timate claims.
According to my own interpretation, however wonderful these phenomena of
memory may appear, they merely afford examples of the simplest acts of
recollection, excited by the recurrence of the original objects, at a
period when language was little familiar: in the same manner as an
animal, at a distant time brought into its former haunts, would
remember the paths it had heretofore trodden.

But there are some facts in the history of recollection which do not
admit of any satisfactory solution. From these it appears, that persons
in their childhood have learned a language which, from the acquirement
and usage of another during many years, they have entirely forgotten; so
that when spoken by others, they have been wholly unable to understand
it: yet during the delirium of fever, or from inflammation of the brain
and its membranes, in consequence of external injury, the former and
forgotten language has been revived, and spoken with fluency: but after
a restoration to health no traces of its recollection have remained. A
remarkable case of this kind has been published by Mr. Abernethy; and a
similar instance is recorded of the lady of an ambassador. These few
preliminary observations have been submitted to the reader, in order to
introduce a principal part of the subject to his notice, to prevent
repetitions, and from the impossibility of considering the more curious
and important phenomena of perception and memory as simple and
unconnected endowments.

ON THE INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY WHICH MAN HAS ACQUIRED BY SPEECH, AND
THE POSSESSION OF THE HAND.

In our investigations of the nature and offices of the human mind, we
are immediately and forcibly struck with two important circumstances,
which appear to have contributed in an especial manner to the
superiority of man over all other animals. Let it be admitted, without
at present discussing the question, or adducing any arguments; that the
constitution of the human intellect is of a higher quality, or of a
finer staple, than the intelligent principle of other creatures.[2]
These two endowments with which man may be considered as exclusively
gifted, and which, on a deliberate survey, appear principally to have
conduced to his pre-eminence in the range of intellectual creation, are
speech and the possession of his hands. One of the chief characteristics
by which man is distinguished from the other animals, is the capability
he possesses of transmitting