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LETTER X.

L-continued,

It has been frequently asked, with all the insolence of ignorant triumph, "If Science and Learning lead to such vastly beneficial results, why did not the civilized, the very erudite nations of antiquity, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Carthaginians, the Romans, why did not they practise the milder virtues? Why did they worship a plurality, and pay adoration at the shrines of idols?" The answer is forthcoming.

Because their teaching and learning, their laws and popular actions, were founded on a false, unstable basis; because their knowledge was not that of Nature, of man as a rational creature, of his true position in the universe. The telescope and the microscope had not unfolded their wonders. Because their youth were nursed in the lap of bigotry and misguided zeal; thus they grew up in prejudice, fell an easy prey to a grovelling superstition, and were led captive by the fancied special influence of the gods, who were only visible ap

pearances, and emotions personified. They were absolutely ignorant of natural causes; they knew almost nothing of astronomy, geography, anatomy, chemistry, nothing of electricity, gravitation, navigation.

The electric fluid which Franklin caught with his kite, was the chief symbol of their "Jove the Thunderer." And yet with all these disadvantages, there were not wanting among them men who felt these evils, but were unable to stem the tide of popular delusion. The priests held the minds of the vulgar fast bound; gulled them with the bait of reward in Elysium, in order to rob them with the greater impunity in this world; and they succeeded to a tittle. They built on the groundwork of fear and avarice, flattered pride by holding forth the example of saints and demigods, a motley, mongrel race, half God, half man. Socrates, and doubtless many more whose names are lost, saw through the farce; but what is the opinion of one against thousands, without demonstrative proof in aid? and that proof was wanting, because they had not discovered what we know. Can a man swim up the falls of Niagara? Such men as Virgil and Horace laughed in their sleeves at the conceits of their countrymen, but dared not own their conviction. Would not those great men, Se

neca and Pliny, have received with open arms, with joy and gratitude, the evidences, the resistless demonstrations, which we could now offer them? and besides, though in compliance with the dictates of hot headed bigotry, and a wedding to forms and system, it is the fashion to abuse and belie the rules of action of the heathen world, let any impartial person read the "Carmen Sæculare" of Horace, and then honestly avow his opinion as to the notions of virtue entertained among the great people to whom it was publicly addressed: for myself, I never look it through without feeling profound regret, at the remembrance that the popular soil of Rome was doomed to foster the rank weeds of Superstition and Ignorance, in which, if better fortune had planted the tree of liberty and true learning, it would have been joyfully succoured, watered by a thousand rills.

I shall advert to one more point in the Hebrew writings; we are told there, that the different languages in use among men, arose from the circumstances attending the building of the Tower of Babel. I before mentioned, that speech is only a capacity of uttering sounds, very finely varied; singing is the same action of organic structure, more delicately attenuated. The young of our genus, by imitation through hearing, acquire a habit of

speaking, of uttering the same sounds that are used by those about them; if their lungs, and other necessary organs are perfect, the process is easily acquired, though earlier or later, according to the quickness of perception in the individual. This is language by imitation, the usual mode of acquisition of peculiar utterance. If accident deprives the ear of its auditory office before its possessor has acquired facility in imitation, such power of imitation stops short; the medium of communication is lost, and the subject, through the remainder of his life, continues to make use of only the imperfect intonation acquired previously to his loss. If he is born deaf, void of hearing from malformation, dumbness is an inseparable consequence, for he can acquire no articulate sounds; the few natural sounds incidental to his animal life, cannot be said to be acquired. Benevolence has attempted to teach utterance by the sense of sight; by causing the afflicted to watch narrowly, and imitate the proper mode of adjusting the lips, the palate, and the tongue; but the process being artificial, the result, compared with the natural mode, is as nothing.

The other formation of language, is by a series of sounds altogether new: thus, if only half a dozen individuals possessing due powers

of hearing and utterance, and so young as not to have had time to acquire speech by the first mode, were, by accident or design, thrown together on a spot affording due subsistence, they would of course form an original language of their own. They would point to the different objects around them, give specific appellations by common consent, and agree to express feelings and ideas in terms arbitrary, but common to their own society. And thus would appear to have been formed the different languages of man, and their several dialects. or variations; many are compounds of the two, modes used by conquerors and the conquered.

We will wish each other "good night," by repeating an old and favorite maxim of mine: "he who will not reason is a bigot, and he who cannot is a fool." To which we will tack a postscript: "whatever will not bear the examination of reason without shrinking, is in itself unreasonable."

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