354 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



Before I conclude this chapter, in which I have beftowed fo much 

 praife on M. GebeUn, and, I think, fo juftly, I cannot help obferv- 

 ing, that it appears to me very furprifmg, that a man fo learned, as 

 he is, in fo many different languages, Ihould know fo little of the 

 philofophy of language, as to maintain, that men have not only 

 from nature the organs of fpeech, but that they fpeak naturally, as 

 naturally as they breath ; and that they have from nature, alfo the 

 ideas which they exprefs by words, and, that the words are fo much 

 the natural figns of thofe ideas, that they are immediately underftood 

 by thofe who hear' them : So that two men meeting together, who 

 had learned no language, could communicate together by fpeech, 

 and underftand one another perfedly well. And this natural lan- 

 guage is what he calls the primitive language *. 



If this account of the -origin of language be true, I fee no reafon 

 why every art may not have been pradtifed by man, without teach- 

 ing or ufe, as well as this moft difficult art of language. And, ac- 

 cordingly, our author has faid f , that men, from the beginning, 

 knew the principles of aftronomy and the folar year : And he thinks, 

 that men were, in the very beginning of their exiftence upon this 

 earth, perfed; in all the arts of life ; fo that what is commonly cal- 

 led the natural ftate, never had any exiftence ; though he does not 

 deny, that men at this day are to be found in a very favage and bar- 

 barous ftate : But, fays he, thofe men are degenerated from what 

 they were originally ; and the reafon of this degeneracy, he fays, 

 has been conqueft, tyranny, and oppreffion|. 



How different this fyftem of human nature is from that which I 

 have delivered upon the authority of antient books, muft be evident 

 to every reader; and, indeed, it appears to me to be fo repugnant, 



not 



* Vol. ■^. p. 70. and following. ' 



t Vol. 8. p. 34. X Ibid. p. 16. 



