4. THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT. 



method of linguistic research by recommending as its 

 basis the study of the more recent and known lan- 

 guages. And when, in the middle of last century, the 

 two opinions, that language was invented or revealed, 

 were sharply opposed to each other, and when Sussmilch 

 (1764), in contradiction to Maupertuis and Jean J. 

 Rousseau, had established that invention was not possi- 

 ble without thought, nor thought without language, and. 

 therefore, that the invention of language was a self-con- 

 tradiction, Herder opportunely entered the lists with 

 his work on language (1770), which formed an epoch in 

 the science. 



According to him, language begins with imitations 

 of sounds, at first almost unconscious; the tokens, 

 as he expresses it, by which the soul distinctly recalls 

 an idea. He makes language develop itself from the 

 crudest beginnings, by the increasing need of such 

 verbal tokens ; and shows that with the development 

 of mankind, the store of words must also have uncon- 

 sciously and instinctively increased. The multiplicity 

 of languages is due to the dispersion of nations, whose 

 idiosyncrasies are reflected in the various languages. 

 Thus Herder long ago pointed out the importance of 

 a psychology of nations. He was joined by Wilhelm 

 von Humboldt, whose opinions form the basis of the 

 present science of language, and who held that the imi- 

 tations of sounds are instinctively crystallized into words, 

 and that with this formation of words and language 

 thought commences. It follows from the nature of these 

 beginnings, that language is the natural expression of 

 the spirit of a people ; that it does not stand still, but 

 is for ever in process of transformation. 



