TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
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Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been
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Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
AN ESSAY
ON THE
ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE,
BASED ON MODERN RESEARCHES,
AND ESPECIALLY ON THE WORKS OF M. RENAN.
BY FREDERIC W. FARRAR, M.A.
LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1860.
LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
TO
RICHARD GARNETT, ESQ.,
OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM,
These Pages are Dedicated,
IN
REMEMBRANCE OF MANY ACTS OF HELP AND KINDNESS.
PREFACE.
I wish this little book to be in every respect as unpretending
as possible. I do not presume to represent myself as an original
investigator, nor do I aspire to a greater distinction than that
of representing clearly and intelligently the views of those
distinguished writers who have made the study of philology the
chief pursuit of their lives.
While I have quoted my authorities for almost every statement of
importance, I have generally used my own language, and even in
those paragraphs which I have put between inverted commas I have so
frequently abbreviated, expanded, or transposed, that the passages
must not be criticised as though they had been intended for direct
translations.
I do not think that I have ever borrowed from any writer, English,
French, or German, without ample acknowledgment. I would not be so
dishonest as to shine in borrowed plumes. If in one or two cases I
have been guilty of apparent plagiarism it is certainly only from
the works of those authors whom I cannot be considered to have
robbed wilfully, because their writings are honourably referred to
on almost every page. I wish this remark to apply especially to the
very clear, learned, and beautiful treatises of M. Ernest Renan, to
which I am largely indebted, and without which I should not have
undertaken this work.
The questions here handled have always been to me full of interest;
and these chapters have been chiefly written because I have
invariably found that they are also full of interest to young
learners. Should it be proved that I have rashly intruded on a
task beyond my powers, no one will more regret this attempt than I
shall myself.
The books of which I have made _chief_ use in the following pages
are
Grimm, _Ueber den Ursprung der Sprache_.
Heyse, _System der Sprachwissenschaft_.
Lersch, _Die Sprachphilosophie der Alten_.
Renan, _De l’Origine du Langage_.
Renan, _Histoire Générale des Langues Sémitiques_.
Charma, _Essai sur le Langage_.
Nodier, _Notions de Linguistique_.
Bunsen, _Philosophy of Universal History_.
Max Müller, _Survey of Languages_.
Pictet, _Les Origines Indo-Européennes_.
Garnett’s _Philological Essays_.
Dr. Donaldson’s _Cratylus_, and _Varronianus_.
It need scarcely be said, however, that I have read and consulted
very many besides these, and indeed every book that I could obtain
which seemed to bear directly upon the subject.
I will only add with M. Nodier--“J’ai écrit sur la Linguistique,
parce que je ne connois aucun livre qui renferme les notions
principales d’une manière claire, sous une forme accessible aux
esprits simples, qui ne soit pas repoussante pour les esprits
délicats.”
FALMOUTH,
_Aug., 1860_.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE.
PAGE
The faculty of speech.--Definition of language.--Importance of
philology.--Three main theories on the origin of language--1. That
language was innate and organic.--Curious errors.--Objections
to this view.--2. That language was the result of imitation and
convention.--Objections.--3. That language was revealed.--In what
sense this may be held to be true.--The phrase obscure, and leads
to many misconceptions.--Danger of a misapplied literalism.--Five
objections to the common belief.--The real meaning of Gen. ii.
19, 20.--Rightly understood it exactly accords with the true
theory.--Germ of truth in each of these views. 1
CHAPTER II.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEA OF SPEECH.
Germinal development of language.--How came words to be accepted
as signs?--The inquiry not absurd.--What is a word?--Words only
express the relations of things.--Connection of thought and
speech.--Growth of individuality.--Theory of M. Steinthal.--Speech
depends on the power of abstraction; the transformation of
intuitions into ideas.--1. Impressions awoke sounds.--2. Sounds,
by the association of ideas, recalled impressions.--3. Sounds
became words by connecting the external object and the inward
impression.--Influence of organism.--Earliest impressions expressed
by the simplest sounds.--Influence of women.--Influences of
climate. 34
CHAPTER III.
THE LAWS OF SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE, OR THE CREATION OF ROOTS.
