116 PRINCIPLES OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE. 



roots ; and onomatopoctic ones, although sometimes met with, are rare, at least 

 in tlie better knoAvu families of language, and in great part of late formation. 

 Evidence does not show, and theory does not require, that the actual beginnings 

 of speech should have been of either character. The process of root-making 

 was in much the greatest part a free and arbitrary one ; it was, as we may with 

 especial propriety call it, a tentative process, a devisal and experimental pro- 

 posal of signs, to be thenceforth associated by a community with conceptions 

 which pressed for representation. Objective and absolute connexion between 

 sound and sense there was none, except in words of onomatopoctic formation ; 

 of a subjective connexion, a giiiding analogy, we do catch occasional glimpses, 

 or seem to catch them ; they are too subtle and evanescent to be believed in 

 with confidence, nor have we ground for suspecting their wide occurrence. 

 There is thus enough of obscurity, of uncertainty, resting upon the earliest pe- 

 riod of linguistic growth ; but of mystery, hardly any ; the process is not beyond 

 our ken, although its details are out of our knowledge. 



Of all animals, man is the only one that has proved himself capable of origi- 

 nating a language. For this, the general reason, that man's endowments are 

 vastly higher than those of the inferior races, is the best that can be given. 

 When philosophers shall have determined precisely wherein lies man's supe- 

 riority, they will at the same time have explained his exclusive possession of 

 speech. If, however, it were necessary to say in what mode of action lay that 

 deficiency of power in the lower animals which, more than any other, put lan- 

 guage out of their reach, we should incline to maintain that it was the power of 

 distinct reflection on the facts of consciousness ; of analyzing impressions, and 

 setting their parts so clearly before the internal sense as to perceive that each 

 is capable of a distinct sign. Many animals come so near to a capacity for lan- 

 guage as to be able to understand and be directed by it, Avhen addressed to them 

 by man ; nor is their condition without analogy with that of very young chil- 

 dren,- whose power of comprehending language is developed much earlier and 

 more rapidly than their power of employing it. It may well be questioned 

 whether, as regards capacity for speech, the distance from the unimpressible 

 oyster, for instance, to the intelligent dog, is not vastly greater than that from 

 the dog to the lowest and least cultivable races of men. 



