Such instances are not confined to words derived from the classical tongues. The Anglo-Saxon word faran, for example, originally signified nothing more than to go. With the solitary exception of 'fare-well!', which simply means 'safe journey to you!', we now use it only in the figurative senses which have superseded the original; viz., as the name for what we pay for permission to go, and for the food which we receive while upon our journey. When about to start, we ask how much is the fare?', and at dinner-time for the bill of fare.' Still further extended, fare has also become the name for food in general; thus, 'there was a certain rich man who fared sumptuously every day.' This is because of the natural correspondence between human life and a journey from one spot of country to another. Every one has sometime or other either spoken or heard of 'the journey of life.'

3. We thus have two distinct varieties of figurative language. In one the metaphors are designedly made use of either for ornament or for the clearer illustration of the speaker's meaning;-in the other, while they are equally used for the sake of making ourselves understood, they are spontaneous and undesigned as metaphors, as well as unrecognized and unsuspected. The latter may be conventionally denominated natural or colloquial, the former artificial or poetic figurative language. They are like the flowers in a botanic garden, many of which are children of distant latitudes, while others, and not the least odoriferous and lovely, are the spontaneous products of the soil. Still they are all the offspring of one earth, and owe their beauty to the same sunshine. And as there is no difference in the process by which the two kinds of flowers are developed, so is there no difference in the principle on which the two classes of figurative expression are founded. There is no point at which one class ends and the other begins. So far from it, they are so intimately blended and combined, that thousands of expressions might be referred indifferently to either. Expressions, moreover, which would be considered poetical one day, often become colloquial on the next. Used first by some one possessing a quicker aptitude than ordinary for perceiving analogies, after a while they lose their avowedly rhetorical or poetic character, and are incorporated with the ordinary colloquial language of the multitude. The separateness of kind is consequently a mere distinction which has grown up during the progress of time, and which in an analysis of the subject it is useful to abide by. Some persons consider that when the figurative meaning of a word is not recognized, owing to its derivation from an ancient language, or its long use as an abstract term, that word becomes strictly algebraic, and ought no longer to be regarded as a metaphor. But they forget that it is only

through the figurative meaning of words that they are frequently intelligible at all; and it is amusing to observe that the more an upholder of this opinion struggles to avoid figurative expressions, the more highly metaphorical does he become. Moreover, persons who know nothing of the foreign languages which have furnished these terms, often use the latter in perfectly new metaphorical applications, shewing that there is a key in their minds to the whole territory of the word; and that when occasion requires, they intuitively recognize its metaphorical nature, and to its widest extent. In fact, the holding of such an opinion is tantamount to saying that the meaning of a word does not reside within itself, by virtue of the physical object which it denotes, though obsoletely, and the abstractions related to that object by correspondence, but is. dependent on the philological knowledge of the speaker.

4. The particular forms or types to which figurative expressions are ultimately referable, are comparatively few. Some of them flourish more in the artificial or rhetorical department, but all exist, to a greater or less extent, in the natural or colloquial one. There is no occasion to enumerate them here, as the differences will be better developed in the course of our remarks. We shall commence accordingly with a general sketch of the nature and origin of colloquial metaphors, and subsequently proceed to the illustration of artificial or poetic figures.

5. To obtain a clear understanding of the way in which figurative expressions first arose, and why they are necessary and inevitable to intellectual commerce, it is desirable that our investigations should be directed first to the faculty of speech; then to the origin of language generally; and thirdly, to the steps by which language advanced from its earliest stage onwards, or in other words, the mode of its development: just as in tracing the history of a plant, we begin with the germination of the seed.

6. The first of these three subjects calls for no lengthened observations, for that speech is a distinct faculty of the mind seems proved by two circumstances, namely, the nature of the vocal organs, which are evidently formed with the object of their being used for the purpose of articulating words, and secondly, the diversities in power of expression which every where exist. Nothing is more notorious than that while some persons possess powers of expression beyond all other mental endowments, so as to be considered mere men of words,' others, who are gifted with intellect frequently of high order, are nevertheless often deficient in ability to express themselves. They die, as it were, during their mental parturition. It may be useful to remind the reader here that language must not be confounded with the faculty of speech,

though the latter term is often used in the sense of the former one. Language is the system of articulate words by means of which we express our feelings and ideas: speech is simply the power of uttering those words. In these distinct and definite senses we shall uniformly use the two words in the following pages.

7. The origin of language is not so soon disposed of, this being a point of much dispute. All arguments and opinions bear, however, upon one or other of two views, namely, that man had language given him immediately by the Creator, which is the popular belief; and that he acquired it by successive developments for himself, which is the conclusion of philosophy.

