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radical sounds in father and mother come from some primary root to be found 
in Pa and Ma, it would prove nothing for the one theory more than the 
other, even if true. It is akin to what Max Muller calls the “ bow-wow 
theory ” of language, in which I have no faith whatever. Children are taught 
to say Pa and Ma in the nursery, and it is natural that they should imitate 
the Baa of the sheep, when they can do little else as babies. But, if that is 
a true theory for language beyond the nursery, how is it that in no language 
whatever, so far as I am aware, the sheep is, after all, called a Baa ? It is 
not so in Latin, where we have ovis and agnus for what in English we call a 
sheep and a lamb. It is not so in Greek or in French, and perhaps not in any 
other tongue ; and therefore the theory requires no other refutation : it is 
not founded on any facts. As regards the monogenist theory, on the other 
hand, you have not only the Holy Scriptures which give you the hypothesis, 
but you have those extraordinary coincidences of similarity in language which 
Dr. Thornton has so ably brought before us, in support of it. You have, 
also, the high perfection of the Sanskrit language, though one of the oldest ; 
♦and that is in accordance with the idea that God created man not only a 
perfect being, but with a perfect faculty of speech, or perfect instrument of 
thought. And, indeed, it could not have been otherwise, if you once admit 
the theory that God created man in a state of perfection. It will be my 
duty a fortnight hence to bring forward some arguments against the contrary 
notion that God might have created man imperfect. If, however, you adopt 
the Scriptural account, and admit that speech was a gift of God, there is still 
a question which perhaps may be raised, as to whether that gift was not at 
first limited to the power of giving things names. Dr. Thornton appears to lean 
to this view. To give names to objects would no doubt be naturally one of the 
first exercises of that power ; but I can see no reason for believing that it had 
any such limitation. The idea of action or of motion is inseparable from the 
observance of living beings, and is as definite as the idea of the existence of 
things themselves ; and therefore verbs to express such ideas are as essential 
to intelligent thought and intelligible speech as substantives. If there is any 
part of Dr. Thornton’s valuable paper with which I did not go, it is what 
relates to this. But I do not agree with Mr. Warington that the learned 
Doctor overlooked the grammatical differences or agreements in language, to 
which Mr. Warington has called special attention. Mr. Crawfurd and other 
ethnologists I know are of opinion that grammatical inflection is a matter of 
the greatest importance in determining the family of a dialect. Granting 
that man was created a perfect being, he must have been endowed with the 
capacity of speaking what he was obliged to think. He would at the very 
first have to think of the power of God as his Creator, and of his own relative 
position upon earth. According to Revelation, he had to think, in his commu- 
nications with the Deity himself ; but that is beyond our present range of con- 
ception, as it relates to what is supernatural. But at all events, after the crea- 
tion there is nothing in the Scriptural account to lead us to the conclusion that 
man had to invent his language. And, in point of fact, now, we never invent 
words: we either borrow them, or we modify them, to suit new ideas. And if we 
