the combinations of the _Prime
Elements_ of Thought and Being in the Real Universe; so that each word,
so formed, would become exactly charged with the kind and amount of
meaning contained in the thing named or the conception intended. An idea
will thus be obtained by the reader, somewhat vague, no doubt, at first,
but which would become perfectly distinct, as the subject should be
gradually unfolded, of the way in which a universal language naturally
expressive of Thoughts and Feelings, and capable of unlimited expansion,
might perhaps be evolved from a profound understanding of the Analogies
of the Universe. It is important, however, in order that this theory,
now when it is first presented, should not unnecessarily prejudice
cautious and conservative minds, and seem to them wholly Utopian, to
guard it by the additional statement that, while such a language might
be appropriately denominated Universal, there is a sense in which it
would still not be so; or, in other words, that it could only become
Universal by causing to coalesce with its own scientifically organized
structure, the best material already wrought out, and existing as
_natural growth_ in the dead and living languages now extant; by
absorbing them, so to speak, in itself. It would have no pretension,
therefore, directly to supersede any of the existing languages, nor even
ultimately to dispense with the great mass of the material found in any
of them.

It is a common prejudice among the learned that Language is a growth,
and cannot in any sense be a structure; in other words, that it is
purely the subject of the instinctive or unthoughted development of man,
and not capable of being derived from reflection, or the deliberate
application of the scheming faculty of the intellect. A little
reflection will show that this opinion is only a half truth. It is
certain that language has received its primitive form and first
development by the instinctive method. It is equally true, however, that
even as respects our existing languages, they have been overlaid by a
subsequent formation, originating with the development of the
_Sciences_, due wholly to reflection on the scheming faculty of man, and
already equal in extension to the primitive growth. The Nomenclature of
each of the Sciences has been devised by the reflective genius of
individuals, and arbitrarily imposed, so to speak, upon the Spoken and
Written Languages of the World, as they previously existed. Fr