120 A N T I E N T M E T A P H Y S I C S. Book I!. 



we have any perception or idea, and although, by the three arts a- 

 bove-menlioned, we may have connedted together a prodigious 

 number of words, fo as to make them comprehenfible In the memory, 

 and applicable to ufe ; yet dill there is fomething wanting to com- 

 plete the art of language; — a thing of fuch confequence, that without 

 it all the other things I have mentioned would be of no ufe for the 

 purpofe of fpeech. And this fo neceflary thing is what is called Syn- 

 tax, by which the words are fo connected together, and their rela- 

 tion to one another fo marked, as to make fpeech or difcourfe ; for 

 if they were not fo conneQed, though we might underrtand the 

 fenfe of every word the fpeaker ufes, we could not make out his 

 meaning. This art, therefore, is, as I have faid, the completion of 

 the grammatical art ; and it is performed in the learned languages 

 chiefly by one of the three arts above-mentioned, namely, JleSiion^ 

 but in the modern languages of Europe, chiefly by juxta-pofition. 

 But of fyntax I will fay no more here, as I have treated of it at 

 great length in the Origin of Language, vol. II. book III. chap. I. 



In this manner, I hope, I have convinced the reader, that lan- 

 guage is not only an art, but the greateft as well the mod ufeful 

 art among men, and of mod difficult invention, being a wonderful 

 compofition of what may be called the mechanical ufe of our organs 

 of fpeech, by which articulation is formed ;— of mufical founds, by 

 which the pronunciation of language is fo much adorned ; — and, 

 laftly, of fcience, by which it is reduced to rule and made a per- 

 fedl art. 



What makes many people believe that language is natural to us, 

 is, that we learn it when we are children, and can fpeak it, when we 

 are grown up, fluently and correctly, if we have been educated a- 

 mong people that fpeak it fo, without knowing any thing of the 

 art of it. But it is by imitation, not by teaching, that we learn to 

 fpeak, as well as to do many other things ; for man, as Ariftotle 



has 



