Excerpt from Public Addresses, Collegiate and Popular
Between the enunciated word upon the human lips and its correspondent idea in the human mind there is no natural and no necessary connection. Language, when viewed in the light of an invention, must be considered as the application of sound to the purposes of the conveyance of thought; and so viewed, appears the mightiest of all the achievements of combining intellect
Considered, however, as a divine endowment, most strikingly simple, indeed, is the providential arrangement. The intellect might be stored with treasures of inestimable knowledge; the imagination may be all gorgeous with vivid imagery; the bosom may throb with heaving emotions; yet, without this magic key to unlock their sources, they must be suffocated in agonized silence. Man would be a virtual idiot, though endowed with the loftiest capacity, and a real hermit, though surrounded with the densest society. Yet, mark how simple the apparatus which Providence has adjusted to the most exalted purposes. The whole process is performed, the whole object is gained, by sound - vox et preterea nihil. Within some prolific intellect awakes to new existence the eloquent thought, seizes the buoyant sound, and flits, a living mes senger, a winged fancy, through liquid air, and descending upon the congenial organ, and melting into other minds, becomes a thrilling impulse to surrounding thousands.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Public Addresses, Collegiate and Popular (Classic Reprint) (Daniel Denison Whedon)