OF NATURAL HISTORY. 157 



ors, gratitude, are all difcoverable in the brute creation. Neither is 

 art denied to them. They build in various ftyles ; they dig; they 

 wage war ; they extradt peculiar fubftances from water, from plants, 

 from the earth ; they modulate their voices fo as to communicate 

 their wants, their fentiments, their pleafures and pains, their appre- 

 henfions of danger, and their profpedts of future good. Every fpe- 

 cies has its own language, which is perfetflly underftood by the in- 

 dividuals. They afk and give afTiftance to each other. They fpeak 

 of their neceffities ; and this branch of their language is more or lefs 

 extended, in proportion to the number of their wants. Geftures and 

 inarticulate founds are the figns of their thoughts. It is necefTary 

 that the fame fentiments ihould produce the fame founds and the 

 fame movements ; and, confequently, each individual of a fpecies 

 muft have the fame organization. Birds and quadrupeds, according- 

 ly, are incapable of holding difcourfe to each other, or communi- 

 cating the ideas and feehngs they poflefs in common. The lan- 

 guage of gefture prepares for that of articulation ; and fome ani- 

 mals are capable of acquiring a knowledge of articulate founds. 

 They firft judge of our thoughts by our geftures ; and afterwards 

 acquire the habit of conneding thefe thoughts with the language in 

 which we exprefs them. It is in this manner that the elephant and 

 the dog learn to obey the commands of their mafters. 



Infants are exactly in the fame condition with brutes. They^ 

 underftand fome of our geftures and words long before they can 

 articulate. They difcover their wants by geftures and inarticulate 

 founds, the meaning of which the nurfe learns by experience. Dif- 

 ferent infants have different modes of expreffing their wants. This 

 is the reafon why nurfes know the intentions of infants, though 

 they are perfedly unintelligible to ftrangers. When an infant, ac- 

 eordingly,. is transferred from one nurfe to another, the former in- 



ftruOs. 



