Frontier Between Man and Beast. 303 'natural' to man; such are his endowments, such his circumstances, such his history-one or all of these-that it is his invariable possession "given to him for purpose of speech-as hands are bestowed for labour, a means of communicating and receiving thought. Language, far from uniting man and beast, places a vast and deep interval, incapable of being crossed by the lower animals, separating their nature and power from our own. The essential capacities and tendencies of man led him universally and inevitably to speech, worked out a foreseen and intended result. He has not risen from a brute-condition by the product of speech; for he could never have produced language had he not been endued, at the outset, with those powers, both of body and mind, which constitute man. He was mainly what he is now when the first beginnings of speech came forth; as lion was lion when he began to roar. 66 Wilhelm von Humboldt says language is an "organism," and man does not so much form language, as discern with a kind of joyous wonder its developments coming forth of themselves." It accords with this, that philology refers the original forms of language to the primitive stage of the ancient human race. All men speak, their power of brain and capacity of thought are enlarged by speech, but no such differences are wrought as those which separate one animal species from another: all men, however differently they speak, are of one species. "Linguistic principles are actually worked out with as much originality, and more extensively if not more profitably, among savages than among cultured men." Examples are found in the Algonquin system of compounding words, and in the Esquimaux-a scheme of grammatical inflexion. Metaphor and syntax also belong to the infancy of human expression. Indeed, language, in many respects, is by a sort of rough-and-ready ingenuity, having more to do with the rule of thumb, Mr. Tylor says, than with "systematic arrangement and scientific classification." The "old barbaric engine" is better, more precise, comprehensive, beautiful, in many of the ancient tongues, than in any or all of the patched and tinkered modern speech. Professor Max Müller says—“ Nothing necessitates "2 1 "Life and Growth of Language," p. 2: Wm. Dwight Whitney. 2 "Primitive Culture," vol. i. p. 216: Edward B. Tylor. the admission of different independent beginnings for the material elements of the Turanian, Semitic, and Aryan branches of speech; nay, it is possible even now to point out radicals which, under various changes and disguises, have been current in those three branches ever since their first separation." This accords with the Divine account concerning the beginning of human existence; and whether it results from the psychical unity of the human race, or is a proof of the historical derivation of language from one root, is not so material as the fact of unity. For variety of thought, treat language as the product of art, a contrivance; and regard human thought as organic and working under fixed laws. If language is the product of thought in union with capable organism, and used as an instrument for imparting and receiving thought, it is due to the power of intelligence adapting means to ends: a capacity highly complicate and intricate. The psychic energies, bringing it into exercise, belong to those fundamental principles of religion, art, science, which make man what he is. Inner consciousness was externalised by language. Common sounds, imitated; self-expressive or emotional tones, uttered with varying emphasis, force and speed; gestures and motions of the features; led inevitably to the production of speech. So far, therefore, we may say, no man is born a speaker, an artist, or an engineer; a lone man would not speak, and every child learns the language in which he talks; but the child, the lone man, engineer, artist, speaker, are born with the enabling faculties. Carry the investigation somewhat further. Every division of the human race has been long enough in existence to form its speech-capacity into language. Should we, if a new race came into being, by whatever means, find it gifted with speech? Or would speech have to be wrought out in the manner work-tools are invented and improved? In one or the other of these ways must language have come. How is it with the lower animals? Not one of them originates civilisation, nor culture-whether linguistic or artistic. Their utmost capacity only enables them to receive training by higher beings; and the imitative gesture, or grimace, or tone, is never human, but parrot-like. Inward power fails, whatever the outward occasion; but man possesses The Basis of Speech. 305 inward power and outward opportunity. Let fulness of our worth be fulness of our praise. "A lone man," science says-"would not speak, nor initiate culture". -we do not admit either as more than hypothesis; but are certain that man would seek his like and find woman. This would be by the individual evolving self-knowledge or personality; then consciousness of other and separate existences; then desire, seeking for another ego. This process of instruction and education is visible behind the veil of Scripture words. Impelling energy led man from solitude, where he might possibly have remained speechless, to pour himself forth in human intercourse and in Divine communion. Adam's language grew out of the spiritual ground of his heart. Thoughts and emotions, planted by manifold sensations, quickened and branched into distinct perceptions; bloomed and ripened into the flowers and fruits of words. The basis of speech is the power of man, the impelling cause is consciousness of himself and of others, the prevalent necessity lies in the various wants of human nature. We are told "That is no acceptable explanation to