8. That language, in such a stage, is a special character of man, will not be doubted. But it may be thought, there is little resemblance between Language in this exalted degree of perfection, and the seemingly senseless gibberish of the most barbarous tribes. Such an opinion, however, might easily be carried too far. All human language has in it the elements of indefinite intellectual activity, and the germs of indefinite development. Even the rudest kind of speech, used by savages, denotes objects by their kinds, their attributes, their relations, with a degree of generality derived from the intellect, not from the senses. The generality may be very limited; the relations which the human intellect is capable of apprehending may be imperfectly conveyed. But to denote kinds and attributes and actions and relations _at all_, is a beginning of generalization and abstraction;--or rather, is far more than a beginning. It is the work of a faculty which can generalize and abstract; and these mental processes once begun, the field of progress which is open to them is indefinite. Undoubtedly it may happen that weak and barbarous tribes are, for many generations, so hard pressed by circumstances, and their faculties so entirely absorbed in providing for the bare wants of the poorest life, that their thoughts may never travel to anything beyond these, and their language may not be extended so as to be applicable to any other purposes. But this is not the standard condition of mankind. It is not, by such cases, that man, or that human nature, is to be judged. The normal condition of man is one of an advance beyond the mere means of subsistence, to the arts of life, and the exercise of thought in a general form. To some extent, such an advance has taken place in almost every region of the earth and in every age.