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confusion, not a creation. Let us observe the attempts of 
children to imitate articulate sounds, and we shall find them 
involuntarily substituting one letter for another. This is 
caused by the imperfect development of the organs of speech. A 
comparatively slight modification of the organs of adults would 
produce similar results. This would be sufficient to produce 
the primary result at the tower of Babel. Climate, associa- 
tion, and various habits and circumstances, would produce the 
rest. These thoughts would furnish an additional clue to the 
modern philological inquiries which have already yielded such 
excellent fruit. 
It is well for the interests of biblical science that the inves- 
tigations of modern philologers have been carried on inde- 
pendently of any conjectural theory of language. Those inves- 
tigations were too long confined to the cultivated forms of 
language, as seen in written works. Philologers have at length 
discovered that there is a mine of hidden wealth in the once 
neglected speech of uncultivated tribes. This has produced 
almost a literary revolution. 
By an extensive comparison of languages, that great instru- 
ment of human thought is far better understood, and its prin- 
ciples more truly appreciated. The various contrivances to 
express the shades of thought have been more distinctly seen, 
and language, as an instrument of thought, has been brought 
more clearly under the investigation of true philosophy. 
The words by which ideas are expressed can never be clearer 
than the ideas themselves. Where the latter are undefined, 
the words must have a corresponding indefiniteness. The Bible, 
as God speaking to man in human language, must be dealt 
with on the principles of human language. It is God's infal- 
lible revelation conveyed to us through a fallible instru- 
mentality. The contrivances resorted to by Divine wisdom to 
secure the infallibility of His word are truly wonderful, and 
yet they are all within the sphere of human agency. In the 
first place, the language of the Bible is to be examined as we 
examine that of any other book. If we are interpreting an 
author, we consider the times under which he wrote, his own 
circumstances and character, the state of the language in his 
time, the subjects on which he was writing, and similar 
matters. A poet, a historian, a metaphysician, or a lawyer, 
would not use certain words in the same exact meaning. The 
metaphors of poetry would be out of place in the discussions 
of metaphysics. The alcbv of Homer is not the alwv of Alex- 
andrine philosophy, nor again of the Rabbinical phraseology. 
In our own day the democrats of America are not to be classed 
with the democrats of England. In France, a Unitarian is one 
