[41-*] See _Memoranda on the Chilam Balam Calendars_, C. P. Bowditch,
1901. The obscurities of the Chronicles render the questions connected
with Ahpula's death exceedingly difficult. For instance, the immediate
context in the books of Mani and Tizimin make the date 1536, as given in
numerals, an impossible one. But, if the date as given in _Maya terms_
is to be accepted at all (and it certainly is too specific to be
rejected), then by the long count such a date _must_ have been either
1502, 5350, or 12,786 years after the date of Stela 9, Copan. Mr.
Bowditch favors the lower figure, chiefly because it is the lower, and
thus puts Stela 9 at A. D. 34. To get this date the longest possible
distance from Ahpula's death to the end of the katun must be used--that
is, "6 tuns short" must be taken to mean "almost 7 tuns short." I can
only say here that if, in correcting the figures 1536, as demanded by
the immediate context, we make the simplest possible correction, and put
them one katun earlier, 1516, and then take as the unexpired time to the
end of the katun the shortest of the three terms given as possible, or 5
tuns 139 days, bringing the end of Katun 13-Ahau on Jan. 28, 1522, we
not only bring the end of Katun 11-Ahau within the year 1541, as is most
positively stated by the practically contemporary Pech Chronicle, but we
also bring in line nearly all the important events of the Chronicles,
from the fall of Mayapan, ca. 1450, the coming of the Spaniards, and the
smallpox, in 11-Ahau (1521 to 1541), the conversion to Christianity in
9-Ahau, down to Landa's death (1579) in 7-Ahau; as well as many outside
references. Any other combination requires harsher emendations somewhere
else. But the above choice of the term of 5 tuns 139 days, thus
seemingly called for, means that Stela 9 at Copan is dated, by the long
count, 5350 years before Ahpula's death, or B. C. 3824. Whether this is
right, is a question for the future.
[42-*] "In ethnology however one troubles oneself little with the detail
of linguistic structure. It is held quite sufficient to gather from
different peoples and collate a couple of hundred vocables, into whose
actual nature all insight is lacking, and then upon dubious, often
purely superficial and apparent similarities, to deduce linguistic
affinities. Or else, as is now most in fashion, the claims of linguistic
research towards the solution of ethnological questions are reduced to a
'most modest share' in comparison with other fields 'somewhat more in
line with natural sciences'--meanwhile pointing for justification to the
absurdities set forth as the results of too far-fetched linguistic
deductions.... The errors and sophistries charged against ethnological
linguistics are rather an accidental result of the individuality of
single investigators, than essential to the subject. They are at least
scarcely greater than those to the credit of recent Anthropometry. A
brief glance at the strange changes of opinion in the latter field
during the last three decades, in spite of all its boasted figures,
shows how little ground it has to throw stones. Serious students, such
as Wallace and Dall, whose critical ability in Zoomorphology no one can
deny, and who do not rest content with a few skulls of doubtful
_provenance_, gathered a la Hagenbeck, have come to a wholly negative
view of the value of Craniometry."--Dr. Otto Stoll, _Maya-Sprachen der
Pokom-Gruppe_, I, vii, ix.
[43-*] Our present day speculators never seem to think for a moment that
these things may conceal, _and thereby preserve_, some real meaning, or
be more than nonsense. The theory of mythological interpretation pushed
to such extremes as in the "animistic" _explanations_ of Weber,
Keightley, and others, and not absent from the writings of some
Americanists (namely, that it was all nothing but ridiculous or
concocted fancy, taken soberly) is bad enough, and argues little breadth
or insight, when applied to the myths of a single people, considered
alone. Applied to comparative mythology, in the state of things today,
it is simply impossible. The plain fact is, that such identities as
these must indicate one of two things: a common tradition, locally
modified by circumstances; or a _fact in nature_ or _history_,
symbolically expressed in different ways according to the times and
modes. And it most probably indicates both of these. It is indeed hard
to account for the extent, and the weight given to some of these
"myths," now that we are coming to a better appreciation of the scope
and greatness of ancient civilizations--everywhere--except they do
correspond to actual _facts_ in nature and history. And it might be
worth our while to get at some of these.
