hand, there seems to have been an absolute necessity for speech, previous to the formation of society. For, by what bond could any multitude of men be kept together, or be made to join in the prosecution of any common interest, until once, by the intervention of speech, they could communicate their wants and intentions to one another? So that, either how society could form itself previously to language, or how words could rise into a language previously to society formed, seem to be points attended with equal difficulty. And when we consider, further, that curious analogy which prevails in the construction of almost all languages, and that deep and subtile logic on which they are founded, difficulties increase so much upon us, on all hands, that there seems to be no small reason for referring the first origin of all language to divine teaching or inspiration.

But supposing language to have a divine original, we cannot, however, suppose that a perfect system of it was all at once given to man. It is much more natural to think, that God taught our first parents only such language as suited their present occasions; leaving them, as he did in other things, to enlarge and improve it as their future necessities should require. Consequently, those first rudiments of speech must have been poor and narrow; and we are at full liberty to inquire in what manner, and by what steps, language advanced to the state in which we now find it. The history which I am to give of this progress will suggest several things, both curious in themselves, and useful in our future disquisitions.

If we should suppose a period before any words were invented or known, it is clear, that men could have no other method of communicating to others what they felt, than by the cries of passion, accompanied with such motions and gestures as were further expressive of passion. For these are the only signs which nature teaches all men, and which are understood by all. One who saw another going into some place where he himself had been frightened or exposed to danger, and who sought to warn his neighbour of the danger, could contrive no other way of doing so, than by uttering those cries, and making those gestures, which are the signs of fear; just as two men, at this day, would endeavour to make themselves be understood by each other, who should be thrown together on a desolate island, ignorant of each other's language. Those exclamations, therefore, which by grammarians are called interjections, uttered in a strong and passionate manner, were, beyond doubt, the first elements or beginnings of speech.

When more enlarged communication became necessary, and names began to be assigned to objects, in what manner can we suppose men to have proceeded in the assignation of names, or invention of words? Undoubtedly, by imitating, as much as they could, the nature of the object which they named, by the sound of the name which they gave to it. As a painter, who would represent grass, must employ a green colour; so, in the beginnings of language, one giving a name to any thing harsh or boisterous, would of course employ a harsh or boisterous sound.

He could not do otherwise, if he meant to excite in the hearer the idea of that thing which he sought to name. To suppose words invented, or names given to things, in a manner purely arbitrary, without any ground or reason, is to suppose an effect without a cause. There must have always been some motive which led to the assignation of one name rather than another; and we can conceive no motive which would more generally operate upon men in their first efforts towards language, than a desire to paint, by speech, the objects which they named, in a manner more or less complete, according as the vocal organs had it in their power to effect this imitation.

Wherever objects were to be named, in which sound, noise, or motion, were concerned, the imitation by words was abundantly obvious. Nothing was more natural than to imitate, by the sound of the voice, the quality of the sound or noise which any external object made; and to form its name accordingly. Thus, in all languages, we find a multitude of words that are evidently constructed upon this principle. A certain bird is termed the cuckoo, from the sound which it emits. When one sort of wind is said to whistle, and another to roar; when a serpent is said to hiss; a fly to buz, and falling timber to crash; when a stream is said to flow, and hail to rattle; the analogy between the word and the thing signified is plainly discernible.

In the names of objectɛ which address the sight only, where neither noise nor motion are concerned, and still more in the terms appropriated to moral ideas, this analogy appears to fail Many learned men, however, have been of opinion, that though, in such cases, it becomes more obscure, yet it is not altogether lost; but that throughout the radical words of all languages there may be traced some degree of correspondence with the object signified. With regard to moral and intellectual ideas, they remark, that, in every language, the terms significant of them are derived from the names of sensible objects to which

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they are conceived to be analogous; and with regard to sensible objects pertaining merely to sight, they remark, that their most distinguishing qualities have certain radical sounds appropriated to the expression of them, in a great variety of languages. Stability, for instance, fluidity, hollowness, smoothness, gentleness, violence, &c. they imagine to be painted by the sound of certain letters or syllables, which have some relation to those different states of visible objects, on account of an obscure resemblance which the organs of voice are capable of assuming to such external qualities. By this natural mechanism, they imagine all languages to have been at first constructed, and the roots of their capital words formed.*

As far as this system is founded in truth, language appears to be not altogether arbitrary in its origin. Among the ancient Stoic and Platonic philosophers, it was a question much agitated, "Utrum nomina rerum sint naturâ, an impositione? púσε déσe;" by which they meant, whether words were merely conventional symbols; of the rise of which no account could be given, except the pleasure of the first inventors of language? or, whether there was some principle in nature that led to the

