FACULTIES OF THE MIND. 291 



conclusion, that their language, though originally derived 

 from the saftie stock, will lose the resemblance, as those 

 who use it recede from barbarism ; and after the arts of life 

 have been introduced and science cultivated, we shall find 

 scarcely the remnants of a common origin. 



If these remarks are founded in truth, we may expect to 

 find the language of a country exhibiting peculiar features, 

 marking the different stages of the civilization of its inhabi- 

 tants. In the ruder periods of society, the sounds which are 

 employed will be scanty, like the ideas they are intended to 

 represent. Those objects only will receive names which arc 

 immediately subsprvpnt to the purposes of existence ; the 

 words expressive of action will indicate only sudden transi- 

 tions ; and, in addition to their literal import, the various 

 terms will be employed in a figurative sense, to mark the 

 conditions of an event which the language is yet unable to 

 describe. Again, in the more advanced periods of society, 

 we may expect to find the signs by which natural objects 

 are designated, extended in consequence of enlarged know- 

 ledge of their number and qualities. The words expres- 

 sive of action will not only be more numerous, but capable 

 of marking all its conditions with a greater degree of pre- 

 cision. The increase of the signs indicative of the arts of 

 life, government, and social pleasure, will denote the march 

 of the tribe to the attainment of knowledge, wealth, and 

 power. Deficiency of expression, therefore, will mark the 

 infant state of society, and copiousness, the advances of civi- 

 lization. That the progress of language actually exhibits 

 such a gradation of character, does not appear in this place 

 to require demonstration. 



In a civilized country, language is exposed to the influ- 

 ence of many subordinate causes of change. It has already 

 been stated, that the number of individuals engaging in the 



improvement of the same arts, in the enlargement of the 



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