the roots of Aryan speech are not the aboriginal elements of language,
as first spoken by man. Why deny what has never been asserted? I know
nothing of the language as first spoken by man. I say with Steinthal,
'Who was present when the first sound of language burst forth from the
breast of the first man, as yet dumb?' All that we, the students of
language, undertake to do is to take language as we find it, to analyse
it, and to reduce it to its simplest component elements. What we cannot
analyse, we leave alone. The utmost we venture to do is to suggest
an hypothesis as to the possible origin of these elements. Of the
_Homo alalus_, the speechless progenitor of _Homo sapiens_, with whom
Professor Romanes seems so intimately acquainted, students of human
speech naturally know nothing. Professor Romanes assures us (p. 211)
that the reducing of language to a certain small number of roots, and
the fact that all the roots of language are expressive of general and
generic ideas, yield no support whatever to the doctrine either, that
these roots were themselves the aboriginal elements of language, or, _a
fortiori_, that the aboriginal elements of language were expressive of
general ideas. He evidently does not see that we are speaking of two
quite different things. I am speaking of the facts of language, he is
speaking of the postulates of a biological theory which may be right or
wrong, but which certainly derives no support whatever from the Science
of Language. If, like Professor Romanes, we begin with the 'immense
presumption that there has been no interruption in the developmental
process in the course of psychological history,' the protest of
language counts for nothing; the very fact that no animal has ever
formed a language, is put aside simply as an unfortunate accident. But
to students to whom facts are facts, immense presumptions count for
nothing: on the contrary they are looked upon as the most dangerous
merchandise and most likely to lead to shipwreck and ruin.
Instead of closing with these facts, Professor Romanes tries to show
that those who try to explain them are not always consistent. That may
be so, and I should be sorry indeed if my latest views were not more
advanced and more correct than those which I expressed forty years ago.
But very often where Professor Romanes sees inconsistency, there is
none at all.
Speaking of roots in my "Science of Thought," I said: 'Although during
the time when the growth of language becomes historical and most
accessible, therefore, to our observation, the tendency certainly is
from the general to the special, I cannot resist the conviction that
before that time there was a pre-historic period during which language
followed an opposite direction. During that period, roots beginning
with special meanings, (though, of course, always general in character)
became more and more generalised, and it was only after reaching that
stage, that they branched off again into special channels.'
The observation which I recorded in these words, was simply this, that
a root meaning originally to yawn, may in time assume the meaning of
opening, while during a latter period, a root meaning to open, may come
to be used in the more special sense of yawning. Facts are there to
prove this. But whether a root expresses the act of yawning or opening,
it remains general and conceptual in either case, though the intension
of the concept may be smaller or larger. Where Professor Romanes sees
inconsistency, he only shows that he has not apprehended the drift of
my remarks.
When all the facts of real language are against him, Professor Romanes
betakes himself to baby-language. Here he is safe, and he knows quite
well, why I refuse to argue with him or any other philosopher either
in the nursery, or in the menagerie, either about Mamma and Papa, or
about 'Poor Polly.' But if all he wants is to prove the possibility
of onomatopœia, he could have found much ampler evidence in my own
laboratory, only with this restriction that, after we have analysed
these onomatopœic words which in some languages are far more numerous
than even Professor Romanes seems to be aware of, we are only on the
threshold of the real problem, namely how to deal with real language,
that is, with those conceptual words which _cannot_ be traced back to
natural sounds or interjections.
Professor Romanes appeals to philology in support of his theory, and,
to use a favorite phrase of his own, to philology let him go! It was
long considered an irrefragable proof in support of the onomatopœic
theory that _thunder_ was called _thunder_. People imagined they heard
the rumbling noise of the clouds echoed in the sound of thunder.
However, the word was taken to pieces by comparative philologists,
_thunder_ was found out to be closely connected with the Latin
_tonitru_ and the Sanskrit _tanyatu_, and there could be no doubt that
these words were all derived from the root TAN, to stretch, from which
the Greek τόνος, stretching, tension, and tone. Thunder, therefore,
was clearly shown to owe its origin to this root TAN, in which there
is very little trace of distant rumble. But what does Professor
Romanes do? He appeals in his distress to Archdeacon Farrar, who is
reported to have said that the word _thunder_, even if not originally
onomatopœic, became so from a feeling of the need that it should be!
