XVIII. Conclusion: Identity of Linguistic and Aesthetic

Summary of the inquiry.

A glance over the path traversed will show that we have completed the entire programme of our treatise. We have studied the nature of intuitive or expressive knowledge, which is the aesthetic or artistic fact (I. and II.), and we have described the other form of knowledge, namely, the intellectual, with the secondary complications of its forms (III.). Having done this, it became possible to criticize all erroneous theories of art, which arise from the confusion between the various forms, and from the undue transference of the characteristics of one form to those of another (IV.), and in so doing to indicate the inverse errors which are found in the theory of intellectual knowledge and of historiography (V.). Passing on to examine the relations between the aesthetic activity and the other spiritual activities, no longer theoretic but practical, we have indicated the true character of the practical activity and the place which it occupies in respect to the theoretic activity, which it follows: hence the critique of the invasion of aesthetic theory by practical concepts (VI.). We have also distinguished the two forms of the practical activity, as economic and ethic (VII.), adding to this the statement that there are no other forms of the spirit beyond the four which we have analyzed; hence (VIII.) the critique of every metaphysical Aesthetic. And, seeing that there exist no other spiritual forms of equal degree, therefore there are no original subdivisions of the four established, and in particular of Aesthetic. From this arises the impossibility of classes of expressions and the critique of Rhetoric, that is, of the partition of expressions into simple and ornate, and of their subclasses (IX.). But, by the law of the unity of the spirit, the aesthetic fact is also a practical fact, and as such, occasions pleasure and pain. This led us to study the feelings of value in general, and those of aesthetic value, or of the beautiful, in particular (X.), to criticize aesthetic hedonism in all its various manifestations and complications (XI.), and to expel from the system of Aesthetic the long series of pseudo-aesthetic concepts, which had been introduced into it (XII.). Proceeding from aesthetic production to the facts of reproduction, we began by investigating the mode of fixing externally the aesthetic expression, with the view of reproduction. This is the so-called physically beautiful, whether it be natural or artificial (XIII.). We then derived from this distinction the critique of the errors which arise from confounding the physical with the aesthetic side of things (XIV.). We indicated the meaning of artistic technique, that which is the technique serving for reproduction, thus criticizing the divisions, limits, and classifications of the individual arts, and establishing the connections between art, economy, and morality (XV.). Because the existence of the physical objects does not suffice to stimulate to the full aesthetic reproduction, and because, in order to obtain this result, it is necessary to recall the conditions in which the stimulus first operated, we have also studied the function of historical erudition, directed toward the end of re-establishing our communication with the works of the past, and toward the creation of a base for aesthetic judgment (XVI.). We have closed our treatise by showing how the reproduction thus obtained is afterwards elaborated by the intellectual categories, that is to say, by an excursus on the method of literary and artistic history (XVII.).

The aesthetic fact has thus been considered both in itself and in its relations with the other spiritual activities, with the feelings of pleasure and of pain, with the facts that are called physical, with memory, and with historical elaboration. It has passed from the position of subject to that of object, that is to say, from the moment of its birth, until gradually it becomes changed for the spirit into historical argument.

Our treatise may appear to be somewhat meagre, when compared with the great volumes usually consecrated to Aesthetic. But it will not seem so, when it is observed that these volumes, as regards nine-tenths of their contents, are full of matter which does not appertain to Aesthetic, such as definitions, either psychical or metaphysical, of pseudo-aesthetic concepts (of the sublime, the comic, the tragic, the humorous, etc.), or of the exposition of the supposed Zoology, Botany, and Mineralogy of Aesthetic, and of universal history judged from the aesthetic standpoint. The whole history of concrete art and literature has also been dragged into those Aesthetics and generally mangled; they contain judgments upon Homer and Dante, upon Ariosto and Shakespeare, upon Beethoven and Rossini, Michelangelo and Raphael. When all this has been deducted from them, our treatise will no longer be held to be too meagre, but, on the contrary, far more copious than ordinary treatises, for these either omit altogether, or hardly touch at all, the greater part of the difficult problems proper to Aesthetic, which we have felt it to be our duty to study.