a scientific man which calls for a special force at the beginning, to act like a deus ex machina, and then retire to act no more." Keep the marvellous out of view, then, and say " Man began as a learner, and continued a learner;" but before the training and shaping process, a mental equipment, however small, was necessary; those animals which are nearest to man in structural arrangement do not speak; only creatures, such as parrots, in whose vocal organs it is not easy to trace the cause of the power. For a man to see as if trees are walking, there must be a little vision; and the apparatus of speech would be of no use unless, in connection with consciousness, a definite power grasped, handled, shaped, conceptions and relations of mental action. In fact, man possessed the physical and mental instrumentality of speech: the consummation of glorious design. We need not adopt any theory about the consonantal triple roots and internal inflection of the Semitic speech nor of monosyllabic roots; nor decide whether the first words were nouns or verbs; nor account for the fact that clever people, like the Chinese, have a written language which, in many respects, is structurally the lowest, and in resource the X 66 poorest; nor is any dogmatic statement warranted as to unity or separateness at the beginning. Science inclines to take formless roots" as the origin of all language, but what those roots precisely were can hardly be traced. A calf will run about and help itself on the day of birth; so man, having the organs of speech, when the opportunity came would use them; application and development necessarily follow. Take words to pieces, or put them together; compare modern with ancient, and rich languages with poor; yet neither philologically nor historically is there any warrant for saying that former men worked on any other linguistic base than that now used. There is not a word which can be said to exist, pure, by nature. The cry of animals is instinctive, but human speech is conventional; and every word stands in its accepted use, éσe, by an act of attribution, determined by men's circumstances, habits, and references.1 It is impossible to trace language to human natural cries; brutal are out of the question; though many words are imitations— "cuckoo," for example; and no uttered sound, nor any combination of articulations come or came into existence as the natural sign of an intellectual conception.o We may as hopefully look to the beasts for our language, as for the particular and definite beginnings of the arts which develop our clothes, our instruments, our buildings. The voice has been given for speech, as the hands are given to write with, and it is because effective for communication the voice is a universal medium. We trace languages to one parent language; take the sentences, words, letters to pieces, dissolve them by crucial analysis into primitive forms, natural sounds, voluntary expressions; but what of that? We cannot form the primitive speech. Man, to be sure, is imitative because he has the capacity, just as he is an artist. Take a mechanism to pieces; separate the brass, iron, wood, leather, fuse and burn them; but, apart from human intelligence, they are not the equivalent nor explanation of the machine. Ánimals make noises which men fashion into speech; birds have notes which men attune to song; in the woods and on the sea are heard those rustlings, breathings, roarings, which men "Life and Growth of Language," p. 282: Prof. Wm. Dwight Whitney. 2 Ibid. p. 288. * Ibid. p. 289. Ancient Languages. 307 combine in orchestral harmonies. Man is that intelligent creature whose capacities and tendencies worked out the Creator's intended result; language becoming a living, breathing revelation of man to man, and of man to God. Adam was taught to give the name by God who had made the creature. "2 "Comparative Philology has succeeded in assigning the dialects of mankind, with more or less precision, to three families of speech: the Turanian, the Semitic, and Aryan."1 Ancient languages are the most scientific, complex, and perfect in their structure; therefore, it is argued "the forms and laws of structure, involved in the most perfect condition of language, were endowments of primeval man.' Knowledge grew, the seeds of thought were sown, the experiences of individuals and of races became registered, the intelligence stored up in the brain obtained further expression in writing. Revelation was made permanent, Divine Truth was written in the Sacred Book, so soon as spiritual efficacy began language had birth. In the very threshold of our self-consciousness, when the external world was copied into the soul by psychical forms of perception, the representative images and ideas became efficient and were translated into speech-the effluent in which mind and matter reciprocate their respective properties. Mind imparts to modulations of sound their hundred thousand distinctions. They rise to full utterance; a swelling harmony of many thoughts, of many desires; translate the heights and depths of human passions, the fervour of devotion, the refinements of metaphysical abstractions, into symbols of intellectual and moral wealth. The thought, the word, the creature combined, when Adam gave names. The Second Adam names us for God's greater kingdom. Old mysteries all live by new life. The vocabulary of highly civilised people, Greeks or Romans, English, German, French, or Italian, comprises many thousands of words, with various inflections, technical terms, proper names. "What proof is this of the grasp, of the elasticity of mind, that it can, with a sovereign ease, and just as a man lays down one tool and takes up another, so lay down and take up at pleasure this or that voluminous 1 Prof. Max Müller. 2 "Prehistoric Man: " Daniel Wilson, LL.D. |