468 THOUGH LANGUAGES AND SPECIES DERIVATIVE, CHAP. xxm. 



of terms are required to express abstract ideas, and words 

 previously used in a vague sense, so long as the state of 

 society was rude and barbarous, gradually acquire more 

 precise and definite meanings, in consequence of which 

 several terms must be employed to express ideas and things, 

 which a single word had before signified, though somewhat 

 loosely and imperfectly. 



The farther this subdivision of function is carried, the 

 more complete and perfect the language becomes, just as 

 species of higher grade have special organs, such as eyes, 

 lungs, and stomach, for seeing, breathing, and digesting, which 

 in simpler organisms are all performed by one and the same 

 part of the body.* 



When we have satisfied ourselves that all the existing lan 

 guages, instead of being primordial creations, or the direct 

 gifts of a supernatural Power, have been slowly elaborated, 

 partly by the modification of pre-existing dialects, partly by 

 borrowing terms at successive periods from numerous foreign 

 sources, and partly by new inventions made some of them 

 deliberately, and some casually and as it were fortuitously, 

 when we have discovered the principal causes of selection, 

 which have guided the adoption or rejection of rival names 

 for the same things and ideas, rival modes of pronouncing 

 the same words and provincial dialects competing one with 

 another, we are still very far from comprehending all the 

 laws which have governed the formation of each language. 



It was a profound saying of William Humboldt, that 

 4 Man is man only by means of speech, but in order to invent 

 speech he must be already man.' Other animals may be 

 able to utter sounds more articulate and as varied as the 

 click of the Bushman , but voice alone can never enable 

 brute intelligence to acquire language. 

 ' When we consider the complexity of every form of speech 



* See Herbert Spencer's Psychology and Scientific Essays. 





