it were, to express things beyond the reach of expression;—the infinite range of being—the exquisite fineness of emotion — and the intricate subtleties of thought. Of such effect are those shadows of the soul, those living sounds which we call words! Compared with these, how poor are all other monuments of human power—of perseverance—or skill—or genius! They render the mere clown an artist; nations immortal; orators poets; philosophers divine.
As it is evident, that there is no instinctive articulated language, it becomes an inquiry of some importance, how mankind were first induced to fabricate articulate sounds; and to employ them for the purpose of communicating their thoughts. On this question, only two opinions can be formed. Language must either have been originally revealed from heaven, or the fruit of human invention. The greater part of the Jews, and the Christians, and even some of the wisest Pagans, have embraced the former opinion, which seems so far to be supported by the authority of Moses, that he represents the Supreme Being as teaching our first parents the names of animals. (Gen. ii. 19, 20.) The latter opinion is held by Diodorus Siculus, Lucretius, Horace, and many other Greek and Roman writers, who consider language as one of the arts invented by man. Amongst the moderns, Astle, in his celebrated work on the Origin and Progress of Writing, ranks foremost, for his elaborate defence of the human invention of alphabetical characters. The arguments of Mr. Astle, were, however, powerfully combated by an able critic in the Monthly Review, (Old Series) vol. lxxi. p. 271 ; Drs. Warburton, Delany, Johnson, Beattie, Blair, Gilbert Wakefield, Gale, in his Court of the Gentiles; Hartley, in his Observations on Man; Winder, in his History of Knowledge; Dr. Adam Clarke, in his Remarks on the Origin of Language; Horne, in his Introduction to the Study of Bibliography; the author of Conjectural Observations on the Origin and Progress of Alphabetical Writing; and Smith, of New Jersey, who think that language was originally from heaven, consider all accounts of its human invention as a series of mere suppositions, hanging loosely together, and the whole depending on no fixed principle.
The opinions of the Greek and Roman writers, frequently quoted in support of the human invention of language, are of no greater authority than the opinions of other men; for as language was formed, and brought to a great degree of perfection, long before the era of any historian with whom we are acquainted; their authority, who are comparatively of yesterday, gives them no advantage, in this inquiry, over the philosophers of France and England.
The oldest book extant, contains the only rational cosmogony known to the ancient nations; and that book represents the first human inhabitants of this earth, not only as reasoning and speaking animals; but also in a state of high perfection and happiness, of which they were deprived for disobedience to their Creator. Moses, setting aside his claim to inspiration, deserves, from the consistency of his narrative, at least as much credit as Mochus, or Democritus, or Epicurus; and from his higher antiquity, if antiquity on this subject could have any weight, he would deserve more, as having lived nearer to the period of which they all write. But the question respecting the origin of language may be decided, without resting on authority of any kind, merely by considering the nature of speech, and the mental and corporeal powers of man.
Those who maintain language to be of human invention, suppose men, at first, to have
