THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE 231 



logy of this early cluster reminds one of the dis- 

 covery of the segmented ovum in embryology. 

 Such clusters appear at an early stage in the 

 history of all developments. The processes which 

 precede this stage are of the utmost subtlety, but 

 in embryology they have yielded to the later 

 analysis of the microscope. So it may be one 

 day with the natural history of Language. We 

 may never, for obvious reasons, get back to the 

 actual beginning, but we may get nearer. When 

 the embryologist reached his cluster of cells in the 

 segmented ovum, he did not believe he had found 

 the dawn of life. What further the philologist may 

 find remains a mystery. Where these 121 words 

 came from may never be known. But the develop- 

 ment from that point sufficiently shows that words, 

 like everything else, have followed the universal law, 

 and that Languages, starting from small beginnings, 

 have grown in volume, intricacy, and richness, as 

 time rolled on. " All philologists," says Romanes, 

 "will now agree with Geiger — 'Language diminishes 

 the further we look back, in such a way that we 

 cannot forbear concluding it must once have had 

 no existence at all.'" 



The history of progress for a long time hence- 

 forth is the history of the progress of Language 

 and the increase in intelligence which necessarily 