• The author, who has carried his speculations on this subject the furthest, is the President de Brosses, in his "Traité de la Formation Méchanique des Langues." Some of the radical letters or syllables which he supposes to carry this expressive power in most known languages are, St, to signify stability or rest; Fl, to denote fluency; Cl, a gentle descent; R, what relates to rapid motion; C, to cavity or hollowness, &c. A century before his time, Dr. Wallis, in his Grammar of the English Language, had taken notice of these significant roots, and represented it as a peculiar excellency of our tongue, that, beyond all others, it expressed the nature of the objects which it named, by employing sounds sharper, softer, weaker, stronger, more obscure, or more stridulous, according as the idea which is to be suggested requires. He gives various examples. Thus; words formed upon St, always denote firmness and strength, analogous to the Latin sto; as, stand, stay, staff, stop, stout, steady, stake, stamp, stallion, stately, &c. Words beginning with Str, intimate violent force, and energy, analogous to the Greek Oτpúμ; as, strive, strength, strike, stripe, stress, struggle, stride, stretch, strip, &c. Thr, implies forcible motion; as, throw, throb, thrust, through, threaten, thraldom. Wr, obliquity or distortion; as, wry, wrest, wreath, wrestle, wring, wrong, wrangle, wrath, wrack, &c. Sw, silent agitation, or lateral motion; as, sway, swing, swerve, sweep, swim. Sl, a gentle fall, or less observable motion; as, slide, slip, sly, slit, slow, slack, sling. Sp, dissipation or expansion; as, spread, sprout, sprinkle, split, spill, spring. Terminations in ash, indicate something acting nimbly and sharply; as, crash, gash, rash, flash, lash, slash. Terminations in ush, something acting more obtusely and dully; as crush, brush, husb, gush, blush. The learned author produces a great many more examples of the same kind, which seem to leave no doubt, that the analogies of sound have had some influence on the formation of words. At the same time, in all speculations of this kind, there is so much room for fancy to operate, that they ought to be adopted with much caution in forming any general theory.

assignation of particular names to particular objects? and those of the Platonic school favoured the latter opinion.*

This principle, however, of a natural relation between words and objects, can only be applied to language in its most simple and primitive state. Though, in every tongue, some remains of it, as I have shown above, can be traced, it were utterly in vain to search for it throughout the whole construction of any modern language. As the multitude of terms increase in every nation, and the immense field of language is filled up, words, by a thousand fanciful and irregular methods of derivation and composition, come to deviate widely from the primitive character of their roots, and to lose all analogy or resemblance in sound to the things signified. In this state we now find language. Words, as we now employ them, taken in the general, may be considered as symbols, not as imitations; as arbitary, or instituted, not natural signs of ideas. But there can be no doubt, I think, that language, the nearer we remount to its rise among men, will be found to partake more of a natural expression. As it could be originally formed on nothing but imitation, it would, in its primitive state, be more picturesque: much more barren indeed, and narrow in the circle of its terms, than now; but, as far as it went, more expressive by sound of the thing signified. This. then, may be assumed as one character of the first state, or beginnings, of language among every savage tribe.

A second character of language, in its early state, is drawn from the manner in which words were at first pronounced, or uttered, by men. Interjections, I showed, or passionate exclamations, were the first elements of speech. Men laboured to communicate their feelings to one another, by those expressive cries and gestures which nature taught them. After words, or names of objects, began to be invented, this mode of speaking, by natural signs, could not be all at once disused. For lan

• Vid. Plat. in Cratylo. "Nomina verbaque non positu fortuito, sed quadam vi et ratione naturæ facta esse, P. Nigidius in Grammaticis Commentariis docet; rem sane in philosophiæ dissertationibus celebrem. In eam rem multa argumenta dicit, curvideri possint verba esse naturalia, magis quam arbitraria. Vos, inqnit, cum dicimus, motu quodam oris conveniente, cum ipsius verbi demonstratione utimur, et labias sensim primores emovemus, ac spiritum atque animam porro versum, et ad eos, quibus consermocinamur intendimus. At contra cum dicimus Nos, neque profuso intentoque flatu vocis, neque projectis labiis pronunciamus; sed et spiritum et labias quasi intra nosmet ipsos coercemus. Hoc fit idem et in eo quod dicimus, tu, et ego, et mihi, et tibi. Nam sicuti cum adnuimus et abnuimus, motus quidam ille vel capitis, vel oculorum, a natura rei quam significat, non abhorret; ita in his vocibus quasi gestus quidam oris et spiritus naturalis est. Eadem ratio est in Græcis quoque vocibus quam esse in nostris animadvertimus."-A. GELLIUS, Noct. Atticæ, lib. x. cap. 4.

guage in its infancy, must have been extremely barren; and there certainly was a period, among all rude nations, when conversation was carried on by a very few words, intermixed with many exclamations and earnest gestures. The small stock of words which men as yet possessed, rendered these helps absolutely necessary for explaining their conceptions; and rude, uncultivated men, not having always at hand even the few words which they knew, would natu ally labour to make themselves understood, by varying their tones of voice, and accompanying their tones with the most significant gesticulations they could make. At this day, when persons attempt to speak in any language which they possess imperfectly, they have recourse to all these supplemental methods, in order to render themselves more intelligible. The plan, too, according to which I have shown, that language was originally constructed, upon resemblance or analogy, as far as it was possible, to the thing signfied, would naturally lead men to utter their words with more emphasis and force, as long as language was a sort of painting by means of sound. For all these reasons this may be assumed as a principle, that the pronunciation of the earliest languages was accompanied with more gesticulation, and with more and greater inflexions of voice, than what we now use; there was more action in it; and it was more upon a crying or singing tone.

To this manner of speaking, necessity first gave rise. But we must observe, that, after this necessity had in a great measure, ceased, by language becoming, in process of time, more extensive and copious, the ancient manner of speech still subsisted among many nations; and what had arisen from necessity continued to be used for ornament. Wherever there was much fire and vivacity in the genius of nations, they were naturally inclined to a mode of conversation which gratified the imagination so much; for, an imagination which is warm is always prone to throw both a great deal of action, and a variety of tones, into discourse. Upon this principle, Dr. Warburton accounts for so much speaking by action, as we find among the Old Testament prophets; as when Jeremiah breaks the potter's vessel, in sight of the people; throws a book into the Euphrates; puts on bonds and yokes; and carries out his household stuff; all which, he imagines, might be significant modes of expression, very natural in those ages, when men were accustomed to explain themselves so much by actions and gestures. In like manner, among the Northern American tribes, certain mo