CONTENTS

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Max Müller and the Problem of the Origin of Language

        'However paradoxical it may seem, I maintain that we cannot possibly know individuals, or discover any means of accurately determining the individuality of a particular thing.
        'General terms are not only influential in bringing languages to perfection, but also simply indispensable to their existence. Continuous speech would be absolutely impossible if there were only the proper names (nomina propria) of individual things, and no general names (nomina appellative).'

        In enunciating these weighty truths in his, 'Nouveaux Essais sur l’Entendement humain’[1] Leibnitz threw fresh light upon the nature of language and thought. His precursor was Locke, who had declared that 'what words serve to denote are general ideas’.

         'In this manner' (continues Leibnitz, speaking of the formation and origin of general ideas), 'the whole doctrine of genera and species — about which so much ado is made in the schools, and which has so little influence outside them — might be reduced wholly and solely to the formation of abstract ideas of greater or less comprehensiveness to which certain names are given.'

        Are not these words still worthy of laying to heart? Do they not contain the great doctrine that, before
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disputing about how the genera and species in the world are constituted, we should first come to an understanding as to what is meant by the words, and how such conceptions arise in thought, or in our mind ? But this by the way.
        If we look the problem of human language in the face, we shall be surprised and dazzled by the same marvel as in all the other creations of nature; namely, the vast and extravagant abundance and variety of forms joined with the incredible simplicity and paucity of the means. Who would believe, before his attention was called to it, that all human language has been produced by the various combinations of an insignificant number of sounds, and that all human thought is inseparably bound up with this seemingly unpromising instrument, and is accomplished solely through this simple, mechanical apparatus of articulate sound-production ?
        But, we have still to ask, what is the mental counterpart to this mechanism, to the word considered as a sound? What is the idea, the meaning of the words? And how does it come to pass that particular ideas come to be expressed by particular sounds and made intelligible thereby? Are they things of the outer world, which are simply retained by phonetic signs, and reproduced in the mind by their help, something in the manner of Cicero's dictum: 'Vocabula sunt notes rerum/ a dictum which seemed to all antiquity, down to the age of Leibnitz and Locke, to exhaust the whole problem?
        If new light is to be thrown upon the important and obscure problem of the origin of language, these questions must be submitted to renewed and serious criti-
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cism. And the time seems to have arrived when they must be more energetically and fruitfully attacked if the magnificent results of comparative philology are not to remain a mere heap of scientific material, but to prove a valuable possession for humanity and contribute to decide the ultimate and supreme questions of philosophy and anthropology.
        The profound insight and philosophic temper of Max Müller is nowhere more evident than in his having been the first among the students of language to dive into these obscure abysses with the torch of empirical knowledge, which he himself had been among the first to kindle, in search of a satisfactory answer, such as is to be found nowhere else, to the question what is the origin of the human mind.
        Müller took as his starting-point the view of Locke, quoted above, respecting the nature and essence of human speech. He quotes the words of the great English thinker, who, after having shown how universal ideas arise, how the mind, after having observed the same colour in chalk, in snow, and in milk, comprehends these several perceptions under the general idea of white, thus continues:—

'This I may be positive in, that the power of abstraction is not at all in brutes, so that the having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction between man and brutes. For it is evident we observe no footsteps in these of making use of general signs for universal ideas; from which we have reason to imagine that they have not the faculty of abstracting or making general ideas, since they have no use of words, or any other general signs.'[2]

        This power of abstraction, or having general ideas,
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Max Müller continues, is realised by means of language and language only, which is the exclusive property of mankind, in virtue of its humanity. That which is language seen from without is reason seen from within. It is the obvious mark of distinction between man and beast. The origin of human development can therefore only be elucidated by the discovery of the origin of language. And if we ask what new contributions have been brought to light from the materials hitherto examined by comparative philology, in aid of this enquiry,

