ARTICULATE OR ARTIFICIAL LANGUAGE. 



nty to control the chain of their argument, ^uch, more especially, is the 

 theory of Buffbn, Linneus, and Lord Monboddo ; who, overstepping the 

 limits of the Epicurean field of reasoning, and the articles of the Epicurean 

 belief, concur, as I have already remarked, in deriving the race of man from 

 the race of monkeys, and in exhibiting the orang-otang, as his dignified 

 prototype and original, whom they have hence denominated the satyr or 

 man of the woods. 



I shall not exhaust the time or insult the understanding of this auditory by 

 any detailed confutation of the new and adscititious matter contained in 

 this modernized edition of the Epicurean theory ; matter of which the Gre- 

 cian sage himself would have been ashamed ; and which is directly con- 

 tradicted by the anatomical configuration of various and important parts of 

 this animal itself; concerning which, it is scarcely necessary to recall to 

 your recollection the remark we have just made — that whilst it approaches 

 nearest to the form, it is farthest removed from the language of man of 

 almost all quadrupeds whatever. 1 shall confine myself to the fair ques- 

 tion, which the theory in its original shape involves ; — is human speech, 

 thus proved to be incapable of origin by any compact or settled system, 

 more likely to have originated from a succession of accidents — from the 

 casual but growing wants, or the casual but growing improvements of 

 mankind ? 



Now admitting the afl[irmative of this question, we have a right to ex- 

 pect that the language of a people will always be found commensurate 

 with their civilization : that it will hold an exact and equal pace with their 

 degree of ignorance, as well as with their degree of improvement. It so 

 happens, however, that although language, whatever be its origin, is the 

 most difficult art or science in the world, (if an art or science at all) it is the 

 art or science in which savages of all kinds exhibit more proficiency than 

 in any other. No circumnavigator has ever found them deficient in this 

 respect, even where they have been wofully deficient in every thing else ; 

 and while they have betrayed the grossest ignorance in regard to the sim- 

 plest toys, baubles, and implements of European manufacture, there has 

 been no difficulty, as soon as their language has been, I will not say ac- 

 quired, but even dipped into, of explaining to them the difierent uses and 

 intentions of these articles in their own terms. 



Again : there is in all the languages of the earth a general unity of prin- 

 ciple, which evidently bespeaks a general unity of origin ; a family charac- 

 ter and likeness which cannot possibly be the effect of accident. The 

 common divisions and rules of one language are the common divisions and 

 rules of the whole ; and, hence, every national grammar is, in a certain 

 sense, and to a certain extent, an universal grammar ; and the man who 

 has learnt one foreign tongue, has imperceptibly nuide some progress to- 

 wards a knowledge of other tongues. In all countries, and in all languages, 

 there is only one and the same set of articulations, or at least the differ- 

 ences are so few, that they can scarcely interfere with the generality of the 

 assertion : for diversities of language consist not in different sets of articu- 

 lations, but only in a difference of their combinations and applications. No 

 people have ever been found so barbarous as to be without articulate 

 sounds, and no people so refined and fastidious as to have a desire of add- 

 ing to the common stock. 



But, independently of an uniform circle of articulations, and an uniform 

 system of grammar, there is also an uniform use of the very same terms, 

 in a great variety of languages, to express the verv same ideas ; which, 