Words never _purely_ arbitrary.--They _become_ conventional
in time.--Corruptions produced by the dislike of mechanical
words.--Inappropriate corruptions.--Words, significant at first,
are allowed to become conventional.--Grammar the _life_ of a
language.--Onomatopœic or _imitative_ words.--_Motive_ of
words.--Delicacy of the appellative faculty.--The imitation always
purely artistic.--Instances of the spontaneous tact which gives
rise to new names. 53
CHAPTER IV.
ONOMATOPŒIA.
Sounds naturally used as the signs of sounds; as among infants,
and savage races.--Wide application of this law overlooked.--The
imitation modified organically and ideally.--Admirable
perfection of the organs of sound.--Boundless capabilities of
language.--Diversity of _relations_ gave rise to different
imitations.--Roots universally onomatopœic.--Cause of dialectic
variety.--Interjections and onomatopœia the two natural elements
of language.--Instances of words derived from exclamations; and
from imitation.--Supposed vulgarity of onomatopœic words.--Their
real dignity when well used.--Instances from the poets.--They
cannot be avoided.--Harmonies of language. 72
CHAPTER V.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ROOTS.
Roots supposed to be primitive and irreducible.--Words derived
from sensible images; the personal pronouns; and even the
numerals.--The verb ‘to be,’ in all languages, from a material
root.--Permutations and combinations of a few roots.--Instances
of their diffusiveness.--The root ‘ach.’--The root ‘dhu.’--The
same root to express opposite meanings.--Roots refracted and
reflected.--Important applications of these remarks. 97
CHAPTER VI.
METAPHOR.
We know nothing absolutely.--Language an asymptote.--Necessity
of analogy to express things.--All words ultimately
derivable from sensible ideas.--Instances in the Semitic
languages.--Graphic effects thus produced.--Words involve all
history.--Catachresis and metaphor.--Defence of both from
the charge of imperfection.--Necessity, power, and value of
metaphor.--Comparisons of style.--Rigid accuracy and clumsiness
of scientific terminology.--Words are but symbols.--The two
worlds.--Poetry of life to the primal man, and its influence on
language.--A nation’s language expresses its character. 116
CHAPTER VII.
WORDS NOTHING IN THEMSELVES.
Inferences drawn from the derivation of all words from
‘sensible ideas.’--Gradual degeneracy of the Sensational
School.--Condillac.--Helvetius.--The Diversions of Purley.--Real
derivation of the words ‘If’ and ‘Truth.’--What words really
stand for.--The conclusions of nominalism need not be
accepted.--Reason.--Words which can only be explained by the
idea. 147
CHAPTER VIII.
THE LAWS OF PROGRESS IN LANGUAGE.
These laws psychological.--1. Languages advance from exuberance
to moderation by eliminating superfluities.--Unity of speech
the result of civilisation.--Redundancy marks an early stage of
thought.--Superfluous words dropped or desynonymised.--2. Languages
advance from indetermination to grammar.--Simplicity succeeds
complexity.--Instances of agglutination.--3. Languages advance from
synthesis to analysis.--Tmesis a relic of Polysynthetism.--Analysis
not inferior to synthesis for the expression of thought.--Instances
in the Indo-European and Semitic languages.--Grimm on the English
language.--Some would add a 4th law, viz.: the progress from
monosyllabism.--Arguments in favour of this law.--It remains very
questionable; only a convenient hypothesis. 166
CHAPTER IX.
THE FAMILIES OF LANGUAGES.
Stages of Language.--The logical order not the historical.--1. The
Indo-European and Arian family.--Its unity and importance.--Life
of the early Arians.--“Linguistic Palæontology.”--2. The Semitic
family.--Its character and divisions.--3. The Allophylian
or Turanian (?) family (?).--Can only be called a ‘family’
hypothetically.--Includes a vast number of languages, which have
_very little_ connection with each other. 185
CHAPTER X.
ARE THERE ANY PROOFS OF A SINGLE PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE?
Immense number of languages dead as well as living.--Three
irreducible families.--Arguments in favour of an original
language.--1. All may be derived (not from each other, but) from
some lost language.--Objections.--2. Supposed affinities
between different families, i. Non-Sanskritic elements in
Celtic. ii. Possible reduction of the triliteral Semitic
roots.--Objections.--3. Languages apparently anomalous.--Egyptian,
Berber, &c.--How they may possibly be accounted
for.--Inference.--Apparent successions of races.--1. The inferior
races.--2. The semi-civilised.--3. The great noble races. 203
CHAPTER XI.
