vi, p.

54.
This too was but an idle perplexity, though thousands have gravely pored over it since, as a part of the study of rhetoric; for, if neither could be previous to the other, they must have sprung up simultaneously.

And it is a sort of slander upon our prime ancestor, to suggest, that, because he was "_the first_," he must have been "_the rudest_" of his race; and that, "consequently, those first rudiments of speech," which alone the supposition allows to him or to his family, "must have been poor and narrow."-- _Blair's Rhet._, p.54.It is far more reasonable to think, with a later author, that, "Adam had an insight into natural things far beyond the acutest philosopher, as may be gathered from his giving of names to all creatures, according to their different constitutions."-- _Robinson's Scripture Characters_, p.

4.
4.

But Dr.Blair is not alone in the view which he here takes.