e great Dr. South, who,
in his sermon on The State of Man before the Fall, declared that "Adam
came into the world a philosopher, which sufficiently appears by his
writing the nature of things upon their names."

In the chorus of modern English divines there appeared one of eminence
who declared against this theory: Dr. Shuckford, chaplain in ordinary
to his Majesty George II, in the preface to his work on The Creation and
Fall of Man, pronounced the whole theory "romantic and irrational." He
goes on to say: "The original of our speaking was from God; not that God
put into Adam's mouth the very sounds which he designed he should use as
the names of things; but God made Adam with the powers of a man; he had
the use of an understanding to form notions in his mind of the things
about him, and he had the power to utter sounds which should be to
himself the names of things according as he might think fit to call
them."

This echo of Gregory of Nyssa was for many years of little avail.
Historians of philosophy still began with Adam, because only a
philosopher could have named all created things. There was, indeed,
one difficulty which had much troubled some theologians: this was, that
fishes were not specially mentioned among the animals brought by Jehovah
before Adam for naming. To meet this difficulty there was much argument,
and some theologians laid stress on the difficulty of bringing fishes
from the sea to the Garden of Eden to receive their names; but naturally
other theologians replied that the almighty power which created the
fishes could have easily brought them into the garden, one by one, even
from the uttermost parts of the sea. This point, therefore, seems to
have been left in abeyance.(418)

(418) For the danger of "the little system of the history of the world,"
see Sayce, as above. On Dugald Stewart's contention, see Max Muller,
Lectures on Language, pp. 167, 168. For Sir William Jones, see his
Works, London, 1807, vol. i, p. 199. For Schlegel, see Max Muller, as
above. For an enormous list of great theologians, from the fathers down,
who dwelt on the divine inspiration and wonderful gifts of Adam on this
subject, see Canon Farrar, Language and Languages. The citation from
Clement of Alexandria is Strom.. i, p. 335. See also Chrysostom, Hom.
XIV in Genesin; also Eusebius, Praep. Evang. XI, p. 6. For the two
quotations given above from Shuckford, see The Creation and Fall of Man,
London, 1763, prefac