be criticised; but further reflection will, perhaps, produce a conviction in the minds of all, that the course herein adopted, while in line with specific professional duties, is also the very best method even when venturing before a larger public. The lofty and inspiring conceptions of the Bible, the linguistic purity of the Common Version, together with its universal distribution, rendering it of easy access to every English student wherever he may chance to be, combine, it must be confessed, in making the Bible a more apt and convenient book for rhetorical reference than is any other. With these explanations and statements, we give this treatise to the public. For its imperfections we offer no excuse, and consequently expect no toleration. But upon the discovery of errors, under a more careful revision they will be faithfully corrected. THE ART OF CHAPTER I. HISTORY Of Speech. AMONG Our earliest observations we find people talking with one another. The phenomenon is looked upon, at first, as merely a commonplace event; but later, the attention of the observer is arrested. A person having a thought, and wishing to awaken a corresponding thought in the mind of some one else, is seen to do so by emitting, at stated intervals, a portion of his breath, modified by certain movements of the vocal organs. These movements are known to start corresponding undulations in the atmosphere, which, reaching the hearing organs of the listener, are supposed to excite in them vibrations corresponding identically with the original vibrations in the vocal organs of the speaker; then, through the agency of instinct, invention, memory, and the laws of association, the two persons have the same thought. Thus, this act of speech, which seemed at first so very simple, becomes upon reflection almost the wonder of won ders, bringing an astonishment which, with increasing surprise, returns to thoughtful minds at every fresh observation.* A second matter of attention, far less surprising but perhaps equally suggestive, is the fact that articulate speech in the form of conversation or communication, is a universal and an exclusive characteristic of humanity. No tribe, however sunken or brutish, is destitute of it; yet by means of it no order of brutes, however marvellous their instincts or complete their surroundings, is able, strictly speaking, to converse. When, therefore, Homer and Hesiod characterize man as the "articulate animal," they state what modern investigation is not disposed to question.1 A third general observation relates to the number of different historic and existing tongues, and to the fact that different families of the human race are characterized by such differences in speech that in most instances one cannot be understood by another. The number of these distinct tongues now employed is variously estimated from eight to nine hundred, while those which have been spoken, but are now extinct, are supposed to be numbered by many more hundreds, perhaps by many thousands. Still, all languages, existing and extinct, are thought to have only three or four hundred distinct vocal sounds. These statements respecting the phenomena of * The notes in this treatise are indicated by the small Arabic numerals 1, 2, 3, &c., and constitute the Supplement. See p. 209. |