Chap.XIV. ANTIENT METx\PHYSICS. 267 



That men do not fpeak naturally, but muft have learned it by 

 teaching or imitation, is evident; and it is as evident, that they could 

 not have taught themfelves, any more than dumb men could teach 

 themfelves. They muft, therefore, have been taught by others; but 

 thefe others muft have been firft taught themfelves. Now, who 

 taught them, fmce they could not teach themfelves ? And, I fay, it 

 was not men fuch as they were, or fuch as we are, but fuperior intelli- 

 gences, fuch as the Dasmon Kings of Egypt were. I hold it, there- 

 fore, to be certain, that the moft barbarous languages, and the moft 

 defe£live and impcrfeft in their articulation, were not invented by 

 the nations that fpeak them, nor by men fuch as we, but proceeded 

 from fuperior intelligences. I have faid, in other parts of my writ- 

 ings upon language, that men in certain countries may have heard 

 fuch birds as the cuckoo or cocketvo^ to which the articulation of thefe 

 founds is natural, and may have imitated thefe founds : This, how- 

 ever, is only pofTible. But it is not at all probable, that hearrng thofe 

 birds only at certain feafons of the year, and then only occafional- 

 ly, men Ihould have learned to have imitated thefe founds; for it is 

 only by hearing articulate founds daily and conftantly, that we learn 

 to give fuch a pofition to our organs, and to put them in fuch an 

 adion, as to make us pronounce them. But if it were pofTible 1 

 think it impoflible, that out of fuch fimple articulate founds, as the 

 names of thofe birds, any language, even the moft imperfed in its 

 articulation, could have been formed. What, therefore, I have all 

 along fuppofed, in the courfe of what I have written upon lano-ua^-e 

 that it could not have been invented by men, at leaft not without 

 fupernatural afTiftance, I hold to be certainly true. And this may 

 fuffice at prefent, with refpedt to the material part of language. 



As to the formal part, I think it is evident, that a language of art, 

 of which 1 am now to fpeak, could not have been formed except 



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