Copy 1, Volume 1

Of the origin and progress of language / [Anon].

  • James Burnett, Lord Monboddo
Date:
1774-1792
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Of the origin and progress of language / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    24/712
    I viii PREFACE, ing to his nature, of which he is now no longer poffeiTed ; and, among others* he may have had the faculty of communicating his thoughts by articulate founds,which were un¬ der hood, as foon as uttered, by thole who heard them. But this natural faculty, as well as others, we may fuppofe that he loft up¬ on his fall; and as the curfe then pronoun¬ ced upon him was, that he ihould acquire every thing by his own labour and induitry, he was obliged to invent language, together with the other arts of life. If all this does not fatisfy, but it muft be ftill held an article of faith, that language is either natural to man, even in this flats of his exiftence, or reveal¬ ed to him, and that this original language never could have been loft in any nation, by the many various calamities that have be¬ fallen the human race in different countries and different ages of the world, or that, if it were loft, it was again revealed; I have the comfort to think, that I am not the on¬ ly one that has erred m this point; but that divines of great name, both ancient and mo¬ dern, and even a father of the church, have been in the lame, nay, a greater error * For they have affirmed pohtively what I