THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE. Ill 



piled his dictionary, and every year sees additions not 

 only to technical terms but to the language of the 

 people. The English Language is now being grown 

 on two or three different kinds of soil, and the differ- 

 ent fruits and flavors that result are intercharged and 

 mixed, to enrich, or adulterate, the common English 

 tongue. The mere fact that Language-making is a liv- 

 ing art at the present hour, if not an argument against 

 the theory that Language is a special gift, at least 

 shows that Man has a special gift of making Language. 

 If Man could manufacture words in any quantity, there 

 was little reason why he should have been presented 

 with them ready-made. The power to manufacture 

 them is gift enough, and none the less a gift that we 

 know some of the steps by which it was given, or at 

 least through which it was exercised. But if the very 

 words were given him as they stand, it is more than 

 singular that so many of them should bear traces of 

 another origin. Even Trench at this point succumbs 

 to the theory of development, and his testimony is the 

 more valuable that it is evidently so very much against 

 the grain to admit it. He begins by stating appar- 

 ently the opposite: "The truer answer to the inquiry 

 how language arose is this : God gave man language 

 just as lie gave him reason, and just because He gave 

 him reason; for what is man's wore? but his reason 

 coming forth that it may behold itself ? They are in- 

 deed so essentially one and the same that the Greek 

 language has one word for them both. He gave it to 

 him, because he could not be man, that is, a social be- 

 ing, without it." Yet he is too profound a student of 

 words to fail to qualify this, and had he failed to do so 

 every page in his well-known book had judged him. 



