The first was revived three quarters of a century ago by de Bonald and Joseph de Maistre. It no longer needs to be refuted. According to this hypothesis, our ideas came to us, not from within, from the naturally productive force of the mind, but from without, by way of supernatural communication. This communication from God consisted at the outset in the gift to man of a perfect language. The exact word brought with it the right idea. "Man," said de Bonald, "thought his speech before speaking his thought." If errors have crept in and reigned among men, it is because they were not able to preserve without corruption the sacred deposit of that primitive language and philosophy. Is it necessary to show how thoroughly this theory is contradicted by psychology and history? It is said that in certain countries there still exists a Botany, according to which the Great Spirit, having created the trees of the forest, comes in the night each Spring to stick the leaves and blossoms on the branches. The immediate communication of right ideas and supernatural virtues to man in his infancy implies a contradiction; it forces us to imagine in him thoughts prior to the action of his intellect and virtues previous to the action of his will. Lastly, it is to misconceive the nature of the mind to make of it something passive and inert. The mind is the thinking and willing force--that is to say, a force productive of thoughts and volitions. If it is not this, it is nothing. We must affirm, no doubt, that God creates this force and directs its evolution, but it is a contradiction to say at once that He creates it and that it is unproductive. It cannot exist without being productive. It is of its very essence to produce. Mind is only mind in so far as it is a force that produces thought and volition.