his acquirements to posterity. The
acquirements of other animals perish with them: they are incapable of
recording their achievements, and, as a community, they are stationary.
If the reason be sought, it will be immediately found, that they do not
enjoy the appropriate organs; and this defect will be detected to arise
from their want of speech and hands.

There may perhaps arise some of the difficulties already experienced, in
the separate consideration of these human attributes,--speech and the
hand; as much of the superiority which man possesses has resulted from
their combined assistance. It is, however, important to treat of each
individually, as far as their separate influence and effects can be
distinctly traced. The consideration of speech or significant sound,
would naturally introduce an enquiry into its structure and philosophy:
but as this knowledge can be collected from the works of many
enlightened writers on these subjects, it is unnecessary to obtrude on
the reader that which he may find already prepared.

Speech is _ordinarily_ acquired by the ear[3], and the sound conveyed
through that organ is imitated by the voice. When any object in nature
is named by its appropriate articulate sound, as a tree, a fish, a
horse, if the object be duly noted and the term remembered, it will
mutually, on the presentation of the object, recall the term; or if the
term be mentioned, the recollection of the object will arise. Without
reverting to the formation of words by letters, or proceeding to the
structure of sentences by words, which is the province of the
grammarian, it will be seen that these significant sounds, enable human
beings to convey to each other the perceptions they have experienced, or
are impressed with, at the moment of communication. This endowment of
speech to man would, alone, have constituted him vastly superior to the
other animals. But whatever might have been his attainments, either from
his own discoveries or from the experience of his contemporaries, his
departure from life would have consigned the products of his genius and
wisdom to the treachery and mutilation of another's recollection. Even
in the enlightened and polished period of our present existence, we are
fully acquainted with the loss or addition which a fact experiences,
from being transmitted through a succession of narrators.

Had man been merely furnished with speech, without the means of
recording his acts and reflections,