268 



ON NATURAL OR INARTICULATE, AND 



formation: the only means he possessed of communicating and interchanging 

 his ideas. 



But whence, then, has artificial language arisen] That rich variety of 

 tongues which distinguishes the different nations on the earth ; and that won- 

 derful facility which is common to many of them of characterizing every 

 distinct idea by a distinct term ? 



And here such philosophers are divided : some contending that speech is a 

 science that was determined upon and inculcated in an early period of the 

 world, by one, or at least by a few superior persons acting in concert, and 

 inducing the multitude around them to adopt their articulate and arbitrary 

 sounds ; while others affirm that it has grown progressively out of the natural 

 language, as the increasing knowledge and increasing wants of mankind have 

 demanded a more extensive vocabulary.* 



Pythagoras first started the former of these two hypotheses, and it was 

 afterward adopted by Plato, and supported by all the rich treasure of his 

 genius and learning; but it was ably opposed by the Epicureans, on the ground 

 that it must have been equally impossible for any one person, or even for a 

 synod of persons, to have invented the most difficult and abstruse of all human 

 sciences, with the paucity of ideas, and the means of communicating ideas, 

 which, under such circumstances, they must have possessed: and that, even 

 allowing they could have invented such a science, it must still have been 

 utterly impossible for them to have taught it to the barbarians around them. 

 The argument is thus forcibly urged by Lucretius, whom I must again beg 

 leave to present in an English dress : — 



But, to maintain that one devis'd alone 

 Terms for all nature, and th' incipient tongue 

 Taught to the gazers round him, is to rave. 

 For how should he this latent power possess 

 Of naming all things, and inventing speech, 

 If never mortal felt the same besides? 

 And, if none else had e'er adopted sounds, 

 Whence sprang the knowledge of their use 1 or how 

 Could the first linguist to the crowds around 

 Teach what he meant ? his sole unaided arm 

 Could ne'er o'erpower them, and compel to leam 

 The vocal science ; nor could aught avail 

 Of eloquence or wisdom ; nor with ease 

 Would the vain babbler have been long allow'd 

 To pour his noisy jargon o'er their ears.f 



In opposition to this theory, therefore, Epicurus and his disciples contended, 

 as I have just observed, that speech or articulate language is nothing more 

 than a natural improvement upon the natural language of man, produced by its 

 general use, and that general experience which gives improvement to every 

 thing. And such still continues to be the popular theory of all those philo- 

 sophers of the present day who confine themselves to the mere facts and 

 phenomena of nature, and allow no other authority to control the chain of 

 their argument. Such, more especially, is the theory of Buffon, Linnaeus, and 

 Lord Monboddo ; who, overstepping the limits of the Epicurean field of rea- 



* See on this subject Harris's Hermes, book ii4. p. 314. 327 : and Beattie on the Theory of language, p 

 246, Lend. 1803, 4to. 



jProifi^e, putare aliquem turn nomina distribuisse 

 Rebus, et inde homines didicisse vocabula prima, 

 Desipere est : nam quur hie posset cuncta notare 

 Vocibus, et varios souitus emittere linguae, 

 Tempore eodem aliei facereid non quisse putentur? 

 Praeterea, si non aliei quoque vocibus usei 

 Inter se fuerant, unde insita notities est ? 

 Utilitas etiam, unde data est huic prima potestas, 

 Quid vellet facere, ut sciret, animoque videret? 

 Cogere item plureis unus, victosque domare, 

 Non poterat, rerum ut perdiscere nomina vellent : 

 Nec ratione docere uUa, suadereque surdis, 

 Quod sit opus facto ; faciles neque enim paterentur : 

 Nec ratione ulld sibi ferrent amplius aureis 

 Vocis inauditos sonitus obtundere frustra. 



De Rer. Nat. v. 1040. 