Now, this fairly takes away one's breath, and I cannot believe that
Professor Romanes could have used this argument seriously. He begins
by maintaining that words are formed by imitation of natural sounds.
He quotes _thunder_ as a case in point. He is told by comparative
philologists that thunder is derived from a root TAN, to stretch. He
does not attempt to deny this, but he appeals to Archdeacon Farrar, who
says that the word became afterwards onomatopœic, from a feeling of the
need that it should be so. If that is not shirking the question, I do
not know what is. Suppose it were true that thunder had been supposed
to be an imitation of a rumbling noise by those who, like Professor
Romanes, are convinced that all words must be more or less onomatopœic.
What in all the world has that to do with the real origin of the word?
We want to know how the word thunder came to be, and we are told, if
it was not onomatopœic, it ought to have been so, nay that by certain
ignorant people it was supposed to be so. This goes beyond the limits
of what is allowed in any serious discussion.
But Professor Romanes attempts a still greater triumph in forensic
adroitness, when he suddenly turns round and declares himself
altogether convinced by the theory proposed by Noiré and myself, though
at the same time placing it on a level with the Bow-wow and Pooh-pooh
theories. Now the fact is, that both Noiré and myself have been most
anxious to show the fundamental difference between these two exploded
theories and our own. The theory which I, for clearness' sake, was
quite willing to call the _Yo-he-ho_ theory, is the very opposite of
what Noiré called the _Synergastic_ theory. Those who appeal to words
like _thunder_ as derived from the rumbling sound in the clouds,
without any conceptual root standing between our conceptual word
_thunder_ and these unconceptual noises, hold the Bow-wow theory. Those
who hold that _fiend_ is derived direct from the interjection _fie_,
without any conceptual root standing between the unconceptual _fie_ and
the conceptual word _fiend_, hold the Pooh-pooh theory. Those who would
derive _to heave_ and _to hoist_ from sounds like _Yo-he-ho_ would hold
what may be called the _Yo-he-ho_ theory. I have never denied that
there are some words in every language which may be so explained.
But what similarity is there between these theories and our own? We
begin with the fact that the great bulk of a language consists of
words, derived, according to the strictest rules, not from cries, but
from articulate roots. No one denies this. We follow this up with
a second fact, that nearly all these roots express acts of men. No
one denies that. We then propound an hypothesis that possibly the
phonetic elements of these roots may be the remnants of utterances
such as even now sailors make when rowing, soldiers when marching,
builders in pulling and lifting, and that as expressing originally
the consciousness of such repeated acts, performed in common, these
roots would fulfil what is wanted, they would express conceptual
thought, such as beating, cutting, rubbing, binding, and all the other
121 concepts from which, as a matter of fact, all the words that
fill our dictionaries have been derived. Those who cannot see the
difference between a man, or, for all that, between a mocking bird,
saying _Cuckoo_, and a whole community fixing on the sound of TAN, as
differentiated by various suffixes and prefixes, and expressing the
concept of stretching in such words as _tonos_, _tone_, _tonitru_,
_thunder_, _tanu_, _tenuis_, _thin_, should not meddle with the Science
of Language.
Observations, for instance, on the language of children, or on what I
call Nursery psychology, are very interesting and may be useful for
other purposes. But what have they to do with the problem of the origin
of language? The two problems, how a child learns to speak English, and
how language was elaborated for the first time, are as remote from each
other as the two poles. The one is perfectly clear, though it may vary
in different children. No child makes its language, it simply accepts
what has been made. What _we_ are concerned with is, how each word was
originally made, how the first impulse to speech was given, what were
the rough materials out of which words were shaped, how words assumed
different meanings by becoming specialised or generalised, or by being
used metaphorically—how, in the end, some words became purely formal,
and served as the grammatical articulations of human speech. What has
that to do with a child learning to say _Bread_ or _Milk_, or with a
parrot learning to say _Poor Polly_? We might as well try to study the
geological stratification of the earth from watching the layers of a
wedding-cake. I know quite well that every philosopher, when he becomes
a father thinks that he may discover the origin of language in his
nursery. The books which owe their origin to these paternal experiments
are endless. But they have thrown hardly one ray of pure light on the
dark problem of the origin and evolution of human speech. That problem,
if it can be solved at all, can only be solved by a careful analysis
of language, such as it exists in the immense varieties of spoken
languages all over the globe. This is the work which the Science of
Language has carried out for nearly a century, and which will occupy
the minds of many students and philosophers for centuries to come.
