frequently the sign of the sun is traced over the heavens, from east to west, to indicate the lapse of a day, and precedes the motion."

3. "Combat. The clenched hands are held about as high as the neck, and five or six inches asunder, then waved two or three times laterally, to shew the advances and retreats of the combatants; after which the fingers of each hand are suffered to spring from the thumb towards each other, as in the act of sprinkling water, to represent the flight of missiles."

These facts seem to me to be not only curious, but to form a new and not unimportant accession to the Philosophy of the Mind. They illustrate, in a very striking manner, the instinctive propensity in our species to communicate their ideas to each other; and the variety of expedients (some of them by no means obvious) to accomplish this end, which necessity suggests to man even in his rudest state. The existence of an artificial language, consisting of visible signs, intelligible among all the Indian nations spread over the American Continent, is a fact which I do not recollect to have met with in any prior account of these interesting communities; and, if duly reflected on, may serve to diminish our wonder at the invention of oral speech,—an art to which many philosophers of high name have affirmed that the human faculties would have been altogether incompetent, without an express revelation for the purpose. Surely the ingenuity displayed in these visible signs is at least equal to what is requisite for giving audible names to surrounding objects, and for some of the succeeding steps in the

ent tribes hold intercourse with each other, may serve to illustrate a remark of Court de Gebelin in his Monde Primitif.

"Rien ne seroit plus aisé que de composer une grammaire du geste, et un dictionnaire du geste. C'est ce qu'avoient assez bien apperçu les religieux de l'ordre de Citeaux qui, vers la fin du seizième siècle, convinrent d'un certain nombre de signes pour leur tenir lieu de la parole: ils l'attachèrent le plus qu'ils

purent à les rendre imitatifs. Un doigt contre l'oreille, signifioit chez eux ouir; ôté de dessus l'œil, voir; pour l'opposé c'étoit l'action de fermer ces deux organes. Recevoir, c'étoit fermer la main; donner, c'étoit l'ouvrir. Se baigner, c'étoit passer sur la poitrine la main creuse, comme si elle contenoit de l'eau. La gorge serrée par la main désignoit la cessation de vie."-Monde Primitif, tome iii. pp. 106, 107.

formation of speech. The truth of this position will, I hope, be still more clearly evinced by some of the following speculations.

SECTION II.-OF ARTIFICIAL LANGUAGE.

It was before remarked, that, as ideas multiply, the imperfections of natural language are felt, and men find it necessary to invent artificial signs, of which the meaning is fixed by mutual agreement. Dumb people, who associate much together, soon invent a language of their own, consisting of visible signs; and the same thing happens in those convents and boardingschools, where a severe discipline prevents a free communication by means of ordinary speech.

Artificial signs may be divided into the visible and the audible. To the former class belong those signals by fire, which were so much in use among the ancients. The Greeks are even said to have invented a method of expressing, by the number and arrangement of torches, every letter of the alphabet, so that a guard on one eminence could converse with another at a distance, by spelling his words. A full and curious description of this method may be found in Polybius.

Another instance of a visible language occurs in that system of signals which is said to have been introduced into the British navy by James II.; and in the still more recent invention of the telegraph,—a contrivance which has been found to admit of a far more extensive and important application than could have been anticipated a priori; and which is probably still susceptible of farther improvements, tending to enlarge and accelerate the mutual intercourse of mankind.

If men had been destitute of the organs of speech, or of the sense of hearing, there can be no doubt that they might have contrived, by means of an alphabet of visible signs, to express all their ideas and feelings; as we see done by school-boys, who, for their amusement, denote the different letters by certain conformations and movements of the fingers. Such a language,

however, is attended with great inconveniences. It is useless in the dark, or when the person we are conversing with is removed to a considerable distance: nor does it enable us to call his attention, if his eye should happen to be otherwise engaged. To this may be added, that it is not susceptible of that rapidity which is necessary for the purposes of life. In all these respects, audible signs possess important advantages, more particularly in the last, in consequence of the wonderful adaptation of our powers of articulation to the perceptive powers of the human ear,—an organ, we may remark in passing, which is always open to the reception of sounds. It has been found that two thousand letters, when combined into words, may be pronounced in a minute of time, so that the sound of each letter may be distinctly heard.1 The infinite variety of modifications of which the voice is capable, enable us to add, in some measure, the expressiveness of natural signs to the conventional meaning of arbitrary words; while its musical modulations render language a vehicle of pleasure as well as information.

