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Show lo0 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. only to fill up the waste rla~es, but to s~pers~d~~~: ~~~: perfect nations already ex!shng: W~o ct~~· te towardJ re• ttess Inay be made, even 1 n a single cen . y, ·~ t t es ~ ~ersing the proportions of the perfect a~1d nnp 1 ~~ hc~h YP · and who can tell but that the time dunng W 1Itc b teh~ean types have 1a s t. e d ' 1o ng as I· t app. earQd... , m.· ay yeh.i che ther obwesnt entirely i11to the shade by the time uung w types will remain predominant? · · · 11 r We have seen that the tracefi of a C?mmon ongln .In a l lancruao-es afford a ground of presumpt~on for the ~1uty bof U the 0hu~1an race. They establish a still st~ong~I pro ~bility th~t mankind had not yet begun to d1s.pe1~e befm.e they were possessed of a mean~ of communicating t?e~r · d by conventional sounds-In short, speech. This IS ~ !i~~ so peculiar to man, and in its~lf so r~markable, ~h~t th~re is a great inclination to surmise a m1raculous ongrn for it, although there ~s no !?roper gro~n~, .or eve~ support, for such an idea In Scripture, while. It Is clearly opposed to everything else that we know ~Ith regard to the Providential arrangements for the. creation of .our race. Here, as in many other cases, a. htt~e obs~rvahon of nature micrht have saved much vain d1scuss1on. The real charact~r of language itself has not been thm:oughly u~derstood. Language, in its most comprehensive sense, u1 the communication of ideas by whatever mea~s. I?eas can be communicated by looks, gestures, and ~tgns .of various other kinds, as well as by speech. The Infe1:10r ~n· imals possess some ~f th?ie me.ans of commu.nicatmg ideas, and they have hkew1se a silent ~nd. unobservable mode of their own, the nature of whiC~ IS a ~ompl~te mystery to us, though. we ~re as~ured of 1ts reah.ty by. Jts effects. Now, as the Inferwr animals were all In bemg before man, there was language upon earth long e~·~ the history of our race cmnmenced .. The only additional fact in the history of language, wh1ch was produc~d by our creation, was the rise of a new mode of expressiOnnamely, that by sound-signs produced by the vocal o;gans. In other w.ords, speech ~as the only novel~y H. this respect attend1ng the c~eabon o~ the human Iac~ No doubt it was an addition of great Importance, for, I!' comparison with it, the other patural mo.des of com.m:Jni· eating ideas sink into insignificance. Still, the m~1n ~nd fundamental phenomenon, language, as the commumcah~n of ideas, was no new gift of the Creator to man ; and ID EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 161 ~tpeech itself, when we judge of it as a natural fact, we see only a result of some of those superior endowments of which so many others have fallen to our lot throuO'h the medium of an improved or advanced organization° The fir~t and most obvious natural endowment concerned in spet-!ch is that peculiar organization of the larynx, trachea, and mouth which enables us to produce th~ various sounds required in the case. Man started at first with this organization ready for use, a constitution of the atmosphere adapted for the sounds which that organization :was. calculated to produce, and, lastly, but not leastly, as Will afterwards be more particularly shown, a mental power within, pl'ompting to, and giving di1·ections for, the expression of ideas. Such an arrangement of mutually adapted things was as likely to produce sounds as an .LE'olian harp placed in a draught is to produce tones. It was unavoidable that human beings so organized, and in such a relation to external nature, should utter sounds, and also come to attach to these conventional meanings, thus fm·ming the elehlents of spoken language. Tho great difficulty which has be~n felt was to account for 1nan going in this respect beyond· the inferior animals. Thet·e could have been no such difficulty if speculators in this class of subjects had looked into physiology for an account of the superio1· vocal organization of man, and had the~ possessed a true science of mind to show man possessing a faculty for the expression of ideas which is only rudimental in the lower animals. Another difficulty has been in the consideration that, if men were at first: utterly untutored and barba1·ous, they could scarcely be in a con~ ition !o form or employ language-an instrument which 1t r~quues the fullest powers of thought to analyze and speculate upon. But this difficulty also vanishes upon reflection-for, in the first place, we are not bound to sup. po~e the .fathers of our rae~ early attaining to great proficiency In language; and, In the second, language itself seems to be amongst the least difficult to be acquired if we can form any judgment from what we see in childr~n, most of whom have, by thl'ee years of aO'e, while their informa~i?n .and judgment are. still as nothing, mastered an~ fam1hanze.d themselves ~iVIth a quantity of words, infinitely exceeding 111 proportwn what they acquire in the . ~ourse of any subsequent or similar portion of time. Discussions as to which parts of speech were fir~t 13 |