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The Grammar of English Grammars

CHAPTER IV
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Again: "Language, it is true, _is an art_, and a glorious one; whose influence extends over all the others, and in which finally all science whatever must centre: but an art _springing from necessity_, and originally invented by artless men, who did not sit down like philosophers to invent it."-- _Ib._, Vol.

i, p.

259.
7.

Milton imagines Adam's first knowledge of speech, to have sprung from the hearing of his own voice; and that voice to have been raised, instinctively, or spontaneously, in an animated inquiry concerning his own origin--an inquiry in which he addresses to unintelligent objects, and inferior creatures, such questions as the Deity alone could answer: "Myself I then perused, and limb by limb Surveyed, and sometimes went, and sometimes ran With supple joints, as lively vigor led: But who I was, or where, or from what cause, Knew not; _to speak I tried, and forthwith spake; My tongue obeyed, and readily could name Whatever I saw_.

'Thou Sun,' said I, 'fair light, And thou enlightened Earth, so fresh and gay, Ye Hills and Dales, ye Rivers, Woods, and Plains; And ye that live and move, fair Creatures! tell, Tell, if ye saw, how came I thus, how here?
Not of myself; by some great Maker then, In goodness and in power preeminent: Tell me how I may know him, how adore, From whom I have that thus I move and live, And feel that I am happier than I know.'" _Paradise Lost_, Book viii, l.


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