THE FUTURE OF LANGUAGE.
1. Destinies of the Arian race.--The future of the
English language.--The distinction of nations a design of
Providence.--2. Advantages which result from diversities of
language.--Indispensable for the preservation of truth.--Value of
knowing languages.--3. A universal language could, in the present
state of the world, only last for a short time.--Conclusion. 220
A list of books valuable as forming an Introduction to the Study
of Philology. 229
AN ESSAY
ON
THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE.
CHAPTER I.
THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE.
“Sprache ist der volle Athem menschlicher Seele.”--GRIMM.
Of all the faculties wherewith God has endowed his noblest
creature, none is more divine and mysterious than the faculty of
speech. It is the gift whereby man is raised above the beasts; the
gift whereby soul speaks to soul; the gift whereby mere pulses
of articulated air become breathing thoughts and burning words;
the gift whereby we understand the affections of men and give
expression to the worship of God; the gift whereby the lip of
divine[1] inspiration uttering things simple and unperfumed and
unadorned, reacheth with its passionate voice through a thousand
generations by the help of God.
Language is the sum total of those articulate sounds which man,
by the aid of this marvellous faculty of speech, has produced and
accepted as the signs of all those inward and outward phenomena
wherewith he is made acquainted by sense and thought. These signs
are “those[2] shadows of the soul, those living sounds which
we call words! and compared with them how poor are all other
monuments of human power, or perseverance, or skill, or genius!
They render the mere clown an artist, nations immortal, writers,
poets, philosophers divine!” Let him who would rightly understand
the grandeur and dignity of speech, meditate on the deep mystery
involved in the revelation of the Lord Jesus as the Word of God.
No study is more rich in grand results than the study of language,
and to no study can we look with greater certainty to elucidate the
earliest history of mankind. For the roots of language[3] spring
in the primitive liberty of human intelligence, and therefore its
records bear on them the traces of human history. We read with deep
interest the works of individual genius, and trace in them the life
and character of the men on whom it has been bestowed; we toilfully
examine the unburied monuments of extinct nations, and are rewarded
for years of labour if we can finally succeed in gaining a feeble
glimpse of their history by deciphering the unknown letters carved
on the crumbling fragments of half-calcined stone; but in language
we have the history not only of individuals but of nations; not
only of nations but of mankind. For unlike music and poetry, which
are the special privilege of the few, language[4] is the property
of all, as necessary and accessible as the air we breathe. Of all
that men have invented and combined; of all that they have produced
or interchanged among themselves; of all that they have drawn
from their peculiar organism, language is the noblest and most
indispensible treasure. An immediate emanation of human nature, and
progressing with it, language is the common blessing, the common
patrimony, of mankind. It is an[5] admirable poem on the history
of all ages; a living monument, on which is written the genesis
of human thought. Thus “the ground[6] on which our civilisation
stands is a sacred one, for it is the deposit of thought. For
language, as it is the mirror, so is it the product of reason, and
as it embodies thought, so is it the child of thought. In it are
deposited the primordial sparks of that celestial fire, which,
from a once bright centre of civilisation, has streamed forth over
the inhabited earth, and which now already, after less than three
myriads of years, forms a galaxy round the globe, a chain of light
from pole to pole.”
