cations, the physical
metaphors involved in them, which are perhaps still somewhat apparent to
the Frenchman, are to us wholly non-existent. Nothing but the derivative
or metaphysical signification remains. No physical image of a man
stepping over a boundary is presented to our minds by the word
transgress, nor in using the word comprehension do we picture to
ourselves any manual act of grasping. It is to this double structure
of the English language that it owes its superiority over every other
tongue, ancient or modern, for philosophical and scientific purposes.
Albeit there are numerous exceptions, it may still be safely said, in
a general way, that we possess and habitually use two kinds of
language,--one that is physical, for our ordinary purposes, and one that
is metaphysical, for purposes of abstract reasoning and discussion. We
do not say like the Germans, that we "begripe" (begreifen) an idea, but
we say that we "conceive" it. We use a word which once had the very same
material meaning as begreifen, but which has in our language utterly
lost it. We are accordingly able to carry on philosophical inquiries
by means of words which are nearly or quite free from those shadows
of original concrete meaning which, in German, too often obscure the
acquired abstract signification. Whoever has dealt in English and German
metaphysics will not fail to recognize the prodigious superiority of
English in force and perspicuity, arising mainly from the causes here
stated. But while this homogeneity of structure in German injures it for
philosophical purposes, it is the very thing which makes it so excellent
as an organ for poetical expression, in the opinion of those who speak
English. German being nearly allied to Anglo-Saxon, not only do its
simple words strike us with all the force of our own homely Saxon terms,
but its compounds also, preserving their physical significations
almost unimpaired, call up in our minds concrete images of the greatest
definiteness and liveliness. It is thus that German seems to us
pre-eminently a poetical language, and it is thus that we are naturally
inclined to overrate rather than to depreciate the poetry that is
written in it.

With regard to French, the case is just the reverse. The Frenchman has
no Saxon words, but he has, on the other hand, an indigenous stock of
Latin words, which he learns in early childhood, which give outlet
to his most intimate feelings, and which retain to some extent