4i6 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN, 



Without recapitulating all that was said upon the phases 

 and causes of linguistic evolution in its various lines of 

 descent, it will be enough to remind the reader that in every 

 case the result of philological inquiry is here the same— 

 namely, to find that languages become simpler in their 

 structure the further they are traced backwards, until we 

 arrive at their so-called "roots." These are sometimes 

 represented as the mysterious first principles of language^ 

 or even as the aboriginal data whose origin is inexplicable. 

 As a matter of fact, however, these roots are nothing more 

 than the ultimate results of philological analysis : in no other 

 sense than this can they be supposed " primary." Seeing, 

 then, that these roots represent the materials of language up 

 to the place where the evolution of language no longer 

 admits of being clearly traced, it is evident that their antece- 

 dents, whatever they may have been, necessarily lie beyond 

 the reach of philological demonstration, as distinguished from 

 philological inference. This, of course, is what an evolu- 

 tionist knows antecedently must be the case somezvhere in the 

 course of any inquiry touching the process of evolution, 

 wherever he may have occasion to trace it. For the further 

 he is able to trace it, the nearer must he be coming to the 

 place where the very material which he is investigating has 

 taken its origin; and as it is this material itself which 

 furnishes the evidences of evolution, when it has been traced 

 back to its own origin, the inquiry reaches a vanishing point. 

 Adopting the customary illustration of a tree, we might say 

 that when a philologist has traced the development of the 

 leaves from the twigs, the twigs from the branches, the 

 branches from the stems, and the stems from the roots, he 

 has given to the evolutionist all the evidence of evolution 

 which in this particular line of inquiry is antecedently 

 possible. The germ of ideation out of which the roots 

 developed must obviously lie beyond the reach of the philo- 

 logist as such ; and if any light is to be thrown upon the 

 nature of this germ, or if any evidence is to be yielded of 

 the phases whereby the germ gave origin to the roots, this 



