228 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 



of mankind as only the result of so many gradations in the 

 developing power of the human mothers, is favourable to the 

 doctrine of one origin ; but it cannot be considered as 

 settling the question, seeing that separate developments may 

 have attained various points in the scale of the human organi- 

 zation as one of the pachydermatous lines has reached the 

 full equine form in Asia, but only the comparatively humble 

 quagga in Africa. 



We have seen that the traces of a common origin in all 

 languages afford a ground of presumption for the unity of at 

 least the principal portion of the human race. They establish 

 a still stronger probability that that portion of mankind had 

 not yet begun to disperse before they were possessed of a 

 means of communicating their ideas by conventional sounds 

 in short, speech. This is a gift so peculiar to man, and in 

 itself so remarkable, that there is a great inclination to 

 surmise a miraculous origin for it, although there is no 

 proper ground, or even support, for such an idea in Scripture, 

 while it is clearly opposed to everything else we know with 

 regard to the providential arrangements for the creation of 

 our race. Here, as in other cases, a little observation of 

 nature might have saved much vain discussion. The real 

 character of language itself has not been thoroughly under- 

 stood. Language, in its most comprehensive sense, is the 

 communication of ideas by whatever means. Ideas can be 

 communicated by looks, gestures, and signs of various other 

 kinds, as well as by speech. The inferior animals possess 

 some of those means of communicating ideas, and they have 

 likewise a silent and unobservable mode of their own, the 

 nature of which is a complete mystery to us, though we are 

 assured of its reality by its effects. Now, as the inferior 

 animals were all in being before man, there was language 

 upon earth long ere the history of our race commenced. 

 The only additional fact in the history of language, which 

 was produced by our creation, was the rise of a new mode of 

 expression namely, that by sound-signs produced by the 

 vocal organs. In other words, speech was the only novelty 

 in this respect attending the creation of the human race. No 



