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that we had any other alphabet, fhould fuppofe each mark to be the sign of a single found. If they were very laborious and very learned indeed, it is likely they would write as many volumes on the fubject, and with as much bitterness against each other, as Grammarians have done from the fame fort of mistake concerning Language: until be perhaps it should be fuggefted to them, that there may not only figns of founds; but again, for the sake of abbreviation, figns of those signs, one under another in a continued progreffion.

B.

You mean to fay

I think I begin to comprehend you. that the errors of Grammarians have arifen from fuppofing

"Short-hand, an art, as I have been told, known only in England.” LOCKE on Education.

In the Courier de l'Europe, No. 41, November 20, 1787, is the following article:

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"Le Sieur Coulon de Thevenot, a eu l'honneur de prefenter au roi fa "methode d'ecrire auffi vite que l'on parle, approuvée par l'Academie, Royale des fciences, et dont fa Majefté a deigné accepter la dedicace. On fait que les Anglois font depuis très-long temps en poffeffion d'une pareille methode adaptée à leur langage, et qu' elle leur eft devenue "extrêmement commode et utile pour recueillir avec beaucoup de precision "les difcours publics: la methode du Sieur Coulon doit donc étre très"avantageux à la langue Françoife."

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all words to be immediately either the figns of things or the figns of ideas: whereas in fact many words are merely abbreviations employed for dispatch, and are the figns of other words. And that these are the artificial wings of Mercury, by means of which the Argus eyes of philofophy have been cheated.

It is my meaning.

H.

Well.

B.

We can only judge of your opinion after we have heard how you maintain it. Proceed, and strip him of his wings. They feem eafy enough to be taken off: for it strikes me now, after what you have faid, that they are indeed put on in a peculiar manner, and do not, like those of other winged deities, make a part of his body. You have only to loose the strings from his feet, and take off his cap. Come-Let us see what fort of figure he

will make without them.

H.

The first aim of Language was to communicate our thoughts: the fecond, to do it with dispatch. (I mean intirely to disregard whatever additions or alterations have

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been made for the fake of beauty, or ornament, eafe, gracefulness, or pleasure.) The difficulties and difputes concerning Language have arisen almost intirely from neglecting the confideration of the latter purpose of speech: which, though subordinate to the former, is almost as necessary in the commerce of mankind, and has a much greater fhare in accounting for the different forts of words Words have been called winged: and they well deferve that name, when their abbreviations are compared with the progress which speech could make without these inventions; but compared with the rapidity of thought, they have not the smalleft claim to that title. Philofophers have calculated the difference of velocity between found and light: But who will attempt to calculate the difference between speech and thought! What wonder then that the invention of all ages should have been upon the stretch to add fuch wings

* M. Le President de Broffes, in his excellent treatife De la formation mechanique des Langues, tom. 2. fays" On ne parle que pour etre entendu. «Le plus grand avantage d'une langue eft d'etre claire. Tous les procedés "de Grammaire ne devroient aller qu'à ce but." And again" Le vul"gaire & les philofophes n'ont d'autre but en parlant que de s'expliquer "clairement." Art. 160. Pour le vulgaire, he should have added—& promptement. And indeed he is afterwards well aware of this: for Art. 173, he fays, "L'efprit humain veut aller vîte dans fon operation; plus empressé "de s'exprimer promptement, que curieux de s'exprimer avec une justesse "exacte & refléchie. S'il n'a pas l'inftrument qu'il faudroit employer, il "fe fert de celui qu'il a tout prêt."

to their conversation as might enable it, if poffible, to keep pace in fome measure with their minds.-Hence chiefly the variety of words.

Abbreviations are employed in language three ways:

1. In terms.

2. In forts of words.

3. In conftruction.

Mr. Locke's Effay is the best guide to the first and numberless are the authors who have given particular explanations of the last. The fecond only I take for my province at prefent; because I believe it has hitherto escaped the proper notice of all.

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ЕПЕА ПТEPOENTA, &c.

CHAP. II.

SOME CONSIDERATION OF MR. LOCKE'S ESSAY.

B.

I CANNOT recollect one word of Mr. Locke's that corresponds at all with any thing that you have said. The third Book of his Effay is indeed exprefsly written"On the Nature, Ufe and Signification of Language." But there is nothing in it concerning abbreviations.

H.

I confider the whole of Mr. Locke's Effay as a philofophical account of the first sort of abbreviations in Language.

B.

Whatever you may think of it, it is certain, not only from the title, but from his own declaration, that Mr. Locke did not intend or confider it as fuch: for he says,"When I first began this discourse of the Understanding, 6

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