[237] Introduction, &c., ii. 301. Or, as Wundt puts it, “Die demonstrative Wurzel ist daher eine demonstrirende Pantomime in einen Laut übersetzt” (Vorlesungen, &c., ii. 392).

[238] Sayce, Introduction, &c., i. 415. See also F. Müller, loc. cit., I. i. 2, p. 2, for another statement of the same facts referred to by Sayce.

[239] Sayce, Introduction, &c., i. 416.

[240] Sweet, Words, Logic, and Grammar, in Trans. Philo. Soc., 1867, p. 493.

[241] Science of Thought, p. 442.

[242] See especially Garnett, On the Nature and Analysis of the Verb.

[243] Science of Thought, p. 223.

[244] Ibid., p. 442.

[245] Sayce, Introduction, &c.

[246] I refer the reader to what is said on both these aspects of the verb in question by my opponents (see pp. 165-167.)

[247] Farrar, Origin of Language, pp. 105, 106.

[248] Garnett, On the Nature and Analysis of the Verb, Proc. Philo. Soc., vol. iii.

[249] Sayce, Introduction, &c., i. 415.

[250] Geiger, Development of the Human Race, English trans., p. 22.

[251] Sweet, Words, Logic, and Grammar, in Trans. Philol. Soc., 1876, pp. 486, 487.

[252] Sweet, loc. cit., pp. 489, 490.

[253] Bleek, Ursprung der Sprache, s. 69, 70.

[254] Science of Thought, p. 241.

[255] Steinthal, Charakteristik, &c., 165, 173.

[256] Garnett, Philological Essays, p. 310.

[257] Ibid., p. 311.

[258] Ibid., p. 312.

[259] Ibid., p. 314.

[260] See Chapter on Speech, p. 166.

[261] I may remark that it was Aristotle who first fell into the error of identifying the copula with the verb to be, by which it happens to be expressed in Greek. For many centuries afterwards this error was a fruitful source of endless confusions; but it is curious to find a wholly new fallacy springing from it in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Touching the subject and predicate, Aristotle, of course, never contemplated any more primitive relation between them than that which obtained in the only forms of speech with which he was acquainted. As regards his “categories” the following remarks by Professor Max Müller are worth quoting:—

“These categories, which proved of so much utility to the early grammarians, have a still higher interest to the students of the science of language and thought. Whereas Aristotle accepted them simply as the given forms of predication in Greek, after that language had become possessed of the whole wealth of its words, we shall have to look upon them as representing the various processes by which those Greek words, and all our own words and thoughts, too, first assumed a settled form. While Aristotle took all his words and sentences as given, and simply analyzed them in order to discover how many kinds of predication they contained, we ask how we ever came into possession of such words as horse, white, many, greater, here, now, I stand, I fear, I cut, I am cut. Anybody who is in possession of such words can easily predicate, but we shall now have to show that every word by itself was from the first a predication, and that it formed a complete sentence by itself. To us, therefore, the real question is, how these primitive sentences, which afterwards dwindled away into mere words, came into existence. The true categories, in fact, are not those which are taught by grammar, but those which produced grammar, and it is these categories which we now proceed to examine” (Science of Thought, p. 439).

[262] Sayce, Introduction, &c., ii. 229. He adds, “Had Aristotle been a Mexican, his system of logic would have assumed a wholly different form.”

[263] Introduction, &c., i, 15.

[264] In these considerations I find myself able largely to reconcile what has always been regarded as a contradiction between the views of Professor Whitney and those of other philologists on the subject of sentence-words. Partly following Schleicher—who maintains the doctrine still more unequivocally—he regards the word as having been historically prior to the sentence. This, of course, is in contradiction to the doctrine of the sentence having been historically prior to the word, which, as we have seen, is the doctrine now held by philologists in general. But, now, what the latter doctrine really amounts to is, that words were sentences before they were names—predicative before they were nominative; and, as I understand it, Whitney’s objection to this doctrine is really raised on grounds of psychology. If so, the above considerations show that he is perfectly right. Intellectually, primitive man was fully capable of acquiring the use of words as names; and, therefore, psychologically considered, it was only an accident of social environment which prevented him from so doing.

