Читать книгу The Philosophic Grammar of American Languages, as Set Forth by Wilhelm von Humboldt - Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison) Brinton - Страница 3
The Philosophic Grammar of American Languages
§ 3. The Final Purpose of the Philosophy of Language
ОглавлениеHumboldt has been accused of being a metaphysician, and a scientific idealist.
It is true that he believed in an ideal perfection of language, to wit: that form of expression which would correspond throughout to the highest and clearest thinking. But it is evident from this simple statement that he did not expect to find it in any known or possible tongue. He distinctly says, that this ideal is too hypothetical to be used otherwise than as a stimulus to investigation; but as such it is indispensable to the linguist in the pursuit of his loftiest task – the estimate of the efforts of man to realize perfection of expression.13
There is nothing teleological in his philosophy; he even declines to admit that either the historian or the linguist has a right to set up a theory of progress or evolution; the duty of both is confined to deriving the completed meaning from the facts before them.14 He merely insists that as the object of language is the expression of thought, certain forms of language are better adapted to this than others. What these are, why they are so, and how they react on the minds of the nations speaking them, are the questions he undertakes to answer, and which constitute the subject-matter with which the philosophy of language has to do.
Humboldt taught that in its highest sense this philosophy of language is one with the philosophy of history. The science of language misses its purpose unless it seeks its chief end in explaining the intellectual growth of the race.15
Each separate tongue is “a thought-world in tones” established between the minds of those who speak it and the objective world without.16 Each mirrors in itself the spirit of the nation to which it belongs. But it has also an earlier and independent origin; it is the product of the conceptions of antecedent generations, and thus exerts a formative and directive influence on the national mind, an influence, not slight, but more potent than that which the national mind exerts upon it.17
So also every word has a double character, the one derived from its origin, the other from its history. The former is single, the latter is manifold.18
Were the gigantic task possible to gather from every language the full record of every word and the complete explanation of each grammatical peculiarity, we should have an infallible, the only infallible and exhaustive, picture of human progress.
13
“Der Idee der Sprachvollendung Dasein in der Wirklichkeit zu gewinnen.” Ueber die Verschiedenheit, ss. 10 and 11. The objection which may be urged that a true philosophy of language must deal in universals and not confine itself to mere differentiations (particulars) is neatly met by Dr. Schasler, Die Elemente der Philosophischen Sprachwissenschaft, etc., p. 21, note.
14
In his remarkable essay “On the Mission of the Historian,” which Prof. Adler justly describes as “scarcely anything more than a preliminary to his linguistical researches,” Humboldt writes: “Die Philosophie schreibt den Begebenheiten ein Ziel vor: dies Suchen nach Endursachen, man mag sie auch aus dem Wesen des Menschen und der Natur selbst ableiten wollen, stört und verfalscht alle freie Ansicht des eigenthümlichen Wirkens der Kräfte.” Ueber die Aufgabe des Geschichtschreibers, Bd. i, s. 13.
15
“Das Studium der verschiedenen Sprachen des Erdbodens verfehlt seine Bestimmung, wenn es nicht immer den Gang der geistigen Bildung im Auge behält, und darin seinen eigentlichen Zweck sucht.” Ueber den Zusammenhang der Schrift mit der Sprache, Bd. vi, s. 428.
16
“Eine Gedankenwelt an Töne geheftet.” Ueber die Buchstabenschrift und ihre Zusammenhang mit dem Sprachbau, Bd. vi, s. 530.
17
This cardinal point in Humboldt’s philosophy is very clearly set forth in his essay, “Ueber die Aufgabe des Geschichtschreibers,” Bd. i, s. 23, and elsewhere.
18
See Ueber die Buchstabenschrift, etc., Bd. vi, s. 530.
