Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/196

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an introduction to the

without having first of all come round the reality without the assistance of the word, if we seek to educe the reality out of the word, the chances are a thousand to one that we shall end where we began, and never get beyond the region of mere words. It makes a mighty difference in all kinds of composition, whether the reality suggests the word, or whether the word suggests the reality. The former kind of suggestion alone possesses any value; it alone gives truth and life both to philosophy and to poetry. The latter kind is worthless altogether, either in philosopher or poet; and the probability is, that the reality which the word suggests to him, is not the true reality at all.^[1]

↑ Some curious considerations present themselves in connection with this subject. Human compositions may be divided into two great classes. In the first, the commencement is made from feelings, ideas, or realities. These beget and clothe themselves in words. These precede the words. The workers in this order are, in poetry, the true poets. But the words having been employed and established, it is found that these of themselves give birth to feelings and ideas which may be extracted out of them without recourse being had to any other source. Hence a second class of composers arises, in whom words precede ideas — a class who, instead of construing ideas into words, construe words into ideas, and these again into other words. This class commence with words, making these feel and think for them. Of this class are the poetasters, the authors of odes to "Imagination," "Hope," &c., which are merely written because such words as "hope," "imagination," &c, have been established. These are the employers of the hereditary language of poetry. In philosophy the case is precisely the same. An Aristotle, a Leibnitz, or a Kant, having come by certain realities of humanity, through an original exertion, and not through the instrumentality of words, makes use of a certain kind of phraseology to denote these realities. An inferior generation of philosophers, finding this phraseology made to their

[p186-1] Some curious considerations present themselves in connection with this subject. Human compositions may be divided into two great classes. In the first, the commencement is made from feelings, ideas, or realities. These beget and clothe themselves in words. These precede the words. The workers in this order are, in poetry, the true poets. But the words having been employed and established, it is found that these of themselves give birth to feelings and ideas which may be extracted out of them without recourse being had to any other source. Hence a second class of composers arises, in whom words precede ideas — a class who, instead of construing ideas into words, construe words into ideas, and these again into other words. This class commence with words, making these feel and think for them. Of this class are the poetasters, the authors of odes to "Imagination," "Hope," &c., which are merely written because such words as "hope," "imagination," &c, have been established. These are the employers of the hereditary language of poetry. In philosophy the case is precisely the same. An Aristotle, a Leibnitz, or a Kant, having come by certain realities of humanity, through an original exertion, and not through the instrumentality of words, makes use of a certain kind of phraseology to denote these realities. An inferior generation of philosophers, finding this phraseology made to their

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