414 FROM BRUTE 



he appropriated to pleasant things and conceptions.. 

 There agreement among those who used the language, 

 would be sufficient to stamp a vocal sound as the uame of 

 a certain object, where neither imitation nor analogy 

 suggested one. But these original roots, the simplest 

 form of substantives, would gradually become less and 

 less discernible as the language grew richer and more 

 intricate. Wherever new arts are practised, we may 

 easily find opportunities of watching the growth of new 

 names for its instruments and processes, guided by these 

 three principles, imitation, analogy, and mere con- 

 vention." 



■" These are but slender hints," says the author (now 

 Archbishop of York), ''of the direction in which profound 

 and acute researches have been made. And I do not 

 think that such attempts to dissect and analyze language, 

 pursued with proper caution, tend at all to lower our 

 estimate of the importance of the gift of speech, or of 

 its marvellous nature." This will, perhaps, be a con- 

 solatory admission to many persons. It is further not 

 without interest to find another highly acute and philoso- 

 phical Doctor of Divinity writing as follows * : — 



" In inquiring how far the same process, can account 

 for the invention of language, which now takes place in 

 the learning it, the real question at issue is simply this : 

 Is the act of giving names to individual objects of sense a 

 thing so completely beyond the power of a man created in 

 the full maturity of his faculties, that we must suppose a 

 Divine Instructor performing precisely the same office as 

 is now performed for the infant by his mother or his 

 nurse ; teaching him, that is, to associate tJds sound with 

 tJiis sight? " This question maybe asked in the interests 

 of a human race naturally evolved, with as much cogency 

 * Dr. Mansel, " Prolegomena Logica," p. 20. 