Philology, the science which devotes itself to the study of
language, has recently[7] arrived at results almost undreamed of by
preceding centuries. Indeed, it received its most vigorous impulse
from the acquaintance with the languages of India, and, above all,
with Sanskrit, which, like so many other great blessings, directly
resulted from our dominion in India. Already it has thrown new
light on many of the most perplexing problems of religion, history,
and ethnography; and, being yet but an infant science, it is in all
probability destined to achieve triumphs, of which at present we
can but dimly prophesy the consequences.[8]
Since the most ancient monuments of Sanskrit, Zend,[9] Hebrew,
and in fact of all languages, are separated, perhaps by thousands
of years from[9] the appearance of language (_i.e._, from the
creation of the human race), it might seem impossible to throw
any light on that most interesting of all considerations, the
_origin_ of language. And yet so permanent are the creations
of speech, so invariable and ascertainable are the laws of its
mutation, that the geologist is less clearly able to describe the
convulsions of the earth’s strata than the philologist to point
out, by the indications of language, the undoubted traces of a
nation’s previous life. On the stone tablets of the universe,
God’s own finger has written the changes which millions of years
have wrought on the mountain and the plain; in the fluid air,
which he articulates into human utterance, man has preserved for
ever the main facts of his past history, and the main processes
of his inmost soul. The sonorous wave, indeed, which transmits to
our ears the uttered thought, reaches but a little distance, and
then vanishes like the tremulous ripple on the surface of the sea;
but, conscious of his destiny, man invented writing to give it
perpetuity from age to age. Its short reach, its brief continuance,
are the defects of the spoken word, but when graven on the stone or
painted on the vellum it passes from one end of the earth to the
other for all time; it conquers at once eternity and space.[10]
From the earliest ages the origin of language has been a topic of
discussion and speculation, and a vast number of treatises have
been written upon it. But it is only in modern times that we have
collected sufficient data to admit of any consistent or exhaustive
theory, and the earlier[11] writers contented themselves for the
most part with building systems before they had collected facts.
There have been three main theories to account for the appearance
of language, and it will be both interesting and instructive to
pass them in brief review. They are:--1. That language was innate
and organic. 2. That language was the result partly of imitation,
and partly of convention. 3. That language was revealed. It will be
seen from our consideration of them, that none of these theories
is in itself wholly true or adequate, yet that each of them has a
partial value, and that they are not so irreconcilably opposed to
each other as might at first sight be imagined.
1. It was believed by the ancients generally, and perhaps by the
majority of moderns, that language was _innate and organic_;
_i.e._, a distinct _creation_ synchronising with the creation of
man. The inferences drawn from this supposition led men to regard
words as “types of objective reality, the shadow of the body and
the image reflected in the mirror.”[12] The words were supposed
to be not only a sign of the thing intended by them, but in
some way to partake of its nature, and to express and symbolise
something of its idea. Hence the very notion of arbitrariness was
well-nigh expelled from language, and there was supposed to be a
deep harmony[13] between the physiological quality of the sound
and its significance--between the combination and connection of
sounds with the connection and combined relations of the things
they represented. Whoever, therefore, knew the names, knew also
the things which the names implied.[14] However strange and even
ridiculous these views may appear to our somewhat superficial
and unphilosophical age, it is far more difficult to understand
them truly than to speak of them contemptuously, and they led to
a reverence for the use of speech which reacted beneficially in
producing careful writing and accurate thought.
The belief that language was innate led to the strange
hallucination that if a child were entirely secluded from human
contact, he would speak instinctively the primitive language of
mankind. According to Herodotus, the experiment was actually made
by Psammetichus, King of Egypt, who entrusted two new-born infants
to a shepherd, with the injunction to let them suck a goat’s
milk, and to speak no words in their presence, but to observe
what word they would first utter. After two years the shepherd
visited them, and they approached him, stretching[15] out their
hands, and uttering the word βεκός. It was found that this vocable
existed in the Phrygian language, and meant “bread;” whence it was
sagely inferred that the Phrygians spoke the original language,
and were the most ancient of people. There is in this story such
a delicious naïveté, that one could hardly expect that it would
have happened in any except very early ages. It can, however,
be paralleled by the popular opinion which attributed the same
experiment to James IV. and Frederic II.[16] in the Middle Ages. In
the latter case the little unfortunates died for want of lullabies!
Similarly, almost every nation has regarded its own language as the
primitive one. One of the historians of St. Louis says that a deaf
mute, miraculously healed at the king’s tomb, spoke, not in the
language of Burgundy, where he was born, but in the language[17]
of the capital. A similar belief seems to underlie the extreme
anxiety and curiosity of savages to learn the name of any article
hitherto unknown to them, as though the name had some absolute
significance. This is not the place to enter into a discussion of
that deep germ of truth which such fancies involve; but hints of it
may be found in Holy[18] Scripture.
