ARE LANGUAGES INSTITUTIONS? 157 



wanted to degrade him to have been a being of " creative force, 

 from which religious and moral ideas flowed forth unsought ; " his 

 comparisons imply that language came into fully-developed being at 

 once; he asserts the investigation of its origin to be "nothing else 

 than this: to acquaint ourselves with the mental culture which imme- 

 diately precedes the production of language, to comprehend a state 

 of consciousness and certain relations of the same, conditions under 

 which language must break forth," etc. ; he denies that a child learns, 

 or can be taught, to speak ; he claims speech to be a capacity and 

 activity like seeing and hearing ; and he winds up with the conclusion 

 that there is no such thing as an origin of language, except as it origi- 

 nates anew in every word we utter! Such views, expressed by one 

 who stands so high in public estimation in Germany as Steinthal does, 

 seemed to me to demand thorough examination. In my criticism, I 

 went through the chapter, paragraph by paragraph, quoting in the 

 author's own words nearly half of it, as I should estimate, and discuss- 

 ing in detail the various j^oints made by him. Perhaps I carried on the 

 discussion more vehemently than was necessary or desirable ; I hold 

 myself open to all due reprehension on that score ; but that there were 

 any personalities in it I utterly deny ; it was an argument throughout, 

 if a polemical one ; it addressed itself only to the opinions it opposed, 

 and the considerations by which these were supported. After nursing 

 his wrath for two years, Steinthal came out in reply last summer with 

 a volley of Billingsgate, pure and simple (Mr. Miiller gives, p. 313, 

 some choice examples of it) ; he enters into no argument, he makes no 

 defense unless it may be called a defense that he seems dimly to claim 

 that, being only engaged in a preliminary laying out of his subject, he 

 ought to have been indulged in putting forth any thing he pleased with- 

 out being called to account for it he tears his hair and splits into two 

 persons with rage and disdain, and calls his assailant a villain and a 

 fool. To such a tirade, there is but one answer possible ; and to that 

 I have no disposition to resort. Any one may judge from the speci- 

 mens of Steinthal's views given above, whether they are so obscure 

 from profundity that a man of less than extraordinary penetration 

 cannot hope to understand them; to me, the only incomprehensible 

 thing is, how a man of learning and acuteness should have arrived at 

 them, and should have so little to say for them. I am perfectly will- 

 ing to lay the acta of the controversy before the public just as they 

 are Steinthal's chapter, my criticism, and his retort, without a word 

 further added in my own defense ; and I should be confident of a gen- 

 eral verdict in my favor. 



Prof. Miiller fears that I am generally becoming convinced that I 

 am unanswerable. Perhaps every one runs that risk who, after what 

 seems to him due examination and deliberation, has come to hold a 

 certain set of opinions with great confidence, and who, with his best 

 endeavors, does not find among opposing views and arguments any 



