Lectures on The Science of Language 40

Lectures on The Science of Language 40

II.“Nothing necessitates the admission of different beginnings for

the formal elements of the Turanian, Semitic, and Aryan branches

of speech;—and though it is impossible to derive the Aryan system

of grammar from the Semitic, or the Semitic from the Aryan, we can

perfectly understand how, either through individual influences, or

by the wear and tear of speech in its own continuous working, the

different systems of grammar of Asia and Europe may have been

produced.”

 

 

It will be seen, from the very wording of these two paragraphs, that my

object was to deny the necessity of independent beginnings, and to assert

the possibility of a common origin of language. I have been accused of

having been biassed in my researches by an implicit belief in the common

origin of mankind. I do not deny that I hold this belief, and, if it

wanted confirmation, that confirmation has been supplied by Darwin’s book

“On the Origin of Species.”(313) But I defy my adversaries to point out

one single passage where I have mixed up scientific with theological

arguments. Only if I am told that no “quiet observer would ever have

conceived the idea of deriving all mankind from one pair, unless the

Mosaic records had taught it,” I must be allowed to say in reply, that

this idea on the contrary is so natural, so consistent with all human laws

of reasoning, that, as far as I know, there has been no nation on earth

which, if it possessed any traditions on the origin of mankind, did not

derive the human race from one pair, if not from one person. The author of

the Mosaic records, therefore, though stripped, before the tribunal of

Physical Science, of his claims as an inspired writer, may at least claim

the modest title of a quiet observer, and if his conception of the

physical unity of the human race can be proved to be an error, it is an

error which he shares in common with other quiet observers, such as

Humboldt, Bunsen, Prichard, and Owen.(314)

 

The only question which remains to be answered is this, Was it one and the

same volume of water which supplied all the lateral channels of speech?

or, to drop all metaphor, are the roots which were joined together

according to the radical, the terminational, and inflectional systems,

identically the same? The only way to answer, or at least to dispose of,

this question is to consider the nature and origin of roots; and we shall

then have reached the extreme limits to which inductive reasoning can

carry us in our researches into the mysteries of human speech.

 

 

 

 

 

LECTURE IX. THE THEORETICAL STAGE, AND THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE.

 

 

“In examining the history of mankind, as well as in examining the

phenomena of the material world, when we cannot trace the process by which

an event _has been_ produced, it is often of importance to be able to show

how it _may have been_ produced by natural causes. Thus, although it is

impossible to determine with certainty what the steps were by which any

particular language was formed, yet if we can show, from the known

principles of human nature, how all its various parts _might_ gradually

have arisen, the mind is not only to a certain degree satisfied, but a

check is given to that indolent philosophy which refers to a miracle

whatever appearances, both in the natural and moral worlds, it is unable

to explain.”(315)

 

This quotation from an eminent Scotch philosopher contains the best advice

that could be given to the student of the science of language, when he

approaches the problem which we have to examine to-day, namely, the origin

of language. Though we have stripped that problem of the perplexing and

mysterious aspect which it presented to the philosophers of old, yet, even

in its simplest form, it seems to be almost beyond the reach of the human

understanding.

 

If we were asked the riddle how images of the eye and all the sensations

of our senses could be represented by sounds, nay, could be so embodied in

sounds as to express thought and excite thought, we should probably give

it up as the question of a madman, who, mixing up the most heterogeneous

subjects, attempted to change color into sound and sound into

thought.(316) Yet this is the riddle which we have now to solve.

 

It is quite clear that we have no means of solving the problem of the

origin of language _historically_, or of explaining it as a matter of fact

which happened once in a certain locality and at a certain time. History

does not begin till long after mankind had acquired the power of language,

and even the most ancient traditions are silent as to the manner in which

man came in possession of his earliest thoughts and words. Nothing, no

doubt, would be more interesting than to know from historical documents

the exact process by which the first man began to lisp his first words,

and thus to be rid forever of all the theories on the origin of speech.

But this knowledge is denied us; and, if it had been otherwise, we should

probably be quite unable to understand those primitive events in the

history of the human mind.(317) We are told that the first man was the son

of God, that God created him in His own image, formed him of the dust of

the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. These are

simple facts, and to be accepted as such; if we begin to reason on them,

the edge of the human understanding glances off. Our mind is so

constituted that it cannot apprehend the absolute beginning or the

absolute end of anything. If we tried to conceive the first man created as

a child, and gradually unfolding his physical and mental powers, we could

not understand his living for _one_ day without supernatural aid. If, on

the contrary, we tried to conceive the first man created full-grown in

body and mind, the conception of an effect without a cause, of a

full-grown mind without a previous growth, would equally transcend our

reasoning powers. It is the same with the first beginnings of language.

