86 LESSONS FROM NATURE. [CHAP. IV. 



qui ne parle pas ;&quot; a declaration which manifestly showed that 

 he was not qualified to form, still less so to express, any opinion 

 whatever on the subject. Again, Professor Oscar Schmidt, 

 in trying to account for the natural origin of man, quotes, 

 with approbation, Geiger s words: &quot;Die Sprache hat die 

 Vernunft geschaffen : vor ihr war der Mensch vernunftlos ;&quot; 

 not seeing that he might as well attempt to account for the 

 &quot; convexities &quot; of a sigrnoid line by its &quot; concavities.&quot; As 

 before said, the &quot; concavities &quot; could as easily exist before the 

 &quot; convexities &quot; as the existence of the verbum oris could ante 

 date that of the verbum mentale. It is almost enough to 

 make one despair of progress when one finds such real &quot; non 

 sense &quot; solemnly propounded to a learned audience, and when 

 such amazing ignorance shows itself in men who are looke 1 

 up to as teachers ! As Wilhelm von Humboldt has declared : 

 &quot; Man is man only through speech, but in order to invent he 

 must be already man.&quot; 



Eespecting Mr. Darwin, that section of the second chapter 

 ,., of his work, the &amp;lt; Descent of Man, which discusses 



ivir. L/arwiuo 



language, exhibits such a combination of confused 

 thought, with a habit of assuming as true the very point to be 

 proved, that adequately to do it justice would require minute 

 criticism. He makes use,* by implication, of the curious 

 argument, that because two things have certain points of re 

 semblance they cannot be fundamentally different. Thus, as 

 if to diminish the force of the distinction between rational and 

 emotional language, he tells us (what no one would think of 

 disputing) that there are phenomena which are not distinctive. 

 He says : &quot; Articulate language is, however, peculiar to man ; 

 but he uses, in common with the lower animals, inarticulate 

 cries to express his meaning, aided by gestures and the move 

 ments of the muscles of the face. This especially holds good 

 with the more simple and vivid feelings, which are but little 

 connected with our higher intelligence. Our cries of pain, 

 fear, surprise, anger, together with their appropriate actions, 



* Descent of Man, vol. i. p. 54. 