F. MAX MUELLER.
LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE.
I.
Some distinguished foreigners have called my attention to the _Manuals
of Moral and Civic Instruction_ which circulate in our schools,
thinking with reason that they mark perhaps the most important reform
in public teaching. There have been published in France a dozen or
more during the last ten years or so. The clerical party has thundered
against these little books: it had good reason for alarm, for they aim
at nothing less than to take the place of the catechism.
How do they replace it? What is their inferiority, or, what their
advantages? What is their principle, their disposition? This can be
sufficiently judged of by the five we have before us, signed by names
more or less known, those of PAUL BERT, PIERRE LALOI, CHARLES BIGOT,
MME. HENRY GRÉVILLE, and GABRIEL COMPAYRÉ.[139]
[139] Paul Bert, _L'Instruction civique à l'école_,
Picard-Bernheim, Pub.; Pierre Laloi, _La première année
d'instruction morale et civique_, Armand Colin, Pub.; Charles
Bigot, _Le petit Français_, Weill et Maurice, Pub.; Mme.
Henry Gréville, _Instruction morale et civique des jeunes
filles_, Weill et Maurice, Pub.; Gabriel Compayré, _Eléments
d'instruction morale et civique_, Paul Delaplane, Pub.
The manuals of MM. Paul Bert and Laloi, are models of style: the one in
familiar, easy dialogues; the other in simple and clear precepts, set
off and illustrated by pleasant stories. Lists of questions facilitate
the use of the book by the master. The divisions or chapters relate to
special subjects,—the military service, taxes, the fatherland, the
parliament, the law, the government, etc. So much as to the form; let
us look at the groundwork.
The catechism imparted general moral precepts which concerned the man,
and particular commands which concerned the Christian. Our manuals also
tend to form the man; but in the man, above all, the good Frenchman.
We find there glowing pages on the love of one's native land, and on
the beauty of one's country, which we must love. Far be it from me to
cast censure on this noble sentiment. Nevertheless, I do not think
exaggeration on that point is desirable, lest we should seek a cause
of patriotism even in the acknowledged superiority, from a gastronomic
point of view, of the hare of France over the hare of Germany! Our
writers, undoubtedly, have too much tact to lay themselves open to
this ridicule. It is very striking, though, that the notion of the
moral man considered as a Frenchman, German, Englishman, or Italian, is
narrower than that of the Christian man: this reversion into the folds
of nationality is a characteristic phenomenon of our old world in this
latter end of the century. If our encyclopædists had hit on the idea
of writing a laic catechism, the tone of it would have been different.
Our authors of to-day alas! have only too much excuse to wish to form
at first the _little Frenchman_, and to promote the reaction against a
cosmopolitanism which had become dangerous to our national existence.
They have done it, however, with sufficient caution, and without
detriment to justice.
I shall not say as much for M. Paul Bert, in relation to his manual
dedicated to the Revolution. Still here, undoubtedly, it is necessary
to make allowance for the political necessities of the present time.
But what a danger to sanctify at any cost the sanguinary epoch of our
democracy; what an error to date the French era from 1789, and to
make our children believe that our fathers should have had hardly the
sentiment of public virtue! The worst is not that their young souls
are thus embittered, but that their judgment on the facts of history
is falsified. We are here only too much inclined to disregard the
necessity of human evolution, and to imagine that it suffices to change
the label of the sack to improve the merchandise. M. Bigot and M.
Laloi, at least, have more wisdom, more prudence in this respect.
The ambition of the catechism, on another point, seems to go beyond
that of our manuals. It offered an explanation of the world, a complete
conception of human destiny, in a word, a doctrine which _returns into
itself_. This doctrine holds no longer, it is known nevertheless, and
it is necessary now to replace it. Unfortunately scientific morality
has not yet found its formula in a practical book, and the divergences
of views are confessed in our manuals, where the conception of a
fundamental ensemble almost entirely fails. It is sufficient to read
the tables of contents to convince oneself of this. The work of M.