[265] Science of Thought, pp. 432, 433.

[266] Pp. 281, 282, note.

[267] Ursprung der Sprache, s. 65. For the original German, see the passage as previously quoted on page 273, note.

[268] As pointed out in a previous chapter, curious ambiguity attaches to this term. For, as used in biology, it means the hitherto undifferentiated, while in psychology and elsewhere a “generalization” means the synthetically integrated. But, as psychologists never speak of ideas as “generalized,” I here use the word in its biological sense. See also above, pp. 277-280.

[269] Ursprung der Sprache, s. 69, 70.

[270] Bleek entertains no doubt on this point.

[271] Compare also close of Chapter VII. (pp. 138-144), where the children mentioned by Dr. Hale are shown to have adopted the syntax of gesture-language in their spontaneously devised spoken language.

[272] Chapter VI., pp. 114-120.

[273] Sign-Language, &c., p. 284. On page 352, this writer further supplies a most interesting comparison between gesture and spoken language as both are used by the North American Indians—showing that the syntax in the two cases is identical.

[274] Whitney, Encyclo. Brit., loc. cit., p. 770. It is interesting to note that the psychological importance of this principle was clearly enunciated by Locke:—“It may lead us a little towards the original of all our notions and knowledge, if we remark how great a dependence our words have on common sensible ideas; and how those which are made use of to stand for actions and notions quite removed from sense, have their rise from thence, and from obvious sensible ideas are transferred to more abstruse significations, and made to stand for ideas that come out under the cognizance of our senses” (Human Understanding, iii. i. 5).

[275] Whitney, Encyclo. Brit., p. 770. See also Nodier, Notions de Linguistique, p. 39; Garnett, Essays, p. 89; Grimm, Gesch. d. d. Sprache, s. 56 et seq.; Pott, Metaphern vom Leben, &c., Zeitschr. fur Vergl. Sprachf. Jahrg., ii., heft 2; Heyse, System, &c., s. 97; and Farrar, Origin of Language, 130; Chapters on Language, pp. 67, 133, 204-246. He refers to the above, and quotes the following passages from Emerson and Carlyle:—“As the limestone of the Continent consists of infinite masses of shells of animalcules, so language is made up of images and tropes, which now, in their secondary use, have long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin” (Essays on the Poets). “Language is the flesh-garment of Thought. I said that Imagination wore this flesh-garment; and does she not? Metaphors are her stuff. Examine Language. What, if you except a few primitive elements of natural sound, what is it all but metaphors recognized as such, or no longer recognized; still fluid and florid, or now solid-grown and colourless? If those same primitive elements are the osseous fixtures in the flesh-garment of Language—then are metaphors its muscles, its tissues, and living integuments. An unmetaphorical style you shall in vain seek for: is not your very attention a stretching-to?” (Sartor Resartus, ch. x.).

[276] Science of Thought, p. 329.

[277] Science of Language, p. 123.

[278] Logos, p. 258, et seq.

[279] Geiger, Address delivered before the International Congress for Archæology and History at Bonn, 1868.

[280] Geiger, A Lecture to the Commercial Club of Frankfort-on-the-Main (1869).

[281] Perhaps the most interesting department of fundamental metaphor is that wherein the metaphor is found by philological research to have reference, not to any natural object, quality, &c., but to a pre-existing action or gesture as already made by man himself for the purpose of conveying information, expressing his emotions, &c. For fundamental metaphor of this kind obviously brings us within seeing distance of the time when the audible signs of articulations were born of the visible signs of gesture and grimace. In illustration of this branch of our subject I will only quote one passage; but the reader will at once perceive how easy it would be to furnish many other instances from the etymology of words now in habitual use.

