Fan. 6, 1870] 
NATURE 264 
is, to include individual exertion as well as general co- 
operation—an idea applicable neither to the unconscious 
building of bees, nor to the conscious architecture of 
human beings, yet combining within itself both these 
operations, and raising them to a new and higher con- 
ception. You will guess both the idea and the word, if I 
add that it is likewise to explain the extinction of fossil 
kingdoms and the origin of new species :—it is the idea of 
‘Natural Selection’ that was wanted, and being wanted 
it was found, and being found it was named. It is a 
new category, a new engine of thought ; andif naturalists 
are proud to affix their names to a new species which they 
discover, Mr. Darwin may be prouder, for his name will 
remain affixed to a new idea, to a new genus of 
thought.” * 
Professor Schleicher, whose recent death has left a gap 
in the ranks of the students of language which it will be 
difficult to fill, has written down the impressions which 
he, as a comparative philologist, received ‘from a perusal 
of Mr. Darwin’s work, in a letter addressed to his dis- 
tinguished colleague, Professor Haeckel, of Jena. It is 
but a slight sketch, and it would not be fair if the English 
public took the measure of Professor Schleicher’s powers 
from the translation of his pamphlet which has just been 
published by Dr. Bikkers, under the somewhat inappro- 
priate title of “Darwinism tested by the Science of 
Language.” Professor Schleicher could hardly have 
thought that the truth or falsehood of Mr. Darwin’s theories 
depended on any test that can be applied to them by 
the Science of Language. But he thinks rightly that the 
genesis of species, as explained by Mr. Darwin, receives 
a striking illustration in the genealogical system of lan- 
guages, and particularly of the Aryan and Semitic 
languages ; and he very properly calls attention to the 
fact, that as this ramification of human speech took place 
within what may be called, if not historical, at least post- 
tertiary times, it may be useful as a kind of confirmation 
of Mr. Darwin’s theory, which postulates a similar process 
in far more distant periods of the world’s history. “We 
observe,” he says, “during historical periods how species 
and genera of speech disappear, and how others extend 
themselves at the expense of the dead. I only remind 
you, by way of illustration, of the spread of the Indo- 
Germanic family, and the decay of the American lan- 
guages. In the earlier times, when languages were 
still spoken by comparatively weak populations, this 
dying-out of forms of speech was, no doubt, of much 
more frequent occurrence, and, as the idioms of a higher 
organisation must have existed for a very long time, it 
follows that the pre-historic period in the life of speech 
must have been a much longer one than that which falls 
within the limits of historical record. .... It is very 
possible that many more species of speech perished 
during the course of that time than the number of those 
which have prolonged their existence up to the present 
day. This explains the possibility of so great an exten- 
sion as, for instance, that of the Indo-Germanic, the 
Finnic, the Malay, and South African families, which, 
over a large territory, branched off into such a multitude 
of directions. A similar process is assumed by Mr, Darwin 
with regard to the animal and vegetable creation ; that is, 
* “Tectures on the Science of Language.” Second Series. Second 
Edition, p. 309. 
what he calls ‘the struggle for life.’ A multitude of 
organic forms had to perish in the struggle in order to 
make room for comparatively few favoured races.” 
Although this struggle for life among separate languages 
exhibits some analogy with the struggle for life among the 
more or less favoured species in the animal 2nd vegetable 
kingdoms, there is this important difference that the defect 
and the gradual extinction of languages depend frequently 
on external causes, 7.2. not on the weakness of the lan- 
guages themselves, but on the weakness, physical, moral, 
or political, of those who speak them. A much more 
striking analogy, therefore, than the struggle for life 
among separate languages, is the struggle for life among 
words and grammatical forms which is constantly going on 
in each language. Here the better, the shorter, the easier 
forms are constantly gaining the upper hand, and they really 
owe their ‘success to their own inherent virtue. Here, if 
anywhere, we can learn that what is called the process of 
natural selection, is at the same time, from a higher point of 
view, a process of rational elimination ; for what seems at 
first sight mere accident in the dropping of old and the 
rising of new words, can be shown in most cases to be 
due to intelligible and generally valid reasons. Sometimes 
these reasons are purely phonetic, and those words and 
forms are seen to prevail which give the least trouble to 
the organs of pronunciation. At other times the causes 
are more remote. We see how certain forms of grammar 
which require little reflection, acquire for that very reason 
a decided numerical preponderance ; become, in fact, what 
are called regular forms, while the other forms, gene- 
rally the more primitive and more legitimate, dwindle 
away to a small minority, and are treated at last as 
exceptional and irregular. In the so-called dialectic 
growth of languages we see the struggle for life in full 
play, and though we cannot in every instance explain the 
causes of victory and defeat, we still perceive,as a general 
rule, that those words and those forms carry the day which 
for the time being seem best to answer their purpose. 
Why did the French use mazsoz, i.e. mansion, for house? 
Because casa having dwindled down to chez was not 
sufficiently distinct in pronunciation, and because domus 
being frequently used for ecclesiastical buildings, was no 
longer sufficiently precise in its meaning, if applied to an 
ordinary house. Why do verbs in 27, like fizzv, form the 
plural ous finissons, instead of nous finons? Because 
the example which was set in Latin by the early formation 
of so-called inchoative verbs, like duvescere, florescere, 
implescere, gemiscere, proved attractive, partly on account 
of its removing any doubts on the exact termina- 
tions of a verb, partly because of its giving a fuller body 
to monosyllabic verbs. Thus /ivzscere was substituted for 
finire in all tenses but the infinitive, the perfect, the future, 
and the conditional ; and while this new species, the so- 
called second conjugation, was gradually being established, 
a few scattered remnants only survived of the former race, 
fossilised, petrified, or, as they are called in grammatical 
parlance, irregular, such as xous venons from venir, 
nous partons from partir, &c. 
There is one point on which Professor Schleicher seems 
to have misapprehended the meaning of Mr. Darwin. 
According to him, the different species of the Aryan as 
well as of the Semitic languages presuppose each a 
typical language from which they are genealogically 
