That this ability is altogether acquired, and depends wholly upon exercise for its cultivation, is obvious in every stage of its progress, but especially towards its commencement. When Nature first begins to suggest to an infant the use of language, we perceive that it cannot think and speak at the same moment. Long after it has acquired the knowledge of words and names, and even the power of articulating them, it utters but one syllable, or one word at a time. Its language, for a while after it has acquired a pretty extensive acquaintance with nouns and adjectives, is made up of single, or at most double words, with an observable pause between each, as if, after uttering one, it had to collect its thoughts and again prepare for a new effort, before it was able to pronounce the next. This is the child's first step, or rather the child's first attempt, in this important exercise; and it is conspicuous chiefly by the want, even in the least degree, of that power of which we have spoken. By and bye, however, the child is able to put two syllables, or two words together, without the pause;--but not three. That is a work of time, and that again has to become familiar, before four, or more words be attempted. These, however, are at last mastered; and he slowly acquires by practice the ability to utter a short sentence, composed chiefly of nouns, adjectives, and verbs, without interruption, and at last without difficulty. In the process here described, we perceive the commencement of Nature's exercises in training her pupil to the acquisition of this valuable faculty. It consists chiefly, as we have said, in enabling the child by regular practice to arrive at such a command of the mental faculties, and the powers of articulation, as qualifies him to exercise both apparently at the same moment. His mind is employed in preparing one set of ideas, while the organs of speech are engaged in giving utterance to another. He thinks that which he is about to speak, at the moment he is speaking that which he previously thought; and if, as is generally admitted, the mind cannot be engaged upon two things at the same moment, there is here an instance of such a rapid and successive transition from one to another, as obviously to elude perception.