^04 THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT, 



peculiarly normal remnants and witnesses of bygone 

 linguistic periods. In short, down to the minutest 

 details, linguistic research stumbles on accordance and 

 analogies with the doctrine of the derivation of 

 organisms. And, forsooth, we are to halt before the 

 origin of language as before a something incomprehen- 

 sible and inscrutable ! 



This is not done, however, by the majority of com- 

 parative linguists in the present day. Though Max 

 Miiller calls the roots "phonetical fundamental types 

 produced by a power inherent in human nature," though, 

 according to him, man in a more perfect state possessed 

 the power of giving to the reasonable conceptions of his 

 mind a better and more subtle expression, the talented 

 Lazarus Geiger 87 terms the hypothesis of a now extinct 

 power of forming languages, and the other hypothesis con- 

 nected with it, of a primordial state of higher perfection, 

 a recourse to the incomprehensible and a return to a 

 standpoint of mysticism. For that which is not under- 

 stood is not necessarily incomprehensible. It is not our 

 business to side with Geiger, who attributes an essential 

 share in the ejaculation of words to the visual percep- 

 tions, or with Bleek, G. Curtius, Schleicher, Steinthal, and 

 many others, who assign to the imitation of sounds the 

 first place in the evocation of language. This much is, 

 however, certain, that although those who are not critical, 

 find Max Miiller's standpoint highly convenient, in 

 science, it is unique. In this province, interwoven as it 

 is with the investigation of nature, the greater number 

 of authorities, on linguistic grounds, comparative and 

 philosophical, have been forced to the conclusion that, 

 from an irrational primordial state, man-like beings 



