On Figurative Language. 93 
only an argument ex ignorantia. No one, I 
suppose, will presume to say, that the pro- 
nouns, and verb substantive, were at a certain 
stage, in every language, coined by a council 
of philologers, entirely de novo, from the 
chaotic mass of unformed sounds. This 
surely is wholly inadmissible. Their formation 
according to the method here supposed, is as 
probable as any other, if not more so. They 
are words, which in comparison with the other 
words of which speech is composed, are ex- 
ceedingly few in number, and for that reason, 
though abundantly useful, are the least neces- 
sary for abridging the process of communi- 
cation, and perhaps were of late invention. 
By the same process, by which proper names 
became appellatives, might names of very 
frequent use, as nominatives to verbs, become 
pronouns. Hence, it appears to me highly 
_ probable, that pronouns are nothing but frag- 
ments of some names or words of very fre- 
quent recurrence, which men _ gradually 
learned to substitute for the proper names of 
the persons or things frequently repeated, and 
by which they obviated a very evident and 
awkward inconvenience. 
If it be admitted, conformably to the theory 
above stated, that the first language of men 
was nouns, or the names of sensible objects, 
