meaning of intellectually conceived words," but the unverbal meaning of all theories is subjective, (in the intellect, not in the objective universe;) hence the accidental verbal form which the theory on any subject assumes in different men, at different periods, may affect the practical utility of the theory, but all the theories will, subjectively considered, possess the same unverbal meaning.

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From the foregoing account of the mode in which the intellect constructs theories, we may see why medical theories continue, after the efforts of centuries, to be but little improved. The processes of generation, the functions of vital organs, the commencement and progress of diseases, are manifestations so unique, that the intellect can see no analogy between them and any different operation; especially none between them and tangible operations, which supply our most satisfactory theoretical agencies. This is perhaps an insurmountable obstruction to the progress of medicine as a science, and compels it to be empirical. Any way, our medical practitioners theorize less than their early predecessors, without having yet been able to conceive any substitute for theories as a guide to medical practice, in advance of actual experiments. But these are speculations only incidental to a correct analysis of language; and having now exhibited, though I fear too desultorily, the heterogeneity of unverbal things, and the homogeneity with which language invests them, I will proceed to the consideration of another equally important and equally unde.. tected characteristic of words.

LECTURE III.

UNVERBAL MULTIPLICITY DISCRIMINATED FROM ITS FALLACIOUS VERBAL ONENESS.

CONTENTS.

1. Names analysed, and their implied oneness found to be a conception of the intellect, not an objective oneness.

2. All individuality is a conception of the intellect.

3. The intellect aggregates sensible perceptions into nominal units.

4. The intellect aggregates internal feelings into nominal units.

5. The intellect aggregates its own conceptions into nominal units.

6. The intellect aggregates into nominal units, its own conceptions, associated with certain internal feelings.

7. Of nominal units, whose unverbal components belong to two or more of the senses; or whose components are otherwise heterogeneous.

Of Physical Units.

§ 1. The views of language presented in this lecture, like the views presented in the former, were suggested to me many years ago in the investigation which I made of the powers of our senses, and to which I have already alluded. I assumed that the information which any one of the senses yielded to me, cannot be yielded by the other senses singly or conjointly; still, practical results contradicted the assumed truth. Some blind men can recognize colours by the sense of touch; some have lectured and written books on visual subjects. A man not blind, can discern a globe

by either seeing or feeling, and can recognize an orange by either the taste, the smell, the sight, or the feel; how then is the assertion true, that what one of my senses informs me of, no one or more of my other senses can inform me of? Two senses can inform me of the same globe, and four senses of the same orange. The dilemma perplexed me long, till, finally, I discovered that the difficulty lay in language. It applies the word orange to the sensible group (taste, smell, sight, feel,) that four of my senses severally disclose to me; hence the information which I receive from the respective four senses is one in only the name orange, that is applied in common to all the four sensible revelations.

To relieve myself from embarrassments like the foregoing, and to manifest unmistakeably in future, that what any one of my five senses informs me of, no one or more of my other senses can inform me of, I denominated as sight merely every information that I received from seeing; as feel, every information I received from the sense of feeling; as sound, every information that I received from the sense of hearing; as taste, every information I received from the sense of tasting; and as smell, every information I received from the sense of smelling. Instead, therefore, of saying that both seeing and feeling informed me of a globe, (and thereby implying that what seeing informs me of, I am informed of by feeling also,) I said, seeing informs me of the sight globe, and feeling informs me of the feel globe.

But still a difficulty arose; the globe is only one thing, while my analysis converts it into two things, a sight globe and a feel globe. If the oneness of the two globes is simply a contrivance of language, as I had supposed of the orange, all languages would not concur, as they do, in calling the sight globe and the feel globe one thing. The uniformity seemed too extensive to be conventional, hence gradually became evident to me, that the oneness of the globe, not being sensible, must be intellectual; the intellect being so organized, that the sight globe and the feel suggest a unit to the intellect; and language so constituted that it refers, in all names of things, to the intellectually conceived unit.

Besides, if the oneness were only verbal, as I had at first supposed it was, an uneducated deaf mute would not deem as one thing, the sight globe and the feel globe; but his intellect conceives the two to be a unit, as completely, no doubt, as ours. The organic tendency of the intellect to thus aggregate sensible multiplicity into intellectual units is, as I ultimately discovered, one of the essential foundations of language, names referring to these intellectual units; and if our intellects had not been organized to thus conceive units, we could talk of an army no way but by repeating the muster-roll; nor would that have sufficedevery soldier, George or Thomas, or whatever may be his name, being himself a unit only intellectually; while physically, he is head, arms, face, eyes, hands, and other multitudinous and almost innumerable sensible items.

OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.

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§ 2. Arriving thus accidentally and gradually at the knowledge that names, like globe, orange, army, etc., imply a oneness which is only intellectual and subjective, while the objective things named may be sensibly multiform, I soon found that the analysis would unriddle many questions that have long perplexed metaphysics; for instance, can seeing inform us of distance? When distance is analysed as above, we find a sight distance, a feel distance, and an intellectual conception uniting the two; therefore, whether seeing can inform us of distance, depends wholly upon what we choose to deem the signification of the nominal unit distance. If we limit the signification to the intellectual unit, we may maintain that neither seeing nor feeling can inform us of distance; they only suggest distance to the mind. If, again, we limit the meaning of the nominal unit to the feel distance, we may maintain that feeling can inform us of distance, but seeing cannot. The controversy relates not to unverbal things, but to the definition of the word distance; a question over which we possess an entire control, it being wholly conventional and verbal.

What we have said of the nominal unit distance, we may repeat of the nominal unit figure. Can seeing inform us of roundness? Roundness, as a unit, is a conception of the intellect, while sensibly we find a sight roundness and a feel roundness, as we manifested when speaking of globe. If, however, we choose to limit the meaning of the word to the intellectual unit, we may mystify ourselves and