[45-*] We might just as well acknowledge, once for all, that in spite of
its present-day currency in England and America, and its pre-emption of
the field of "science for the people," the theory of man's physical and
mental descent from the anthropoids, is not only _not proved_, but is
vehemently denied by an equally able and scientific, and withal more
logical, body of researchers than those who form its supporters. To
_fabricate_ a missing link in a chain (or even, as with Haeckel, several
links), whose only authority is acknowledged to be its necessity in
order to complete the evidence for the theory, and then to declare the
theory proved because the fabricated link fits perfectly the gap it was
created for, is equally vicious scientifically whether the fabrication
be the work of a physicist of renown or a linguistic theorizer. Let it
simply be agreed, as it now is by all science, that the _evolution of
form_ is a universal and well evidenced principle, working out through
the various well established and comprehensible incidents, such as
natural selection, adaptation to environment, and so on--yet this
statement of the fact is not an explanation of its cause. And every
scientific and logical requirement will be equally, and better, met by
regarding all forms, whether physical, linguistic, or of any kind, as
coming, or rather brought, into being by the force of a consciousness
which needs them as the vehicles of its expanding activity. That this is
absolutely true in language, anybody can see. That it is true in every
department of daily life about us, everybody _does_ see. That it should
be equally true in biology and physics, would not affect the standing or
verity of a single _observed_ fact.
There was, along about the beginning of the Christian era, and for some
time before and after, a very curious movement, which seemed to spread
itself over nearly the entire world, east and west. It is told of the
early Aztecs that "they destroyed the records of their predecessors, in
order to increase their own prestige." It is related that writing once
existed in Peru, but was entirely wiped out, and the Inca records
committed to quipus alone. The "burning of the books" under Tsin Chi
Hwangti in B. C. 213 sought to do the same for China. The times of Akbar
witnessed much of the same in India. And in Europe almost nothing was
left to tell the tale of the great pre-Christian eastern empires and
systems of thought; so that from the establishment of State Christianity
under Constantine, and the final settlement of the Canon at the Council
of Nicaea, an impenetrable veil was drawn over the achievements and
greatness of the Past, and all connexion therewith broken off. It was
some time after this that we find the heliocentric theory, as well as
that of other habitable worlds, denied (in Europe), because "it would
deprive the Earth of its unique and central eminence." Just as we also
today are served up with prehistoric savage and animal ancestors, to the
greater glory of our own present-day magnificence. But it really is in
sober truth only a question of mental perspective which does not affect
the facts of history, biology, archaeology or language in the least. It
is only a question of which end of the telescope we look through.
[49-*] It is exceedingly interesting to trace the course of criticism
since the appearance of Wilhelm von Humboldt's great work, _Ueber die
Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die
geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts_ (Berlin, 1836). Dr.
Brinton gave it most unqualified approval; (see especially his monograph
read before the American Philosophical Society in 1885, and printed the
same year). Prof. H. Steinthal (_Grammatik, Logik und Psychologie_,
1855) calls the subject of "inner form" the most important one in
linguistic science, and von Humboldt's treatment of it his greatest
contribution to that science. And so on. But the work has nevertheless
received little attention from a large number of writers, most of them
declaring it "unclear." These two views, when one studies the various
writers, seem to follow closely upon the standpoints from which each
approaches the study. Those who study language (perhaps one should here
say, languages) as a phenomenon, a set of external forms, an act, a
thing done, get little use out of von Humboldt's work. Those who see it
as a human "activity," an energy, get much. This is quite apparent in
one of the clearest and ablest linguistic works which has recently
appeared, Dr. Adolf Noreen's _Vart Sprak_ (in 9 vols., still in course
of publication, Lund, 1903 and later), a work of far wider linguistic
value than appears from its title. Dr. Noreen, however, dismisses von
Humboldt's work, and the subject of "inner form," with a few pages, and
the results are apparent in several interesting points. In the first
place, in the course of an acute and critical analysis, wherein he shows
that the purpose of speech is not simply _expression_ of thoughts or
ideas, but the communication to some other person of the _knowledge_ of
the ideas so held by the speaker, he goes on to say: "the same knowledge
of A's wishes could be as well communicated by his saying 'I want you to
come' as by his saying just 'Come.'" This is quite true; but the
_energic_ effect is quite different. Language is the bridge from man to
man, and it is also a _creative activity_ of man. Of course Dr. Noreen,
in a later volume, where he most lucidly analyses the terms 'words,'
'forms,' and 'concepts,' etc. (_ord_, _morfem_, _semem_, etc.), and
corrects many errors of definition made by his predecessors,
acknowledges the difference between the two forms; still his whole
admirable work, analytical and critical as it is, is devoted to this
phase of language as a mere phenomenon, a set of forms which serve as a
medium of communication. From this standpoint, we know all there is to
know about language when we have classified its forms. But from the
other, the study is ever leading us into the regions and depths of man's
consciousness, his creative activity as it goes out to the world; and
the true definition of language, from this position, "can hence only be
a genetic one." (von Humboldt, _Gesammelte Werke_, VI, 42)
It is further not unworthy of note that, except where directly required
in treating of verbal categories, nearly all of the enormous number of
illustrations which Dr. Noreen chooses for his points, are _nouns_,
names of _things_, and vary rarely verbal forms, words of action and
_doing_. But it is simply a fact that all the _potency_ of language is
in the verb, and almost all there is of language, in a philosophic
sense, lies there. The verb is the bridge of communication and action
_upon_ external things, just as is language itself, going out of man.
