CH. xi.j TfFO OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED* 35 



more and more like those of its intellectual metropolis. 

 And in this way the intermediate dialects slowly disappear, 

 leaving two languages with thoroughly distinct individuali- 

 ties, like Italian and French."^ ISTow even here, as I go 

 on to show, the relationships among the dialects have 

 become sufhciently obscured — owing to disappearance of 

 connecting links — to allow M. Eaynouard to maintain the 

 paradox that the modern Eomanic languages are descended, 

 not directly from the Latin, but from the old Proven9al. 

 And in such countries as Hindustan, the processes of di- 

 vergence, and accompanying obliteration, have gone on to 

 such an extent that Bengali has been mistaken for a non- 

 Aryan language. 



Here in the domain of language we see that competition 

 is most severe and destructive between closely allied forms, 

 and that the extremes will vigorously flourish long after the 

 short-lived means have been crushed out of existence. The 

 maxim In medio iufissimus ibis does not apply to such cases. 

 We have now to observe that among the phenomena which 

 natural history deals with, a quite similar process goes on. 

 First we may note, with ]Mr. Darwin, that " as the species 

 of the same genus usually have, though by no means in- 

 variably, much similarity in habits and constitution, and 

 always in structure, the struggle will generally be more 

 severe between them, if they come into competition with 

 each other, than between the species of distinct genera. 

 We see this in the recent extension over parts of the United 

 States of one species of swallow having caused the decrease 

 of another species. The recent increase of the missel- 

 thnish in parts of Scotland has caused the decrease of the 

 song-thrush. How frequently we hear of one species of rat 

 taking the place of another species under the most different 

 climates ! In Russia the small Asiatic cockroach has every- 



* "The Genesis of Language, North American Eew'-ew, Oct. 1869, pp 

 334, 335. 



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