ARE LANGUAGES INSTITUTIONS? 155 



the ultimate source of the world's alphabets." Ultimate it certainly 

 is, in the sense of being that alphabet from which the others derive 

 themselves, in part through many intermediaries ; the point in which 

 they all centre : but if Mr. Miiller had looked at the twelfth lecture, 

 in which the Phcenician mode of writing is made the subject of more 

 than a mei'e passing remark, he would have found its own derivative 

 character most exi^licitly asserted and supported. 



If Prof Miiller has not been willing to read until just now the 

 work in which I had independently and connectedly put forth my own 

 system of views, he has not, of course, been in a position to estimate 

 fairly the critical articles in which I have had the avowed polemical 

 intention of trying whether they could stand their ground and make 

 head against the opposing views of other writers. It might naturally 

 enough seem to him that I was too pugnacious. But I cannot help 

 questioning whether he has ever read those articles also, or knows 

 them in any other way than as he knows the one recently used in the 

 pages of the Contetnporary by Mr. Darwin: namely, in fragments 

 and by the report of others. I am confident that he would not other- 

 wise so misconceive their spirit, imagining that I am in the habit of 

 making general depreciatory remarks about the scholars whose works 

 I examine, and of casting hard words at them in place of arguments. 

 He cites a little list of such words, which have caught his eye as he 

 turned over my pages, and which he has conceived to be aj^plied to 

 himself. I cannot help quoting a passage in which and, so far as I 

 know, in which alone two or three of them actually occur. After 

 explaining my own views as to the origin of language at some length, 

 I add (p. 434) : " The view of language and of its origin which has 

 been here set forth will, as I well know, be denounced by many as a 

 low view : but the condemnation need not give us much concern. 

 It is desirable to aim low, if thereby one hits the mark ; better hum- 

 ble and true than high-flown^ pretentious^ and falseP The words 

 here underscored are those complained of by Prof. Miiller: if they are 

 applied to him, or to any one else, it must be by himself, not by me. 

 Those to whom my works are really known will, I am sure, defend me 

 against Mr. Miiller's unfortunate misapprehension. I do not judge 

 men, but views, and especially the arguments by which views are 

 upheld. If I deem the latter insufiicient or erroneous, I confess that I 

 am apt to^speak my mind about them too plainly. If one finds a whole 

 argument founded on the assumption that two and two are five, it is, 

 of course, the true way to say that " Sir Isaac Newton would not have 

 reasoned thus ; and, on the whole, it is safer for us to agree with Sir 

 Isaac," rather than to declare the assumption false, and every thing 

 built upon it unsound : yet, after all, if the latter is really true, and 

 if the occasion for bringing out the truth is a sufficient one, and if the 

 critic shows good faith, a desire to arrive at the truth and to treat his 

 opponent with substantial justice, the shorter and blunter way is not 