And it is also noteworthy that the recognition of this position of the
verb, together with these other matters of which we are speaking, seems
nearer at hand and clearer to those students who are led beyond Aryan
languages to the study of American and Asiatic, especially Central and
Northern Asiatic. For instance, G. v. d. Gabelentz, _Die
Sprachwissenschaft_, and other works.
[53-*] It was not until after this paper was already in type that my
attention was directed to the complete agreement of this and the
succeeding sentences with the following passage in _The Secret Doctrine_,
by H. P. Blavatsky, London, 1888, vol. II, page 199. After saying that
some of the Atlantean races spoke the agglutinative languages, the
passage continues: "While the 'cream' of the Fourth Race _gravitated_
more and more toward the apex of physical and intellectual evolution,
_thus_ leaving as an heirloom to the nascent Fifth (the Aryan) Race the
inflectional, highly developed languages, the agglutinative decayed and
remained as a fragmentary fossil idiom, scattered now, and nearly limited
to the aboriginal tribes of America." Note the words I have italicized,
marking the evolution of the "inflectional" languages as an attendant
phenomenon on physico-intellectual evolution, compare the passage with
von Humboldt's thesis, already quoted, that the incorporative quality
denotes an exaltation of the imaginative over the ratiocinative processes
of mind in its users, and further with the surviving genius of Chinese,
the type of monosyllabic languages, and the agreement is evident. Von
Humboldt, however, did not carry out so fully the archaeological results,
for which indeed the materials were in his day still lacking. See also
other passages in _The Secret Doctrine_.
[61-*] _Traite de l'Astronomie Indienne et Orientale_, Disc. Prel. et
seq.
[62-*] The suggestion above is linguistic, and in that phase is given as
a corollary to the foregoing discussion; but, as stated, it is at the
same time in accord with the "Aryan" theory in its essentials (though
not in its hypothetical and ultra-historical speculations), and it also
finds confirmation by various passages in _The Secret Doctrine_, by H.
P. Blavatsky, as already quoted. "The traces of an immense civilization,
even in Central Asia, are still to be found. This civilization is
undeniably _prehistoric_.... The Eastern and Central portions of those
regions--the Nan-Shan and the Altyn-Tagh--were once upon a time covered
with cities that could well vie with Babylon. A whole geological period
has swept over the land, since those cities breathed their last, as the
mounds of shifting sand, and the sterile and now dead soil of the
immense central plains of the basin of Tarim testify.... In the oasis of
Cherchen some 300 human beings represent the relics of about a hundred
extinct nations and races--the very names of which are now unknown to
our ethnologists." (Vol. I, page xxxii et seq.) See also Col.
Prjevalsky's _Travels_. Why should it not be so? The above was written
in 1888, but the evidences are growing every day, and it will be against
all archaeological precedent if far-reaching results do not follow from
Dr. Stein's _small_ find, and from Capt. d'Ollone's recent researches
among the Lolos, and the securing by him, as we are informed, of the
long-sought knowledge of their hieroglyphic system.
[63-*] The study of Tibetan has so far been approached almost
exclusively from the south, that is by those already familiar with
Sanskrit and Pali. To this fact, as well as to the overwhelming
influence exercised on literary Tibetan by the Buddhist propaganda, is
due the difficulty one meets in any study of its origins. The traces,
however, do nevertheless exist. Some interesting facts concerning both
Chinese and Tibetan, which seem to be entirely omitted in such later
standard works as those of Summers, Wade, and Giles, are to be found in
the almost forgotten _Chinese Grammar_ of Dr. Marshman, Serampore, 1814.