Laftly, With respect to fyntax, they appear to have none at all; for they have not prepofitions or conjunctions. They have no genders, numbers, or cafes, for their nouns, nor moods for their verbs. In fhort, they have not, fo far as I can discover, any way of connecting together the words of their discourse. Nor is this a peculiarity in their language; but it is the fame in the languages of the Galibi and Caribs, as we are informed by the authors who have given an account of those languages, tho', neither of them be fo rude and imperfect as the Huron. Those favages, therefore, tho' they have invented words, use them as our children do when they begin to speak, without connecting them together; from which we may infer, that fyntax, which completes the work of language, comes last in the order of invention, and perhaps is the most difficult part of language. It would feem, however, that perfons may make themselves understood without fyntax. This I think can be done no other way but by the arrangement of the words, (which is a confiderable part of the syntax in modern languages that have not cafes), by accents or tones, or by geftures and figns. The

Hurons, and I believe all the barbarous nations, have a great variety of tones; they have also much action in their speaking; and there can be no doubt but that the pofition of the word will commonly determine what other word in the sentence it is connected with.

And thus I think it appears from fact, as well as theory, that thofe primitive languages are natural cries, a little varied and diftinguished by articulation, fignifying things as they are conceived by favages; that is, mixed together as they are in nature, without being divided into certain claffes, commonly known by the name of parts of Speech, and without being connected together in syntax.

CHA P. X.

Progrefs of the Barbarous Languages towards Improvement.Account of Languages that are not barbarous Spoken by Barbarous Nations;-fuch as that of the Garani,-of the Algonkins,-of the Goths,-of the Laplanders,―of the Greenlanders,—of the Albinaquois.-This laft too artificial.-The Progrefs of Abstraction and Generalization deduced from the Progrefs of Language.

BUT

UT, although the Huron language be, as I have faid, the most rude and imperfect of any that have come to my knowledge, yet, even in it, we can fee beginnings of improvement; which are the more to be attended to, that they are so many steps of the progress of the human mind in the art of thinking.

defect

the great And, in the first place, as the of all barbarous languages is, the expreffing different things by the fame word, without abstracting and separating them one from a

another; where-ever we see any one thing expreffed by a diftinct word, it is to be reckoned an improvement of the people in the faculty of thinking, and, by confequence, of their language: For, if they had not first formed a separate idea of the thing, they never would have expreffed it by a separate word. I have obferved already, that they are not fo far advanced in abftraction as to

divide the quality from the fubftance in which it is inherent, and to express it by a distinct word; but they have made an abftraction lefs violent, and with which it was natural they should begin; I mean, of the fubftance from the qualities; and confidered the substance as existing by itself, without any particular quality, and have given it a feparate name. This, I think, must necessarily have been the first abstract idea, that was in any degree perfect, formed by men: And accordingly the Hurons have gone fo far as to form fome fuch ideas, and give names to them. For example, they have a word which denotes trees fimply; others which denote certain fpecieses of trees, of fruits, and of animals; others that denote works of art, without the addition of any quality.

2dly, In generalization, they have begun to go beyond the lowest species, not only in trees, but in animals: For, though they have not a word, as I have already observed, to express the genus animal, yet they come pretty near it, having a general word which denotes the quadrupeds of the foreft, and another which denotes the tame quadrupeds, fuch as dogs.

3dly, They have made fome progress in that most artificial part of speech the verb; for, in the first place, they have carried abftraction fo far, in fome few inftances, that they have abstracted the action from the agent, and from every circumftance accompanying it, and have invented a word to exprefs it fimply by itself. Then they have made the distinction of the three persons; and, in some few of their verbs, this diftinction is marked by a variation or inflection of the word, as in the expreffion, I am hurt,— Thou art hurt,-He is hurt, the fame word, with a different inflection in the beginning, expreffes all the three perfons. This indeed is uncommon; but it is not so uncommon that one of the perfons should be distinguished from the rest by a variation of the word; as, in the word which fignifies to