252 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN 



auxiliaries can be proved to have been historically subsequent 

 to inflection. Nevertheless, other philologists have shown 

 good ground for questioning our right to regard these facts 

 as justifying so universal a theory as that the law of language- 

 growth is always to be found in these particular lines, or that 

 all languages of one type must have passed through the lower 

 phase, or phases, before reaching that in which they now 

 appear. The most recent argument on this side of the 

 question is by Professor Sayce, whom, therefore, I will 

 quote. 



"We are apt to assume that inflectional languages are 

 more highly advanced than agglutinative ones, and agglutina- 

 tive languages than isolating ones, and hence that isolation is 

 the lowest stage of the three, at the top of which stands 

 flection. But what we really mean when we say that one 

 language is more advanced than another, is that it is better 

 adapted to express thought, and that the thought to be 

 expressed is itself better. Now, it is a grave question whether 

 from this point of view the three classes of language can 

 really be set the one against the other." * 



He then proceeds to argue that isolating languages have 

 an advantage over all other forms in "the attainment of 

 terseness and vividness ; " that " the agglutinative languages 

 are in advance of the inflectional in one important point, that, 

 namely, of analyzing the sentence into its component parts, 

 and distinguishing the relations of grammar one from another. 

 ... In fact, when we examine closely the principle upon 

 which flection rests, we shall find that it implies an inferior 

 logical faculty to that implied by agglutination." f 



Elsewhere he says, " As for the primeval root-language, 

 we have no proof that it ever existed, and to confound it with 

 a modern isolating language is simply erroneous. Equally 

 unproved is the belief that isolating languages develop into 

 agglutinative, and agglutinative into inflectional. At all 

 events, the continued existence of isolating tongues like the 



• Introduction, &'c., vol. i., p. 374. 

 t liuf., vol. L, pp. 375, 376. 