Identity of Linguistic and Aesthetic.

Aesthetic, then, as the science of expression, has been here studied by us from every point of view. But there yet remains to justify the sub-title, which we have joined to the title of our book, General Linguistic, and to state and make clear the thesis that the science of art is that of language. Aesthetic and Linguistic, in so far as they are true sciences, are not two different sciences, but one single science. Not that there is a special Linguistic; but the linguistic science sought for, general Linguistic, in so far as what it contains is reducible to philosophy, is nothing but Aesthetic. Whoever studies general Linguistic, that is to say, philosophical Linguistic, studies aesthetic problems, and vice versa. Philosophy of language and philosophy of art are the same thing.

Were Linguistic a different science from Aesthetic, it should not have expression, which is the essentially aesthetic fact, for its object. This amounts to saying that it must be denied that language is expression. But an emission of sounds, which expresses nothing, is not language. Language is articulate, limited, organized sound, employed in expression. If, on the other hand, language were a special science in respect to Aesthetic, it would necessarily have for its object a special class of expressions. But the inexistence of classes of expression is a point which we have already demonstrated.

Aesthetic formulization of linguistic problems. Nature of language.

The problems which Linguistic serves to solve, and the errors with which Linguistic strives and has striven, are the same that occupy and complicate Aesthetic. If it be not always easy, it is, on the other hand, always possible, to reduce the philosophic questions of Linguistic to their aesthetic formula.

The disputes as to the nature of the one find their parallel in those as to the nature of the other. Thus it has been disputed, whether Linguistic be a scientific or a historical discipline, and the scientific having been distinguished from the historical, it has been asked whether it belong to the order of the natural or of the psychological sciences, by the latter being understood empirical Psychology, as much as the science of the spirit. The same has happened with Aesthetic, which some have looked upon as a natural science, confounding aesthetic expression with physical expression. Others have looked upon it as a psychological science, confounding expression in its universality, with the empirical classification of expressions. Others again, denying the very possibility of a science of such a subject, have looked upon it as a collection of historical facts. Finally, it has been realized that it belongs to the sciences of activity or of values, which are the spiritual sciences.

Linguistic expression, or speech, has often seemed to be a fact of interjection, which belongs to the so-called physical expressions of the feelings, common alike to men and animals. But it was soon admitted that an abyss yawns between the Ah! which is a physical reflex of pain, and a word; as also between that Ah! of pain and the Ah! employed as a word. The theory of the interjection being abandoned (jocosely termed the Ah! Ah! theory by German linguists), the theory of association or convention appeared. This theory was refuted by the same objection which destroyed aesthetic associationism in general: speech is unity, not multiplicity of images, and multiplicity does not explain, but presupposes the existence of the expression to explain. A variant of linguistic associationism is the imitative, that is to say, the theory of the onomatopoeia, which the same philologists deride under the name of the bow-wow theory, after the imitation of the dog’s bark, which, according to the onomatopoeists, gives its name to the dog.

The most usual theory of our times as regards language (apart from mere crass naturalism) consists of a sort of eclecticism or mixture of the various theories to which we have referred. It is assumed that language is in part the product of interjections and in part of onomatopes and conventions. This doctrine is altogether worthy of the scientific and philosophic decadence of the second half of the nineteenth century.

Origin of language and its development.

