mental evolution in men 41

mental evolution in men 41

“But there is one region where Nature seems to offer herself as the

willing nurse and bountiful step-mother of the feeble and unprotected.

Of all countries on the globe, there is probably not one in which a

little flock of very young children would find the means of sustaining

existence more readily than in California. Its wonderful climate, mild

and equable beyond example, is well known. Mr. Cronise, in his volume

on the ‘Natural Wealth of California,’ tells us, that ‘the monthly mean

of the thermometer at San Francisco in December, the coldest month, is

50°; in September, the warmest month, 61°.’ And he adds:—‘Although

the State reaches to the latitude of Plymouth Bay on the north, the

climate, for its whole length, is as mild as that of the regions near

the topics. Half the months are rainless. Snow and ice are almost

strangers, except in the high altitudes. There are fully two hundred

cloudless days in every year. Roses bloom in the open air through

all seasons.’ Not less remarkable than this exquisite climate is the

astonishing variety of food, of kinds which seem to offer themselves

to the tender hands of children. Berries of many sorts—strawberries,

blackberries, currants, raspberries, and salmon-berries—are indigenous

and abundant. Large fruits and edible nuts on low and pendent boughs

may be said, in Milton’s phrase, to ‘hang amiable.’ Mr. Cronise

enumerates, among others, the wild cherry and plum, which ‘grow on

bushes;’ the barberry, or false grape (_Berberis herbosa_), a ‘low

shrub,’ which bears edible fruit; and the Californian horse-chestnut

(_Æsculus Californica_), ‘a low, spreading tree or shrub, seldom

exceeding fifteen feet high,’ which ‘bears abundant fruit much used

by the Indians.’ Then there are nutritious roots of various kinds,

maturing at different seasons. Fish swarm in the rivers, and are taken

by the simplest means. In the spring, Mr. Powers informs us, the

whitefish ‘crowd the creeks in such vast numbers that the Indians,

by simply throwing in a little brushwood to impede their motion,

can literally scoop them out.’ Shell-fish and grubs abound, and are

greedily eaten by the natives. Earthworms, which are found everywhere

and at all seasons, are a favourite article of diet. As to clothing,

we are told by the authority just cited that ‘on the plains all adult

males and all children up to ten or twelve went perfectly naked, while

the women wore only a narrow strip of deer-skin around the waist.’ Need

we wonder that, in such a mild and fruitful region, a great number

of separate tribes were found, speaking languages which a careful

investigation has classed in nineteen distinct linguistic stocks?

 

“The climate of the Oregon coast region, though colder than that of

California, is still far milder and more equable than that of the

same latitude in the east; and the abundance of edible fruits, roots,

river-fish, and other food of easy attainment, is very great. A family

of young children, if one of them were old enough to take care of the

rest, could easily be reared to maturity in a sheltered nook of this

genial and fruitful land. We are not, therefore, surprised to find that

the number of linguistic stocks in this narrow district, though less

than in California, is more than twice as large as in the whole of

Europe, and that the greater portion of these stocks are clustered near

the Californian boundary....

 

“Some reminiscences of the parental speech would probably remain with

the older children, and be revived and strengthened as their faculties

gained force. Thus we may account for the fact, which has perplexed

all inquirers, that certain unexpected and sporadic resemblances,

both in grammar and in vocabulary, which can hardly be deemed purely

accidental, sometimes crop up between the most dissimilar languages....

 

“A glance at other linguistic provinces will show how aptly this

explanation of the origin of language-stocks everywhere applies.

Tropical Brazil is a region which combines perpetual summer with a

profusion of edible fruits and other varieties of food, not less

abundant than in California. Here, if anywhere, there should be a great

number of totally distinct languages. We learn on the best authority,

that of Baron J. J. von Tschudi, in the Introduction to his recent

work on the Khetshua Language, that this is the fact. He says:—‘I

possess a collection made by the well-known naturalist, J. Natterer,

during his residence of many years in Brazil, of more than a hundred

languages, lexically completely distinct, from the interior of Brazil.’

And he adds:—‘The number of so-called isolated languages—that is, of

such as, according to our present information, show no relationship

to any other, and which therefore form distinct stocks of greater

or less extent—is in South America very large, and must, on an

approximate estimate, amount to many hundreds. It will perhaps be

possible hereafter to include many of them in larger families, but

there must still remain a considerable number for which this will not

be possible.’”

