The Science of Universology/Article III
From Libertarian Labyrinth
The Science of Universology
Stephen Pearl Andrews
III.
In the first of two previous articles (Index, Oct. 26, 1876), I sketched the place which Universology holds in the possible universal scope of knowledge, and fixed its centre in the Mathematical Analogies. In the second article (Index, Nov. 23,1876), I defined and illustrated what is meant by mathematical analogies. In the present article I shall go forward to another special domain, that of Language (as ordinarily limited), and shall begin to make applications of the new method of distribution and classification.
An important technicality of the Universal Science is this word "Domain." It is, of course, nearly synonymous with realm or region; but it is used somewhat specially to denote the region of things, and the subject-matter, covered by a Science. Every Science has a Domain, and every Domain of Being has a corresponding Science, in this sense. The Domain of Universology is the Universe in its entirety, or with reference to its universal laws, principles, and facts. The domain of zoölogy is the animal kingdom, that of crystallography is crystals, etc.; and these minor sciences are, therefore, from one point of view, merely branches of universology, as their domains are parts of the universe. Each particular such domain is then called a universiculum, or little universe; and it has been shown, as a leading fact of universology, that the same system of distribution prevails in each universiculum as prevails in the universum proper; so that a universal analogy permeates all.
It was also shown that the universum proper subdivides or is distributed into three primary and principal departments: 1. "Nature," the Without. 2. "Mind," the Within; and 3. "Logic" (or Language, in a certain enlarged sense), the Between, including the knowledge of Laws and Principles.
We are now to take up and consider Language as it is usually understood, treating it as a little universe, and applying to it the same distribution into a Without, a Within, and a Between.
The Without, the Within, and the Between of Language should coincide with the same discriminations in respect to the Universe at large. The withoutness or externality of language is obviously its mere Utterance (or Outerance), its vocal constituency irrespective of meaning or sense. Such is the speaking of a parrot (for the speaker), and what is heard by us when a foreign language is spoken of which we are ignorant (for the hearer). In both eases the sounds composing language are uttered and heard, as effectively, it may be, as if they were understood; but no meaning is conveyed by them, or no meaning which is reciprocally understood by the speaker and hearer. Such speech or language is inanimate, destitute of soul, mind, or meaning, and coincides therefore with the material or outer world such as it would be if mind were totally wanting; that is to say, if there were no intelligent observer in the universe. Even when language is charged with meaning, and when the outer world does contain the observing mind: still we may, by an abstracting effort of thought, discriminate this Outerness of speech from its meaning, and this outerness of being from the mind which observes it; and we then have two outernesses which respectively coincide with each other; or in universological technicality, they are said to be analogues of each other.
The Within or Mind of Language is its Meaning. Meaning and Mind are, indeed, etymologically the same word. To mean is to intend, and to mind is to fasten the mind upon, and both go back to the Latin mens, the mind. The meaning of language coincides then with "Mind," aa the Hegelian third part of the Universe. In other words, the meaning of Speech-language is the analogue or an analogue of Mind in the world at large, or, inversely, Mind at large is an analogue of the Meaning of Speech-language.
Finally ths Betweenity of language is the Underlying body of Laws and Principles involved in the outer body of language, which the Mi~d discovers there, and brings to light, as the subject matter of a new and special scientific consideration. Language may be spoken as utterance or outerance, and so have a material body; and it may also be understood by those who hear it, and so be freighted with meaning, the Mind or Soul of Language; and still the grammatical and logical laws in accordance with which the utterance has been spontaneously, made and the meaning conveyed, not have been reflectively discovered, abstracted, and consciously constituted into a new scientific domain, different from and, as it were, between the outer body and the inner soul of Speech. This middle ground of language, when so discovered and abstrated, coincides with the Hegelian Logic, the corresponding Between it, or Relation-domain of universal things. This medial domain of language is, therefore, an analogue of "Logic," or "Logic" an analogue of it.
It was previously observed that the Witbout and the Within of the world, Matter and Mind, make conjointly the Concrete (technically the concretismus). So in respect to Language, the verbal body of speech, the phonic vocabulary, and the mental embodiment of the meanings of the phonic words, unite in the total vocabulary or copia verborum. This taken collectively is the Concrete of Language, and the science of it must therefore be Linguo-concretology, a science not heretofore ditinctly coneeived of or nsmed, and of which we must seek the appropriate limits.
Obviously the central department of this great new lingual science—linguo-concretology, or the outerness of language—is Lexicology, or Dictionary-science; and the words to be defined in the dictionary are again analogous with body, matter, or "Nature" (within this outer sphere) and the definitions of the words which are their meaning, are analogous with "Mind" (as now recurring in this outer sphere). But the dictionary is only a central department of the concretismus of speech or language. Above the dictionary, but of the same character, is the Encyclopædia, of the total en-circl-ing of lingual matters, but still in this concrete sense; and below the dictlonary are the spelling book, the primer, and the alphabet. Aphabetics and Phonetics are, therefore, not a branch of grammar, and have never been definitely placed in the grammar book., They are on the contrary, the elementary department of Linguo-concretology, to be classed with the dictionary and encyclopedia—in so far, at all events, as we neglect, as the learned world has hitherto done, the inherent meanings of sound, and the law of their classification.