No doubt at first sight it appears that much might be said
in favour of the innate and organic nature of language. Its
beauty,[19] its diversity, its power, its diffusion over the whole
surface of the globe, give it the supernatural air of a gift which
man, so far from originating, can only ruin and destroy. We see
that in favourable situations language, like vegetation, flourishes
and blossoms, while elsewhere it fades and dies away as a plant
loses its foliage when deprived of nourishment and light. It seems,
too, to participate in that healing power of nature, which effaces
rapidly all trace of wounds received. Like nature, it produces
mighty results out of feeble resources--it is economical without
avarice, and liberal without prodigality.
Again; do we not see that almost every living thing is endowed in
infinite variety with the faculty of uttering sounds, and even of
intercommunicating feelings?[20] The air is thrilled with the voice
of birds, and some of them even possess a power of articulation,
which among many nations is the distinctive[21] definition of man.
Nay, fancy has attributed to animals a power of language in the age
of gold--a power which under certain[22] circumstances they are
supposed to be still allowed to exercise.
But this leads us to the true point of difference. The dog barks,
as it barked[23] at the creation, and the crow of the cock is the
same now as when it reached the ear of repentant Peter. The song
of the nightingale, and the howl of the leopard, have continued
as unchangeable as the concentric circles of the spider, and
the waxen hexagon of the bee. The one as much as the other are
the result of a blind though often perfect instinct. They are
unalterable because they are innate, and the utterances of mankind
would have been as unchangeable as those of animals, had they been
in the same way the result not of liberty but of necessity. To the
cries of animals we must compare, not man’s ever-varying language,
but those instinctive sounds of weeping, sobbing, moaning--the
changeless scream, sigh, or laughter--by which, since the creation,
he has given relief or expression to his physical[24] sensations.
In point of fact--as a thousand experiments might have proved to
Psammetichus--a new-born infant possesses the faculty of language,
not actually, but only potentially. It is obvious that an Italian
infant, picked up on the field of Solferino and carried to Paris,
would not have spokenδυναμις Italian but French, and an English
babe, carried off by the Caffirs, would find no difficulty in
learning the rich language of Caffraria, with its five-and-twenty
moods. For language is clearly learned by _imitation_. This is
the intermediate link between the δύναμις and the ἔργον. When
poor Kaspar Hauser tottered into the streets of Nuremberg, the
only words he could say were, “I will be a soldier as my father
was,” because those were the only words which he had heard in his
miserable confinement. Doubtless, the Egyptian children pronounced
the word βεκός, because it approached as nearly as possible to the
bleating[25] of the goat by which they had been suckled.
Had there ever been an innate organic language, it is quite certain
that it must have left some traces; for, as Dr. Latham observes,
“language (as an instrument of criticism in ethnology) is _the
most permanent_ of the criteria of human relationships derivable
from our moral constitution.” Talleyrand’s wicked witticism, that
“language was given us to conceal our thoughts,” arose from the
fact that it is used for that purpose on a thousand occasions.
But although a man may “coin his face into smiles,” and utter
a thousand honeyed words, his real sentiments _will_ flash out
sometimes in passionate gesture and rapid glance; and just in the
same way, had there even been a language which was the organic
expression of emotion, it is absolutely impossible that it should
have wholly disappeared. That which is really implanted is for the
most part unalterable.
2. Seeing, then, that positive experiment, as well as other
considerations, disprove the inneity of language, other
philosophers believed that it was simply conventional, and grew
up gradually after a period of mutism. The Epicurean philosophy,
deeply tainted with the error of man’s slow and toilsome
development from a savage and almost bestial[26] condition,
gave the problem the hardest of all material solutions. This
school found in Lucretius its most splendid exponent, and the
poet accounts for the appearance of speech as the gradual and
instinctive endeavour to supply a want.[27] In short, words came
because they were required, much in the same way that, according
to the theory of Lamarck, organic peculiarities are the result of
habit and instinct, so that the crane acquired a long neck and
long legs by persevering attempts to fish. Lucretius compares
language to the widely diverse sounds which animals emit to express
different sensations, and, scornfully rejecting the theory of one
Name-giver, asserts repeatedly that--
“Utilitas[27] expressit nomina rerum.”
It was generally believed by this school that man originally
acquired the faculty of speech by an observation of the sounds of
nature. The cries of animals, “the hollow murmuring wind and silver
rain,” the sighing of the woods,
“The tongue of forests green and flowery wilds,”
these, it seems, were man’s[28] teachers in the power of
articulation.
