DEVELOP^IENT OF LANGUAGE. 303 



a determinative element. Finally, in the inflected 

 languages, the determinating element, of which the 

 determinating significance has long vanished from the 

 national consciousness, unites into a whole with the 

 formative element. As we have said, this development, 

 in which retrogression takes an extensive share, is uni- 

 versally admitted. Opinions differ only as to the origin 

 of the linguistic material, which the acuteness of the 

 philosophers extracts in the guise of ** roots." A great 

 authority, Max Miiller,*^ discerns in the existence of the 

 roots evidence of the absolute separation of man from 

 the animal. While Locke says that man is distinguished 

 from the animal by the power of forming general ideas, 

 the philologist ought to say that human language is 

 distinguished from the animal capacity of communica- 

 tion by the power of forming roots. To trace up all 

 words to imitation and exclamatory sounds is inadmis- 

 sible, as we most frequently come upon roots of fixed 

 form and general meaning which are inexplicable in 

 themselves. He deems the existence of these ready- 

 made roots, before which linguistic science stands help- 

 less, an insurmountable impediment to the apprehension 

 of man as a link in the general evolution of organisms. 



This point excepted, this excellent scholar naturally 

 admits all those phenomena of heredity, acquisition, 

 and degeneration, which are manifested in the laws of 

 language, and find their most perfect analogies in our 

 doctrine of Descent. If, for instance, we compare Zend 

 with Sanscrit, and hear several of its words explained, 

 we are at once reminded of the rudimentary organs and 

 their significance. A host of anomalies are, like the 

 isolated organisms of present times, primaeval and 



