GOD IN NATURE. 145 
mental powers. Speech, the expression of the reasoning 
faculty, is man’s grand distinctive attribute; and its origin 
cannot be explained on any plausible hypothesis except that 
it is a Divine gift. Lyell admits that the origin of language, 
with its capacity for grammatical construction and the in- 
flections which denote number, time and quality, is a pro- 
found mystery ;* and in the context he enters a well-needed 
warning to us of confounding the doctrines of “ Variation ” 
and “ Natural Selection ” with Creational laws, in which case 
we should deify secondary causes or immeasurably exaggerate 
their influence. 
The language of primzval man was doubtless simple and 
its vocabulary limited, but it differed from the sounds 
emitted by the animals around him in its capacity for expan- 
sion, intlection, and grammatical construction. On the other 
hand, the roar of the hon, the cry of the hyena, and the 
jabberings of the ape are now probahly what they were 
thousands of years ago; they are incapable of being thrown 
into the forms of grammatical construction, and they are 
only used as expressions of the animal passions. May we 
not be permitted to include in the glories of speech the pro- 
ductions of the musical faculty, by which man is capable of 
expressing the noblest or most pathetic thoughts of his 
mind; by which he attempts to sing the praises of his 
Creator, or describe by sound feelings of joy, sorrow, love, or 
hatred? Sweet as are the notes of the thrush, the black- 
bird or the nightingale, they are only what they were 
hundreds or thousands of years ago, and are incapable of 
development or expansion. It is only the genius of man 
that can produce the symphonies of a Beethoven, or the 
anthems of a Handel and a Mendelssohn; and it is only 
mankind that can appreciate these masterful combinations 
and variations of sound. Similar conclusions, as Dr. Wallace 
has shown, may be drawn with regard to the mathematical 
and artistic faculties which are peculiar to man, and for the 
existence of which the theory of Natural Selection offers us 
no satisfactory explanation.t Finally, to man alone has 
been granted the gift of reason by which he can investigate 
the laws and conditions of the animate and physical world 
around him; by which he can compute the distances of the 
stars, or describe the motions of the planets, and by which 
he can place on record and transmit to posterity the 
* Antiquity of Man, 4th Edit., p. 518, + Darwinism, p. 461, et seq. 