'The result,' says our author, 'if we look back on our former lectures, is this. After we had explained everything in the growth of language that can be explained, there remained in the end, as the only inexplicable residuum, what we called roots. These roots formed the constituent elements of all languages. This discovery has simplified the problem of the origin of language immensely. It has taken away all excuse for those rapturous descriptions of language which invariably preceded the argument that language must have a divine origin. We shall hear no more of that wonderful instrument which can express all we see, and hear, and taste, and touch, and smell; which is the breathing image of the whole world; which gives form to the airy feelings of our souls, and body to the loftiest dreams of our imagination; which can arrange in accurate perspective the past, the present, and the future, and throw over everything the varying hues of certainty, of doubt, of contingency. All this is perfectly true, but it is no longer wonderful, at least not in the Arabian Night's sense of that word. "The speculative mind," as Dr. Ferguson says, "in comparing the first and last steps of the progress of language, feels the same sort of amazement with a traveller, who, after rising insensibly on the slope of a hill, comes to look from a precipice of an almost unfathomable depth to the summit of which he scarcely believes himself to have ascended without supernatural aid."

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        To certain minds it is a disappointment to be led down again by the hand of history from that high summit. They prefer the unintelligible which they can admire, to the intelligible which they can only understand. But to a mature mind reality is more wonderful than complication. Roots may seem dry things as compared with the poetry of Goethe. Yet there is something more truly wonderful in a root than in all the lyrics of the world.

'What, then, are these roots? In our modern languages roots can only be discovered by scientific analysis, and, even as far back as Sanskrit, we may say that no root was ever used as a noun or as a verb. But originally roots were thus used, and in Chinese we have fortunately preserved to us a representative of that primitive radical stage which, like the granite, underlies all other strata of human speech. Roots, therefore, are not, as is commonly maintained, merely scientific abstractions, but they were used originally as real words.
        'What we want to find out is this, What inward mental phase is it that corresponds to these roots, as the germs of human speech?'

        How much fresh and vivid truth in a simple form! How much to instruct and stimulate philosophic thought—but alas, for the majority of the philosophers of to-day only the voice of one crying in the wilderness! The problem of the origin of language is brought into a simple and concrete shape, and a narrow path pointed out which, even though its course lie through dim and tangled thickets, cannot fail to lead us to the goal at last. Seek the origin of these roots, of the residuum left in the crucible of the analyst; comparative philology will show you the development of linguistic life out of the germ-cell. Omne vivum ex ovo; and the ova which the physiology of languages has discovered in its empirical researches are roots. By their development and unin-
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terrupted growth all the known languages of the world have reached their marvellous stature, and become the body of reason and the instrument of mind. By the help of these roots and their intellectual equivalent man has taken spiritual possession of the whole creation, as he, at the same moment, cast it in their mould and stamped it with their impress.
        But once more, whence these roots? How were they formed? How made into a lasting possession? How did they receive their significance ? When Max Müller's Lectures were delivered, two theories were chiefly in vogue among students of the theory of language, both of which he has the merit of having driven out of the temple of philological science.
        These two theories, however, rested upon one common, general, and widely-spread error, an error so natural as to be readily excusable. As language expresses everything by sounds, the first thing seemed to be to discover the causal connection which was assumed to exist between the sound and its meaning, at least in the case of elementary sounds or roots.
        The theory of onomatopoeia, or the imitation of natural sounds, had always been a favourite with the philologist of ancient and modern times, and it was this to which Max Miiller gave the name of the 'Bowwow theory.' 'As any process in the external world’ observes Geiger, 'is only comparable with a word in so far as it is itself audible, and indeed only entirely comparable with a word of similar sound to its own, it is intelligible that the hypothesis should have been regarded as especially luminous and attractive.'
        Even the divine Plato, in his incomparable dialogue the 'Kratylos,' had referred to the possibility of such
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an origin for languages, though he immediately adds, with deeper insight: 'To imitate the voices of animals is by no means the same thing as to name them.' Leibnitz also wished to have the imitation of sounds recognised as a fruitful source of verbal roots, especially with reference to the-voices of animals.

