The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Nature of Thought, by John Haslam

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Title: On the Nature of Thought
or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence

Author: John Haslam

Release Date: January 31, 2010 [EBook #31142]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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ON THE NATURE OF THOUGHT,

OR THE ACT OF THINKING,

AND ITS CONNEXION WITH A PERSPICUOUS SENTENCE.

BY JOHN HASLAM, M.D.
LATE OF PEMBROKE HALL, CAMBRIDGE,
AND AUTHOR OF MANY WORKS ON THIS SUBJECT OF INSANITY.

London:
[Printed by G. HAYDEN, Little College Street, Westminster,]

PUBLISHED BY
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN & LONGMAN,
PATERNOSTER ROW.

1835.

[_PRICE TWO SHILLINGS._]

_Polonius_--What do you read, my Lord?
_Hamlet_--Words, words, words.--_Act 2d._

* * * * *

MEPHISTOPHELES.

"Im Ganzen--haltet euch an Worte!
Dann geht ihr durch die sichere Pforte
Zum Tempel der Gewissheit ein."

SCHULER.

"Doch ein Begriff muss bey dem Worte seyn."

MEPHISTOPHELES.

"Schon gut! nur muss man sich nicht allzu aengstlich quaelen,
Denn eben wo Begriffe fehlen,
Da stellt ein Wort zur rechten zeit sich ein.
Mit Worten laesst sich trefflich streiten,
Mit Worten ein System bereiten.
An Werte laesst sich trefflich glauben,
Von einem Wort laesst sich kein Iota rauben."--_Goethe's Faust._

* * * * *

"And when I have enumerated these, I imagine I have comprehended
almost every thing which can enter into the composition of the
intellectual life of man. With the single exception of reason, (and
reason can scarcely operate without the intervention of language,)
is there any thing more important to man, more peculiar to him, or
more inseparable