256 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN, 



however, undesirable to occupy space with any tedious 

 rehearsal of the facts on which, after reading the more 

 important literature of the subject, my judgment is based. 

 For what it is worth, this judgment is as follows. 



In the first place, it appears to me that those experts have 

 an overwhelmingly strong case who argue in favour of the 

 polysynthetic languages as presenting a highly primitive 

 form of speech. Indeed, so undifferentiated do I think they 

 prove this type of language-structure to be, that I agree with 

 them in concluding that it probably brings us nearer "the 

 origin of speech " than any other type now extant. Further- 

 more, looking to the wide contrast between this type and 

 that which is presented by the isolating tongues, it appears 

 to me impossible that the one can be genetically connected 

 with the other. For it appears to me that the experts on the 

 opposite side have no less completely proved, that the 

 isolating tongues also present evidence of a highly primitive 

 origin ; and, therefore, that whatever amount of evolution 

 and subsequent degeneration (" phonetic decay ") the Chinese 

 language, for instance, may be proved to have undergone, 

 this only goes to show that it has throughout remained true 

 to the isolating principle — just as the Protozoa, through all 

 their long history of evolution, have remained true to their 

 " isolating " type, notwithstanding that some of their branches 

 must long ago have given origin to the "agglutinated" 

 Metazoa. In other words, it appears to me that the experts 

 on this side of the question have been able to place the 

 isolating type of speech on as low a level of development — 

 and, therefore, presumably on as high a level of antiquity — as 

 experts on the other side have been able to claim for the 

 polysynthetic. 



If I am right in this opinion, it follows that there must 

 have been at least two points of origin from which all 

 existing languages arose — or rather, let me say, at least two 



languages of the Old World are, and must be, fruitless : in fact, all discussions of 

 the matter are at present unscientific " (Professor Whitney in Encya. Brit., art. 

 " Philology," 1885). 