'To this number belongs the Latin word coaxare; which is used of frogs, and answers to the German quaken. The cries and noise of these animals seem to have furnished the origin of a number of other German words. Because of the noise made by frogs the word is applied nowadays to the empty talk and chatter of those who are called in the diminutive Quackeler. As, however, the cry or sound of an animal is a sign of life, by which the presence of a living animal is recognised without its being seen, the old German word queck (English "quick") is also derived from the same source; other still surviving traces of it are met with in quick-silver, in the German erquicken, to strengthen or refresh; while the weed that no efforts are able to extirpate from the field is called Quecks or quick-grass.'[3]

        It is hardly necessary to observe that these comparisons are untenable in substance.
        Herder embraced the same view; he held that the observant human mind adopted the cries of animals as signs. Men said to the sheep, 'Thou are the bleater,' and proceeded to associate the cry of the animal with the idea of it. W. von Humboldt, too, in his suggestive work, ‘Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaus’ assumes the imitation of natural sounds to have been at least an important factor in the origin of language, though he was not blind to the difficulties and inadequacy of an hypothesis which would turn human language into a concert of animal cries:—
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'This representation is in a way pictorial; as an image represents the way in which an object appears to the eye, language represents the way in which it is perceived by the ear. As the imitation here has always to deal with inarticulate tones, there is a constant struggle between articulation and this kind of representation, and according to the result of the contest the inarticulate element predominates so as hardly to deserve the name of language, or disappears so far as to be unrecognisable. For this reason it cannot be denied that there is a degree of rudeness about any language in which this element is conspicuous; it is feeble when there is a free and vigorous linguistic feeling, and it tends gradually to disappear with the progressive development and refinement of language.'

        This theory, however plausible and seductive it may seem at first sight, is directly opposed to the facts of any language yet examined. This truth was clearly and resolutely maintained by Max Miiller, until at length there was an end of these recurring attempts to find the origin of language in a source which, on approaching, proves to be a mirage in the desert sand.

'Our answer is,' he says,[4] 'that though there are names in every language formed by mere imitation of sound, yet these constitute a very small proportion of our dictionary. They are the playthings, not the tools, of language, and any attempt to reduce the most common and necessary words to imitative roots ends in complete failure. . . . We cannot deny the possibility that a language might have been formed on the principle of imitation; all we say is that as yet no language has been discovered that was so formed. . . . There are of course some names, such as cuckoo, which are clearly formed by an imitation of sound. But words of this kind are, like artificial flowers, without a root. They are sterile, and are unfit to express anything beyond the one object which they imitate… As the word cuckoo predicates nothing
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but the sound of a particular bird, it could never be applied for expressing any general quality in which other animals might share. . . . Cuckoo could never mean anything but the cuckoo, and while a word like raven has ever so many relations, from a rumor down to a row, cuckoo stands by itself like a stick in a living hedge. . . . Many more instances might be given to show how easily we are deceived by the constant connection of certain sounds and certain meanings in our own languages. . . . Most of these onomatopoeias vanish (as in the case of thunder, katze, squirrel, &c.) as soon as we trace our own names back to Anglo-Saxon and Gothic, or compare them with their cognates in Greek, Latin, or Sanskrit. The number of names which are really formed by an imitation of sound dwindle down to a very small quotum, if cross-examined by the comparative philologist, and we are left in the end with a conviction, that though a language might have been made out of the roaring, fizzing, hissing, gobbling, twittering, cracking, banging, slamming, and rattling sounds of nature, the tongues with which we are acquainted point to a different origin.'

        The second theory, which also has numbered distinguished representatives, deduced language from the natural cries expressive of human feeling, following in this the precedent of Epicurus, and among the moderns, of De Bosses[5] and Condillac. This view, which regarded the cries of joy and pain as the starting-
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point of human language, was aptly characterised by Max Miiller as the 'Pooh-pooh!' or interjectional theory.
        The conclusions of comparative philology were as fatal to this theory as to the preceding one. To quote again from Max Müller :[6]

