152 SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY OP MAN. 



an increasing ratio of rapidity ; that new disco- 

 veries, new combinations, and new improvements 

 are daily, nay hourly, making, though we know- 

 full well that the human mind is finite, yet who shall 

 venture to fix a boundary, beyond which man shall 

 not pass in his gigantic progress to intellectual per- 

 fection. " What a piece of work is man ! How 

 noble in reason ! how infinite in faculties! In form 

 and moving, how express and admirable ! in action, 

 how like an angel ! in apprehension, how like a 

 God ! the beauty of the world ! the paragon of 

 animals !" 



The last characteristic distinction between man 

 and inferior animals to which we shall advert, is 

 the power of speech allotted to the former. To 

 this, and the invention of writing consequent upon 

 it, man owes a large portion of his superiority. 

 This power is acquired, not connate in man, like 

 the cries uttered by different animals. Some have 

 supposed that the want of speech in brutes is 

 owing 1 to defective conformation, to an absence of 

 articulating organs. But this opinion is evidently 

 without foundation. The tongue of a monkey is as 

 well formed for all the purposes of speech as that 

 of a man, yet a monkey cannot speak. That the 

 inability to speak results from no organic defect, is 

 clearly proved by the fact of several animals being 

 taught to articulate words and sentences. But this 

 is not speaking; they repeat the sounds like a 

 machine, with no idea whatever of their signifi- 

 cation. 



