22

w

Ch. 2. a perfect knowledge of them is, first to take them down, as it were, in this way, and then to put them up again. Thus if a man would perfectly understand the nature of a watch, or any other machine, he fhould begin with taking it down, and confidering by itself every wheel and spring of it, and then he should learn to put them all together again and in this matter of language, the method in which we teach children to read is, first to make them analyse words into letters, or elemental founds, and then we teach them to combine thofe letters into fyllables, and the fyllables into words; and it is evident, that if we any other taught them in way, they would

finition of any thing, are different from the analysis and
divifion of which we are speaking; but wherein the differ-
ence confists does not belong to our subject to explain.
I shall only add, that the best example of the diæretic
method to be found in Englith, and among the best
in any language, is what Mr Harris has given us in
his dialogue concerning Art, of which he has most
accurately inveftigated the nature according to this me-
thod, in the manner that is practised by Plato in the So-
phifta and Politicus. The analytical alfo and fynthetical
methods of reafoning, are different from the analysis and
fynthefis which I am here treating but to explain
wherein that difference confifts, would be alfo foreign to
our prefent purpose.

be

be imperfectly taught. In this manner Ch. 2. therefore we propose to treat of language; beginning with that first and principal analysis of it, and of every compound, whether of art or nature, I mean into matter and form. With this divifion of language we fet out in this work, and we must never lose fight of it.

But this analyfis is too general to explain any thing particularly; it will therefore be neceffary to analyse each of those parts feparately by itself: and I will begin with the form, that is, the founds of language, not confidered as founds merely, but as founds fignificant. In treating of the barbarous languages, I confidered the material part firft; but in examining the languages of art, I think it better to follow a contrary method, and begin with the principal part, that is, the form, which the artificers of language appear to me to have chiefly confidered, as no doubt they ought to have done, in framing the founds of the language. Which of these two parts was, in order of time, first analysed, and made the subject of art, may be questioned; but my opinion is, that no language, complete both in found

and

Part II. Ch. 2. and fenfe, could have been framed, with

out knowing the principles and elements of both the matter and the form; for though fuch a language, when formed, may be ufed without the knowledge of either; yet it could not, I think, have been formed without the knowledge of both. If this be true, the writing-art, which in order of time was certainly posterior to the art of language, was not fo great a discovery as is commonly imagined. For the great difficulty of that discovery, was the analyfis of the found of a language into its elements; fo that upon the fuppofition that this had been done before, when the art of language was formed, there remained nothing to be done, but to find out characters to mark the elemental founds already difcovered. And that the invention of writing was no more than this, appears to me from the Egyptian story which Plato has preserved to us*, of that king of Egypt, who, when he was told by Theuth, the inventor of letters, that he had found out an art of memory, faid, after the invention was explained to him, that it was not an art of memory,

* In Phædro, pag. 1240. edit. Ficini.

but

but of reminiscence. Now reminifcence fup- Ch. 2. pofes forgetfulnefs, which your art, faid that wife king, encourages; because men trufting to it, will not exercise their memories, nor ftudy to record their knowledge in their own minds, where it is best preferved. This ftory feems plainly to fuppofe, that what this Egyptian Mercury had discovered, was not the analyfis of language into its elemental founds, which was a great and a useful difcovery, tending much to the improvement of language, and which certainly would not have been difapproved by the Egyptian king; but only a method of recording thofe founds, of which indeed it may be justly questioned, whether it has upon the whole contributed to the improvement of knowledge. And perhaps the Druids were in the right, who, as Julius Cæfar tells us, did not make ufe of letters, to record their philofophy and theology, though they knew the Greek letters, because they thought the use of them impaired the memory.

VOL. II.

D

CHAP.

CHA P. III.

General plan of this fecond part of the work,
- Analyfis of the formal part of language
into words.-Divifion of words into two
kinds, nouns and verbs.-Subdivifion of
verbs into words expreffing the accidents
of fubftances, and thofe expreffing the af-
fections of the mind.

Ch. 3; T
TH

HE method therefore in which I propofe to treat this fubject of a language of art is, first to analyse the formal part of it, which will be the fubject of this first book; then to analyse the material part of it, which will be done in the fecond; and the third book will treat of the compofition of each and in this way it is hoped the reader will have a complete view of the whole theory of language, For it is not the design of this work to explain minutely every part of the grammatical art; but to give a general view of the whole, and to explain the philofophical principles upon which it is founded. If therefore we any where enter into mi

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