SOURCE: "Words as Things: Icons of Progress in Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres" in Things, Thoughts, Words, and Actions: The Problem of Language in Late Eighteenth-Century British Rhetorical Theory, Southern Illinois University Press, 1994, pp. 117-45

In the following essay, Ulman analyzes Blair's rhetorical theory, paying particular attention to his presentation of language and his view of words as "things," such as "objects of art and icons of aesthetic, intellectual, and cultural progress."

Whether we consider Poetry in particular, and Discourse in general, as Imitative or Descriptive; it is evident, that their whole power, in recalling the impressions of real objects, is derived from the significancy of words. As their excellency flows altogether from this source, we must, in order to make way for further enquiries, begin at this fountain head.

It appears, that, in all the successive changes which Language has undergone, as the world advanced...