However profuse these
constructors of the mind may have been in the accumulation of its
component faculties, they appear to have little regarded language, its
most prominent and important feature; _the universal menstruum of
intelligence, and accredited currency for the circulation and exchange
of thought_. There are two faculties or capacities that are peculiar to
the human intellect, by which our species has attained a supremacy that
leaves all other animated beings in a distant rear: the possession of
which has rendered man a progressive being, and the race of animals so
nearly stationary, that however they may be tortured into improvement,
they feel no emulation to proceed, and the acquirement perishes where
the brute expires. These undisputed faculties are Speech, with its
recording characters, and the comprehension of numbers, the powerful
sources of that pre-eminence which man has already attained, and to
which he must be indebted for his further advancement.

As Ideas are wholly incompetent to explain the process of thought, the
next inquiry will be, whether words are capable of affording the
adequate solution. For this purpose, the simple experiment would be
sufficient; and as we are conscious, under due attention of all the acts
that the mind performs, every person, in proportion to his habits of
deliberately noting that which passes within himself, will be enabled
to institute this examination. It is however to be lamented, that
Thought is not the constant or habitual exercise of the mind on the
phenomena of Nature, the occurrences of life, or the subjects we listen
to and peruse: but is only occasionally awakened by difficulties,
excited by contention, or invoked by the promise of fame and by the hope
of emolument. The usual course of education is but little calculated to
promote the habitudes of thinking, and especially that teaching where
authority dictates, and demonstration is neglected. Much of this
instruction is enforced by degradation and terror; and the pupil, at an
early age, is compelled to swallow doctrines which he is unable to
comprehend, and consequently cannot digest, except through the peptic
assistance of the scourge: and which, when matured by manhood, and
enlightened by reason, he is forced to reject.

Thought requires knowledge as its basis, and in proportion to its extent
on any given subject, the investigation will be productive. This
knowledge may be acquired by conversation, reading