324 



standing his usual attention to brevity, does not fail to 

 mention both these circumstances. Gen. chap, ii. 



On this foundation, further improvements might after- 

 wards have been superstructed, either by the invention of 

 new names for new objects, or by devising such modifica-r 

 tions, as should render the expression and discriminaition 

 of' the relations of objects to each other more precise and 

 accurate, during the long space of time that intervened 

 between the Creation and the Flood.* 



The primeval language must have been, at. first, mono- 

 syllabic, or, at least, dissyllabic; these being. the simplest 

 enunciations: but, ' soon «fter, it, for the most part, as- 

 sumed this last form, or became more compound ; these 

 forms being the most convenient for expressing the diffe- 

 rent relations, which objects bear to each other, and to 

 the vario\is modifications of existence, action, passion, and 

 adjacent circumstances; a'S such relations may :be denoted 

 by the variations of the terminating syllables. This mode 

 of signifying relations, is much more natural than that 

 employed in many ancient and modern languages; and, 

 therefore, must have preceded it. For, as a profound phi- 

 losopher, the celebrated Adam Smith, hath well observed, 

 to express a relation in this " manner, did not require any. 

 " effort of abstraction. It was not expressed, as in the 



" languages 



* 2256 years, by Mr. Jackson's chronology, wbicb I adopt. It differs little 

 from the Septuagint. 



