1885.J ^^^ [Brinton. 



guages for such lofty purposes as these, with which Humboldt 

 occupied himself with untiring zeal for the last fifteen years of 

 his life, when he liad laid aside the cares of the elevated and 

 responsible political positions which he had long filled with dis- 

 tinguished credit. 



§ 5. Definition and Psychological Origin of Language. 



Humboldt remarks that the first hundi'ed pages or so of his 

 celebrated " Introduction " are little more than an expansion of 

 his definition of language. He gives this definition in its most 

 condensed form as ioUows: ''Language is the ever-recurring 

 effort of the mind to make the articulate sound capable of ex- 

 pressing thought."* 



According to this definition, language is not a dead thing, a 

 completed product, but it is an ever-living, active function, an 

 energy of the soul, which will perish only when intelligence 

 itself, in its highest sense, is extinguished. As he expresses it, 

 language is not an epyuy^ but an evspysta. It is the proof and the 

 product of a mind consciously working to a definite end. 



Hence, in Humboldt's theory the psychological element of 

 self-consciousness lies at the root of all linguistic expression. 

 No mere physical difference between the lower animals and man 

 explains the latter's possession of articulate speech. His self- 

 consciousness alone is that trait which has rendered such a pos- 

 session possible."}" 



The idea of Self necessarily implies the idea of Other. A. 

 thought is never separate, never isolated, but ever in relation to 

 another thought, suggested by one, leading on to another. 

 Hence, Humboldt says: " The mind can only be conceived as in 

 action, and as action.''^ 



As Prof. Adler, in his comments on Humboldt's philosophy, 



* Steinthal does not like Humboldfs expression "to make capable " (faiiig zu 

 niaclien). He objects that the "capacity" to express tliought is already in the 

 articulate sounds. But what Humboldt wishes to convey is precisely that this 

 capacity is only derivejj from the ceaseless, energizing effort of the intellect. 

 Steinthal, Die &'prac7iivissenschafi Wilhelm von Humboldt's, s. 91, note. The words 

 in the original are: "Die sich ewig wlederholende Arbeit des Geistes, deti arti- 

 culirten Laut zuin Ausdruck des Gedanken fahig zu machen." 



t " Nur die Stiirke des Selbstbewusstseins nothigt der korperlichen Natur die 

 scharfe Theilung und feste Begrenzung der Laute ab, die wir Artikulation nen- 

 nen." Ueber das Vergleichende Sprachsludimn iiBeziehungauf die Verschiedenen 

 Epuchen der Sprachentwicklung, Bd. iii, s. 244. 



PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XXII. 120. 2x. PRINTED MAY 23, 1885. 