 

I have quoted this hypothesis, as previously remarked, because it

appears to me philologically interesting; but whatever may be thought

of it by professional authorities, the evidence which the American

continent furnishes of a polygenetic and polytypic origin of the native

languages remains the same. And if there is good reason for concluding

in favour of polygenetic origins of different types as regards the

languages on that continent, of course the probability arises that

radical differences of structure among languages of the Old World

admit of being explained by their having been derived from similarly

independent sources.[164]

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XIII.

 

ROOTS OF LANGUAGE.

 

 

In the last chapter my treatment of the classification and phylogeny

of languages may have led the general reader to feel that philologists

display extraordinary differences of opinion with regard to certain

first principles of their science. I may, therefore, begin the present

chapter by reminding such a reader that I have hitherto been concerned

more with the differences of opinion than with the agreements. If one

takes a general view of the progress of philological science since

philology—almost in our own generation—first became a science, I

think he must feel much more impressed by the amount of certainty

which has been attained than by the amount of uncertainty which still

remains. And the uncertainty which does remain is due rather to a

backwardness of study than to differences of interpretation. When more

is known about the structure and mutual relations of the polysynthetic

tongues, it is probable that a better agreement will be arrived at

touching the relation of their common type to that of isolating

tongues on the one hand, and agglutinating on the other. But, be this

as it may, even as matters stand at present, I think we have more

reason to be surprised at the certainty which already attaches to the

principles of philology, than at the uncertainty which occasionally

arises in their applications to the comparatively unstudied branches of

linguistic growth.

 

Furthermore, important as these still unsettled questions are from a

purely philological point of view, they are not of any great moment

from that of the evolutionist, as I have already observed. For, so

long as it is universally agreed that all the language-groups have

been products of a gradual development, it is, comparatively speaking,

immaterial whether the groups all stand to one another in a relation of

serial descent, or whether some of them stand to others in a relation

of collateral descent. That is to say, the evolutionist is under no

obligation to espouse either the monotypic or the polytypic theory of

the origin of language. Therefore, it will make no material difference

to the following discussion whether the reader feels disposed to

follow the doctrine, that all languages must have originated in such

monosyllabic isolations as we now meet with in a radical form of speech

like the Chinese; that they all originated in such polysynthetic

incapsulations as we now find in the numberless dialects of the

American Indians; or, lastly, and as I myself think much more probably,

that both these, and possibly other types of language-structure, are

all equally primitive. Be these things as they may, my discussion

will not be overshadowed by their uncertainty. For this uncertainty

has reference only to the _origin_ of the existing language-types as

independent or genetically allied: it in no way affects the certainty

of their subsequent _evolution_. Much as philologists may still

differ upon the mutual relations of these several language-types,

they all agree that “von der ersten Entstehung der Sprachwurzeln an

bis zur Bildung der volkommenen Flexionssprachen, wie des Sanskrit,

Griechischen, oder Deutschen, ist Alles in der Entwicklung der Sprache

verständlich.... Sobald nur die Wurzeln als die fertigen Bausteine der

Sprache einmal da sind, lässt sich Schritt für Schritt das Wachsthum

des Sprachgebäudes verfolgen.”[165]

 

Therefore, having now said all that seems necessary to say on the

question of language-types, I will pass on to consider the information

that we possess on the subject of language-roots.

 

First, let us consider the number of roots out of which languages

are developed—or, rather, let me say, the number of elementary

constituents into which the researches of philologists have been able

to reduce those languages which have been most closely studied. Of

course the probability—nay, the certainty—is that the actual number

of roots must in all cases be considerably less than philologists are

now able to prove.

 

Chinese is composed of about five hundred separate words, each

being a monosyllable. In actual use, these five hundred root-words

are multiplied to over fifteen hundred by significant variety of

intonation; but the entire structure of this still living language is

made up of five hundred monosyllabic words. In the opinion of most

philologists we have here a survival of the root stage of language; but

in the opinion of some we have the remnants of erosion, or “phonetic

decay.”[166] This difference of opinion, however, is not a matter of

importance to us; and therefore I will not discuss it, further than to

say that on account of it I will not hereafter draw upon the Chinese

language for illustrations of “radical” utterance, except in so far as

philologists of all schools would allow as legitimate.[167]

 

Hebrew has been reduced to about the same number of roots as