Etymology is a term of double meaning. It has an old-fashioned established grammatical sense, as when Grammar is said to consist of Orthography, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody. But of late years, and since the development of Glottology or Philology as a district science, Etymology has been used as the name for the study of the concrete materials of language at large, a domain outside of grammar and more nearly coinciding with Linguo-concretology as here defined. It is the study of words, their origin and development, irrespective of their position in actual discourse. From this point of view the outerness of this concrete of Language coincides with German Philology, or Philology as hitherto developed in the learned world (going from word to meaning); and the innernese of this same concrete coincides with Idiological Etymology (going from meaning to word) now undergoing development as a science, in the University of the Pantarchy, and by the Academy of Glottology. A report on this subject will be found in the fourth and forthcoming volume of Johnson's Cyclopædia, w. Word-building.
The abstract domain (the abtractismus) of Language, above referred to as the Betweenity, contains the two allied and parallel sciences, grammar, and school or syllogistic logic. Grammar, in this subdivision, is relatively concrete and empirical, and Syllogistic (which term we may adopt for this restricted kind of Logic), is relatively abstract, ideal and rigorous. In grammar we have our propositions, subjects, objects, predicates, etc., loosely and empirically constituted, and more with reference to the realism of the words. In Syllogistic we repeat all these in a new sense, these terms being taken strictly, and with absolute reference to the idealism of the words. This whole domain, the Betweenity of the tongue-world, coincides, it must be remembered, with Logic in the Hegelian sense, as the Betweenity of things at large. We are directed, therefore, by the Analogy, to look for a corresponding division of the Hegelian Logic into an outer, relatively concrete, and empirical division of this universal Logic, to coincide with Grammar; and for another division of the same, interior, relatively abstract, and à priori, to coincide with Syllogistic. We find precisely this difference between the Kantian and the Hegelian Logics, respectively.
We must, therefore, to be specific, now call this domain of the Major Logic, as a whole, the Kantio-Hegelian, and not merely Hegelian, as we have done hitherto.
The Kantian Logic is, then, characteristically à posteriori, empirical, or based on the observatlon of logical facts; and the Hegelian Logic properly à priori, apodictic, or based on the contemplation of necessary truths. The one is convolted from the happenings of the outer world of observed laws; the other is evolved from the inner consciousness of the abstract and analytical thinker. The one is factual (if we may adopt a mucb-needed but unauthorized word), and the other is (if we may revive and make technical an old English word) veridical. This important difference is curtly stated by Hegel himself in the Introduction to his Logic, where he calls Kant's System of Logic Objective and his own Subjective; and it is incidentally referred to without elaboration in almost-any hand-book of philosophy. For example, in Schwegler's History of Philosophy (Seelye's translatlon), we read: "If we should take the laws of Intelllgence from experience as Kant did his categories, we fail in two respects," etc. (p. 283). And again, speaking of Hegel: "Starting from the simplest conception of reason, that of pure being, which needs no further establishing, he seeks from this, by advancing from one conception ever to another and a richer one, to deduce the whole system of the pure knowledge of reason. The lever of this development is the Dialectical Method." (p. 347.)
We are now called upon to observe the fact, that the Abstractismus, which we began by treating as the Betweenity, has now ceased to be so, since we he united, Matter and Mind (the Withouts and the Within) under one designation, as the Concretismus. We have, therefore, now only two terms under comparison. The primitive Within and Without; are now combined as the Without or First Term of a new and higher style three-fold arrangement. They are, now, the Concrete basis or foundation, while the Abstract (ismus) retains still the second position, and is waiting to become, again, the Betweenity of the new three-step ladder, so soon as the thlrd and higher step, hitherto wanting, shall be supplied.
This new and third or higher step is Evolution. We may speak now, therefore of, 1. The Concrete, 2. The Abtract, and 3. The Evolutionary—as the higher threefoldness of universal Being. Mr. Spencer, who founds Classificatlon on the discrimination between the Concrete and the Abstract, and who has also especially distinguished himself in the domain of Evolution, has not, it is true, given us the authority of his name for the collocation of Evolution within such a trio, or trigrade scale of domains. He has, on the contrary, left it unclassifıed, to stand quite alone, as if it were something exceptionally unique. That it is appropriately the third term of this trio of discriminations will abundantly appear by the following analogies, and other adduced considerations. It must, however, be observed that Spencer, Darwin, Wallace, and others of their schod, are as yet only dealing with a primary and interior department of Evolution (Naturismal), and that the fitness of this assignment of Evolution to this trio appears most fully by reference to a higher (Scientismal) and especially to the highest (or Artismal) department of Evolution itself—departments not heretefore developed—in Sciento-Philosophy. The new technicalities here introduced in parentheses will be explained in the next following article.