“The joyous birds shrouded in cheerful shade,
Their notes unto the voice attempted sweet;
Th’ angelical soft trembling voices made
To th’ instruments divine respondence meet,
With the base murmurs of the water’s fall;
The water’s fall with difference discreet,
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call;
The gentle warbling wind low answerëd to all.”[29]
Man, too, would endeavour to take his part in the divine harmony;
he would translate into living and intelligent utterances the dim
and sublime music of this unconscious hymn.
Like most theories that have met with any amount of acceptance,
this belief contains a germ of truth. It originated from the
onomatopœic character of a large part of all languages. But we
reject the conclusion drawn from this fact. That man produced a
large or very large part of his vocabulary by an imitation of
natural sounds is entirely true, but that the idea of speech was
created in him by the hearing of those sounds we believe to be
eminently false. This theory, however, found especial favour among
the philosophers of the eighteenth century, except that with them
a mysterious convention seemed not even to require this natural
basis. Maupertuis, Condillac, Rousseau, Volney, Nodier, Herder,
Monboddo, and Dr. Smith,[30] all seem to believe in an original
time when a few intonations, joined to gesture and expression of
the face, sufficed for the wants of nascent humanity, and formed,
in fact, a natural language; but in course of time this was found
inadequate, and so “on convint,[31] on s’arrangea à l’aimable, et
ainsi fut établi le _langage artificiel_ ou articulé.” According
to Monboddo the steps of the process were briefly as follows:--1,
Inarticulate cries; 2, Gestures; 3, Imitative sounds; 4, An
artificial language, formed by convention, and resulting from
the necessities of the race. This language was originally poor
and defective, but developed into richness, just as (to quote
the simile of Adelung) the canoe of the savage has grown into
the floating city of modern nations. All other conjectures are,
however, eclipsed by Dr. Murray’s derivation of all the languages
of Europe from nine onomatopœic syllables. These wondrous
vocables[32] were:--1, Ag; 2, Bag; 3, Dwag; 4, Cwag; 5, Lag; 6,
Mag; 7, Nag; 8, Rag; 9, Swag!!! M. Renan (who believes that _all_
the parts of speech existed implicitly in the primitive language)
may well remark that of all theories this is “the most false, or
rather the least rich in truth;” and it may be known by its fruits,
for the natural inference from it is either “that[33] thought is
merely an affection of perishable matter (_materialism_), or that
both are indiscriminately accidents of the one divine substance
of the universe (_pantheism_).” It is true that language, though
not the result of convention, tends to _become_[34] conventional
in the process of time, but this very tendency is often a mark of
decay and ruin, and a language is a noble and powerful instrument
of thought in proportion as it keeps in view the motives and
principles which originated the words of which it is composed.
3. The third main theory, which has found numberless supporters,
is, that _language is due to direct revelation_. The tenacity
of this belief was mainly due to the violent reaction of the
spiritualist school in the nineteenth century against the
systematising scepticism of their predecessors. It was warmly
adopted by MM. de Bonald, de Maistre, De Lammenais, and others,
and was in one sense a step forwards, for it recognised at least
that “divine[35] spark which glows in all idioms even the most
imperfect and uncultivated.” But this theory must likewise be
rejected. It raises[36] men to the level of gods, as much as
the former theory had degraded them to the rank of beasts.
“Spiritualism contradicts nature, as materialism contradicts mind.
It has reality and history against it as much as its opposite.”
This view opens considerations of such importance that we must
subject it to a still more careful discussion.
We object, in the first place, to the difficulty and obscurity
of the phrase. In one sense,[37] indeed--if we take it
metaphorically,--it is perhaps the most exact expression to
describe the wonderful apparition of human speech, which it
rightly withdraws from the sphere of vulgar inventions. Language,
as an immediate product of human powers, might perhaps, with
more safety, be attributed to the Universal Cause, than to the
particular action of human liberty. If by revelation be intended
_the spontaneous play of the human faculties_, in this sense, God,
having endowed man with all things requisite for the discovery of
language, may, with near approximation to truth, be called its
Author; but then, why make use of an expression so indirect and
liable to be misunderstood, when others more natural and more
philosophical might have been found to indicate the same[38] fact?
