Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 003.djvu/114

 feels on the occasion of changes in the Body: taking also notice, that this manner of expressing on's self is the first of Languages, and the most Universal, since there is no Nation but understands it. Besides these Natural signs of the Passions of the foul, he discovers that there are others, that are instituted, by which she can express whatsoever he conceiveth. He shews the agreement and difference of some of these signes in order to make his deduction from thence to be understood. Here he takes occasion to consider, How one may invent a Language; How a man may understand that of a Contry, where no man understands his; and then, how Children learn to speak; admiring here the force of Reason in them from their infancy, to make them discern the signification of every word; but what surprises him most of all is, the order they follow therein, forasmuch as 'tis altogether like that of the Grammar, even the Rules of this seeming to have been learnt from little Children.

Then he distinguishes, what it is, that the Body contributes to Speech; examining in a Speaker, how the Air enters into his Lungs; why it makes a sound in issuing out of the Wind-pipe? What diversity the Muscles cause in sound? What parts or the mouth are employed to make it terminate in a voice? What is the configuration of every of them in these different terminations? What is the change of the Throat, Tongue, Teeth, Lips in all the Articulations? Which gives him to understand, what Speech is as to the Body. Then he observes the effect, which sound produces in the Ear and Brains of the Hearer; and finds, that it is by reason of the Agreement, which is between the Brain and the other parts of every Animal, that it can be so differently agitated by different sounds. And having considered the use of the Nerves, which communicate themselves from the Ear to all the parts that serve to the forming of speech, he discovers the reasons of many effects, that are thought surprising, as to see certain Birds imitating the song of others, the sound of our Musical Instruments, and often our very Words.

Hence also he draws Reasons to convince him, that Brutes need no Soul to make a noise, nor to be moved by a voice, nor to imitate the sound of our words: Whereas he finds, that in Men the motion of the Parts, which serve for the Voice, or of those that Rh