This view was echoed by a multitude of divines in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Typical among these was the
great Dr. South, who, in his sermon on _The State of Man before
the Fall_, declared that "Adam came into the world a philosopher,
which sufficiently appears by his writing the nature of things
upon their names."
In the chorus of modern English divines there appeared one
of eminence who declared against this theory: Dr. Shuckford,
chaplain in ordinary to his Majesty George II, in the preface to
his work on _The Creation and Fall of Man_, pronounced the whole
theory "romantic and irrational." He goes on to say: "The
original of our speaking was from God; not that God put into
Adam's mouth the very sounds which he designed he should use as
the names of things; but God made Adam with the powers of a man;
he had the use of an understanding to form notions in his mind of
the things about him, and he had the power to utter sounds which
should be to himself the names of things according as he might
think fit to call them.
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