We must here note a mistake into which have fallen those very philologists who have best penetrated the active nature of language. These, although they admit that language was originally a spiritual creation, yet maintain that it was largely increased later by association. But the distinction does not prevail, for origin in this case cannot mean anything but nature or essence. If, therefore, language be a spiritual creation, it will always be a creation; if it be association, it will have been so from the beginning. The mistake has arisen from not having grasped the general principle of Aesthetic, which we have noted: namely, that expressions already produced must redescend to the rank of impressions before they can give rise to new impressions. When we utter new words, we generally transform the old ones, varying or enlarging their meaning; but this process is not associative. It is creative, although the creation has for material the impressions, not of the hypothetical primitive man, but of man who has lived long ages in society, and who has, so to say, stored so many things in his psychic organism, and among them so much language.

Relation between Grammar and Logic.

The question of the distinction between the aesthetic and the intellectual fact has appeared in Linguistic as that of the relations between Grammar and Logic. This question has found two solutions, which are partially true: that of the indissolubility of Logic and Grammar, and that of their dissolubility. The complete solution is this: if the logical form be indissoluble from the grammatical (aesthetic), the grammatical is dissoluble from the logical.

Grammatical classes or parts of speech.

If we look at a picture which, for example, portrays a man walking on a country road, we can say: This picture represents a fact of movement, which, if conceived as volitional, is called action. And because every movement implies matter, and every action a being that acts, this picture also represents either matter or a being. But this movement takes place in a definite place, which is a part of a given star (the Earth), and precisely in that part of it which is called terra-firma, and more properly in a part of it that is wooded and covered with grass, which is called country, cut naturally or artificially, in a manner which is called road. Now, there is only one example of that given star, which is called Earth: Earth is an individual. But terra-firma, country, road, are classes or universals, because there are other terra-firmas, other countries, other roads. And it would be possible to continue for a while with similar considerations. By substituting a phrase for the picture that we have imagined, for example, one to this effect, Peter is walking on a country road, and by making the same remarks, we obtain the concepts of verb (motion or action), of noun (matter or agent), of proper noun, of common nouns; and so on.

What have we done in both cases? Neither more nor less than to submit to logical elaboration what was first elaborated only aesthetically; that is to say, we have destroyed the aesthetical by the logical. But, as in general Aesthetic, error begins when It is wished to return from the logical to the aesthetical, and it is asked what is the expression of movement, action, matter, being, of the general, of the individual, etc.; thus in like manner with language, error begins when motion or action are called verb, being, or matter, noun or substantive, and when linguistic categories, or parts of speech, are made of all these, noun and verb and so on. The theory of parts of speech is at bottom altogether the same as that of artistic and literary classes, already criticized in the Aesthetic.

It is false to say that the verb or the noun is expressed in definite words, truly distinguishable from others. Expression is an indivisible whole. Noun and verb do not exist in themselves, but are abstractions made by our destroying the sole linguistic reality, which is the proposition. This last is to be understood, not in the usual mode of grammarians, but as an organism expressive of a complete meaning, from an exclamation to a poem. This sounds paradoxical, but is nevertheless a most simple truth.

And as in Aesthetic, the artistic productions of certain peoples have been looked upon as imperfect, owing to the error above mentioned, because the supposed kinds have seemed still to be indiscriminate or absent with them; so, in Linguistic, the theory of the parts of speech has caused the analogous error of dividing languages into formed and unformed, according to whether there appear in them or not some of those supposed parts of speech; for example, the verb.

The individuality of speech and the classification of languages.

Linguistic also discovered the irreducible individuality of the aesthetic fact, when it affirmed that the word is what is really spoken, and that two truly identical words do not exist. Thus were synonyms and homonyms destroyed, and thus was shown the impossibility of really translating one word into another, from so-called dialect into so-called language, and from a so-called mother-tongue into a so-called foreign tongue.

But the attempt to classify languages agrees ill with this correct view. Languages have no reality beyond the propositions and complexes of propositions really written and pronounced by given peoples for definite periods. That is to say, they have no existence outside the works of art, in which they exist concretely. What is the art of a given people but the complex of all its artistic products? What is the character of an art (say, Hellenic art or Provençal literature), but the complex physiognomy of those products? And how can such a question be answered, save by giving the history of their art (of their literature, that is to say, of their language in action)?

