first kind are called vowels, making a found by themselves: For they are nothing else but the blowing of the breath with a tremulous concuffion of the wind-pipe and larynx, (which is abfolutely neceffary in order to produce any found), through the organs of the mouth in a certain pofition. The other class is called confonants; a name importing, that they cannot be founded by themselves without the aid of the vowels. For it is evident, that the action of the organs alone can produce no vocal found without the expiration of the breath, tho' it may make fome kind of beating or chopping, which is the found of that species of confonants they call liquids. The confonants therefore are nothing else but vocal founds, or vowels modified and diverfified by the several actions of the different organs of pronunciation.

And here we may obferve how complex and difficult a bufinefs articulation is, tho' by constant practice it appears so easy. For, let us take the fimpleft syllable, which is §. 14. where, in describing the pronunciation of the vowels, he has these words: Expoverlaide Tauta waila, τns αρτηρίας συνεχούσης το πνεύμα, και του στόματος άπλως σχηματισθέντος, της τε γλώσσης ουδεν πραματευομενης, ἀλλ' κρέμασης.

that made by a fingle confonant and vowel, fuch as ba, or ab, there must be complicated together in the fame enunciation, the blowing of the breath, with the tremulous concuffion above mentioned; the pofition of the organs neceffary to produce the vocal found; and the action of the organs, by which the confonant is founded: Which action must be either before or after the pofition of the organs forming the vowel, according as the confonant is founded firft or laft in the fyllable. But the business becomes much more difficult, when we compound vowels, making what we call diphthongs, and when we throw into the fame fyllable two or three confonants, as in the English word ftrength. In short, the more accurately and minutely we confider language, the greater the difficulty of the invention appears, and indeed the abfolute impoffibility of it, unless we fuppofe it to be invented by very flow degrees, from very small beginnings, and in a very long course of time.

How Men came to invent Articulation.That it was by Imitation of other Animals, on whom Nature had bestowed that Gift.

T

HIS bufinefs of articulation, which, by many, is thought natural to man, will, I am perfuaded, appear to a philofopher, who confiders the matter attentively, fo exceedingly artificial, that he will think it the greatest difficulty, in my fyftem, to account how men fhould ever have thought of making fuch an use of the organs of the mouth: And it is proper to try to remove this difficulty before I proceed farther upon the fubject of the found of the firft languages.

And, in the first place, it is evident, that this discovery was not made a priori, by which, I mean, that man did not proceed, as a philofopher would do now a-days, to confider the human voice as capable of variati

on, by the three feveral ways of rhythm, accent or tone, and articulation; and, having discovered that the two first ways were insufficient for the purpose of language, or, in other words, that there could not be a language of mufic only, they tried next what could be done by articulation. For, though men, by living together in society so long as I suppose they must have done, before this method of communication was devised, and by inventing other arts, must have acquired a great deal of fagacity, and formed notions of many things; yet it is impoffible to fuppose them so much philofophers as to have proceeded in this way to the discovery of any thing, a way, by which very few of the greatest discoveries have been made, even among civilized nations. For, the fact truly is, that the greatest inventions in all ages of the world, have, like that of gun-powder, been fallen upon by chance *; nor has art or science done more than improve fuch lucky

*See Lucretius, lib. 5. where he has given a very in

genious account of the various accidents, by which the ufe of fire and the feveral arts thereon dependent have been discovered.

accidents. But by what accident could this fo wonderful invention be discovered?

It is an obfervation of Ariftotle, that it is by imitation we firft learn. Accordingly, our children learn to speak in that way; and it is the want of imitation that makes the teaching of deaf perfons to articulate fo extremely difficult. Now, the firft men who began to fpeak, were, in this refpect, in the fame condition as our deaf persons, in so far, at least, that they could hear no fpeaking. The more, therefore, we confider the matter, the more it feems difficult to account how men should at firft have attempted to articulate. If this difficulty were got over, the reft would be eafy. For, according to the common faying, facile eft inventis addere; and it cannot be doubted, that so fagacious an animal as man would, if he once had begun to articulate, bring it, in process of time, to the perfection in which we now fee it.

It must have been, I think, one of two ways that men could have been led to try this artificial method of communication; either the neceffities of life muft have obliged them to vary and enlarge by every poffible way inarticulate cries; fo that, at lait, they fell up

their