180 



EARLY HISTORY DF MANKIND. 



only to fill up the waste places, but to supersede the im* 

 perfect nations already existing. Who can tell what pro- 

 gress may be made, even in a single century, towards re- 

 versing the proportions of the perfect and imperfect types ? 

 and who can tell but that the time during which the mean 

 types have lasted, long as it appears, may yet be thrown 

 entirely into the shade by the time during which the best 

 types will remain predominant ? 



We have seen that the traces of a common origin in all 

 languages afford a ground of presumption for the unity of 

 the human race. They establish a still stronger proba- 

 bility that mankind had not yet begun to disperse before 

 they were possessed of a means of communicating their 

 ideas by conventional sounds — in short, speech. This is 

 a gift so peculiar to man, and in itself so remarkable, that 

 there is a great inclination to surmise a miraculous origin 

 for it, although there is no proper ground, or even sup- 

 port, for such an idea in Scripture, while it is clearly op- 

 posed to everything else that we know with regard to the 

 Providential arrangements for the creation of our race. 

 Here, as in many other cases, a little observation of na- 

 ture might have saved much vain discussion. The real 

 character of language itself has not been thoroughly un- 

 derstood. Language, in its most comprehensive sense, is 

 the communication of ideas by whatever means. Ideas 

 can be communicated by looks, gestures, and signs of va- 

 rious other kinds, as well as by speech. The inferior an- 

 imals possess some of those means of communicating 

 ideas, and they have likewise a silent and unobservable 

 mode of their own, the nature of which is a complete 

 mystery to us, though we are assured of its reality by its 

 effects. Now, as the inferior animals were all in being 

 before man, there was language upon earth long ere the 

 history of our race commenced. The only additional 

 fact in the history of language, which was produced by 

 our creation, was the rise of a new mode of expression — 

 namely, that by sound-signs produced by the vocal or- 

 gans. In other words, speech was the only novelty ir, 

 this respect attending the creation of the human race 

 No doubt it was an addition of great importance, for, in 

 comparison with it, the other natural modes of communi- 

 cating ideas sink into insignificance. Still, the main and 

 fundamental phenomenon, language, as the communication 

 of ideas, was no new gift of the Creator to man ; and in 



