Part 14 (2/2)

The only question which remains to be answered is this, Was it one and the same volume of water which supplied all the lateral channels of speech?

or, to drop allto the radical, the terminational, and inflectional systems, identically the same? The only way to answer, or at least to dispose of, this question is to consider the nature and origin of roots; and we shall then have reached the extre can carry us in our researches into the mysteries of human speech

LECTURE IX THE THEORETICAL STAGE, AND THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE

”In exa the phenomena of the material world, e cannot trace the process by which an event _has been_ produced, it is often of importance to be able to sho it _h it is impossible to determine with certainty what the steps were by which any particular language was formed, yet if we can show, from the known principles of huradually have arisen, the ree satisfied, but a check is given to that indolent philosophy which refers to a miracle whatever appearances, both in the natural and moral worlds, it is unable to explain”(315)

This quotation from an eminent Scotch philosopher contains the best advice that could be given to the student of the science of language, when he approaches the probleuage Though we have stripped that proble and mysterious aspect which it presented to the philosophers of old, yet, even in its simplest form, it see

If ere asked the riddle how ies of the eye and all the sensations of our senses could be represented by sounds, nay, could be so eht, we should probably give it up as the question of a eneous subjects, atteht(316) Yet this is the riddle which we have now to solve

It is quite clear that we have no e _historically_, or of explaining it as a matter of fact which happened once in a certain locality and at a certain ti after e, and even the most ancient traditions are silent as to the hts and words Nothing, no doubt, would bethan to know from historical docuan to lisp his first words, and thus to be rid forever of all the theories on the origin of speech

But this knowledge is denied us; and, if it had been otherwise, we should probably be quite unable to understand those primitive events in the history of the human mind(317) We are told that the first man was the son of God, that God created hiround, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life These are siin to reason on thelances off Our mind is so constituted that it cannot apprehend the absolute beginning or the absolute end of anything If we tried to conceive the firsthis physical andfor _one_ day without supernatural aid If, on the contrary, we tried to conceive the first rown in body and rown roould equally transcend our reasoning powers It is the saians who claierous anthropomorphism, when they enter into any details as to the manner in which they suppose the Deity to have corammar in order to teach them to the first man, as a schoolmaster teaches the deaf and dumb And they do not see that, even if all their preranted, they would have explained no e, if there was a language ready e was reat a ine that the first ed from a state of mutism and have invented words for every new conception that arose in his et that man could not by his oer have acquired _the faculty_ of speech which is the distinctive character of mankind,(318) unattained and unattainable by the mute creation It shoant of appreciation as to the real bearings of our problem, if philosophers appeal to the fact that children are born without language, and gradually ee from mutism to the full command of articulate speech We want no explanation how birds learn to fly, created as they are with organs adapted to that purpose Nor do ish to inquire how children learn to use the various faculties hich the huain, if possible, an insight into the original faculty of speech; and for that purpose I fear it is as useless to watch the first stas of children, as it would be to repeat the experi who intrusted t-born infants to a shepherd, with the injunction to let theoat's milk, and to speak no word in their presence, but to observe ord they would first utter(319) The same experiment is said to have been repeated by the Swabian emperor, Frederic II, by Jaul e out which was the prie was natural to ht on the proble to speak, do not invent language Language is there ready made for them It has been there for thousands of years They acquire the use of a language, and, as they grow up, they may acquire the use of a second and a third It is useless to inquire whether infants, left to thee

It would be ial to try the experiment, and, without repeated experiments, the assertions of those who believe and those who disbelieve the possibility of children inventing a language of their own, are equally valueless All we know for certain is, that an English child, if left to itself, would never begin to speak English, and that history supplies no instance of any language having thus been invented