It will seem that this argument, although possessing value as against many of the wonted classifications of languages, yet is without any as regards that queen of classifications, the historico-genealogical, that glory of comparative philology. And this is certainly true. But why? Precisely because the historico-genealogical method is not a classification. He who writes history does not classify, and the philologists themselves have hastened to say that the languages which can be arranged in a historical series (those whose series have been traced) are, not distinct and definite species, but a complex of facts in the various phases of its development.

Impossibility of a normative grammar.

Language has sometimes been looked upon as an act of volition or of choice. But others have discovered the impossibility of creating language artificially, by an act of will. Tu, Caesar, civitatem dare potes homini, verbo non poles! was once said to the Roman Emperor.

The aesthetic (and therefore theoretic) nature of expression supplies the method of correcting the scientific error which lies in the conception of a (normative) Grammar, containing the rules of speaking well. Good sense has always rebelled against this error. An example of such rebellion is the So much the worse for grammar of Voltaire. But the impossibility of a normative grammar is also recognized by those who teach it, when they confess that to write well cannot be learned by rules, that there are no rules without exceptions, and that the study of Grammar should be conducted practically, by reading and by examples, which form the literary taste. The scientific reason of this impossibility lies in what we have already proved: that a technique of the theoretical amounts to a contradiction in terms. And what could a (normative) grammar be, but just a technique of linguistic expression, that is to say, of a theoretic fact?

Didactic purposes.

The case in which Grammar is understood merely as an empirical discipline, that is to say, as a collection of groups useful for learning languages, without any claim whatever to philosophic truth, is quite different. Even the abstractions of the parts of speech are in this case both admissible and of assistance.

Many books entitled treatises of Linguistic have a merely didactic purpose; they are simply scholastic manuals. We find in them, in truth, a little of everything, from the description of the vocal apparatus and of the artificial machines (phonographs) which can imitate it, to summaries of the most important results obtained by Indo-European, Semitic, Coptic, Chinese, or other philologies; from philosophic generalizations on the origin or nature of language, to advice on calligraphy, and the arrangement of schedules for philological spoils. But this mass of notions, which is here taught in a fragmentary and incomplete manner as regards the language in its essence, the language as expression, resolves itself into notions of Aesthetic. Nothing exists outside Aesthetic, which gives knowledge of the nature of language, and empirical Grammar, which is a pedagogic expedient, save the History of languages in their living reality, that is, the history of concrete literary productions, which is substantially identical with the History of literature.

Elementary linguistic facts or roots.

The same mistake of confusing the physical with the aesthetic, from which the elementary forms of the beautiful originate, is made by those who seek for elementary aesthetic facts, decorating with that name the divisions of the longer series of physical sounds into shorter series. Syllables, vowels, and consonants, and the series of syllables called words which give no definite sense when taken alone, are not facts of language, but simple physical concepts of sounds.

Another mistake of the same sort is that of roots, to which the most able philologists now accord but a very limited value. Having confused physical with linguistic or expressive facts, and observing that, in the order of ideas, the simple precedes the complex, they necessarily ended by thinking that the smaller physical facts were the more simple. Hence the imaginary necessity that the most antique, primitive languages, had been monosyllabic, and that the progress of historical research must lead to the discovery of monosyllabic roots. But (to follow up the imaginary hypothesis) the first expression that the first man conceived may also have had a mimetic, not a phonic reflex: it may have been exteriorised, not in a sound but in a gesture. And assuming that it was exteriorised in a sound, there is no reason to suppose that sound to have been monosyllabic rather than plurisyllabic. Philologists frequently blame their own ignorance and impotence, if they do not always succeed in reducing plurisyllabism to monosyllabism, and they trust in the future. But their faith is without foundation, as their blame of themselves is an act of humility arising from an erroneous presumption.

