18S5.] oil. [Brinton. 



There is nothing teleological in his philosophy; he even de- 

 clines to admit that either the historian or the linguist has a 

 right to set up a theory of progress or evolution ; the duty ot 

 both is confined to deriving the completed meaning from the 

 facts before them.^^ He merely insists that as the object of lan- 

 guage is the expression of thought, certain forms of language 

 are better adapted to this than others. What these are, why 

 they are so, and. how they react on the minds of the nations 

 speaking them, are the questions he undertakes to answer, and 

 which constitute the subject-matter with which the philosophy 

 of langunge'has to do. 



Humboldt taught that in its highest sense this philosophy of 

 language is one with the philosophy of history. The science ot 

 language misses its purpose unless it seeks its chief end in ex- 

 plaining the intellectual growth of the race.f 



Each separate tongue is " a thought-world in tones " estab- 

 lished between the minds of those who speak it and the objec- 

 tive world witliout.| Each mirrors in itself the spirit of the 

 nation to which it belongs. But it has also an earlier and inde- 

 pendent origin ; it is the product of the conceptions of antece- 

 dent generations, and thus exerts a formative and directive influ- 

 ence on the national mind, an influence, not slight, but more 

 potent than that which the national mind exerts upon it.|| 



So also every word has a double character, the one derived 

 from its origin, the other from its history." The former is single, 

 the latter is manifold. § 



Were the gigantic task possible to gather from every language 

 the full record of every word and the complete explanation of 



* In his remarkable essay "On the Mission of the Historian," wliich Prof. 

 Adler justly describes as "scarcely anything more than a preliminary to his 

 linguistical researches," Humboldt writes : "Die Fhilosophie schreibt den Be- 

 gebenheiten ein Ziel vor: dies Suchen nach Endursachen, man mag sie audi 

 aus dem Wesen des Menschen und der Natur selbst ableiten wollen, slort uiid 

 verfalscht alle freie Ansicht des eigenthvimlichen Wirkens der Kriilte." Ueber 

 die Aufgabe des GeschicMschreihers, Bd. i,s. 13. 



t"Das Studium der verschiedenen Spiachen des Erdbodens verfelilt seine 

 Bestimmung, wenn es uicht immer den Gang der geistigen Bildung im Auge 

 behiilt, und darin seinen eigentlichen Zweck sucht." Ueber den Zunamtnenhatuj 

 der Schrift mil der Sprache, Bd. vi, s. -128. 



I "Eine G'edankenweltan Tone geheftet." Ueber die Buchslabenschri/t und ihre 

 Ziisammenhang mil dem Spmehbau, Bd. vi, s. 530, 



II This cardinal point in Humboldt's philosophy is very (jlearly set forth in his 

 essay, " Ueber die Aujgube des Geschichtsc?ireibers," Bd. i, s. 28, and elsewhere. 



g See Ueber die liuchU'tbtnschriJt, etc., Bd. vi, s. 530. 



