OP THE LENNI I.ENAPE INDIANS. 95 



tation on the origin of language subjoined to his Theory of 

 Moral Sentiments, and who has been highly applauded for 



this discovery. (I'd not surely consider thai before the Indans 

 could have combined their ideas, and arranged them in re- 

 gular oitler in the forms in which they now appear, they 

 must first have analysed them, otherwise they could not have 

 discovered their analogies and adhered to them so closely. 

 But in this they did not proceed as philosophers Would have 

 done in their closets ; the operations of nature are much 

 quicker than those of science, and perhaps are not the less 

 sure. I leave it to others to explain the details of this pro- 

 cess ; my task is to exhibit the facts, not to trace them to 

 their origin. 



I am not an enthusiastic or exclusive admirer of the In- 

 dian lamrua^es, and am far from being disposed to assert 

 thai their forms are superior to those of others. Compa- 

 risons on such subjects appear to me idle, and can lead to 

 no useful results. Language is the instrument of thought 

 and must always he adequate to its object. Therefore no 

 language has yet been and probably never will be found, des- 

 titute of forms; for without them none can exist. By forms 

 I do not mean only inflexions of words and the like: I 

 mean every regular and methodical arrangement of the ele- 

 ments of speech for practical purposes. This the Chinese 

 have as well as the Delaware's, although in vulgar accepta- 

 tion it is commonly said that the Chinese idiom has no 

 forms. Like every thing else in nature, the forms of lan- 

 guage, are various, and in that variety consists die chief 

 beauty of the works of the Almighty Creator. A lan- 

 guage, it is true, may lie more or less adapted to certain 

 objects. Some aie more poetical than other-, while there 

 are those which are better suited to the perspicuity of 

 logical reasoning. But it is only after they have been 

 moulded by the hand ol' genius that this particular cha- 

 racter becomes apparent. Who can say what Homer 

 would have produced if he had had for his instrument 

 the language of the Lenni Lenape? This, however, we 