Compayré, who addresses himself especially to the "middle and higher
grades," changes suddenly in Book III. entitled _La Nature humaine et
la morale_. What signifies the definition, that "morality is nothing
more than the ensemble of the laws that nature has engraved in your
soul before human legislators inscribed them in their codes"? What is
doing here the vain affirmation of the existence of God and of the
immortality of the soul, and this "let us contemplate and adore" which
sums it up? In the mouth of M. Compayré it is only a concession and an
avowal of infirmity. A frank spiritualist will resolutely establish
his moral conception on his belief; but nominal deism causes God to
play the rôle of an ignominious personage who has no longer a suitable
occupation on the scene.
After all is said, however, our manuals have the advantage over the
catechism in the clearness of their definitions (not all correct, it
is true) and in the immediate value of the instruction. For example,
M. Laloi gives information as to the placing out of money, reproduces
the formulas in use in the ordinary acts of life, etc. I should take
care not to blame, either this good practical sense, or this manner of
instructing the child according to his capacity to understand himself
and understand the world which surrounds him. In the modest articles of
our little class-books, is found summed up, definitively, the secular
experience of human societies, and this also has an aggregative value.
* * * * *
Numerous are the works written among us by distinguished authors to
introduce youthful minds into the various sciences. The _Bibliothèque
utile_ already includes several, and among them one of the best will
always be the book of ADOLPHE COSTE, _La Richesse et le Bonheur_,[140]
with which that library is about to enrich itself. M. Coste has
reproduced here, in order to express them in a simple form, the
doctrines expounded in his large works. But there is also contributed
something new, as to what he calls property, for example. The _Manuals_
of which I just spoke base all property on labor alone. Mme. Henry
Gréville defines it "a right, based on the difficulty that any one has
had in acquiring a thing." It would be proper to add—"and to save a
thing," in taking account of the more exact analysis made by M. Coste.
For if it is true that "consumable goods" are always due to labor in
some manner, it is no less true that "productive capital," can only
be acquired by putting a part of these goods outside of the current
consumption, that is to say by saving something of that which one
possesses. Saving is to-day the only regular source of accumulation of
wealth; it is one of the indispensable factors of property. The usual
definition sees only the other factor of wealth, labor, and opens thus
the road to the dangerous sophism of which the workmen make a weapon,
when they claim that they alone ought to possess, as they produce.
[140] Publisher of the _Bibliothèque utile_, F. Alcan.
Let us quote the passage. It is exact. "By his labor man takes
possession of the fruits, he enters into the enjoyment of his part
of the product: this is in some sort only a personal right which
disappears at once with consumption. But from the time that this man
saves something from consumption and establishes capital, he becomes a
proprietor, he acquires a social right. Fundamentally, property is the
public acknowledgment of the service rendered to the community by the
increase of the productive capital" (p. 25).
I will notice further, in the work of M. Coste, the difficulty that it
describes, and that greatly embarrasses economists, of reconciling the
value of labor, due to individual effort, with the value of exchange,
imposed by the general needs. As to the relations between Wealth and
Happiness, he judges them intimate enough: happiness resides chiefly,
according to him, in activity, which has for its principal forms the
acquisition of wealth and the productive employment of wealth. The
question would appear undoubtedly more complex, from the psychological
point of view. But we could very well content ourselves with this
notion, clear and sound, of an economical happiness.
One has always pleasure in reading M. Coste, because he has just ideas,
because he approaches questions of political economy as a naturalist
and studies the facts in their evolution. It is the best method for
understanding the subject. The deductive economists have never failed
to deceive us. I would wish in the public interest for numerous readers
of treatises of this kind.
* * * * *
Some day or other, the occasion will present itself for us to speak
somewhat fully of pedagogy. Certainly, if the passion of _magister_ was
ever exaggerated, it is in our day, and, through logic and principles,
it will become in time more difficult to make a little boy eat his
porridge than to govern an empire. In all that has been done, I see
some good, but much evil; I am afraid that little artificial prodigies
will in time be produced, and that we shall be given hot-house oranges
instead of fine fruit ripened in full sunshine. Books follow books,
and mistakes succeed mistakes. There is everywhere an embarrassment
of _talents_, scarcity of _characters_. Have the causes of it been
unravelled and the remedy discovered? In order to judge the results,
let us wait half a century!
