396 



ON NATURAL OR INARTICULATE, AND 



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 a few superior persons acting in concert, 

 and inducing the multitude around them to adopt their articulate and arbi- 

 trary 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 

 afterwards 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 commu- 

 nicating ideas, which, under such circumstances, they must have possessed : 

 and that even allowing they couid have invented such a science, it must 

 still have been utterly impossible for them to have taught it to the barba- 

 rians around them. The argument is thus forcibly urged by Lucretius, 

 whom I must again beg leave to present in an English dress : — 



But to maiutain that one devis'd alone 

 Terms for all nature, and th' incipient tongue 

 Taught to the gazers round hinoj is to rave. 

 For how should he this latent pow^r possess 

 Of naming all things, and inventing speech, 

 If never mortal felt the same besides ? 

 And, if none tlse had e'er adopted sounds. 

 Whence sprang ihe knowledge o( their use ? or how 

 Could the first linguist, to the crowds around 

 Teach what he m-'an'd ? his sole unaided arm 

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

 The vocal science ; nor could aught avail 

 Of eloquence or wisdom ; nor with ease 

 Would the rain babbler have been long allow'd 

 To pour his noisy javgon o'er their cars.! 



In opposition to this theory, therefore, Epicurus and his disciples con- 

 tended, as I have just observed, that speech or articulate language is no- 

 thing more than a natural improvement upon the natural language of man, 

 produced by its general use, and that general experience which gives im- 

 provement to every thing. And such still continues to be the popular 

 theory of all those philosopiiers of the present day, who confine themselves 

 with the mere facts and piienoinena of nature, and allow no other autho- 



* See on this subject Hsirris's Hermes, book iii. p. 314. 327. and Beattie on the Theory of 

 Language, p. 246. Lond. 1803. 4to. 



1 Proinde, putare aliquem turn nomina distribnisae 

 Rebus, ei inde homioas didicisse vocabu^a prma, 

 Desipere est : uam qnnr hie posset caucta notare 

 Voctbus. et varies donilus finittere lioguse, 

 Tempore eodf ra alie> facere id ncn qufsse putentur? 

 PrtetercH, s( noo aliei quoqae rocibws usei 

 Inter 8« fucnujt, u»idc laHit*. n-itities est ? 

 Utili'.as etisA-*, tmde data ei;l hu:c. prsiia { otestas, 

 Qu>d vellet facti-e, \xi scirst, aini.uoqijfj vi j»;ret'/ 

 Cogcre item pJnieis uuuSv victosqye doriiars, 

 Non potfrat, rerura ut peroiiscere nomjjia reilent ; 

 Nec ratioae docire uHa, suadt req it ^urdis, 

 Quod sit opus facto ; faciles ncqne amm i>aterentur: 

 Nec ratioue uUa sibi ferrent araplius aureis 

 Vocis iouuditos sonitus obtundere frustra. 



De Rer. Nat. v. 1040. 



