Aug. lo 1876] 



NATURE 



307 



of speech came also the development of conceptual 

 thought and a corresponding progress in culture and 

 civilisation. 



A morphologic investigation of language enables us to 

 trace the several stages of its development, and by supply- 

 ing intermediate forms furnishes an important verification 

 of the Darwinian theory. Thus we begin with isolating 

 languages and monosyllabic roots, and then pass on 

 through the agglutinative to the inflectional family of 

 speech, each family, together with the members of each 

 family, gradually increasing in complexity of organism. 

 The roots themselves can be shown to be of onomatopoeic 

 or interjectional origin, and the interval between them 

 and the six distinct sounds emitted by the cebus azarcB of 

 Paraguay is far less than that between the several stages 

 of linguistic development. Linguistic development itself 

 depends upon the changes brought about in the pronun- 

 ciation of words by natural causes, and since the laws 

 which regulate these changes fall ultimately under the 

 province of physiology, the "historical life" of language 

 is as much a subject of natural science as the more special 

 phenomena of the physiologist. 



The main objection which offers itself to this theory is 

 the necessity it involves of explaining the development of 

 speech by the accidents of phonetic decay. No doubt 

 the meaning of words is largely influenced by the forms 

 they may assume in pronunciation under the action of 

 phonetic laws which ultimately go back to such controlling 

 conditions as climate, food, and the like ; but just as 

 often it is the meaning which determines the form. After 

 all, it is not the particular phonetic sound which consti- 

 tutes language, but the signification put into it by the 

 joint but unconscious action of a community. Without 

 language, it is true, there can be no thought ; but it is 

 equally true that language without thought would be only 

 the gibberish of a parrot. 



Another objection which holds against the view of 

 M. Hovelacque is the undue limitation which it im- 

 poses upon the science of language. M. Hovelacque's 

 work is little' more than a catalogue of the various 

 languages of the world, classified morphologically and 

 genealogically, with a description of the chief phonetic 

 and grammatical peculiarities of each. No place is left 

 for that inner life of language which stands nearer to 

 psychology than to physiology, and the science of language 

 is accordingly made almost synonymous with phonology 

 alone. One misses an account of the nature of language 

 and the causes of its change and growth ; one misses 

 equally any reference to comparative grammar and 

 syntax, to the changes of signification undergone by 

 words, and the light they throw upon the history of the 

 human mind. In short, in M. Hovelacque's hands the 

 science of language appears as a classified collection of 

 existing phenomena, while the causes and complex history 

 of these phenomena are left untouched. In assuming, 

 too, that the inflectional languages have once been isolat- 

 ing, M. Hovelacque assumes much more than can be 

 proved. The Indo-European tongues may once have 

 resembled Chinese ; but there is no proof of the fact, 

 if fact it be, and the " Parent-Aryan," as restored by 

 Schleicher and Fick, is as thoroughly inflectional as 

 Sanskrit itself. 



On the other hand, M. Hovelacque does good service 



in showing how fully all the evidence now at our disposal 

 tells against the theory which would refer the manifold 

 languages of the globe to only two or three original 

 sources. On the contrary it would seem that the be- 

 ginnings of speech were as numerous as the independent 

 communities of primitive man. It is strange, however, 

 that an author who hesitates about admitting the relation- 

 ship of the Mongolian to the Finnic-Tatar group should 

 yet accept without questioning the Indo-European affini- 

 ties of Lycian and Etruscan- 



To sum up, M. Hovelacque is a good scholar, and his 

 book is a useful summary of the relationship and charac- 

 teristics of the various languages of the world. It is also 

 a valuable contribution on the side of those who hold that 

 the science of language must be included among the 

 physical sciences. But it exhibits the defects as well as 

 the advantages of this view ; and thus while it proves the 

 difficulty of distinguishing between a physical and a his- 

 torical science at least so far as the science of language 

 is concerned, it yet shows that to regard the science of 

 language as a merely physical one leads to an unsatis- 

 factory inadequacy of treatment and an unjustifiable 

 narrowness of view. A. H. Sayce 



THE GERMAN NORTH SEA COMMISSION 

 J ahresbei'icht der Coinniission zur wissenschaftlichen 

 Untersuchung der deutschen Meere in Kiel fiir die 

 Jahre i2>y2, iZjT,. Im Auftrage des Koniglich Preus- 

 sischen Ministeriums fiir die landwirthschaftlichen 

 Angelegenheiten, herausgegeben von Dr. H. A. Meyer, 

 Dr. K. Mobius, Dr. G. Karsten, Dr. V. Hensen, Dr. C. 

 Kupffer. (Berlin, 1875.) 



THE second portion of the Report of the North Sea 

 Expedition, just published, contains Article VI., 

 Bryozoa, edited by Dr. Kirchenpauer. Like most of 

 his countrymen, the author accepts Ehrenberg's name for 

 this group, although there is no doubt that, as urged by 

 Allman and Busk, Vaughan Thomson's name (Polyzoa) 

 has the priority. The number of species met with is but 

 small ; we make it 55, the author 54, but perhaps he 

 excludes Pedicellina echinata. A most interesting account 

 is given of the Flustra of the Northern Sea, and we wel- 

 come the account of the geographical distribution which 

 is appended to each species as a valuable addition to our 

 knowledge. From the richness of Dr. Kirchenpauer's 

 collections, he was peculiarly well able to give a long list 

 of habitats. Among the very complete list of authors 

 quoted, we miss a paper on New Zealand Polyzoa by Sir 

 C. Wyville Thomson, published in the NaturalHistory 

 Review for 1858. 



The Tunicata are described by Dr. C. Kupffer. Twenty- 

 four species (not twenty-three) of Simple Ascidians are 

 enumerated, belonging to the following genera : — Ciona, 

 3 sp. ; Phallusia, 6 sp. ; Corella, i sp. ; Cynthia, 8 sp. 

 (i new) ; Molgula, 5 sp. (3 new) ; Pelonasa, i sp. The 

 author describes as occurring in some species of Cynthia 

 and Pelonsea certain nipple-shaped bodies met with in the 

 water chamber. These are regarded as standing in close 

 relationship with the circulatory system, and are called 

 Endocarps. All of the species, except those for the first 

 time described, are to be met with in Great Britain ; some 

 of them are among those recently described by Alder and 

 Hancock from the West of Ireland, and five of them are 