;

Among all nations, accordingly, audible signs form the established medium of intellectual communication, and the materials (as indeed the etymology of the words denotes) of what is commonly called LANGUAGE OF SPEECH ;—a wonderful art, infinitely diversified in the principles on which it has proceeded in different instances, and admitting of all possible degrees of perfection, from the uncouth jargon of a savage tribe, to the graces of which the most cultivated languages are susceptible, in the hands of the orator or the poet.

To this subject the attention of speculative men, both ancient and modern, has been directed in a singular degree, and many ingenious conclusions have been the result of their labours. The subject is indeed of vast extent, and with peculiar propriety may be said, in the words of Mr. Burke, "to branch out to infinity." To attempt to enumerate the various aspects under which it has been viewed by different authors, would be tedious and useless; but a few of them seem necessarily to fall under our plan, on account of their close connexion 1 Dr. Gregory's Conspectus Medicina Theoreticæ.

with the Philosophy of the Human Mind. Among these the first place seems due to the inquiry concerning the Origin and History of Language.

OF THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF LANGUAGE.

PART I.

As the acquisition of language, in the case of every individual, commences long before that period to which memory extends, it comes to be not only combined, but almost identified with all our intellectual operations; and, on a superficial view of the subject, appears inseparable from the principles of our constitution. Hence it happens, that, when we first begin to philosophize on it, and to consider what a vast and complicated fabric language is, it is difficult for us to persuade ourselves, that the unassisted faculties of the human mind were equal to the invention. It is justly remarked by Dr. Ferguson, that when language has attained to that perfection at which it arrives in the progress of society, "the speculative mind, in comparing the first and last steps of the progress, feels the same sort of amazement with a traveller, who, after rising insensibly on the slope of a hill, comes to look from a precipice of an almost unfathomable depth, to the summit of which he scarcely believes himself to have ascended without supernatural aid." It is interesting, therefore, to transport ourselves in imagination to the early periods of society, and to consider by what steps our rude forefathers must have proceeded in their attempts towards the formation of a language, and how the different parts of speech gradually arose. Upon this problem, accordingly, some of the most eminent of our modern philosophers have employed their ingenuity, and have suggested a variety of important observations. A few slight and unconnected reflections are all that I can propose to offer here.

Before proceeding farther, it is necessary to remark, that the object of the problem now mentioned, is not to ascertain an historical fact, but to trace the natural procedure of the mind,

in the use of artificial signs. In this speculation, therefore, it is not to be understood that we mean to prejudge the question, whether language be, or be not, the result of immediate revelation; but only to trace the steps which men, left entirely to themselves, would be likely to follow, in their first attempts to communicate their ideas to each other: For that the human faculties are competent to the formation of a language I hold to be certain; and, indeed, one great use of this very speculation is to explain in what manner this might have been accomplished, and by what easy transitions the various parts of speech might have arisen successively out of each other.

One of the most philosophical attempts yet made to delineate this progress is to be found in a dissertation of Mr. Smith's published at the end of his Theory of Moral Sentiments. When I say philosophical, I would be understood to speak of its general scope and design, for in its details it is certainly liable to some obvious and formidable objections. This dissertation does not seem ever to have attracted much of the public notice; though it was written by the author in early life, and was one of his favourite performances. It contains, unquestionably, several most important and luminous observations; and appears to me, on the whole, amply to deserve the partiality with which Mr. Smith always regarded it.1 It was first published, I have been told, in some London collection of fugitive pieces by different authors, and if it had never appeared elsewhere, it would long ago have sunk into oblivion. It was with a view of procuring for it a more general circulation that it was appended to the Theory of Moral Sentiments. From the unpretending simplicity with which it is written, it is so little calculated to draw the attention of common readers, that I recollect few instances of its being quoted by later writers; but it has had a visible effect on the speculations of many of them, particularly of those foreigners who have treated

1 The strongest proof of this partiality is, that it was republished by Mr. Smith a little before his death, at the end of a corrected and enlarged

edition of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, without the alteration, as far as I have observed, of a single word from the first impression.