1815 Dec.

Chrestm or Language

Ch. 5 Modes of discourse

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Ch.5. Signs employed in discourse - audible, visible, and their respective substitutes.

At a stage a certain degree advanced in the career of civilisation, man has two perfectly distinct and different modes or instruments for the fixation of thought and the conveyance of it from mind to mind. The one, that in which on the part of him whose design it is to make the communication the instruments employed are measured, or as they are termed articulate, sounds produced by organs which in man are in a peculiar degree, adapted to that purpose on the part of him by whose senses it is the intention of the utterer of these sounds that the communication so made of them should be received, and on his mind the requisite impression should be made, the corresponding organs of hearing: these accordingly may be termed audible signs: the other, that in which on the part of the author of it the instruments employed are certain configurations /perceptible characters/ and on the part of the intended receiver (with the exception of the particular case in which the appropriate organ is deficient) the instruments put in exercise are the organs of sight. These accordingly are termed visible signs.

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