'There are, no doubt, in every language interjections, and some of them may become traditional, and enter into the composition of words. But these interjections are only the outskirts of real language. Language begins where interjections end. There is as much difference between a real word, such as "to laugh," and the interjection ha, ha! between "I suffer" and oh! as there is between the involuntary act and noise of sneezing and the verb "to sneeze." We sneeze and cough, and scream and laugh, in the same manner as animals; but if Epicurus tells us that we speak in the same manner as dogs bark, moved by nature, our own experience will tell us that this is not the case.
        'An excellent answer to the inter jectional theory has been given by Home Tooke.
        "The dominion of speech," he says, "is erected upon the downfall of interjections. Without the artful contrivances of language, mankind would have had nothing but interj ections with which to communicate, orally, any of their feelings. The neighing of a horse, the lowing of a cow, the barking of a dog, the purring of a cat, sneezing, coughing, groaning, shrieking, and every other involuntary convulsion with oral sound, have almost as good a title to be called parts of speech as interjections have. Voluntary interjections are only employed where the suddenness and vehemence of some affection or passion returns men to their natural state, and makes them for a moment forget the use of speech; or when, from some circumstance, the shortness of time will not permit them to exercise it."
        'One short interjection may be more powerful, more to the point, more eloquent than a long speech. In fact, inter-
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jections, together with gestures, the movements of the muscles of the mouth and the eye, would be quite sufficient for all purposes which language answers with the majority of mankind.
        'As to the attempts at deriving some of our words etymo-logically from mere interjections, they are apt to fail from the same kind of misconception which leads us to imagine that there is something expressive in the sounds of words.'

        Both theories, alike the Bow-wow and the Pooh-pooh theory, were finally demolished by the same philosophical reflection, the germ of which is contained in the words of Leibnitz cited at the beginning of this chapter :[7]

'If the constituent elements of human speech were either mere cries or the mimicking of the cries of nature, it would be difficult to understand why brutes should be without language. There is not only the parrot, but the mocking-bird and others, which, can imitate most successfully both articulate and inarticulate sounds; and there is hardly an animal without the faculty of uttering interjections, such as huff, hiss, baa, &c. It is clear also that if what puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes is the having of general ideas, language, which arises from interjections and from the imitation of the cries of animals, could not claim to be the outward sign of that distinctive faculty of man. All words, in beginning at least (and this is the only point which interests us), would have been the signs of individual impressions and individual perceptions, and would only gradually have been adapted to the expression of general ideas. The theory which is suggested to us by an analysis of language, carried out according to the principles of comparative philology, is the very opposite. We arrive in the end at roots and every one of these expresses a general, not an individual, idea. Every name, if we analyse it, contains a predicate by which the object to which the name applies was known.'

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        In other words, it is not an account of the essence of language to say that a definite external object elicits a particular sound or cry from a sensitive, perceptive being—a view corresponding to Steinthal's theory of reflex-sounds: the essence of language lies in the fact that the sound serves to say something, that with the saying something is thought, and that something is predicated of the object thought and spoken about.
        And in reference to this Max Muller enunciates a truth of incalculable importance, which will procure him the epithet, with the judicious, of 'the Darwin of the mind': for he puts forward, as an unquestionable result of philological enquiry, the filiation of ideas which is met with uninterruptedly in continuous development.

'Never,' he observes, 'in the history of language, so far as we are able to trace the course of its development, do we find an object or an idea associate itself all at once with a sound, for no apparent reason, as if by a kind of generatio (equivoca. The object exists only by the idea which we have of it, and to our consciousness the idea itself only exists by means of the sound which is the body, the symbol, so to speak, of the thought.'

        Exactly the same results have been reached by Geiger; and to afford still further confirmation of Max Mtiller's view, I may quote some of the most important passages of this 'Ursprung der Sprache³:

        'In the nature of the mind, as in that of the body, there is no saltus; the one is developed out of as minute elements as the other.
        'Slow development, differentiation of opposites from imperceptible variations, is historically the only cause of changes, on the one hand, in the meaning given to a word, and, on the other, in the meaning attached to the notions desig-
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nated. ... I have not succeeded in discovering any point at which a conception appears thai cannot be traced to some other conception, and for which, therefore, the mind would be compelled to seek a sign outside, e.g. in a noise, nor yet any new impression giving occasion to a new vocal movement.'

