eagles' feathers, and seven long years was he wet with the dews of heaven.

His understanding returned again, and he sent forth another decree, that he praised the God of heaven," whose works are truth, and his ways judgment, and those that walk in pride he is able to abase."

But the Providence which ruled in that nation was to be written in a still more terrible and enduring lesson. Another prince rose up who made new idols. He drank wine in the presence of a thousand lords, and called upon nobles and ladies to praise the gods of gold and silver. In that same hour the bolt of destruction was hurled from heaven, and the glory of the Chaldees departed forever.

Long time has passed since these scenes were enacted on the plains of ancient Asia; but history has treasured them up in her deepest memories ; poetry has clothed them in numbers; painting has transferred them to the canvas; and true philosophy would grave them on the human heart.

But these examples of human folly and of divine wrath are not alone: they are units among millions. History is filled with monuments; earth is strewed with ruins. Stranded wrecks lie up and down the highway of nations, that those to come may profit by the example. But if history be full of terrors, she is also full of hopes. In every storm there has been a light ahead; green islands have emerged from the watery deep, and new continents acknowledged the

dominion of mind. Amidst all the desolations of the external world, humanity has progressed; and alike from history, from prophecy, and Providence, it has the promise of progress of progress till restored to its lost estate; when wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of the nations, and the spirit of man go forth as spotless in beauty as it is immortal in being.

CHAPTER IX.

THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE.

"And the whole earth was of one language."-Genesis.

MAN, the last and noblest work of creation, was made the possessor and ruler of the earth. To him was given the dominion.* This implies, in itself, the power of announcing commands intelligibly. It includes the power of designating the objects upon the earth; and it includes the greater power of intellectual communications between mind and mind. The means by which this is done easiest and best, is language. Accordingly, the Scriptures say, that when God had created man, he "commanded him, saying ;"† a phraseology which implies the use of language, and that it was naturally and spontaneously understood

* Genesis, ch. 1, v. 26.

† Genesis, ch. 2, v. 16.

by Adam. So, also, God brought the living things to Adam to see what he would call them, and what he called them, that was their name.

This is all we really know of the origin of language. But it is enough to characterize it as one of the highest talents of man; at once an instrument of reason, of history, and of progress.

LANGUAGE AN INSTRUMENT OF REASON.

It is not my intention here to enter into the controversy respecting ancient and modern languages. Language is a universal element, and its great principles can be studied in any tongue which is not absolutely barbarian. It must be admitted, however, that the most perfect model of language is that in which it can be studied to the most advantage, and which will give the most accurate conceptions of universal Grammar. It is this principle which has probably retained the classic languages in our universities long after the period in which they had ceased to be used, except as a means of education. Assuming that we take the language of any civilized nation as the model or subject for the study of language, let us consider it as a science, by means of which the mind is to be developed. Here the first thing to be remarked is, that this study develops an entirely new class of reasoning powers. Heretofore we have considered physical science only. In language we begin the metaphysical; for language is in

fact the bridge which leads from the physical to the metaphysical world, so far as reasoning goes. So true is this, that the greatest part of the controversies in metaphysics have arisen from the use of different terms to express the same idea, the various interpretation of the same terms, and the want of terms to express a precise idea.

It

The science of language, therefore, develops faculties of the mind, which would otherwise lie dormant. It leads to the designation and separation of ideas independent of matter. It leads to criticism. leads to observation upon the relations of mind with matter, and of mind with mind. It leads to the classification of objects, in terms distinct from matter. In fine, it leads to a higher philosophy, embracing objects of contemplation without and beyond the material world. Let us consider for a moment the process of reasoning which is developed in the study of language. Language, to one who has never thought of it as a study, must appear a chaos of words. It has come to him naturally-his mother-tongue-to use these words to designate certain things; but he has never dreamed that they stand in fixed scientific relations to one another, and the whole language itself was but a sort of defined picture of his own mind! He has employed a certain sound, or combination of sounds, to designate objects; and then, by a certain flight of the imagination, he has symbolized certain other things with these. Thus, he has called a species of bird an "eagle,” its dark color, “black ;”

and, observing that this is a war-bird, he has called the war-chief of his nation the "Black Eagle." The first terms were the simple designation of objects by terms applied to them: the last was an abstraction of those terms to symbolize very different objects. The first seems to be the result of a simple impulse of man to name things: the second is the exercise of a higher quality-imagination. From the moment this second step is taken, mind has begun to ascend, although it be only that of an untutored savage. It is thus that language is constructed by the development of the mind, the very soul of man itself. The higher the growth, the more extensive the elements of civilization, the more perfect and extensive will be language. This is the process by which it is formed: a process of observation, of imagination, of reasoning, and of philosophy.

When, in a nation of high civilization, this process has been carried on till its language has become various, extensive, classified-embracing all the subjects of human study, and the finest specimens of literature -then the structure and relations of that language become a science: a science which leads us into the realms of metaphysics, which leads through refined processes of reasoning, and contemplates the highest objects of philosophy.

CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGE.

In reasoning upon this science, we must take it in its perfect state and invert the order of its formation.