MENTAL POWERS. ^03 



the survival of certain words mere novelty and fashion may 

 be added; for there is in tlie mind of man a strong love for 

 slight changes in all things. The survival or preservation 

 of certain favored words in the struggle for existence is 

 natural selection. 



The perfectly regular and wonderfully complex con- 

 struction of the languages of many barbarous nations has 

 often been advanced as a proof, either of the divine origin 

 of these languages, or of the high art and former civiliza- 

 tion of their founders. Thus F. von Schlegel writes: "In 

 those languages which appear to be at the lowest grade of 

 intellectual culture, we fully observe a very high and elaborate 

 degree of art in their grammatical structure. This is espe- 

 cially the case with the Basque and the Lapponian, and 

 many of the American languages."* But it is assuredly 

 an error to speak of any language as an art, in the sense of 

 its having been elaborately and methodically formed. Philol- 

 ogists now admit that conjugations, declensions, etc., 

 originally existed as distinct words, since Joined together ; 

 and as such words express the most obvious relations be- 

 tween objects and persons, it is not surprising that they 

 should have been used by the men of most races during the 

 earliest ages. With respect to perfection, the following 

 illustration will best show how easily we may err; a Crinoid 

 sometimes consists of no less than 150,000 pieces of shell, f 

 all arranged with perfect symmetry in radiating lines; but 

 a naturalist does not consider an animal of this kind as 

 more perfect than a bilateral one with comparatively few 

 parts, and with none of these parts alike, excepting on the 

 opposite sides of the body. He justly considers the differ- 

 entiation and specialization of organs as the test of perfec- 

 tion. So with languages; the most symmetrical and com- 

 plex ought not to be ranked above irregular, abbreviated, 

 and bastardized languages, which have borrowed expressive 

 words and useful forms of construction from various con- 

 quering, conquered or immigrant races. 



From those few and imperfect remarks I conclude that 

 the extremely complex and regular construction of many 

 barbarous languages, is no proof that they owe their origin 



* Quoted by C. S. Wake, " Cliapters on Man," 1868, p. 101. 

 f Buckland, " Bridgewater Treatise," p. 411. 