        Geiger rests his view, as appears from these words, upon the favourite idea of Leibnitz—natura non facit saltum; that, on the contrary, all changes are effected rather as transitions of the infinitely little—a thought which, as Leibnitz expressly notes, involves the question as to the interval between man and beast, which, however remote and inconceivable its existence, still must have been lived through, and which it is the especial object of the science of language and philosophy to reconstruct by their joint efforts as they try to reopen the choked-up source of the origin of speech.
        The capital idea of the filiation or genealogical connection of all human conceptions had certainly presented itself to the versatile mind of the great Leibnitz, though not with the clearness possible to later students with a more abundant supply of scientific material. Indeed, there is scarcely any thought which agitates the minds of the present day but may be found in the germ in the writings of Leibnitz. Take, as an example, his refutation of the Lockian doctrine that all ideas have their roots in sensations and are derived from thence:

'Have you already forgotten, dear Philalethes, that our ideas reside originally in the soul, and that all thoughts proceed originally from that original base, without any other creature being able to exercise any direct influence upon the soul.'[8]

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        If this idea is sound—and all philological observation and research confirms and advocates it, and indeed could only become possible as a science by assuming its truths—then a foundation of inestimable solidity has been secured for further investigation, and the problem of the origin of language, which has hitherto hovered before us in the remote haze of distance, is brought at once within the attainable, clearly circumscribed boundary of the horizon.
        The inferences which Max Müller deduced from this important elementary truth are, in their main features, somewhat as follows:
        1. The sounds of language are at all times and everywhere significant. It is in virtue of this quality alone that they form a part of speech. The interjec-tional and imitative theories are herewith condemned.
        2. Nothing in language is dead that has not once been alive. This explains and sets aside the apparent exceptions presented by inflection-terminations, infixes, affixes, and the whole formal apparatus of language. The word fruchtbar could not be formed unless the second syllable had a meaning, and though that meaning is lost to the feeling of contemporary speech, science shows us that it originally meant fruit-bearing.
        3. Language passed from the simplest beginnings— monosyllabic, primary roots—first to secondary and tertiary roots, and then, through the luxuriant abundance of forms belonging to the polysynthetic or agglutinative stage, to the clearness and precision, to the wonderful richness of thought and expression belonging to modern and inflected languages. The cradle of speech is the goal of the science of language.
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        4. The mental counterpart of roots are certain fixed rational elements, nearly all of the nature of predicates, though a few, the pronominal class, are demonstrative. And as the roots, considered as sounds, are phonetic types, so their rational counterparts in the mind are rational types; those are phonetical types, these conceptual types, or rational concepts. These, we repeat, are the fixed forms or norms with which language—that is to say, rational thought—has stamped as its own the whole of creation.
        5. The original mental content of the roots, their earliest meanings, so far as comparative philology can trace them, prove to have been only sensible perceptions or impressions.
        As the last paragraph contains the boundary to which Max Miilier has led his troops, and where he has left them encamped in view of the impregnable fortress, some further discussion must be allowed me here. For Max Müller himself ventured on an attack from this point, which could not but end in failure since this last proposition, though true as far as it goes, is not the whole truth.
        His words are:

'All roots, i.e. all the material elements of language, are expressive of sensuous impressions, and of sensuous impressions only.'[9]
'The only definition wecan give of language during that early state is, that it is the conscious expression in sound of impressions received by all the senses.'[10]

        I said that, starting from this position, Max Müller has hazarded an onslaught upon the mysterious for-
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tress which hides the origin of reason and language from the eyes of mortals. The theory which he advances in conformity with this leading principle is as follows :[11]

'There is a law which runs through nearly the whole of nature that everything which is struck rings. Each substance has its peculiar ring. We can tell the more or less perfect structure of metals by their vibrations, by the answer which they give. Gold rings differently from tin, wood rings differently from stone; and different sounds are produced according to the nature of each percussion. It was the same with man, the most highly organised of nature's works. Man, in his primitive and perfect state, was not only endowed, like the brute, with the power of expressing his sensations by interjections, and his perceptions by onomatopoeia, he possessed likewise the faculty of giving more articulate expression to the rational conceptions of his mind. That faculty was not of his own making. It was an instinct, an instinct of the mind, as irresistible as any other instinct. So far as language is the production of that instinct, it belongs to the realm' of nature. Man loses his instincts as he ceases to want them. His senses become fainter when, as in the case of scent, they become useless. Thus the creative faculty which gave to each conception, as it thrilled for the first time through the brain, a phonetic expression, became extinct when its object was fulfilled. The number of these phonetic types must have been almost infinite in the beginning, and it was only through the same process of natural elimination which we observed in the early history of words, that clusters of roots, more or less synonymous, were gradually reduced to one definite type. Instead of deriving language from nine roots, like Dr. Murray, or from one root, we must suppose that the first settlement of the radical elements of language was
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preceded by a period of unrestrained growth—the spring of speech—to be followed by many an autumn.'

