against Justis baron, with precisely the same result, the Court sees fit to advise itself concerning this assertor of the feminine right of litigation; and "being fully convinced by sufficient proof that Eupha Justis hath often threatened to destroy the slaves or some part of the Estate of her said husband," the Sheriff is ordered to take her into custody until she give bonds in twenty pounds for her good behavior toward her husband for one year and a day. And on the other hand "her said husband" goes out of the record at last as defendant in a verdict against him for false and scandalous words spoken of the plaintiff; whereupon, belligerent to the end, he moves in arrest of judgment, is beaten, and judgment that he may be taken in satisfaction.

It remains only to deduce a moral from the history of one more family, whose name has already appeared in this paper. It will be remembered that Francis Hardyman, Gent., a Justice of the Court, was very early charged with neglect of his gospel privileges, made no defence, and submitted himself to the discipline of the law. Notwithstanding this dereliction, however, he seems during his life to have still been deemed worthy to sit upon the bench. In a year or two he is gathered to his fathers, and his will is proved. But within six months afterward, at the very day when an inventory of the father's estate is filed, begins a series of entries of a most startling kind, in which the heir to the name gives proof of the effects upon a youthful mind of the paternal disregard for external moralities. In February, 1741-2, when "Benjamin Harrison and Richard Kennon, Gent., Churchwardens of Westover parrish, prosecuted Tabitha Chandler for fifty shillings or five hundred pounds of Tobo. for being lately delivered of a bastard child, Francis Hardyman appearing and in open court promiseing and takeing upon himself to pay the s. fine, ** thereupon the suit is dismist." This is bad enough; but in March, 1742-3, one Hannah Flewellin having just been condemned to a like fine for a like offence, who but Francis Hardyman should appear and acknowledge to pay for Hannah Flewellin her fine before the laying of the next levy. No wonder that he becomes also involved in a Chancery suit with his mother in regard to her dower in the paternal estate which was no doubt entailed upon him; but it was hardly to be

expected that so soon as February, 1745-6, the inconstant Francis should be entering into the same engagement for one Ann Irby; that in June of the same year he should render the like affectionate service for Ann Woodard, a damsel in similar misfortune; nor that in April, 1747, his chivalrous instincts should have led him to rescue Elinor Brookes from the consequences of their mutual attachment. If no later record of like generosity has been found in the remaining years of this volume, it must be ascribed rather to an exhausted estate than to impaired vitality; for in the tax levy of 1747 this heir of a Virginia gentleman is inscribed for 108 pounds of tobacco, "for whiping ye. Negros," and almost upon the last page he disappears forever from our view as defendant in an action for assault and battery. Let the obvious moral end our tale, if it does not either point or adorn it. If the son's teeth are set on edge, may it not have been the father who ate sour grapes on the Sundays when he absented himself from church? And if "Sabbath-breaking and procrastination" have been traced as results from an excessive indulgence in the vice of murder, is there not revealed to us here a lower depth that De Quincey had never thought of, in the public flogger of unruly negros?

ARTICLE VI.-LOGOS AND COSMOS: NATURE AS RELATED TO LANGUAGE.

LANGUAGE is to be regarded-under whatever theory as to the manner of its origin--as one of the gifts of God to man. Especially, as the main and essential instrumentality in the development of man's intellectual, moral, and social being, it is in the highest sense one of the most truly invaluable of those gifts. Human language is, indeed,-apart from the written representation,—nothing but a mode of human activity; yet it is one for which provision has been made, not only in the constitution of man, mental and corporeal, but in that of the world in which he lives.

This topic, namely, the adaptation in the constitution of the world to the exigencies of language, we shall endeavor to unfold in the present article. It is one which, so far at least as concerns all that comes under the head of "the environment,' has usually had small place given it in treatises on physicotheology, and none at all in those on the science of language. This constitution of things is, it is true, one that has relation at the same time to other ends; but is especially worthy of notice here, where it is so much overlooked. It is to be remarked that since language, though not identical with thought, is yet the product of thought, the expression of thought, and the aid to thought—the adaptation of nature to language must be, in part at least, coincident with its adaptation to the mind of man.