M. EUGENE MAILLET, whose work—_L'Education, Elements de psychologie
de l'homme et de l'enfant appliquée à la pédagogie_—I have formally
to announce,[141] will readily excuse, I hope, this quarter of an
hour's bad humor. It is not from him that I take it, and his work gives
evidence of too much experience, too much study, that a high value
should not be placed on it. The present volume is only the first part
of it; "the second part will have for its object education itself,
considered at first in its idea, then in its various forms,—physical
education, education of the heart, education of the mind, education of
the will and of the character, finally in the general principles of
logic and morality which ought to dominate it and without which the
rules of a wisely graduated methodology or of a rational discipline
cannot be established."
[141] Belin frères, Publishers.
In these _Elements of Psychology_, M. Maillet shows himself acquainted
with new studies and methods. It is regrettable only that he does
not enter into them with sufficient freedom. He has not consented
to rid himself of the old terminology, he preserves the outlines
almost of spiritual psychology, and appears even to seek in the
affirmation of spiritualism the indispensable completion of a science
of education. His work will perhaps be better welcomed for it by the
university public; but we should have preferred, for our part, that
he had remained less "classic," while retaining his entire freedom of
criticism.
With this limitation we can recommend his work without mental
reservation; some portions of it are excellent, and many readers will
profit by consulting it. It is written with order, clearness, and good
sense.
* * * * *
Here now is a curiosity, the first number of the _Annales des sciences
psychiques, recueil d'observations et d'expériences_, appearing every
two months, founded under the patronage of M. Charles Richet, with M.
Dr. Dariex as editor.[142] This magazine will publish "Observations
relative to so-called occult facts, _telepathy_, _lucidity_,
_presentiment_, _objective apparitions_, etc." _Experiences_,—there
can hardly yet be any question of them except in appearance; M. Richet
so avows with good grace in a letter forming an introduction,—a very
curious letter, rich in excellent advice which will perhaps not be
sufficiently listened to, and with a declaration of principle which has
a chance of being far too much so.
[142] Felix Alcan, Publisher.
"We have the firm conviction," writes M. Richet, in effect, "that there
is, mixed up with the known and described forces, forces that we do not
know; that the simple, vulgar mechanical explanation will not suffice
to explain all that passes around us; in a word, that there are occult
psychic phenomena, and, if we say 'occult,' it is a word intended to
express simply what is unknown."
What is meant here by the word forces? We are told "for three hundred
years electricity was an unknown force." But it is always _occult_,
as _force_; and if science is become positive, it is because it
has neglected the vain entity, in order to see only a new group of
empirical data, a new series of facts, that it is more or less easy
to translate into unities of heat and of work. What then would forces
be subtracted from mechanics, if not occult forces, with "chimerical
functions"? The expression _vulgar mechanics_, does not suffice to
correct the sense of the phrase and rather aggravates it, in allowing
to be supposed that there exist two kinds of forces, one of which has
no _measure_. But the comparison, then, is not worth anything, and it
is not necessary to speak of electricity or chemical affinity in this
matter.
As to the "observations," of what value are such as are presented to
us? But little, after all, and many other facts will be necessary to
lead us to accept the non-fortuitous relation of certain hallucinations
with an objective event. Notwithstanding the wise reservations of
the editor, it is to be regretted that we find already in this first
number, under the title of _Une chambre hantée_, a real ghost story.
Story for story, I would prefer much to read the _Chambre bleu_ of
Mérimée; so also, I doubt not, would M. Richet.
This little censure is not meant in jest, which would be out of place.
There is always advantage in collecting _facts_, on condition that they
are chosen with care, and that haste is not made to interpret them. MM.
Richet and Dariex insist on this point with the greatest force. Curious
readers will not be wanting for these Annals, even among sceptics. It
has always been necessary to carry the lamp to cause the phantoms to
vanish.[143]
[143] Reference may be made to the first number of the _Revue
mensuelle de l'Ecole d'Anthropologie de Paris_, published by
the Professors at the _Librairie Alcan_. In this number will
be found a lecture by M. André Lefèvre, under this interesting
title: _Du Cri à la Parole_.
LUCIEN ARRÉAT.
II.
THE SCIENCE OF PEDAGOGICS IN GERMANY.
In view of the great care with which _The Monist_ cultivates
psychology, I may be permitted in my first letter, consistently I
judge, to speak of the most important application of this science—its
application namely to pedagogics.