“The further a language has been developed from its primordial roots, which have been twisted into forms no longer suggesting any reason for their original selection, and the more the primitive significance of its words has disappeared, the fewer points of contact can it retain with signs. The higher languages are more precise because the consciousness of the derivation of most of their words is lost, so that they have become counters, good for any sense agreed upon and for no other.

“It is, however, possible to ascertain the included gesture even in many English words. The class represented by the word supercilious will occur to all readers, but one or two examples may be given not so obvious and more immediately connected with the gestures of our Indians. Imbecile, generally applied to the weakness of old age, is derived from the Latin in, in the sense of on, and bacillum, a staff, which at once recalls the Cheyenne sign for old man [previously mentioned]. So time appears more nearly connected with [Greek: teinô], to stretch, when information is given of the sign for long time, in the Speech of Kin Chē-ĕss, in this paper, namely, placing the thumbs and forefingers in such a position as if a small thread was held between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, the hands first touching each other, and then moving slowly from each other, as if stretching a piece of gum-elastic” (Mallery, Sign-Language, &c., p. 350). This writer also says, with reference to the uncivilized languages which he has specially studied, “In the languages of North America, which have not become arbitrary, to the degree exhibited by those of civilized man, the connection between the idea and the word is only less obvious than that still unbroken connection between the idea and the sign, and they remain strongly affected by the concepts of outline, form, place, position, and feature on which gesture is founded, while they are similar in their fertile combination of radicals. Indian language consists of a series of words that are but slightly differentiated parts of speech following each other in the order suggested in the mind of the speaker without absolute laws of arrangement, as its sentences are not completely integrated. The sentence necessitates parts of speech, and parts of speech are possible only when a language has reached that stage where sentences are logically constructed. The words of an Indian tongue, being synthetic or undifferentiated parts of speech, are in this respect strictly analogous to the gesture elements which enter into a sign-language. The study of the latter is therefore valuable for comparison with the words of the former. The one language throws much light upon the other, and neither can be studied to the best advantage without a knowledge of the other.”

[282] There are certain writers, such as Du Ponceau, Charlevoix, James, Appleyard, Threlkeld, Caldwell, &c., who have sought to represent that the languages of even the lowest savages are “highly systematic and truly philosophical,” &c. But this opinion rests on a radically false estimate of the criteria of system and philosophy in a language. For the criteria chosen are exuberance of synonyms, intricacies or complications of forms, &c., which are really works of a low development. The fallacy is now acknowledged to be such by all philologists. Even Farrar, who at first himself fell into this error (Origin of Language, p. 28), in his subsequent work writes:—“Further examination has entirely removed this belief. For this apparent wealth of synonyms and grammatical forms is chiefly due to the hopeless poverty of the power of abstraction. It would not only be no advantage, but even an impossible encumbrance to a language required for literary purposes. The transnormal character of these tongues only proves that they are the work of minds incapable of all subtle analysis, and following in one single direction an erroneous and partial line of development.... If language proves anything, it proves that these savages must have lived continuously in a savage condition” (Farrar, Chapters on Language, pp. 53, 54, who also refers to numerous authorities).

[283] The term “conception” here is, of course, equivalent to my term “pre-conception.” When my daughter uttered her first denotative word “star,” she was, indeed, bestowing a name; but it was the name of a recept, not of a concept.

[284] Farrar, Chapters on Language, pp. 198, 199.

[285] Mithridates, iii. 325, 397. See also Pott, Etym. Forsch., ii. 167; and Heyse, System, 132.

[286] Latham, Races of Man, p. 376.

[287] Quatrefages, Rev. des Deux Mondes, Dec. 15, 1860; Maury, La Terre et l’Homme, p. 433.

[288] Mem. sur le Syst. Gram., &c., p. 120.

[289] Malay Grammar, i., p. 68, et seq.

[290] Journl. Ameri. Orient, Soc., i. No. 4, p. 402.

[291] Casalis, Grammar, p. 7.

[292] Pickering, Indian Languages, p. 26.