If ant to gain an insight into the faculty of flying, which is a characteristic feature of birds, all we can do is, first, to compare the structure of birds with that of other animals which are devoid of that faculty, and secondly, to exa becomes possible It is the same with speech Speech is a specific faculty of uishes man from all other creatures; and if ish to acquire more definite ideas as to the real nature of human speech, all we can do is to compare man with those animals that seem to come nearest to him, and thus to try to discover what he shares in common with these animals, and what is peculiar to him and to him alone After we have discovered this, we may proceed to inquire into the conditions under which speech becomes possible, and we shall then have done all that we can do, considering that the instrue, wonderful as they are, are yet far too weak to carry us into all the regions to which weman with the other aniical questions whether the difference between the body of an ape and the body of a ree or of kind However that question is settled by physiologists we need not be afraid If the structure of a mere worlimpse which we catch of the infinite wisdoives us an inti the powers of our conception, how are we to criticise and disparage the anized creatures of His creation, creatures as wonderfully made as we ourselves? Are there not many creatures on many points th, the eagle's eye, the wings of every bird? If there existed aniether as perfect as man in their physical structure, nay, even htful man would ever be uneasy His true superiority rests on different grounds ”I confess,” Sydney Smith writes, ”I feel myself so much at ease about the superiority of mankind-I have such aof every baboon I have ever seen-I feel so sure that the blue ape without a tail will never rival us in poetry, painting, and music, that I see no reason whatever that justicewhich they may really possess” The playfulness of Sydney S serious and sacred subjects has of late been found fault with byconvictions and perfect safety than guarded soleard to our own problem, no one can doubt that certain animals possess all the physical requirements for articulate speech There is no letter of the alphabet which a parrot will not learn to pronounce(320) The fact, therefore, that the parrot is without a language of his own, must be explained by a difference between the _mental_, not between the _physical_, faculties of the animal and man; and it is by a comparison of the mental faculties alone, such as we find them in man and brutes, that we may hope to discover what constitutes the indispensable qualification for language, a qualification to be found in man alone, and in no other creature on earth

I say _e share of e call our her animals These animals have _sensation_, _perception_, _memory_, _will_, and _intellect_, only weof single perceptions

All these points can be proved by irrefragable evidence, and that evidence has never, I believe, been sureater lucidity and power than in one of the last publications of M P Flourens, ”De la Raison, du Genie, et de la Folie:” Paris, 1861 There are no doubt htened at the idea that brutes have souls and are able to think, as by ”the blue ape without a tail” But their fright is entirely of their own ht withoutit clear to themselves and others what they mean by them, these words will slip away under their feet, and the result must be painful If we once ask the question, Have brutes a soul? we shall never arrive at any conclusion; for _soul_ has been so el, that itSuch has been the confusion caused by the promiscuous employment of the ill-defined ter brutes as living machines, whereas Leibniz claims for them not only souls, but immortal souls ”Next to the error of those who deny the existence of God,” says Descartes, ”there is none so apt to lead weak ht path of virtue, as to think that the soul of brutes is of the sa to fear or to hope after this life, any more than flies or ants; whereas, if we kno much they differ, we understand much better that _our_ soul is quite independent of the body, and consequently not subject to die with the body”

The spirit of these reument is extremely weak It does not follow that brutes have no souls because they have no human souls It does not follow that the souls of men are not immortal, because the souls of brutes are not immortal; nor has the _major premiss_ ever been proved by any philosopher, namely, that the souls of brutes must necessarily be destroyed and annihilated by death Leibniz, who has defended the iuments than even Descartes, writes:-”I found at last how the souls of brutes and their sensations do not at all interfere with the i serves better to establish our natural immortality than to believe that all souls are i into these perplexities, which are chiefly due to the loose employment of ill-defined terms, let us simply look at the facts

Every unprejudiced observer will admit that-

1 Brutes see, hear, taste, smell, and feel; that is to say, they have five senses, just like ourselves, neither more nor less They have both sensation and perception, a point which has been illustrated by M

Flourens by theexperiments If the roots of the optic nerve are removed, the retina in the eye of a bird ceases to be excitable, the iris is no longer an of _sensation_ If, on the contrary, the cerebral lobes are removed, the eye remains pure and sound, the retina excitable, the iris movable The eye is preserved, yet the anians of _perception_

2 Brutes have sensations of pleasure and pain A dog that is beaten behaves exactly like a child that is chastised, and a dog that is fed and fondled exhibits the sans of satisfaction as a boy under the sans, and if they are to be trusted in the case of children, they must be trusted likewise in the case of brutes

3 Brutes do not forget, or as philosophers would say, brutes have memory