518 Evolution and Language 



tains a greater variety of languages by far than were ever held under 

 one sway before. The Government of India is engaged in producing, 

 under the editorship of Dr Grierson, a linguistic survey of India, a 

 remarkable undertaking and, so far as it has gone, a remarkable 

 achievement. Is it too much to ask that, with the support of the 

 self-governing colonies, a similar survey should be undertaken for 

 the whole of the British Empire? 



Notwithstanding the great number of books that have been 

 written on the origin of language in the last three and twenty 

 centuries, the results of the investigation which can be described 

 as certain are very meagre. The question originally raised was 

 whether language came into being Secret or (frvcrei, by convention or 

 by nature. The first alternative, in its baldest form at least, has passed 

 from out the field of controversy. No one now claims that names were 

 given to living things or objects or activities by formal agreement 

 among the members of an early community, or that the first father of 

 mankind passed in review every living thing and gave it its name. 

 Even if the record of Adam's action were to be taken literally there 

 would still remain the question, whence had he this power ? Did he 

 develop it himself or was it a miraculous gift with winch he was 

 endowed at his creation? If the latter, then as Wundt says 1 , "the 

 miracle of language is subsumed in the miracle of creation." If 

 Adam developed language of himself, we are carried over to the 

 alternative origin of <f>v<r€t. On this hypothesis we must assume that 

 the natural growth which modern theories of development regard 

 as the painful progress of multitudinous generations was contracted 

 into the experience of a single individual. 



But even if the origin of language is admitted to be natural 

 there may still be much variety of signification attached to the 

 word : nature, like most words which are used by philosophers, has 

 accumulated many meanings, and as research into the natural world 

 proceeds, is accumulating more. 



Forty years ago an animated controversy raged among the sup- 

 porters of the theories which were named for short the bow-wow, the 

 pooh-pooh and the ding-dong theories of the origin of language. The 

 third, which was the least tenacious of life, was made known to the 

 English-speaking world by the late Professor Max Miiller who, how- 

 ever, when questioned, repudiated it as his own belief 2 . It was taken 

 by him from Heyse's lectures on language which were published 

 posthumously by Steinthal. Put shortly the theory is that "every- 

 thing which is struck, rings. Each substance has its peculiar ring. 

 We can tell the more and less perfect structure of metals by their 



b 



Volkerpsychologie, i. 2, p. 585. 



Science of Thought, London, 1887, p. 211. 



il 