[293] Vocabulary of the Dialects of some of the Aboriginal Tribes of Tasmania, p. 34.

[294] Introduction, &c., vol. ii., p. 6.

[295] Ibid., vol. i., p. 379.

[296] A Lecture delivered at Frankfort, 1869.

[297] Science of Thought, p. 245.

[298] Essays, p. 89.

[299] Chapters on Language, p. 133.

[300] Herder, Abhandl., s. 122.

[301] Das Leben der Seele, ii. 47.

[302] Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft, i. 35, 36.

[303] See, for example, F. Müller, loc. cit., i. 36, 37.

[304] Some of the supporters of the interjectional theory in this extreme, not to say extravagant form, appear to go on the assumption that primitive and hitherto speechless man already differed from the lower animals in presenting conceptual thought. This assumption would, of course, explain why man alone began to invest his instinctive cries, &c., with the character of names. But, from a psychological point of view, any such assumption is obviously a putting of the cart before the horse. I make this remark in order to add that the objection would not apply if the ideation were supposed to be pre-conceptual—i.e. beyond the level reached by any brute, though not yet distinctively human. Later on, I myself espouse a theory to this effect.

[305] E.g. by Mr. Ward, in his Dynamical Sociology.

[306] Differences of opinion are entertained by philologists concerning the value of “nursery-language,” or “baby-talk,” as a guide to the probable stages of language-growth in primitive man. Without going into the arguments upon this question on either side, it appears to me that the analogy as above limited cannot be objected to even by the most extreme sceptics upon the philological value of infantile utterance. And it is only to this extent that I anywhere use the analogy.

[307] For cases, see Heinieke, Beobachtungen über Stumme, s. 137, &c.

[308] Ibid., s. 73.

[309] Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 238.

[310] The carnivorous habits of this animal (which is named as a new species) are most interesting. It is surmised that in its wild state it must live upon birds; but in the Zoological Gardens it is found to show a marked preference for cooked meat over raw. It dines off boiled mutton-chops, the bones of which it picks with its fingers and teeth, being afterwards careful to clean its hands. It mixes a little straw with the mutton as vegetables, and finishes its dinner with a dessert of fruits. But a more important point is that this animal answers its keeper in vocal tones—or rather grunts—when he speaks to it, and these tones are understood by the keeper as indicative of different mental states. I have spent a great deal of time in observing this animal, but the publicity and other circumstances render it difficult to do much in the way of experiment or tuition. With regard to teaching her to count, see above, p. 58; and with regard to her understanding of words, p. 126.

[311] “If there once existed creatures above the apes and below man, who were extirpated by primitive man as his especial rivals in the struggle for existence, or became extinct in any other way, there is no difficulty in supposing them to have possessed forms of speech, more rudimentary and imperfect than ours” (Professor Whitney, Art. Philology, Ency. Brit., vol. xviii., p. 769).

[312] Houzeau gives a very curious account of his observations on this subject in his Facultés Mentales des Animaux, tom. ii., p. 348.

[313] Descent of Man, p. 87.

[314] Descent of Man, p. 87.

[315] This term is used by Haeckel as synonymous with Pithecanthropoi, or the ape-like men, who are supposed to have immediately preceded Homo sapiens (History of Evolution, English trans., vol. ii., p. 293). In the next instalment of work I will consider what has to be said in favour of this view from the side of my anthropology. Meanwhile, it is sufficient to bear in mind that, as previously stated, great as is the psychological difference introduced by the faculty of speech, for the attainment of this faculty anatomical changes so minute as to be imperceptible were all that seem to have been required. “The argument, that because there is an immense difference between a man’s intelligence and an ape’s, therefore there must be an equally immense difference between their brains, appears to me to be about as well based as the reasoning by which one should endeavour to prove that, because there is a ‘great gulf’ between a watch that keeps accurate time and another that will not go at all, there is therefore a great structural hiatus between the two watches. A hair in the balance-wheel, a little rust on a pinion, a bend in a tooth of the escapement, a something so slight that only the practised eye of the watchmaker can discover it, may be the source of all the difference. And believing, as I do, with Cuvier, that the possession of articulate speech is the grand distinctive character of man (whether it be absolutely peculiar to him or not), I find it very easy to comprehend, that some equally inconspicuous structural difference may have been the primary cause of the immeasurable and practically infinite divergence of the human from the simian stirps” (Huxley, Man’s Place in Nature, p. 103).

