470 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tic products. The mind of the artist, whether composer, painter, or 

 sculptor, has always been in a much greater degree occupied by the 

 pleasure of creation and the thoughts of reward, material or mental, 

 than by the wish to add to men's gratifications. 



But we are most clearly shown how little either any aims of an 

 ideal " Great Being," or any philanthropic aims of individuals, have 

 had to do with civilization, by an instance which M. Comte himself 

 refers to as proving our indebtedness. He says : " Language alone 

 might suffice to recall to the mind of every one how completely every 

 creation of man, is the result of a vast combination of efforts, equally 

 extended over time and space." * Now nothing is more manifest than 

 that language has been produced neither by the conscious efforts of 

 the imagined " Great Being, who is the Author of all these conquests," 

 nor by the conscious efforts of individual men. Passing over that 

 intentional coining of words which occurs during the later stages of 

 linguistic progress, it is undeniable that during those earlier stages 

 which gave to languages their essential structures and vocabularies, 

 the evolutionary process went on without the intention of those who 

 were instrumental to it. The man who first, when discussing a prob- 

 ability, said give (i. e. grant, or admit), so-and-so, and such and such 

 follows, had no idea that by his metaphorical give (which became gif 

 and then if) he was helping to initiate a grammatical form. The 

 original application of the word orange to some object like an orange 

 in color, was made without consciousness that the act would presently 

 lead to enrichment of the language by an additional adjective. And 

 so throughout. The minute additions and modifications which have, 

 in thousands of years, given to human speech its present perfection, 

 arose as random changes without thought of improvement ; and the 

 good ones insensibly spread as serving better the purposes of those 

 who adopted them. 



Thus, accepting M. Comte's typical instance of the obligations 

 under which Humanity during the past has placed individuals at pres- 

 ent, we must say that language, having been evolved during men's 

 intercourse without the least design on their parts of conferring bene- 

 fits, and without the faintest consciousness of what they were doing, 

 affords no reason whatever for regarding them with that " veneration 

 and gratitude " which he thinks due. 



" But surely * veneration and gratitude ' are due somewhere. Surely 

 civilized society, with its complex arrangements and involved pro- 

 cesses, its multitudinous material products and almost magical instru- 

 ments, its language, science, literature, art, must be credited to some 

 agency or other. If the * Great Being, Humanity,' considered as a 

 whole, has not created it for us — if the individuals who have co-oper- 

 ated in producing it have done so while pursuing their private ends, 

 * " Positive Polity," vol. ii, p. 48. 