But, unhappily, M. de Bonald and others who urged this view
took the expression literally, and made it not scientific but
theological; not a disinterested[39] and independent conclusion
drawn from induction, but a mere dogma of faith to be forced (like
so many other false excrescences of theological tradition) upon the
conscience of all Christians. In general, those who maintain the
literal revelation of language, and reject its human origin, are
the direct successors of those theologians who have so long opposed
every discovery in science, and rejected the plainest deductions
of geometry and logic. They intrude into a sphere in which they
have no knowledge and no place; their arguments are neither
scientific nor reasonable; they are not reasons but assertions; not
conclusions but idle and groundless prejudices. It has been well
said that they pertain to an order of ideas and interests which
science repudiates, and with which she has nothing to do. Ignorance
has no claim to a hearing even when she speaks _ex cathedrâ_.
Now what is meant by such an expression as the revelation of
language rigorously understood? If, for instance, we take it
materially, if we understand it to mean that a voice from heaven
dictated to men the names of things--such a conception is so
grossly[40] anthropomorphic, it is so utterly at variance with all
scientific explanation, it is so irreconcileably opposed to all our
ideas of the laws of nature, that it needs no refutation for one
who is in the least degree initiated into the methods of modern
criticism. Besides, as M. Cousin[41] has remarked, “it only removes
the difficulty a step backwards without resolving it. For signs
divinely invented would for us not be _signs_ but _things_, which
we should have been subsequently obliged to elevate into signs by
attaching to them certain significations.” The revealed “term”
would be a useless encumbrance unless it corresponded with some
well understood conception; and therefore if words were revealed,
conceptions must also have been implanted; and we are thus driven
to the absurdity of supposing that anterior to all experience,
we knew that which experience (_i.e._ an[42] actual relation of
intelligence with that which is the object of intelligence) alone
could teach us.
We have already said that these modern spiritualists considered
the revelation of language to be a truth involved by the narrative
of Genesis. In this they were the slaves of a false and narrow
exegesis, which had not even the poor excuse of being literal. What
is the true meaning of the sacred writer we shall endeavour to
show further on; but we cannot here abstain from again uttering a
strong protest against the barrier placed in the way of all honest
scientific inquiry by the timid prejudices of that class which
tyrannises over public opinion. When shall we learn to acquiesce
practically in the belief which theoretically the most orthodox
have long expressed, that it is a needless incongruity to look
in the Bible for scientific truths which it does not profess to
reveal? “Such[43] an attempt,” it has been well said, “has been _a
perversion of the purpose of a divine revelation, and cannot lead
to any physical truth_.”
Honesty all the more imperiously demands this remark, because here,
as in a thousand other places, perverted by system and ignorance,
we believe that the Bible rightly understood contains (not precise
dogmas, but) the general indications of a sublime truth; and
because it may be shown that in this particular instance _its
records accurately agree with the results of careful and laborious
inquiry_. Here, as often, the Bible does not clash with the
conclusions of science, if taken _to imply no more than what it
categorically asserts_. But the Bible is not the _only_ source of
information open to us, and if we are ever in any way to fill up
“the vast lacunas which characterise that gigantic and mysterious
epitaph of humanity engraved in the first chapters of Genesis,” we
must do so not by ignorant and dogmatic assertions, but by humble
sincerity and patient research.
If, then, language were revealed, the Bible is not only silent on
such a revelation, but distinctly implies the reverse. We shall
examine the narrative of Genesis (ii. 19, 20) farther on; but we
must here stop to observe that where the Deity is represented as
talking to Adam and other patriarchs, such passages must not be
supposed to have any bearing on the question, as it is quite clear
that they are only intended for an expressive anthropomorphism.[44]
Even Luther, in his Commentary on Genesis, goes out of his way to
prove that nothing material is intended in such phrases as God’s
“speaking to” Adam, and that it would be as strange to suppose
that they imply any[45] revelation of language, as it would be
to infer the revelation of writing from the mention of the stone
tables “written by the finger of God.” Writing also has been
attributed directly to God’s external gift, although, as in the
case of language, there is the clearest proof of its human origin
and gradual perfectionment.
But we must not omit one or two positive arguments against this
theory.
