Page images
PDF
EPUB

differences he enumerates several species, which seldom exceed the number of nine under any one.

Having thus gone through the imperfect vegetative, he comes to the perfect, or plant, which he says is a tribe so numerous and various, that he confesses he found a great deal of trouble in dividing and arranging it. It is in fact a botanical classification, not based on scientific distinctions like that adopted by Linnæus, but on the more tangible differences in the outward form of plants. It is interesting, if for nothing else, at least for the rich native nomenclature of all kinds of herbs, shrubs, and trees, which it contains.

The herb he defines to be a minute and tender plant, and he has arranged it according to its leaves, in which way considered, it makes his

his

X. Class, LEAF-HERBS.

Considered according to its flowers, it makes his XI. Class, or FLOWER-HERBS.

Considered according to its seed-vessels, it makes

XII. Class, or SEED-HERBS.

Each of these classes is divided by a certain number of differences, and under each difference numerous species are enumerated and arranged.

All other plants being woody, and being larger and firmer than the herb, are divided into

XIII. SHRUBS, and

XIV. TREES.

Having thus exhausted the vegetable kingdom, the Bishop proceeds to the animal or sensitive, as he calls it, this being the second member of his division of animate substance. This kingdom he divides into XV. EXSANGUINEOUS.

XVI., XVII., XVIII. SANGUINEOUS, namely, FISH, BIRD, and BEAST.

Having thus considered the general nature of vegetables and animals, he proceeds to consider the parts of both, some of which are peculiar to particular plants and animals, and constitute his XIX. Genus, PECULIAR PARTS;

while others are general, and constitute his XX. Genus, General Parts.

Having thus exhausted the category of substances, he goes through the remaining categories of quantity, quality, action, and relation, which, together with the preceding classes, are represented in the following table, the skeleton, in fact, of the whole body of human knowledge.

[ocr errors]

(General; namely, those universal notions, whether belonging more properly to

Things; called TRANSCENDENTAL

GENERAL. I.

RELATION Mixed. II.
RELATION OF ACTION. III.

Words; DISCOURSE. IV.

Special; denoting either

[ocr errors]

Creature; namely, such things as were either created or concreated by God, not excluding several of those notions which are framed by the minds of men, considered either

Collectively; WORLD. VI.

Distributirely; according to the several kinds of beings, whether

such as do belong to

(Substance.

Inanimate; ELEMENT. VII.

Animate, considered according to their several

Species; whether

Vegetatice;

Imperfect; as Minerals (STONE. VIII.

METAL. IX.

HERB, considered (LEAF. X.

Perfect; as Plant

according to

FLOWER. XI.

SHRUB. XIII.

SEED-VESSEL

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

The Bishop is far from claiming any great merit for his survey of human knowledge, and he admits most fully its many defects. No single individual could have mastered such a subject, which would baffle even the united efforts of learned societies. Yet such as it is, and with all its imperfections, increased by the destruction of great part of his manuscript in the fire of London, it may give us some idea of what the genius of a Leibniz would have put in its place, if he had ever matured the idea which was from his earliest youth stirring in his brain.

Having completed, in forty chapters, his philosophical dictionary of knowledge, Bishop Wilkins proceeds to compose a philosophical grammar, according to which these ideas are to be formed into complex propositions and discourses. He then proceeds, in the fourth part of his work, to the framing of the language, which is to represent all possible notions, according as they have been previously arranged. He begins with the written language or Real Char

acter, as he calls it, because it expresses things, and not sounds, as the common characters do. It is, therefore, to be intelligible to people who speak different languages, and to be read without, as yet, being pronounced at all. It were to be wished, he says, that characters could be found bearing some resemblance to the things expressed by them; also, that the sounds of a language should have some resemblance to their objects. This, however, being impossible, he begins by contriving arbitrary marks for his forty genera. The next thing to be done is to mark the differences under each genus. This is done by affixing little lines at the left end of the character, forming with the character angles of different kinds, that is, right, obtuse, or acute, above or below; each of these affixes, according to its position, denoting the first, second, third, and following difference under the genus, these differences being, as we saw, regularly numbered in his philosophical dictionary.

The third and last thing to be done is to express the species under each difference. This is done by affixing the like marks to the other end of the character, denoting the species under each difference, as they are numbered in the dictionary.

In this manner all the several notions of things which are the subject of language, can be represented by real characters. But, besides a complete dictionary, a grammatical framework, too, is wanted before the problem of an artificial language can be considered as solved. In natural languages the grammatical articulation consists either in separate particles or in modifications in the body of a word, to

whatever cause such modifications may be ascribed. Bishop Wilkins supplies the former by marks denoting particles, these marks being circular figures, dots, and little crooked lines, or virgulæ, disposed in a certain manner. The latter, the grammatical terminations, are expressed by hooks or loops, affixed to either end of the character above or below, from which we learn whether the thing intended is to be considered as a noun, or an adjective, or an adverb; whether it be taken in an active or passive sense, in the plural or singular number. In this manner, everything that can be expressed in ordinary grammars, the gender, number, and cases of nouns, the tenses and moods of verbs, pronouns, articles, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections, are all rendered with a precision unsurpassed, nay unequalled, by any living language.

Having thus shaped all his materials, the Bishop proceeds to give the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, written in what he calls his Real Character; and it must be confessed by every unprejudiced person that with some attention and practice these specimens are perfectly intelligible.

Hitherto, however, we have only arrived at a written language. In order to translate this written into a spoken language, the Bishop has expressed his forty genera or classes by such sounds as ba, be, bi, da, de, di, ga, ge, gi, all compositions of vowels, with one or other of the best-sounding consonants. The differences under each of these genera he expresses by adding to the syllable denoting the genus one of the following consonants, b, d, g, p, t, c, z, s, n, according to the order in which the differences were

« PreviousContinue »