The New Word: 4. Lexicography: The Play Upon Words

Johnson's Dictionary.—1. The Missing Word.—2. Recurring Decimals.—3. A Puzzle for Atheists.—4. Plato Refuted by Plato.—5. Books in Chains.

ON reading this Will for the first time, and wondering what the word Idealistic meant to others than myself, I turned to an English dictionary.

I

The dictionary which I found to my hand happened to be the famous work of Doctor Johnson, or, to speak carefully, one founded on that work by Doctor Latham, who was an esteemed philologist, and professor of the English language. It is in four vast volumes, published just fourteen years before the date of the Testator's death, by nineteen publishers, and it should be fairly representative of the science and art of lexicography in England.

The words are taken in the order of their spelling; each one is given a Latin label such as substantive or adjective; if in its sounds or spelling it shows the mark of the Roman mint a Mediterranean word is quoted as its original; then follows the explanation

There are many words common to both the Baltic and the Mediterranean; some of them common to every Aryan dialect; some of them older than the Aryan invasion, if there was an Aryan invasion, relics of the old stone-cutting race that crossed from

Instead I found this entry:—

"IDEALIST substantive. Supporter of the doctrine of idealism."

The only inference was that a work of an idealist tendency must be one supporting the same doctrine. I asked Doctor Latham what the doctrine was, and I got this answer:

"IDEALISM.—System of metaphysical philosophy founded upon the doctrine that the objects of the external world are what they are, less on the strength of any material properties of their own, than through the action of the mind, in which they exist as ideas."

At the first blush my plight seemed to be worse than Herakles’, when he cut off the hydra's head; I had a dozen Babu words to deal with instead of one. I made shift to turn some of them into English.

"The stones and trees of the outside world are what they are, less on the strength of any stuff of their own, than through the working of the mind, in which they stand forth as—ideas."

Before examining the doctrine further it seemed desirable to know Doctor Latham's meaning for the word idea. Here surely was the key-word. Without

Good. But the word image is sometimes used in a loose sense by poets. To make more sure I turned it up.

"IMAGE—Any corporeal representation: generally used of statues."

This time there could be no doubt. The image was not a metaphor, it was a thing of stone and marble. Yet I was struck by the curious result of adding this explanation to the last one.

Mental-corporeal? The words seemed to unsay each other. It was like what the logicians call a contradiction in terms. In order to be fair to Doctor Latham I went to the word representation.

"REPRESENTATION.—Image, likeness."

The reappearance of the image so soon was disconcerting. It seemed to dog the lexicographer as

I sought further light from two more entries.

"INTELLECTUAL.—Relating to the understanding."

"UNDERSTANDING.—Intellectual powers."

It was another recurring decimal in words. Intellectual meant relating to the intellectual powers.

And yet understanding is one of those words that explain themselves. Like the Swedish forsta, which is still found in some parts of England as forestand, it tells its own story. A picture of Leighton's shows it to the eye. A man is teaching a boy the use of the bow. He leans over the boy from behind, grasping the boy's hands in his, and guiding them while the bow is drawn. That boy is understanding how to draw a bow.

When we have got as far as that we need go no further. We have got to the mixture. Words of this kind are on the same footing as the names of things outside us. They are the names of actions,—I will call them play words. When we have seen the play, the word has served its office.

One more example of lexicography and I must

And so at the end of my effort to learn from him the meaning of the word idea, he had brought me back to the starting point.

I put the two last explanations together, and they gave me an equation, the like of which perhaps is not in human language.

III

It is time to return to the doctrine of Idealism.

"The stones and trees of the outside world are themselves, less on the strength of any stuff of their own than through the play of the mind, in which they stand forth as"—(recurring decimal) .

That is to say, the stones and trees outside us are really not outside us, but inside us. They are not things, but thoughts. A wit has put it still more

This doctrine, or this play upon words, was invented by Bishop Berkeley in order to confound the atheists, a class of men who, it may be suspected, are what they are, less on the strength of any materialism of their own than through the working of the reverent mind, in which they exist as bogeys.

It is impossible to refuse to Berkeley the admiration due to the man who has said the last word in his own department. His doctrine is the perfection of metaphysics, if it be not a parody on metaphysics. Nobody has ever refuted it; and nobody has ever believed it.

Berkeley himself of course did not believe it, because it is evidently an inverted pantheism, with oneself as the creator; and Berkeley was a deeply religious man. There is no record of any atheist who was ever confounded by it. And that is the only point which we have to consider.

We are freed, by the words of the Will, from inquiring whether this language, or other language like it, is true or false. We have to ask the easier, but much more searching, question, does it materially benefit mankind?

Every work that runs counter to our settled habits of thought and speech, driving us to weigh the meanings of our words, and question the soundness of our views, is of benefit to mankind, in so far as it

There is an older doctrine of which this idealism seems to be the insubstantial ghost. A greater than Berkeley once taught that all the material world was illusion—Maya. But in the mouth of the Buddha that teaching was not a clever paradox; it was a living truth by seizing on which men might win their

Latham, one sees, has faithfully explained the word Idealism, as a technical term in use among metaphysicians and moral philosophers. That the word stood for anything besides the mock scepticism of Berkeley; that it had passed into common use with a meaning almost the opposite of scepticism; he evidently did not know. Indeed, as we have seen, he had never met with it as an adjective at all.

What is more strange is that he should have overlooked an older sort of Idealism, familiar in metaphysical and moral-philosophical writing long before Berkeley's day; the Idealism of Plato, father of all such as work in metaphysics, and patentee of the metaphysical Idea.

There are two Platos; one the companion of Socrates, walking in the market-place with his master, and showing us as in a stage play how the great truth-seeker pierced his way through cunning webs of words; the other the teacher in the Academy, weaving his own webs, and decorating them with

There is another test, and a very practical and memorable test, under which Plato breaks down.

In the year 1474 a remarkable sight was to be seen in all the public libraries of France; the sight of books in chains. A controversy had been carried on between two parties, calling themselves Nominalists