144 LIFE ON THE EARTH. 



But as regards human speech, ' the joint energy of our 

 best and noblest faculties,' we cannot confine it within 

 any such naked definition. This capacity in man, due 

 in part to the peculiar anatomy of the vocal organs, but 

 more, we may affirm, to cerebral organisation, assumes 

 in its cultivation and results a far more exalted aspect. 

 Without entering on the wide question, now actively 

 discussed, as to the origin, structure, diffusion, and 

 divergence of languages, it is enough to say that the 

 faculty of speech, nurtured and perfected in its various 

 forms, and robing itself in those written characters 

 which spread a silent but living speech over the globe, 

 has done more than any other endowment in giving to 

 man his peculiar position in the animal world. Sup- 

 pose for a moment the annihilation of language, spoken 

 and written, and in place of it an intercourse by ges- 

 ture or brute sounds, ' vox et preeterea nihil,' and think 

 how vast the void that would ensue, how great the 

 degradation of man's nobility and supremacy ! Those 

 higher powers and workings of genius which have pro- 

 cured for some men the veneration of all ages, would 

 have been dormant and fruitless, had this wonderful 

 mechanism of language not come in aid. Take the 

 very highest of these human achievements, and see 

 how much depends on prior knowledge, gathered from 

 the labours of generations gone by ; which labours 

 would have been lost but for this manner of transmis- 

 sion from age to age. Knowledge is correlative in 

 every sense of the word. Insulate the human mind, 

 and its supremacy is impaired or lost. We have evi- 

 dence of this in those nomadic and other races where 