[316] Here I will ask the reader to bear in mind the considerations above adduced from Geiger, as to the encouragement which must have been given to a semiotic use of vocal sounds by habitual attention being given to the movements of the mouth in significant grimace—such attention being naturally bestowed in larger measure by an intelligent ape-like creature which was accustomed to depend chiefly on its sense of sight, than it would be by any of the existing quadrumana.

[317] For sign-making among the social insects, see above, pp. 88-95.

[318] Here, be it observed, the element of truth which belongs to the first of the three hypotheses that we are considering comes in. Compare foot-note on page 364: Homo alalus, though not yet a conceptual thinker, is nevertheless in possession of a higher receptual life than has ever been attained by a brute, and is correspondingly more capable of utilizing as signs interjectional or other sounds which emanate from the “purely physiological grounds” of his own organization.

[319] See Preyer, loc. cit., for a detailed account of the order in which the consonants are developed in the growing child. Also Professor Holden, on the Vocabularies of Children, in Proc. Amer. Philolo. Ass., 1877. There can be no doubt that vowel sounds must have been of early origin in the race; but in what order the consonants may have followed is much more doubtful. For different races now exhibit great differences with regard to the use—and even to the capability of using—consonantal sounds; the Chinese, for instance, changing r into l, while the Japanese change l into r. And, of course, the whole science of comparative philology may be said to be based upon a study of the laws of “phonetic change.” But it is obviously a matter of no importance in what particular order the different articulate sounds were first evolved. According to Prince Lucien Bonaparte, who has investigated the matter with much care, the total number of these sounds that can be possibly made by the human organs of vocalization is 385. See, also, Ellis, on Early English Pronunciation; and, for the limitation of consonants in various languages of existing races, Hovelaque, Science of Language, English trans., pp. 49, 61, 81.

[320] “When we remember the inarticulate clicks which still form part of the Bushman’s language, it would seem as if no line of division could be drawn between man and beast, even when language is made the test” (Sayce, Introduction, &c., ii., p. 302).

[321] Ursprung der Sprache, s. 52.

[322] Introduction, &c., ii., 302: by “thought” of course he means what I mean by recepts.

[323] Here also compare the first of the three hypotheses, the important elements of truth in which are, as I have already more than once observed, to be considered as adopted by Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis, and therefore also by the present one.

[324] The song of the gibbon has already been alluded to in a quotation from Darwin. I may here add that the chimpanzee “Sally” not unfrequently executes an extraordinary performance of an analogous kind. The song, however, is by no means so “musical.” It is sung without any regard to notation, in a series of rapidly succeeding howls and screams—very loud, and accompanied by a drumming of the legs upon the ground. She will only thus “break forth into singing” after more or less sustained excitement by her keeper; but more often than not she refuses to be provoked by any amount of endeavour on his part.

[325] Compare quotations from the German philologists in support of the first hypothesis, pp. 361, 362.

[326] See pp. 288-290.

[327] Welt als Entwickelung der Geists, s. 255. This book, however, was not published until 1874—i.e. some years after the Descent of Man.

[328] This is likewise the view that was ably supported by Geiger on philological grounds, Ursprung der Sprache, 1869; and by Haeckel on grounds of general reasoning, History of Creation, English trans., 1876.

[329] “How many of the roots of language were formed in this way it is impossible to say; but when we consider that there is no modern word which we can derive from such cries as the sailor makes when he hauls a rope, or the groom when he cleans a horse, it does not seem likely that they can have been very numerous” (Sayce, Introduction, &c., i., p. 110).

