264 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN, 



CHAPTER XIII. 



ROOTS OF LANGUAGE. 



In the last chapter my treatment of the classification and 

 phylogeny of languages may have led the general reader to 

 feel that philologists display extraordinary differences of 

 opinion with regard to certain first principles of their science. 

 I may, therefore, begin the present chapter by reminding such 

 a reader that I have hitherto been concerned more with the 

 differences of opinion than with the agreements. If one takes 

 a general view of the progress of philological science since 

 philology — almost in our own generation — first became a 

 science, I think he must feel much more impressed by the 

 amount of certainty which has been attained than by the 

 amount of uncertainty which still remains. And the 

 uncertainty which does remain is due rather to a backward- 

 ness of study than to differences of interpretation. When 

 more is known about the structure and mutual relations of 

 the polysynthetic tongues, it is probable that a better 

 agreement will be arrived at touching the relation of their 

 common type to that of isolating tongues on the one hand, 

 and agglutinating on the other. But, be this as it may, even 

 as matters stand at present, I think we have more reason 

 to be surprised at the certainty which already attaches to 

 the principles of philology, than at the uncertainty which 

 occasionally arises in their applications to the comparatively 

 unstudied branches of linguistic growth. 



Furthermore, important as these still unsettled questions 

 are from a purely philological point of view, they are not of 



