as all gone from him, for he has not
looked into a _book_ these many years." Has he lost a knowledge of
language? Oh, no, he learned that before he saw a grammar, and will
preserve it to the day of his death. What good did his two or three
years study of grammar do him? None at all; he has forgotten all that he
ever knew of it, and that is not much, for he only learned what some
author said, and a few arbitrary rules and technical expressions which
he could never understand nor apply in practice, except in special
cases. But I wander. I throw in this remark to show you the necessity of
bringing your minds to a close observance of things as they do in truth
exist; and from them you can draw the principles of speech, and be able
to use language correctly. For we still insist on our former opinion,
that all language depends on the permanent laws of nature, as exerted in
the regulation of matter and mind.

* * *

To return. I have said that all action denotes _power_, _cause_,
_means_, _agency_, and _effects_.

* * *

_Power_ depends on _physical energy_, or _mental skill_. I have hinted
at this fact before. Things act according to the power or energy they
possess. Animals walk, birds fly, fishes swim, minerals sink, poisons
kill. Or, according to the adopted theories of naturalists:

Minerals _grow_.

Vegetables _grow_ and _live_.

Animals _grow_, and _live_, and _feel_.

Every thing acts according to the ability it possesses. Man, possessed
of reason, devises means and produces ends. Beasts change locations,
devour vegetables, and sometimes other beasts. The lowest grade of
animals never change location, but yet eat and live. Vegetables live and
grow, but do not change location. They have the power to reproduce their
species, and some of them to kill off surrounding objects. "The
_carraguata_ of the West Indies, clings round," says Goldsmith,
"whatever tree it happens to approach; there it quickly gains the
ascendant, and, loading the tree with a verdure not its own, keeps away
that nourishment designed to feed the trunk, and at last entirely
destroys its supporter." In our country, many gardens and fields present
convincing proof of the ability of weeds to kill out the vegetables
designed to grow therein. You all have heard of the _Upas_, which has a
power sufficient to destroy the lives of animals and vegetables for a
large distance around. Its very exhalations are death t