THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE, 813 
ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE. 
_ By Hermann Ritz, M.A. 
(University of Tasmania, Hobart.) 
[ Abstract. | 
Tue Science of Language, as it is now understood, is of com- 
paratively very recent origin, though philosophers and 
grammarians have studied human speech from every point 
of view since the dawn of history. Modern philology owes 
its origin to Sir William Jones, who, in 1790 aD., 
enunciated the principle that Greek, Latin, and Sans anit 
have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no 
longer exists. His successors have built and are still build- 
ing on this foundation, and have obtained surprising results. 
The number of languages recognised as belonging to that 
group has become very large, and the original uniformity of 
human speech is no longer considered to be beyond the scope 
of scientific demonstration. 
The keynote of a scientific treatment of the theory of 
language was struck by Herder, who clearly conceived the 
creative power inherent in the human mind, by means 
of an man is capable of evolving language from 
his natural faculties. The third great name in 
the history of modern philology is that of Im- 
manuel Kant, who pointed out that experience and 
thought are indispensable to each other; that without 
understanding, experience is useless, and without experience, 
reasoning is baseless. 
The student of language obtains his experience from the 
observed facts of human speech. He concentrates his atten- 
tion on the spoken word, not on its written symbol; on 
the sound that is heard, not on the gesture that is seen. 
He endeavours to ascertain by every available means how 
sounds can be made to express thoughts, and how and why 
words change in sound and meaning. 
The life-history of spoken words is the province of Etym- 
ology or Derivation; and this branch of philology, though 
the most recent of all in its scientific form, has made extra- 
ordinary progress, and has risen to the highest practical 1m- 
portance. It has become the key to the mysteries of human 
speech, and, through that, of human thought; for it is 
founded on the observation of facts which occur in progres- 
sive series, and the regularity of the successive changes 
enables us to ascertain the thoughts which cause those 
changes. 
