"interesting subject." "He somewhere speaks of an "alphabet of human thoughts which he had been em"ployed in forming" [qu'il meditoit. Fontenelle's eloge.] "and which probably had some relation to his univer"sal language." Leibnitz, it seems, deserves credit for having conceived such well-sounding possibilities, even though he has no where explained his ideas about them: laudare facilius quam invenire: but I venture to say that no future Wilkins, or Leibnitz, will succeed in furnishing a new language, or alphabet of human thoughts, (an alphabet of human thoughts!) because improved nomenclatures must follow, and not precede, an improved knowledge of things, and such discoveries are the slow growth of time, and of united exertions. This is the rational, feasible improvement that Locke speaks of, B. III. C. II. § 25. where he "a Dic❝tionary of this sort, containing as it were a Natural "History, requires too many hands," &c. The nomenclatures of Linnæus form an epoch in science, and shew the only way in which scientific language can be improved, viz. by improving science. says The Conceptualist is sensible of the advantage de rived from the expression of things related in sense by words related in sound, of having families of words corresponding to families of ideas, as it gives new facilities to association, the faculty by which the mind reviews its ideas: but he never can disunite words from ideas, so as to fix his attention exclusively on the former; nor ascribe any value to the most elaborate formation of signs when separated from the things signified. The Nominalist insists on the use of words, being essential to general reasoning; but it does not follow that the words should be unaccompanied by conceptions, or that generalization should be confined to words and refer to no corresponding affections of the mind. That we can reason concerning genera, or classes of individuals, without the use of language, is not maintained by the Conceptualists, and yet Professor Stewart represents it as their only distinguishing tenet! "Whether it be the effect of constitution or of "habit," says Dr. Reid, "I will not take upon me to "determine; but from one or both of these causes, it "happens, that no man can pursue a train of thought "or reasoning without the use of language." Locke, indeed, has a strange observation: "The signs we use 66 are either ideas or words, wherewith we make either "mental, or verbal propositions."* Ideas are not signs, but modes of the thinking principle excited by external or internal causes, and every proposition, whether uttered or not, is verbal. He has another passage equally objectionable: "Most men, if not all, in their think❝ing and reasonings with themselves, make use of "words instead of ideas; at least when the subject of "their meditation contains in it complex ideas.”+—I apprehend it is the effect of constitution that, in cogitation, ideas and words are indissolubly associated. It has been observed, that "before men think right 56 upon any subject, they may have exhausted all the "absurdities which can possibly be said upon it.", Ingenuity has now said all that it can in defence of Nominalism, and its existence cannot be much longer protracted: men must soon universally return to common sense, and acknowledge that "Nunquam aliud Natura, aliud Sapientia dicit." *B. II. C. 32. S. 19. + B. IV. C. 5. S. 4. Murray on the Character of Nations. ART. VIII. On Dramatic illusion. "qui pectus inaniter angit, "Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet, "Ut magus; & modo me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis.". HOR. "And nothing is, but what is not." MACBETH. THE principal writers on this subject are Dr. Dar win, and Dr. Aikin, who contend for; and Sir Joshua. Reynolds, Dr. Johnson, and Mr. Payne Knight, who deny, the existence of dramatic illusion, or of a temporary belief in the reality of the scenes represented on the stage. But the weight of argument and of truth appears to me to preponderate so much in favour of the former, (Dr. Darwin* having confuted Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Dr. Aikin† having done as much by Dr. Johnson,) that I should have considered the controversy to be extinguished if Mr. Knight‡ had not ranged himself with the latter: him therefore I select as my antagonist: but the subject having been thoroughly canvassed by my predecessors, and lying in itself within a very narrow compass, I have but few words to add. There is another writer who, though he has not expressly examined this question, has yet stated the metaphysical principles by which it must be decided with more precision than any other person: I mean Mr. Thomas Brown in his observations on Darwin's Zoonomia. Mr. Brown deduces all the phenomena of madness from a circumstance common to all who labour *Loves of the Plants. + Transactions of the Manchester Literary Society. under that malady: their ideas of imagination are so peculiarly vivid that they refer them to external objects. And this fact he explains by establishing, and elucidating it as a general law of our nature, that such ideas are so referred by all men when not inconsistent with another more vivid idea. Thus, in the ordinary state of mind of a sane person, the superior vividness of the ideas of perception prevents him from ascribing his conceptions to external objects: but this is not the case when the mind is highly excited and affected; in reverie, in dreaming, and in madness. They eye of the mind is then stronger than the eye of the body, and either does not see what the latter would under other circumstances present to its observation, or combines and associates them with the shapes of its own creation. Every body has felt the predominance of a certain train of ideas, not only over the consciousness of the presence of incongruous external objects, but over other ideas that would instantly dispel the illusion if they could only gain admittance.* When in our closets we weep and sob over the catastrophes of Vivian and Lady Elmwood, it never occurs to us that such persons never existed for the time nothing can be more real; and there is nothing to distinguish our feelings from sympathy with actual distress. In such situations the question is not whether the scenes be real or imaginary, but whether they hold full and exclusive possession of the mind. And if they have this power without the aid of a single external circumstance; shall it be denied to them when every thing that most attracts the eye and ear harmonizes with their tone and character? If in : See Winfred's day-dreams in Scott's Rokeby. reading the poem our emotions accompany Belvidera through all her anxieties and sorrows, shall we remain unmoved when Mrs. Siddons identifies herself with the poet's fiction by the exquisite propriety of her looks, voice, and gesture; never over-stepping the modesty of nature, never falling below what the nicest judge, the severest critic, the most fastidious taste could desiderate? And if our tears do flow, shall it be said that we are then conscious that the object of this genuine tribute of sympathy is not Belvidera but Mrs. Siddons, the happy wife of a husband a stranger to ambition, and conspiracies, and crimes? Could the same scenes, if really transacted before us, excite stronger emotion, or affect us in any manner different from that produced by the dramatic representation of them? In what respect do the feelings of tenderness, admiration, terror, anguish, and pity with which we are then agitated, differ from what we should experience as witnesses of real events? We could not be so moved if there were no illusion, or if there were only half an illusion; the illusion must be complete. It is not therefore pretended that any thing like deception is produced on the drawing up of the curtain, or from the beginning to the end of the tragedy if there should be any incongruity in the representation, or the least want of union between the sentiments expressed, and the looks, tones, and gestures by which they should be accompanied: the illusion must steal upon us with the growing interest of the story, and the successive appeals to our sympathies that are made by a perfect actor or actress. But when our adversaries contend that we retain equal self-possession when, in scenes of the deepest interest pathos, we confess by the most unequivocal demonstra |