The utterance of words, or the making of signs of any sort, requires time;[35] but it is here suggested by Dr.Adam, that sentiment and thought, though susceptible of being retained or recalled, naturally flash upon the mind with immeasurable quickness.[36] If so, they must originate in something more spiritual than language.

The Doctor does not affirm that words are the instruments of thought, but of _the division_ of thought.

But it is manifest, that if they effect this, they are not the only instruments by means of which the same thing may be done.

The deaf and dumb, though uninstructed and utterly ignorant of language, can think; and can, by rude signs of their own inventing, manifest a similar division, corresponding to the individuality of things.

And what else can be meant by "_the division of thought_," than our notion of objects, as existing severally, or as being distinguishable into parts?
There can, I think, be no such division respecting that which is perfectly pure and indivisible in its essence; and, I would ask, is not simple continuity apt to exclude it from our conception of every thing which appears with uniform coherence?
Dr.Beattie says, "It appears to me, that, as all things are individuals, all thoughts must be so too."-- _Moral Science_, Chap, i, Sec.1.If, then, our thoughts are thus divided, and consequently, as this author infers, have not in themselves any of that generality which belongs to the signification of common nouns, there is little need of any instrument to divide them further: the mind rather needs help, as Cardell suggests, "to combine its ideas." [37] 8.