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Now what is meant by such an expression as the revelation of language rigorously understood? If, for instance, we take it materially, if we understand it to mean that a voice from heaven dictated to men the names of things—such a conception is so grossly[40] anthropomorphic, it is so utterly at variance with all scientific explanation, it is so irreconcileably opposed to all our ideas of the laws of nature, that it needs no refutation for one who is in the least degree initiated into the methods of modern criticism. Besides, as M. Cousin[41] has remarked, “it only removes the difficulty a step backwards without resolving it. For signs divinely invented would for us not be signs but things, which we should have been subsequently obliged to elevate into signs by attaching to them certain significations.” The revealed “term” would be a useless encumbrance unless it corresponded with some well understood conception; and therefore if words were revealed, conceptions must also have been implanted; and we are thus driven to the absurdity of supposing that anterior to all experience, we knew that which experience (i.e. an[42] actual relation of intelligence with that which is the object of intelligence) alone could teach us.