than thought and understanding, of which it can not be said they are
entirely destitute. For to make themselves secure and commodious
lodges, to interweave their nests with such art, to rear their young
with such care, to teach them to shift for themselves when grown up, to
hoard provisions for the winter, to produce such inimitable works as wax
and honey, are instances perhaps of a glimmering of reason; but because
destitute of speech, all the extraordinary things they do can not
distinguish them from the brute part of creation. Let us consider dumb
persons: how does the heavenly soul, which takes form in their bodies,
operate in them? We perceive, indeed, that its help is but weak, and its
action but languid.


THE VALUE OF THE GIFT OF SPEECH

If, then, the beneficent Creator of the world has not imparted to us a
greater blessing than the gift of speech, what can we esteem more
deserving of our labor and improvement, and what object is more worthy
of our ambition than that of raising ourselves above other men by the
same means by which they raise themselves above beasts, so much the more
as no labor is attended with a more abundant harvest of glory? To be
convinced of this we need only consider by what degrees eloquence has
been brought to the perfection in which we now see it, and how far it
might still be perfected. For, not to mention the advantage and pleasure
a good man reaps from defending his friends, governing the Senate by his
counsels, seeing himself the oracle of the people, and master of armies,
what can be more noble than by the faculty of speaking and thinking,
which is common to all men, to erect for himself such a standard of
praise and glory as to seem to the minds of men not so much to discourse
and speak, but, like Pericles, to make his words thunder and lightning.