8. On the first side various learned men have asserted that 'language must have come by inspiration;' that man in his earliest state was not left to acquire ideas in the ordinary way, which would have been too tedious and slow, considering how he was circumstanced, but was at once provided with the knowledge necessary to him,' &c. &c. But these conclusions are far from inevitable. They are indeed little less than dogmatic. There is not the least necessity for supposing that the Creator endowed the first members of mankind with language; that is, with a ready-made vocabulary and an instinctive grammar, though for anything that can be proved, it is not to be denied that he may have done so. It is scarcely likely that the All-wise would load their memories with a mass of words denoting things unknown to them, and symbolizing ideas which they had not acquired. What in his benevolence he really did, as well observed by Kett, was probably to make them fully sensible of the power with which they were endued of forming articulate sounds, and to give them an impulse to exert it, leaving the imposition of words to their own choice. The most resolute upholder of the 'inspiration' view must admit that Scripture is wholly silent as to the means by which language was acquired by man. None, therefore, are justified in asserting that 'it must have come by inspiration;' and on the other hand, there is no internal evidence in language to lead to such a supposition, but rather the reverse. The inspiration' view compels the belief, moreover, on the part of those who hold it, that man enjoyed the great privilege of language, which distinguished him at first, and which still continues to distinguish him, as a rational creature, so eminently from the brute creation, without being required to exert those reasoning faculties by which he was in all other respects enabled to raise himself so much above their level. Herein they have * See Dr. Burton's Lectures on the World before the Flood, and Dr. Wiseman's Lectures on the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion, page 7.

to explain an inconsistency at the least, but that would probably be no novelty. The plain truth seems to be, that on a subject the early history of which is so remote, and which is beset by so many difficulties, it has been found much more easy and convenient to resort to that comprehensive argument

Διος δὲ τελειετο βουλή, *

than to meet it as a question worthy of human reason and investigation. Besides, the name of 'Inspiration' carries with it an awfulness which those who urge it would conceive effectually to forbid the approach of a too inquisitive discussion. Genuine and truth-seeking philosophy, especially where any reference to the Scriptures is involved, ever seeks to court discussion, rather than to repel it either by word or deed.

9. This brings us to the second view, namely, that man constructed language for himself. This is a belief which does not interfere in the least with the truthfulness of the Mosaic narrative of the creation, when that narrative is regarded as to its true scope and purpose. It assists, on the other hand, to elevate and dignify our views of it. It is a belief held, moreover, by men who are not in the least suspected of entertaining views at variance with the Word of God, and whose lives and writings give a complete negative to any such suspicion. The power of constructing language was given, in all likelihood, in precisely the same manner that the power of singing was bestowed; and in this case we know that while the organs for the production of sweet sounds, and the impulse to use them, were provided, the composition of the melodies themselves was left entirely to man's own feeling and fancy. God never does anything for man which man, through God's help, can do for himself. This beautiful truth is abundantly verified in every department of physical, economical, and social science, and there is consequently every reason for its applying likewise in the case of the construction of language. The Creator had already surrounded man with objects which would call his faculties into active play, and suggest ideas which he would struggle to express; for it must be remembered that He who gave the voluntas to will, and the hand to execute, gave also the intellect to contemplate and reflect; and there can be no doubt that the instruments of his will and understanding were equally prepared, and only waited the necessity for action. There was therefore no occasion for any special gift, nor for any direct and supernatural interference.

10. The means by which man in his earliest and highly spiritual

*The will of God decreed it.'

condition would communicate his ideas, is quite another question. It may, however, be well not to pass the subject altogether without notice, as to leave it might seem, with some readers, an evasion of the chief difficulty. Language, as it has existed within the historic period of man's residence on earth, is probably a very different thing from that which was in use before the Fall, and may only have arisen on the accomplishment of that catastrophe. It is not even necessary to suppose that the language of the first men, in their state of innocence, was articulate, or what is the same thing, vocal. Of the language,' says Schlegel, which may have belonged to the first man before he lost his original power, perfections, and dignity, we are not, with our present organs and senses, in a capacity to form an idea.'* Swedenborg, in the Arcana Cœlestia,' (607, 608, and 1118-1120) states most distinctly that language, considered as a system of articulate sounds, only came into existence after the Fall, and was indeed one of the actual results of that event. Another remark or two on the language of the " Garden of Eden," will be found in section 12.

11. How far the articulate language which came into use after the Fall may have been shaped by the intellectual character of the men who had sustained it, and on whom it devolved to construct an articulate system of words, is a question of far more interest to our present inquiry, while its solution is at the same time much more accessible. It may fairly be presumed that its essential features would be derived entirely from what they had brought with them, intellectually, from their purer state. Now the Hebrew language, which is one of the oldest that existed upon earth, and which, perhaps, it may be safely said, is closely allied, at least, to the first articulate language that was used by man, is correspondential to a most remarkable degree. Before the Fall the intuitions of the mind were infinitely more vivid with respect to the correspondences of spiritual and intellectual things with natural ones than they have been subsequently to that event; it is highly probable, therefore, that the wonderful completeness of the Hebrew language as a correspondential one, resulted from the still-active though greatly-subdued perception of the men who lived immediately after its consummation. There is no reason, however, for believing that the Hebrew language, as we have it, is the actual primitive tongue, though such is supposed by many writers. Even the Mosaic writings, (which are cited in support of the opinion) were not the first, as Moses himself testifies. In Numbers xxi. 14, he refers, for instance, to "The Book of the Wars of Jehovah," and at the 27th verse it is said, "Wherefore

* Philosophy of Language, page 396.