Theologians who claim for language a divine origin drift into the most

dangerous anthropomorphism, when they enter into any details as to the

manner in which they suppose the Deity to have compiled a dictionary and

grammar in order to teach them to the first man, as a schoolmaster teaches

the deaf and dumb. And they do not see that, even if all their premises

were granted, they would have explained no more than how the first man

might have learnt a language, if there was a language ready made for him.

How that language was made would remain as great a mystery as ever.

Philosophers, on the contrary, who imagine that the first man, though left

to himself, would gradually have emerged from a state of mutism and have

invented words for every new conception that arose in his mind, forget

that man could not by his own power have acquired _the faculty_ of speech

which is the distinctive character of mankind,(318) unattained and

unattainable by the mute creation. It shows a want of appreciation as to

the real bearings of our problem, if philosophers appeal to the fact that

children are born without language, and gradually emerge from mutism to

the full command of articulate speech. We want no explanation how birds

learn to fly, created as they are with organs adapted to that purpose. Nor

do we wish to inquire how children learn to use the various faculties with

which the human body and soul are endowed. We want to gain, if possible,

an insight into the original faculty of speech; and for that purpose I

fear it is as useless to watch the first stammerings of children, as it

would be to repeat the experiment of the Egyptian king who intrusted two

new-born infants to a shepherd, with the injunction to let them suck a

goat’s milk, and to speak no word in their presence, but to observe what

word they would first utter.(319) The same experiment is said to have been

repeated by the Swabian emperor, Frederic II., by James IV. of Scotland,

and by one of the Mogul emperors of India. But, whether for the purpose of

finding out which was the primitive language of mankind, or of discovering

how far language was natural to man, the experiments failed to throw any

light on the problem before us. Children, in learning to speak, do not

invent language. Language is there ready made for them. It has been there

for thousands of years. They acquire the use of a language, and, as they

grow up, they may acquire the use of a second and a third. It is useless

to inquire whether infants, left to themselves, would invent a language.

It would be impossible, unnatural, and illegal to try the experiment, and,

without repeated experiments, the assertions of those who believe and

those who disbelieve the possibility of children inventing a language of

their own, are equally valueless. All we know for certain is, that an

English child, if left to itself, would never begin to speak English, and

that history supplies no instance of any language having thus been

invented.

 

If we want to gain an insight into the faculty of flying, which is a

characteristic feature of birds, all we can do is, first, to compare the

structure of birds with that of other animals which are devoid of that

faculty, and secondly, to examine the conditions under which the act of

flying becomes possible. It is the same with speech. Speech is a specific

faculty of man. It distinguishes man from all other creatures; and if we

wish to acquire more definite ideas as to the real nature of human speech,

all we can do is to compare man with those animals that seem to come

nearest to him, and thus to try to discover what he shares in common with

these animals, and what is peculiar to him and to him alone. After we have

discovered this, we may proceed to inquire into the conditions under which

speech becomes possible, and we shall then have done all that we can do,

considering that the instruments of our knowledge, wonderful as they are,

are yet far too weak to carry us into all the regions to which we may soar

on the wings of our imagination.

 

In comparing man with the other animals, we need not enter here into the

physiological questions whether the difference between the body of an ape

and the body of a man is one of degree or of kind. However that question

is settled by physiologists we need not be afraid. If the structure of a

mere worm is such as to fill the human mind with awe, if a single glimpse

which we catch of the infinite wisdom displayed in the organs of the

lowest creature gives us an intimation of the wisdom of its Divine Creator

far transcending the powers of our conception, how are we to criticise and

disparage the most highly organized creatures of His creation, creatures

as wonderfully made as we ourselves? Are there not many creatures on many

points more perfect even than man? Do we not envy the lion’s strength, the

eagle’s eye, the wings of every bird? If there existed animals altogether

as perfect as man in their physical structure, nay, even more perfect, no

thoughtful man would ever be uneasy. His true superiority rests on

different grounds. “I confess,” Sydney Smith writes, “I feel myself so

much at ease about the superiority of mankind—I have such a marked and

decided contempt for the understanding of every baboon I have ever seen—I

feel so sure that the blue ape without a tail will never rival us in

poetry, painting, and music, that I see no reason whatever that justice

may not be done to the few fragments of soul and tatters of understanding

which they may really possess.” The playfulness of Sydney Smith in

handling serious