this as of every other art, of eveything that bears the name of art - in all these distinguishable howsoever intimately connected senses are both these words - discourse and language wont to be applied.

 Quære whether to pursue the enquiry further under this head. Refer to Ch.│ │ Of Art in general.

JB_101_422.xml

Title: [29 July 1814 Logic 1]

Description: 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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JB_102_326.xml

Title: [14 Aug. 1814 M Logic Language]

Description: 14 Aug. 1814 M

Logic Language

Ch. Language

Qualities desirable

'.8.7 Facility of Utterance

18

1

7. Facility of Utterance.

Though in the field of causality intimately connected with melodiousness, this quality is in its nature, and thence in idea, sufficiently distinguishable from it. In proportion as, to produce it requires effort on the part of the speaker, and on that occasion effort is accordingly employed, the fact of its being employed naturally becomes perceptible, and the existence of it is actually perceived; and in proportion as in the bosom of the speaker uneasiness is, or by the hearer is supposed to have place, by the force of sympathy, the like effect is, in his own bosom, apt to take place.

That in the formation of language in general, melodiousness and facility of utterance, taken together, have actually, in the character of ends, been generally aimed at, is a matter of fact that may be stated as perceptible in the history of some languages, and it is supposed in a degree more or less considerable in the history of every language.

In every known language, in so far as it is known, changes in structure are observable; and in every instance these changes appear to have had for their cause, a general endeavour towards the giving to the instrument of discourse these agreeable qualities in a continually increasing degree.

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