1. Had language been revealed, mankind at first would have been
better situated than any of their posterity; and such a disposition
is unlike the ordinary course of God’s just dealings.
2. So far from being “a pale image and feeble echo of splendours
which have passed away from the scene of earth,” each human
language bears in itself the most distinct traces of growth and
progress--the marks of a regular development in accordance with
definite laws--the successive traces of infancy, youth, maturity,
and manhood. Though many existing languages, and even those of some
savage nations are but “degraded and decaying fragments of nobler
formations,” yet there are proofs as decisive that they rose to
gradual perfection, as that they subsequently fell from perfection
to decay.
3. If the spiritualist theory were true, it would be a most natural
inference that the spiritual and abstract signification of roots is
also the original one. But such an assumption (although it is made
by Frederic Schlegel), “is contradicted by the history of every
language of the world.”
4. It is equally improbable that God who revealed the primitive
language, or man who received it, should have suffered it (divine,
as on this supposition it must have been) to degenerate into
barbarous and feeble jargons.
5. “The human faculties _are competent_ to the formation
of[46]language.” It is therefore totally unlike God’s methods,
as observed in His works, to give _directly_ what can be evolved
_mediately_. For there is clearly no waste in the economy of
Nature, no prodigality in the display of miracles. In the words
of Grimm, “it seems contrary to the wisdom of God to impose the
restraint of a created form on that which was destined to a free
historic development.” At any rate, as a fact we _can_ historically
trace the development of language from a very small nucleus, and
this being the case the supposition of any previous revealed
language is a groundless and improbable hypothesis.[47]
Further arguments will appear as we proceed; but we must now point
out the true meaning of the statement in Genesis, that “God brought
all living creatures to Adam _to see what he would call them_; and
whatsoever Adam called every living creature that was the name
thereof.”[48] Now, merely remarking (by way of limitation) that the
writer clearly supposed his own language to be that of Paradise,
and that there is here no attempt to account for all[49] language,
because he is speaking of a certain class of words only--we find
in this narrative a profound verity clothed in a most beautiful
and appropriate symbol: ‘We see man as the true nomenclator--man
acting by his own peculiar faculties under the guide of the Deity.
Philosophy[50] could find no more perfect figure to express her
conclusions than this--God teaching man to speak as a father would
a son.’ But to give this simple narrative a material explanation
is to falsify at once both its letter and its spirit. On the
other hand, “to say with the theologians that God had created
language[51] as he had created man, and that language is not the
act and work of man,” is to contradict not only reason but the
Bible too. For be it observed, that the Bible distinctly confirms
our arguments by saying, not that _God_ named the animals, but that
_Adam_ named them, and that whatsoever _he_ named every living
creature _that_ was the name thereof.
In short, language is “only divine in proportion to the divinity
of our nature and our soul;” it is only a gift of God because the
faculty naturally resulted from the physical and spiritual organism
which God had created. This seems a more natural and philosophic
supposition than the belief that even the _embryonic germ_ of
language was revealed. The exercise of the faculty in the original
utterance of primitive words has ceased to be called into play
because it has ceased to be required. We cannot now invent original
words because there is no longer any necessity for doing so. In the
same way--as is well known--a deaf mute when once instructed in an
artificial language loses the quick instinctive power of creating
intelligible natural signs.
We conclude, then, that language is neither innate and organic; nor
a mechanical invention; nor an external gift of revelation;--but
a natural faculty swiftly developed by a powerful instinct, the
result of intelligence[52] and human freedom which have no place
in purely organic[53] functions. It was “the living product of the
whole[54] inner man.” It was “not[55] a gift bestowed ready formed
to man, but something coming from himself.” It is “essentially[56]
human; it owes to our full liberty both its origin and its
progress; it is our history, our heritage.” Objectively considered,
it was the result of organism: subjectively, the product of
intelligence. It was “a primitive intuition, impersonal and yet
influenced by individual genius;” in a word, its character is “at
once[57] objective and subjective, at once individual and general,
at once free and necessary, at once human and divine.”
That such a conclusion,[58] however much it may seem to savour
of a weak eclecticism by combining all former theories, is yet in
profound accordance with all the ascertained facts of language we
shall hope to prove in the following chapter.