FACULTIES OF THE MIND. 287 



much more powerfully in the production of different lan- 

 guages, than varieties in the structure of the organs em- 

 ployed, or rather that organical differences exercise but 

 feeble influence, we may state, that our capability of learn- 

 ing to speak a strange language, does not depend on any 

 peculiar provincial or national structure of the organs, ori- 

 ginating in a peculiar state of the larynx, and strengthen- 

 ed by the custom and habits of generations. There is not 

 one organical conformation qualifying one to speak Ger- 

 man, another to speak French, and a third to speak Eng- 

 lish. The organs of these nations are the same, and their 

 capabilities the same. There is no predisposition to speak 

 one language more than another. Hence, although we 

 admit the complicated nature of the vocal organs, and the 

 constitutional differences which they exhibit, we perceive 

 that these offer no obstacle to the acquisition of any lan- 

 guage, since, in the words of one of the" most celebrated 

 anatomists of the age, who nevertheless is disposed to refer 

 the variety of languages chiefly to circumstances connected 

 with the vocal organs, " all children acquire the tones> 

 accents, and articulations of those countries in which they 

 are educated ; an evident proof, that, prior to the forma- 

 tion of habits, the vocal muscles may be brought to act in 

 any one of the numerous millions of combinations that have 

 ever been adopted by any tribe, family, or nation of the 

 human race, and be made to acquire the habit of pronoun- 

 cing, with readiness and ease^ any one of the almost infinite 

 variety of languages that have been, that are, or that ever 

 shall be on the face of the globe *." Since, then, the con- 

 dition of the organs exercises but a feeble influence in the 



* A New Anatomical Nomenclature by JOHN BARCLAY, M. D. Edin* 

 1803, p. 79. 