        I believe it will be in accordance with the purpose of the present essay if I mention here those (comparatively few) points on which Geiger separates himself from Max Müller, and enters upon what I venture to regard as a truer and more direct course towards the desired goal. These two points are:
        1. A more consistent adherence to the vital principle that language is able to develop or derive ideas only from ideas. Geiger observes, with special reference to Max Mutter's hypothesis:

'The assumption of a now exhausted power of linguistic creation, and the kindred one of a perfect condition for primeval man, is a resort to the incomprehensible, and not far removed from a confession that it will always in the nature of things be impossible for us to discover the true sense of primitive roots, or to explain the process of the formation of language.'

        Geiger himself remains faithful to the principle that the process must have been the same at the origin as in all subsequent development of language, only indefinitely slower in operation. Accordingly he does not assume a number of vocal sounds with Corresponding ideas to have existed in the beginning, but a single sound, excited by one definite idea.

'The key to the meaning of a word lies only in a preceding one… The mass of meanings really contained in existing words converge at last to a single centre, but this can lie nowhere except in the first origin of language itself… Why is it that words begin by meaning so little and in general mean less and less the further back we trace them?
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I can give no other answer than this: Because in the beginning the sum of man's perception was not greater.'[12]

        2. Max Müller treats the 'impressions received by all the senses' as a source of the first workings of language, while Geiger allows this to hold good only of perceptions derived from the sense of sight.

'A conviction which has forced itself irresistibly on my mind, after consideration of all the linguistic material I have been able to obtain, is that the perception to the growth of which language bears witness in mankind is that which takes place through the sensation of sight. . . . The most essential characteristic of man is his power of distinguishing, and his interest in the distinction of, objects by visual perception.’[13]

        But in spite of these new and undeniably fruitful explanations, it was not reserved for Geiger to reach the final goal, as he hoped, and indeed, as appears from some indications, believed himself to have done. Comparative philology could not accomplish this by its own unaided methods; it was necessary for philosophy, the science of mind, to approach the problem simultaneously from another side, and then only the victorious advance could be made by the allied troops under the supreme command of philosophic thought.
        After reading my book, 'On the Origin of Language,' Max Müller wrote to me, and while acknowledging the progress made, continued:

'Now I come to my difficulties. The real problem seems to me to lie in the origin of thought, or, to put it briefly, in the transition from perception to conception. Explain to me how man becomes able to conceive "two," and you will have explained to me the origin of language.'

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        This is both true and profound. It is altogether impossible to pass from perception, that is to say, from a purely sensuous impression, to thought, just as it is impossible to derive mind from matter in motion. Cosmic evolution can only be conceived by assuming feeling, the origin of reason can only be reached by assuming conception.
        Thus while all preceding writers on the philosophy of language, Max Miiller and Geiger included, have followed the universal tradition in deriving language and thought from the passive element of perception, I have entered upon the opposite course, and affirmed:

'Language is the child of will, of an active, not of a passive state; the roots of words contain the proper activity of men, and receive their significance from the effects of this activity in so far as it is phenomenal, i.e. visible. Human thought arises from a¹ double root, the subjective activity, or the will, and the objective phenomenon which is accessible to the senses.'

        Max Müller has since expressed his full assent to this view.
        The task upon which philosophy and comparative philology are engaged is one of supreme importance, though only duly understood and estimated by the more intelligent few. The work is nothing less than to renew, to reconstruct, and complete on an empirical base the gigantic work done by Kant, to fathom and interpret the origin and growth of that supreme miracle of creation, the human reason. Such a task is far higher in importance even than theories of the rise and fall of planetary systems.[14]
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        And when the solution has been uttered, in accordance with the conviction so confidently expressed by
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Max Müller, and fully shared by the present writer, all future philosophy will be exclusively the philosophy of language.