246 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 



of our nature are called into exercise. When, on the contrary, 

 there is leisure and abundance, the self-seeking and self- 

 preserving instincts are allowed to rest, the gentler and more 

 generous sentiments are evoked, and man becomes that courteous 

 and chivalric being which he is found to be amongst the upper 

 classes of almost all civilized countries. These, then, may be 

 said to be the chief natural laws concerned in the moral phe- 

 nomenon of civilization. If I am right in so considering them, 

 it will, of course, be readily admitted that the earliest families 

 of the human race, although they might be simple and inno- 

 cent, could not have been in anything like a civilized state, 

 seeing that the conditions necessary for that state could not 

 have then existed. Let us only for a moment consider some 

 of the things requisite for their being civilized, namely, a 

 set of elegant homes ready furnished for their reception, fields 

 ready cultivated to yield them food without labour, stores of 

 luxurious appliances of all kinds, a complete social enginery 

 for the securing of life and property, and we shall turn from 

 the whole conceit as one worthy only of the uninstructed 

 mind. 



Language is a gift so peculiar to man, and in itself so re- 

 markable, that there is a great inclination to surmise a mira- 

 culous origin for it ; although there is no proper ground, or 

 even support, for such an idea in Scripture, while it is clearly 

 opposed to everything else we know with, regard to the provi- 

 dential arrangements for the creation of our race. Here, as in 

 other cases, a little observation of nature might have saved 

 much vain discussion. The real character of language itself 

 has not been thoroughly understood. Language, in its most 

 comprehensive sense, is the communication of ideas by what- 

 ever means. Ideas can be communicated by looks, gestures, 

 and signs of various other kinds, as well as by speech. The 

 inferior animals possess some of those means of communicating 

 ideas, and they have likewise a silent and unobservable mode 

 of their own, the nature of which is a complete mystery to us, 

 though we are assured of its reality by its effects. Now, as the 

 inferior animals were all in being before man, there was lan- 

 guage upon earth long ere the history of our race commenced. 

 The only additional fact in the history of language, which was 

 produced by our creation, was the rise of a new mode of ex- 

 pression namely, that by sound-signs produced by the vocal 

 organs. In other words, speech was the only novelty in this 

 respect attending the creation of the human race. No doubt 



