Chap. II.] MENTAL POWERS. S9 



of certain favored words in the struggle for existence is 

 natural selection. 



The perfectly regular and wonderfully complex con- 

 struction of the languages of many barbarous nations has 

 often been advanced as a proof, either of the divine origin 

 of these languages, or of the high art and former civiliza- 

 tion of their founders. Thus F. von Schlegel writes : " In 

 those languages which appear to be at the lowest grade 

 of intellectual culture, we frequently observe a very high 

 and elaborate degree of art in their grammatical structure. 

 This is especially the case with the Basque and the Lap- 

 ponian, and many of the American languages." *^ But it 

 is assuredly an error to speak of any language as an art 

 in the sense of its having been elaborately and methodi- 

 cally formed. Philologists now admit that conjugations, 

 declensions, etc., originally existed as distinct words, since 

 joined together ; and as such words express the most ob- 

 vious relations between objects and persons, it is not sur- 

 prising that they should have been used by the men of 

 most races during the earliest ages. With respect to per- 

 fection, the following illustration will best show how easily 

 we may err : a Crinoid sometimes consists of no less than 

 150,000 pieces of shell," all arranged with perfect symme- 

 try in radiating lines ; but a naturalist does not consider 

 an animal of this kind as more perfect than a bilateral one 

 with comparatively few parts, and with none of these 

 alike, excepting on the opposite sides of the body. He 

 justly considers the differentiation and specialization of 

 organs as the test of perfection. So with languages, the 

 most symmetrical and complex ought not to be ranked 

 above irregular, abbreviated, and bastardized languages, 

 which have borrowed expressive words and useful forms 

 of construction from various conquering, or conquered, or 

 immigrant races. 



"5 Quoted by C. S. Wake, 'Chapters on Man,' 1868, p. 101. 

 *^ Buckland, 'Bridgewater Treatise,' p. 411. 



