Chap. I. A N T I E N T M E T A P H Y S I C S. 109 



As articulation is efTential to language, I will begin with confider- 

 ing the nature of it ; and I trufi: to make it appear, that this alone 

 is fo complicated and various an operation, that if there were no- 

 thing more in language, it muft appear a work of the greateft art, 

 and altogether of art j.for nature has done no more than to furnifli 

 us with the organs of this fo artificial operation. So that, articu- 

 late founds, the materials of language, are, as I have faid, intirely of 

 cur own produdtion. — And here we may obferve the difference be- 

 twixt mufic and language. Nature has not only given us an organ 

 for mufic ; but we have naturally in our voice the variation of 

 grave and acute, which are the materials of which mufic is formed. 



The organs of pronunciation are the throat, the larynx, the- 

 tongue, the palate, the teeth, and the lips ; all of them, as I have 

 obferved, out of fight, (except the two lad mentioned,) and their 

 operations very nice and delicate. As they are for the greater part 

 concealed, their operations are not perceptible by our fenfes ; but if 

 we faw them, as we fee the operations of our hands, we fhould, I 

 am perfuaded, admire them very much. Thefe organs, which I have 

 mentioned, conftitute what Mr Gebelin, an author whom I fhall 

 frequently quote in the fequel, calls our vocal injlniment. He has 

 very minutely and accurately defcribed it in the 6th chapter of the 

 third volume of his Monde Primitif. According to his defcription 

 of it, it is a very complicated machine : And if we can fet It ago- 

 ing, and work it by nature merely, without Inftrudion or exam- 

 ple, and without pra^flice or obfervation, as fome imagine, I think 

 there is no machine that we may not work in the fame manner, nor 

 any thing of art that we may not perform by mere inftind. I will 

 not repeat what M. Gebelin has faid at fo great length in the chapter 

 above quoted ; it is fufFicient for my purpofe to obferve, that the 

 breath, which comes from our lungs, and, pafling through the wind- 

 pipe, goes out at our mouths, is the material of which fpeech is 



compofed. 