I. LANGUAGE.

The principle is a familiar one, that language is, and must be, composed mainly of words that are general in their signification. This is even an absolute necessity of language in order that it may be language at all: is more than a mere difficulty from the limitless number of words it would require to denote everything by proper names. Let us suppose, for a moment, that we had proper names, and only such, for all the objects of thought which we now denote by general words, single or com

bined; that we had such names for actions and events, as well as for persons and things; one such name, for instance, for "the Death of Socrates," another for "the Battle of Waterloo," another for "the Revolution of 1688," and others for other events and series of events, of whatever kind, public and private,names which should not be "connotative," or in any way descriptive, but each simply a mark or sign for an individual event that had actually occurred; let us suppose, also, names for single qualities and as confined to individual objects; such an apparatus of mere names would not be language-would not serve the ends of language in communicating thought or conveying information. All that the word could do would be to indicate that the speaker had in mind and recollection the individual thing signified. All beyond this would have to be guessed at or inferred, or conveyed in some other way than by words. What had never been known as an individual thing to both speaker and hearer could be the subject not even of this amount of communication. To combine two or more such words would not help the matter; indeed, they would not admit of combination at all, but only of being joined together in succession, or, juxtaposition. A word-combination is such only as it indicates a thought-combination. To conjoin two names such as John and Thomas would convey no thought: among the thousand possible relations between the two persons, what might be meant would be wholly unindicated. Even if to the name of a person should be joined a proper name of the house he lived in, or of his horse or ox, or of a field or river or mountain, it could only be in certain circumstances, and with the help of other means of indication, that any particular relation between the two could be understood as intended.

We come thus to another fundamental principle-to which the one just now discussed is mostly subordinate,-namely, that of the combination of words in speech, or discourse. By this we mean the necessity of employing for the most part two or more words for the expression of a single thought, to which they each contribute a part or an element.*

* We must beg leave respectfully to remonstrate against the innovation on the part of Professor Max Müller, in Vol. IV of "Chips from a German Work-Shop," in VOL. XXXV.

34

This combination is necessary, in the first place, as an economy required by the limited capacity of our minds. By combining two or more general words we can indicate an object of thought more specific than either of the words would denote by itself. By various combinations we can express thought in endless variety: can describe objects more or less specialized, also individualized by relations to ourselves or to other individual things. So infinite in number and variety are the thoughts we have occasion to express, that we can conceive of no possible way for the ends of language to be fulfilled except it be constituted so as to involve combination, and even the frequent union of a considerable number of words in single combinations.

As with a small number of letters or vocal elements we are able to produce the external form of an endless number of words, and to use with advantage and with ease a far larger number than would otherwise be possible-are able readily to apprehend them when spoken and to read them when written,—so with a limited number of words, or thought-symbols, capable of various combination, we have a manageable instrument for the expression and the communication of an unlimited variety of thought.

There is yet another end served by combination, which is far higher and more important than any mere gain on the score of economy. Even as new words can be formed at will by new combinations of letters, so new thoughts can be expressed and be communicated by means of the combination of words: that is, things can be described and thoughts conveyed which are specifically different from anything in the actual previous experience of those to whom the words are addressed; and what is newly conceived by a speaker or a thinker can find suitable and adequate expression.

For anything of this sort to be done, without the principle of combination as a feature of language, would be absolutely impossible. What is thus done is done by the action of that wonder-working faculty which, even more than the capacity substituting "combination" to denote the kind of word-formation usually designated by the term "agglutination." This new usage, if accepted, would entail the danger of ambiguity and of confusion of ideas to a considerable degree in applying the term to designate a class of languages, while the objection to the old word is quite trivial.