56 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IL 



overfeer made by the ftrokcs of his tail, he gave his orders to the 

 Beavers, after they were aflembled, by muttering or mumbling, as 

 our Author exprefles it. This, I fuppofe, to have been a method of 

 communication among thofe Animals, fomething like that gaggling 

 by which the two wild men in the Difmal Swamp of Virginia com- 

 municated, or like that noife which Herodotus, in the paflage I quo- 

 ted above, fays the Troglodytes of Ethiopia made, which he com- 

 pares to the cry of bats *. 



Befides the beaver, there are two other Animals, which I have 

 mentioned in the Firft Volume of the Origin and Progrefs of Lan- 

 guage t ; ttic one called Baubacis.^ the other the Sea Cat. Each 

 of thefe kinds of Animals live in community, carry on a joint bufi- 

 nefs and a very exad: government, without the ufe of fpeech, or 

 the capacity of acquiring it. Thefe inftances I have given, rather 

 than the common ones of the Bees and Ants ; firft, becaufe fuch a- 

 nimals as the Beaver, Baubacis, and Sea Cat, come much nearer to 

 our Species than Ants or Bees ; and, fecondly, becaufe we can ob- 

 ferve their operations better, being Animals of fo much greater 

 fize. 



And thus, I think, it is proved, not only from particular fads, 

 but from the analogy of Nature, and that lefemblance which we 

 muft fuppofe to be between us, in our natural ftate, and other Ani- 

 mals herding together, that a joint work may be carried on, with- 

 out the ufe of that method of communication we call Language. I 

 have infifted the more upon this, that I think it was abfolutely ne- 

 CcfTary for the invention of Language, that ' men fhould have firft 

 herded together, and formed a fociety for carrying on fome bufinefs 



* Lib. iv. Cap. 183. 



t Lib. ii. cap. 12. p. 42^. Second Edition. 



