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him with any distinct or primitive language, but that he madehim sensible of the power with which he was endued, offorming articulate sounds, and the use he might make ofthem as signs of his ideas, leaving the arbitrary imposition ofthem to Adam himself—so that speech was attained bygradual invention of arbitrary sounds, to denote first themost obvious things, and afterwards the less obvious, as theyoccurred. However, though it does not seem impossiblethat mankind might of themselves, in ptocess of time, forma perfect language, yet it is not easily conceivable that Adamcould attain the use of speech so soon as is represented to usby Moses, without divine assistance.

Diodorus Siculus and Vitruvius assert that the first menlived in caves like beasts, uttering only confused and inar-ticulate sounds 5 till associating for mutual assistance, theycame by degrees to use articulate sounds, mutually agreedupon by the arbitrary signs or marks of those ideas in themind of the speaker, which he wanted to communicate to thehearer; and James Burnet (generally known under the titleof Lord Monboddo ) in his work entitled “ The Origin andProgress of Language,” published in 1773, affirms that thehuman race have actually risen from the very lowest stage—that of mere brutality : he supposes, on the authority ofseveral travellers whom he quotes, that there were nationswithout laws, or any of the arts of civilized fife—withouteven language; and that some of them, to complete theirrelationship to the monkey tribe, had actually tails.

The diversity of languages takes its rise from the confu-sion of tongues at the building of the tower of Babel about2260 B. C. : for at that time it is expressly stated that “Allthe earth was of one language and of one speech.”

The point of antiquity and priority among languages hasbeen extremely controverted. Herodotus tells us that in thedispute between the Egyptians and Phrygians about theantiquity of their languages, Psammeticus, King of Egypt)