Learning the reason of anything, by which we generally mean the cause of it, is a process the instructive benefit of which is not limited by the subject immediately under consideration. To trace the relation of cause and effect is a very great and very important part of true education; of which, it needs hardly here to be said, book-learning is only a help and adjunct. Indeed, this learning or finding of causes is an education or discipline which for those who give themselves to intellectual pursuits, continues all their lives. It is the chief occupation of philosophers, of men of science, of investigators, of all real students. Virgil—who was not a very great poet, being of the second, or even of the third rank, because of his moderate creative power, his lack of vividness of imagination and liveliness of fancy, but who is remarkable for a broad and serene thoughtfulness—said: “Happy is he who is able to discover the causes of things.”[A] And indeed this process of finding causes is one of the most delightful and fascinating, and, to the soul of man, most profitable, in which man can engage. Of which the chief reason is the close and intimate relation that exists between all facts and thoughts and things. Isolation and independence are conditions hardly discoverable. Men can not be independent of each other, as we all find very early in life, if we observe and think. But yet, a man may isolate himself upon the top of a pillar; or he may build himself a hut in the woods, and give himself up to contemplation; thinking that in this way he will discover or evolve something that otherwise would be concealed. The discoveries and the evolutions in these cases, however, do not prove of much value, either to the individuals or to mankind. An isolated man, although monstrous, abnormal, unnatural, is possible, but not an isolated fact. An isolated fact is almost, if not quite, a contradiction in terms; for a fact implies conditions and causes from which it can not be separated. We shall thus find that the inquiry into the cause of such a simple, every-day fact as our speaking English will lead us through, although not over, the whole range of the history, known and conjectured, of that great family of the human race to which the people of Europe and of civilized America belong. To follow the steps of this inquiry will not be difficult, and, I hope, not uninteresting to the least learned reader of this magazine.