Although it is a well known fact that every language has an idiomatic expression, an intonation of its own, I am not aware of any attempt ever having been made at definitely stating what such expression, or intonation, really consists in; and in what respect it differs, as between one language and another. Yet this fact should be the most important of all in connection with ethnological studies. It is necessary to know what a people's idiomatic expression is before we can begin to make a study of its language, in comparison with that of any other people, by which we may expect to arrive at conclusions of any real value in an ethnological sense. In comparison with idiomatic expression, the study of the roots of words and their derivation, it appears to me, is of but secondary importance; idiomatic expression being the _kernel_ in which the tree of national expression had its incipiency, its origin. It is the life which pulsates through its veins, in which it has its stay and maintenance; the nerves which tingle with its intelligence, its genius, its soul. Take away this soul, and it ceases to exist. For every language there must have been a strong impulse making an impression before there could have been any expression at all. This impulse must have been of so powerful and continuous a nature as to have left its impression upon the minds of a sufficiently large number of people to form the nucleus for the expression of a specific language, and, in so doing, constituting such people a nation. I have already stated that it is _motion_ in the first instance which superinduces a specific mode of breathing and consequent expression. It is to motion, then, that we must ascribe the first impulse. Such motion may have been active as to defense against enemies, wild beasts, or the elements; or it may have been passive, consisting of the continuous noise produced by the motion of the sea, tempests, or thunder-storms, making a great and lasting impression. Then, again, the influence may have been of a peaceful, balmy, beneficial nature, as with people living in security, in a mild climate and on fertile lands. The stronger the expression of these movements, the stronger the impression they made and the more powerful the expression of the language; the softer and more harmonious their expression, the softer and the more rhythmical the expression of the language. These influences made their first impression by superinducing a mode of breathing in conformity therewith.