290 PHILOSOPHY OF ZOOLOGY. 



the same people, the language is perpetually undergoing 

 change. We must, however, place some restriction upon 

 the admission. Among an uncivilised people, new objects, 

 new wants, new employments, seldom arise, so that the ne- 

 cessity of adding to the number of established terms, or 

 enlarging or fixing their meaning, seldom occurs. Hence 

 we may expect the language of a barbarous people to con- 

 tinue stationary, or to alter merely with the progress of im- 

 provements. Is it civilization, therefore, that we must 

 look to for those circumstances, by which words are fabri- 

 cated and language altered. 



When man, instead of resting satisfied with the fruits 

 which the earth spontaneously furnishes, or with the beasts 

 of chase, begins to cultivate the fields, to domesticate ani- 

 mals, and to rear them, to build houses, and to engage in 

 trade, he is compelled to invent a host of names to desig- 

 nate his new possessions, and the means by which he has 

 acquired them. With the progress of the arts, therefore, 

 there will be a corresponding enlargement of the number 

 of signs, by which the objects produced, and the instru- 

 ments used, may be known. When the acquisition of 

 wealth has given to man an opportunity to rest from bodily 

 labour, and occupy his thoughts in reflection ; when he 

 begins to examine the laws of nature, and the constitu- 

 tion of his body and mind, he acquires new ideas, adopts 

 new modes of action, creates to himself new scenes, and 

 thus calls for an addition to the signs already in use, to 

 enable him to express the variety of knowledge which he 

 has obtained. In proportion as the number of those who 

 cultivate the arts and sciences increases, so will the words 

 of language multiply, until different terms shall be employ- 

 ed to express even the same object or action. If we sup- 

 pose each particular tribe thus proceeding on the march 

 of improvement, each inventing new terms, influenced by 

 all the localities of their condition, we shall arrive at the 