[330] With regard to the erect attitude, we must remember that, although the chimpanzee and orang never adopt it, the only other kinds of anthropoid apes—namely, gorilla and gibbon—frequently do so when progressing on level surfaces. In the case of the gorilla, indeed, although the fore-limbs quit the ground and the locomotion thus becomes bipedal, the body is never fully straightened up; but in the case of the gibbon the erect attitude may be said to be complete when the animal is walking. (Huxley, Man’s Place in Nature, pp. 36-49). With regard to the selection and use of stones as tools, Commander Alfred Carpenter, R.N., thus describes the modus operandi of monkeys inhabiting islands off S. Burmah:—“The rocks at low-water are covered with oysters. The monkeys select stones of the best shape for their purpose from shingle of the beach, and carry them to the low-water mark, where the oysters live, which may be as far as eighty yards from the beach. This monkey has chosen the easiest way to open the rock-oyster, namely, to dislocate the valves by a blow on the base of the upper one, and to break the shell over the attaching muscle” (Nature, vol. xxxvi., p. 53. In connection with this subject see also Animal Intelligence, p. 481).

[331] See above, p. 220.

[332] See pp. 220-222.

[333] See pp. 179-181.

[334] See above, pp. 300, 301.

[335] Whitney.

[336] Sayce.

[337] Farrar.

[338] Garnett.

[339] Sayce.

[340] Max Müller.

[341] See especially Science of Thought, chaps, ii. and iv. The following quotations may suffice to justify this statement. “If once a genus has been rightly recognized as such, it seems to me self-contradictory to admit that it could ever give rise to another genus.... Once a sheep always a sheep, once an ape always an ape, once a man always a man.... What seems to me simply irrational is to look for a fossil ape as the father of a fossil man.... Why should it be the settled or ready-made Pithecanthropus who became the father of the first man, though everywhere else in nature what has once become settled remains settled, or, if it varies, it varies within definite limits only? (pp. 212-215).... If the germ of a man never develops into an ape, nor the germ of an ape into a man, why should the full-grown ape have developed into a man? (p. 117).... Let us now see what Darwin himself has to say in support of his opinion that man does not date from the same period which marks the beginning of organic life on earth—that he has not an ancestor of his own, like the other great families of living beings, but that he had to wait till the mammals had reached a high degree of development, and that he then stepped into the world as the young or as the child of an ape” (p. 160), &c., &c. So far as can be gathered from these, and other statements to the same effect, it does not appear that Professor Max Müller can ever have quite understood the theory of evolution, even in its application to plants and animals. For these are not criticisms upon that theory: they are failures to appreciate in what it is that the theory itself consists.

[342] Ursprung der Sprache, s. 84.

[343] Ursprung der Sprache, s. 119.

[344] It would be no answer to say that by “names” he means only signs of ideas which present a conceptual value—or, in other words, that he would refuse to recognize as a name what I have called a denotative sign. For the question here is not one of terminology, but of psychology. I care not by what terms we designate these different sorts of signs; the question is whether or not they differ from one another in kind. If the term “name” is expressly reserved for signs of conceptual origin, it would be no argument, upon the basis of this definition, to say that there cannot be names without concepts; for, in terms of the definition, this would merely be to enunciate a truism: it would be merely to say that without concepts there can be no concepts, nor, à fortiori, the signs of them. In short, the issue is by no means one as to a definition of terms; it is the plain question whether or not a non-conceptual sign is the precursor of a conceptual one. And this is the question which I cannot find that Max Müller has adequately faced.

[345] Ursprung der Sprache, s. 91. The exact words are, “Die Sprache hat die Vernunft erschaffen: vor ihr war der Mensch vernunftlos.” It is needless to observe that the word which I have rendered by its English equivalent “Reason” is here used in the sense of conceptual thought.

[346] Wundt, Vorlesungen, &c., ii. 282.