NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. 233 



most refined European nations. These are but a few 

 out of many facts tending to show that language is in a 

 great measure independent of civilisation, as far as its 

 advance and development are concerned. Do they not 

 also help to prove that cultivated intellect is not necessary 

 for the origination of language ? 



Facts daily presented to our observation afford equally 

 simple reasons for the almost infinite diversification of 

 language. It is invariably found that, wherever society 

 is at once dense and refined, language tends to be uni- 

 form throughout the whole population, and to undergo 

 few changes in the course of time. Wherever, on the 

 contrary, we have a scattered and barbarous people, we 

 have great diversities, and comparatively rapid altera- 

 tions of language. Insomuch that, while English, French 

 and German are each spoken with little variation by 

 many millions, there are islands in the Indian Archi- 

 pelago, probably not inhabited by one million, but in 

 which there are hundreds of languages, as diverse as are 

 English, French, and German. It is easy to see how 

 this should be. There are peculiarites in the vocal 

 organisation of every person, tending to produce pecu- 

 liarities of pronunciation ; for example, it has been stated 

 that each child in a family of six gave the monosyllable, 

 fly, in a different manner (eye, fy, ly, &c.), until, when 

 the organs were moi-e advanced, correct example induced 

 the proper pronunciation of this and similar words. 

 Such departures from orthoepy are only to be checked 

 ])y the power of such example ; but this is a power not 

 always present, or not always of sufficient sti-ength. 

 The able and self-devoted Robert Moffat, in his work on 

 South Africa, states, without the least i-egard to hypo- 

 thesis, that amongst the people of the towns of that great 

 region, " the purity and harmony of language is kept up 



