Since those animals, which are endued with the organs of speech, are incapable of articulating any conceptions, it is reasonable to suppose that the animal part of man alone, without the assistance of the intelligent or rational, must be so likewise. It is therefore probable that the human will, agreeable to the notes or ideas impressed on the memory, plays upon the fibres, the simple tones of articulation; which in their passage, with respiration, thro’ the lungs, stomach, windpipe, larynx, and mouth, are by the glotis, tongue, lips, muscles, and other organical powers, which assume literal figures, modulated into articulate sounds, both simple and compound, agreeable to the nature of things and their ideas, as impressed in the human sensory. And as man is furnished with ideas chiefly by the means of speech, the tree of knowledge of good and evil seems to be no improper metaphor of the human voice or _person_, or the Dryades and Hamadryades, nor the tree of life, of man’s intuitive state of knowledge and virtue. It is yet the general opinion that human speech derives its origin solely from the arbitrary composition or invention of man, without any connexion with nature or the intervention of Providence. However true such bold and presumptuous doctrines may be with respect to some of the corrupt compounded parts, which chiefly occasioned the great variety and confusion of languages, yet articulate sounds, the materials of speech, clearly appear to have been the gift of Providence, and always the same in all countries; as for instance, an Indian, as well as an European, in expressing the idea of length, will contract and lengthen the organs of articulation, so as to form an acute sound, and the shape of the letter i; and to express breadth they will alike extend them, like the letter o, to express a broad or grave sound; and so in other cases, though they differ as to the manner of compounding those sounds; more especially on account of the great loss of primitives amongst the Indians. And it cannot be otherwise, since the scripture proves that Adam named things agreeable to their nature, under the inspection and direction of Providence.