Furthermore, the limits of syllables, as those of words, are altogether arbitrary, and distinguished, as well as may be, by empirical use. Primitive speech, or the speech of the uncultured man, is continuous, unaccompanied by any reflex consciousness of the divisions of the word and of the syllables, which are taught at school. No true law of Linguistic can be founded on such divisions. Proof of this is to be found in the confession of linguists, that there are no truly phonetic laws of the hiatus, of cacophony, of diaeresis, of synaeresis, but merely laws of taste and convenience; that is to say, aesthetic laws. And what are the laws of words which are not at the same time laws of style?

Aesthetic judgment and the model language.

The search for a model language, or for a method of reducing linguistic usage to unity, arises from the misconception of a rationalistic measurement of the beautiful, from the concept which we have termed that of false aesthetic absoluteness. In Italy, we call this question that of the unity of the language.

Language is perpetual creation. What has been linguistically expressed cannot be repeated, save by the reproduction of what has already been produced. The ever-new impressions give rise to continuous changes of sounds and of meanings, that is, to ever-new expressions. To seek the model language, then, is to seek the immobility of motion. Every one speaks, and should speak, according to the echoes which things arouse in his soul, that is, according to his impressions. It is not without reason that the most convinced supporter of any one of the solutions of the problem of the unity of language (be it by the use of Latin, of fourteenth-century Italian, or of Florentine) feels a repugnance in applying his theory, when he is speaking in order to communicate his thoughts and to make himself understood. The reason for this is that he feels that were he to substitute Latin, fourteenth-century Italian, or Florentine speech for that of a different origin, but which answers to his impressions, he would be falsifying the latter. He would become a vain listener to himself, instead of a speaker, a pedant in place of a serious man, a histrion instead of a sincere person. To write according to a theory is not really to write: at the most, it is making literature.

The question of the unity of language is always reappearing, because, put as it is, there can be no solution to it, owing to its being based upon a false conception of what language is. Language is not an arsenal of ready-made arms, and it is not vocabulary, which, in so far as it is thought of as progressive and in living use, is always a cemetery, containing corpses more or less well embalmed, that is to say, a collection of abstractions.

Our mode of settling the question of the model language, or of the unity of the language, may seem somewhat abrupt, and yet we would not wish to appear otherwise than respectful towards the long line of literary men who have debated this question in Italy for centuries. But those ardent debates were, at bottom, debates upon aestheticity, not upon aesthetic science, upon literature rather than upon literary theory, upon effective speaking and writing, not upon linguistic science. Their error consisted in transforming the manifestation of a want into a scientific thesis, the need of understanding one another more easily among a people dialectically divided, in the philosophic search for a language, which should be one or ideal. Such a search was as absurd as that other search for a universal language, with the immobility of the concept and of the abstraction. The social need for a better understanding of one another cannot be satisfied save by universal culture, by the increase of communications, and by the interchange of thought among men.

Conclusion.

These observations must suffice to show that all the scientific problems of Linguistic are the same as those of Aesthetic, and that the truths and errors of the one are the truths and errors of the other. If Linguistic and Aesthetic appear to be two different sciences, this arises from the fact that people think of the former as grammar, or as a mixture between philosophy and grammar, that is, an arbitrary mnemonic scheme. They do not think of it as a rational science and as a pure philosophy of speech. Grammar, or something grammatical, also causes the prejudice in people’s minds, that the reality of language lies in isolated and combinable words, not in living discourse among expressive organisms, rationally indivisible.

Those linguists, or glottologists with philosophical endowments, who have best fathomed questions of language, resemble (to employ a worn but efficacious figure) workmen piercing a tunnel: at a certain point they must hear the voices of their companions, the philosophers of Aesthetic, who have been piercing it from the other side. At a certain stage of scientific elaboration, Linguistic, in so far as it is philosophy, must be merged in Aesthetic; and indeed it is merged in it, without leaving a residue.