Again, to suppose man of himself, without the intervention of Providence, capable of forming the materials of his own speech, must be as absurd as to imagine that he formed the materials of his own ideas or himself, since speech depends on the original frame of man, and the shape of his organs, and abstract and complex ideas on names, as the means of forming and registering them in the memory. Nor does it appear to be less so, to imagine dumb men, without inspiration, capable of fixing upon arbitrary signs of language, or advancing in knowledge, or at least, of forming so perfect a system, without being previously taught the use of letters and characters, the elements and principles of languages; more especially such of the sounds and figures, as were not to be met with in any other parts of nature, and the unintuitive, vicious, privative, and negative parts both of knowledge and language, which depend on the hieroglyfic, sacred, or _secret_ characters. And, whatever may be the disguise of arbitrary or corrupt dialects, they will all appear upon due examination to derive their origin from the original tree of knowledge; and was it not for the difference of climates, constitutions, habits, manners, and other accidents, which demand the aid of grammar, it seems probable, since characters represent the figures of things, and letters, or natural articulate sounds subsist in the very frame of man, the very ideas causing vibrations in the speaker, are felt by the hearer, and the elements of speech are universally the same, that languages would naturally fall, or at least, like the English, incline to their primitive universal state, and the same combination and construction of particles into words and sentences, if the particles of all languages were precisely defined according to their primitive meaning; there being in man an innate potency of recurring to, as well as an impotency of erring or deviating from the original modes of speech, as well as perceptions, and of becoming virtuous and vicious by turns.