Speech is a peculiar modification of the voice, formed during the expulsion of the air from the chest, chiefly by means of the tongue, which is applied to the neigh bouring parts, as the palate and teeth, assisted by the various motions of the lips. A voice is common to brutes with man; it exists already in the newly born child, and has not been entirely wanting in those miserable children, who have grown up in a solitary and savage state, or who have been born dumb. Speech results from the enjoyment and cultiva tion of reason, and is, therefore, like that endowment, a peculiar and distin guishing gift bestowed on man alone. Instinct is sufficient for the purposes of brutes ; but man, who does not possess this, or several other assistances, in sup porting and defending himself by his own powers, has received the endowments of reason and speech. These have brought him into the social state, which seems to be his natural destination, in which they enable him to utter his ideas and impart his desires to others.
Articulated sounds are represented by letters that express all their power ; and it will be readily admitted that man made a great step towards perfection, when he invented these signs, adapted to preserve and transmit his thoughts.— Sounds are expressed by the letters call ed vowels, which are letters produced by the mere passage of the voice through the mouth, requiring only a greater or less aperture of the mouth. Hence these are the first that the child utters. The conso nants, which form the most numerous class of the alphabet, serve to connect the vowels, and are formed by a much molt artificial process. These are classed into labial, nasal, oral, and lingual, according to the parts more particularly employed in their pronunciation.
Stammering is a corruption of pronun ciation, arising from various causes. A tongue too large and thick, diminished power over its actions, as in drunkenness, and unusual length of the frenum, belong to this class. Yet sometimes the defi ciency does not seem organic ; at least, a person who stammers will pronounce per fectly if he speaks slowly; and it may even be entirely overcome by practice and instruction.
Similar causes give rise to lisping.— Want of the front teeth will have this ef fect.
Dumbness may be accidental, or maY subsist from birth. In the former case, it arises from organic injury, which af ficts the mechanism of the parts. In dumbness from birth, deafness seems to be always the cause ; so that the absence of speech should here rather be called silence. This, at least, is constantly the case, according to the observation of Si card, on the numerous pupils conimitted to his care. Here there is an absolute
ignorance of sounds, and of their repre sentative value in letters of the alphabet. The vocal organs exhibit no marks of de ficiency; they are fit, in short, to fulfil the uses for which nature has destined them, but they remain in a state of inac tion, because the deaf infant is not con scions that he has the means of commu nicating his thoughts.
Perhaps the mechanism of Ventriloquism is not yet understood-. The following quotation from Richerand's Physiology will be sufficient to give the reader an • idea of the subject.
" At first 1 had conjectured that a great portion of the air expelled by expi ration did not pass out by the mouth and nostrils, but was swallowed and carried into the stomach, reflected in some part of the digestive canal, and gave rise to a real echo; but after having attentively observed this curious phenomenon, in Fitz•James, who represents it in its greatest perfection, I was enabled to con vince myself that the name ventriloquism is by no means applicable, since the whole of its mechanism consits in a slow, gradual expiration, drawn in such a way that the artist either makes use of the influence exerted by volition over the muscles of the parietes of the thorax, or that he keeps the epiglottis clown by the base of the tongue, the apex. of which is not carried beyond the dental arches.
"lie always makes a strong inspiration just before this long expiration, and thus conveys a considerable mass of air into the lungs, the exit of which he afterwards manages with such address. Therefore repletion of the stomach greatly incom modes the talent of Mr. Fitz-James, by preventing the diaphragm from descend ing sufficiently to admit ztf a dilatation of the thorax, in proportion to the quantity of air that the lungs should. receive: By accelerating or retarding the exit Of the air, he can imitate different voices, and induce his auditors to a belief that the interlocutors of a dialogue, which is kept up by himself alone; are placed at differ ent distances ; and this illusion is the more complete in proportion to the per fection of his peculiar talent. No man possesses, to such a degree as Mr. Fitz James, the art of deceiving persons who are least liable to delusion : he can carry his execution to five or six different tones, pass rapidly from one to another, as he does when representing an animated dio in the midst of a popular assem On the subject of the Generative Func tions, we have very little to add to what the reader will find under the articles