ON LEGIBLE LANGUAGE. 



30S 



simple statement of such supernatural communication, and such subse- 

 quent confusion of tongues, it would be a book that, independently of any 

 other information, would be amply entitled to our attention, for it would 

 bear an index of commanding authority on its own forehead. 



To pursue this argument would be to weaken it. Such a book is in 

 our hands — let us prize it. ft must be the word of God, for it has the 

 direct stamp and testimony of his works. 



LECTURE X. 



ON LEGIBLE LANGUAGE, IMITATIVE AND SYMBOLICAL. 



The subject of the vocal organs, and the scales of tones and terms to 

 which they give rise, which have just passed under review, led us progress- 

 ively into an inquiry concerning the nature of the voice itself; and the 

 origin of systematic or articulate language. 



Systematic or articulate language, however, as we have already observed, 

 is of two kinds!, oral and legible ; the one spoken, and addressed to the 

 ear, the other penned or printed, and addressed to the eye. It is this last 

 which constitutes the wonderful and important art of writing, and distin- 

 guishes civihzed man from savage man, as the first distinguishes man in 

 general from the brute creation. The connexion between the two is so 

 close, that although both subjects might, with the most perfect order, find 

 a place in some subsequent part of that comprehensive course of study 

 upon which we have even now but barely entered, I shall immediately 

 follow up the latter for the very reason that I have already touched upon 

 the former. It will, moreover, if I mistake not, afford an agreeable variety 

 to our philosophical pursuits ; a point, which ought no more to be lost 

 sight of in the midst of instruction than in the midst of amusement ; and 

 will form an extensive subject for useful reflection when the present series 

 of our labours shall have reached its close. 



Written language is of so high an antiquity, that, Hke the language of 

 the voice, it has been supposed, by a multitude of wise and good men in 

 all ages, to have been a supernatural gift, communicated either at the 

 creation, or upon some special occasion not long afterwards. Yet there 

 seems no satisfactory ground for either of ttiese opinions. That it was not 

 communicated like oral language at the creation of mankind, appears 

 highly probable, because, first, it by no means possesses the universality 

 which, under such circumstances, we should have reason to expect, and 

 which oral language displays. No tribe or people have ever been found 

 without a tongue ; but multitudes without legible characters. Secondly, 

 among the different tribes and nations that do possess it, it is far from 

 evincing that unity or similarity in the structure of its elements which, I 

 have already observed, is to 'be traced in the elements of speech, and 

 which must be the natural result of an origin from one common source. 

 The system of writing among some nations consists in pictures, or marks 

 representative of things ; among others in letters or marks symbolical of 

 sounds ; while, not unfrequently, the two systems are found in a state of 

 combination, and the characters are partly imitative ;ind partly arbitrary. 

 And thirdly, there does not seem to be the same necessity for a divine 

 interposition in the formation of written characters as in that of oral Ion- 



