Jnly 22, 1875] 



NATURE 



227 



of sapient philosophy," Prof, Whitney solves the whole 

 question on the first page. We must again quote his 

 own words : — 



" There can be asked, respecting language, no other 

 question of a more elementary and at the same 

 time of a more fundamentally important character 

 than this: How is language obtained by us ? how does 

 each speaking individual become possessed of his speech? 

 Its true answer involves and determines well-nigh the 

 whole of linguistic philosophy. There are probably few 

 who would not at once reply that we learn our language ; 

 it is taught us by those among whom our lot is cast in 

 childhood. And this obvious and common-sense answer 

 is also, as we shall find on a more careful and considerate 

 inquiry, the correct one." 



This third discovery, too, will hardly meet with any 

 objections. Prof. Whitney says, indeed, that two different 

 answers are conceivable, viz., that language is inherited 

 as a race-character, like colour, or that it is independently 

 produced by each individual ; but though we do not deny 

 the conceivableness of such propositions, we doubt 

 whether any being endowed with the gift of language 

 ever made them, and whether they required " the crushing 

 weight of facts " which Prof. Whitney brings out against 

 them. We do not blame an author, who for argument's 

 sake sets up what in German is called a Strohmatm, in 

 Sanskrit a Purvapakshaj but when we read on p. 145, 

 " There are those still who hold that words get themselves 

 attributed to things by a kind of mysterious natural pro- 

 cess, in which we have no part ; that there are organic 

 forces in speech itself, which by fermentation, or digestion, 

 or crystallisation, or something of the sort, produce new 

 material and alter old," Prof. Whitney would appear to 

 have allowed himself to be carried away a little too far 

 by his dramatic imagination. 



To most people, however, be they scholars or philo- 

 sophers, it would seem that to be told that a child learns 

 his language from his mother, does not help them very 

 much towards a real insight into the origin of language. 

 We should go on from child to mother, from mother to 

 grandmother, and so forth, but this retrogression in 

 infinitum would land us exactly at the same point from 

 which we started, viz., How did the first mother get her 

 language ? Let us hear what Prof. Whitney has to say in 

 answer to this ever-recurring question. He tells us to 

 look around us and to see what takes place at present. 

 Thus, after explaining the recent discovery of a new tar 

 colour, which by its discoverer was called magenta, he 

 says : — " The word magenta is just as real and legitimate 

 a part of the English language as green, though vastly 

 younger and less important ; and those who acquire and 

 use the latter do so in precisely the same manner as the 

 former, and generally with equal ignorance and unconcern 

 as to its origin." And again, after referring to the wholly 

 arbitrary formation of the word gas by Van Helmont in 

 A.D. 1600, Prof. Whitney writes : — "We cannot follow so 

 clearly toward or to its source the word green, because it 

 is vastly older ; but we do seem to arrive by inference at 

 a connection of it with our word grow, and at seeing that 

 a green thing was named from its being a growing thing; 

 and this is a matter of no small interest as bearing on the 

 history of the word." 



Here then we have arrived at last at what Prof. Whitney 



would call the pivotal fact. The word green and all 

 other words were made in the same way in which Van 

 Helmont made the word gas, and the inventor of aniline 

 colours the word magenta. Green was made from to grow. 

 But, as we ventured to ask before in the case of the child, 

 the mother, and the grandmother, would it be impertinent 

 to ask what to grow was made from ? 



We have endeavoured to give as full an account as 

 possible of what Prof. Whitney offers us as his own 

 science of language, free from all the " incongruities and 

 absurdities" of German scholars. If we have left out some 

 facts on which he himself may lay great stress, and which 

 he may consider as his own discoveries, we have done so 

 from no unkind motive. He dwells, for instance, very 

 strongly on the fact that men speak because they wish to 

 communicate, a theory which again will hardly rouse 

 violent opposition. However, in order to be quite just, 

 we shall once more quote the professor's ipsissima 

 verba : — 



"Nor is it less plain what inaugurates the conversion 

 and becomes the main determining element in the whole 

 history of production of speech ; it is the desire of com- 

 munication. This turns the instinctive into the inten- 

 tional. As itself becomes more distinct and conscious, it 

 hfts expression of all kinds above its natural basis, and 

 makes it an instrumentality ; capable, as such, of inde- 

 finite extension and improvement. He who (as many do) 

 leaves this force out of account, cannot but make utter 

 shipwreck of his whole linguistic philosophy." 



We should think he would. We only question whether 

 anybody was ever ignorant of the fact that speech was 

 meant for speaking. 



On all the points hitherto mentioned, which Prof. 

 Whitney considers as fundamental or pivotal in his 

 Philosophy of Language, there can be little difference 

 of opinion, nor will they excite much alarm among 

 scholars or philosophers. There are, however, some other 

 points of real interest and importance where we should 

 have been extremely grateful to Prof. Whitney if he had 

 given us not only his opinions, but the ground on which 

 these opinions are based. It is well known that most 

 scholars count the Mongol language as a member of 

 the Ural-Altaic family. Prof. Whitney excludes Mon- 

 golic and Tungusic, not on linguistic, but on ethno- 

 logical grounds, from that family which he calls the 

 Scythian, a name, as Prof. Pott has already remarked, 

 " more nebulous than Turanian." He assures us that it 

 is not undue scepticism that leads him to limit the 

 Scythian family for the present to its demonstrated 

 branches, but that in this direction there has been such 

 an excess of unscientific and wholesale grouping, the 

 classification of ignorance, that a little even of over- 

 strained conservatism ought to have a wholesome effect. 

 If one considers that this reproof is administered to 

 scholars, such as Castren, Schott, and Boiler, who have 

 devoted the whole of their lives to the study of these 

 Turanian dialects, one cannot but look forward with the 

 deepest interest to the publication of the results of Prof. 

 Whitney's own studies in Mongol and Mandshu. But 

 while we admire his conservatism on this question, 

 we are still more struck by the boldness with which he 

 decides questions on which the most competent scholars 

 have hitherto spoken with great hesitation, arising not from 



