DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE. 303 



a determinative element. Finally, in the inflected lan- 

 guages, the determinating element, of which the deter- 

 minating significance has long vanished from the national 

 consciousness, unites into a whole with the formative ele- 

 ment. As we have said, this development, in which 

 retrogression takes an extensive share, is universally ad- 

 mitted. Opinions differ only as to the origin of the lin- 

 guistic material, which the acuteness of the philosophers 

 extracts in the guise of " roots." A great authority, ' 

 Max Miiller,*" discerns in the existence of the roots 

 evidence of the absolute separation of man from the ani- 

 mal. While Locke says that man is distinguished from 

 the animal by the power of forming general ideas, the 

 philologist ought to say that human language is distin- 

 guished from the animal capacity of communication by 

 the power of forming roots. To trace up all words to 

 imitation and exclamatory sounds is inadmissible, as we 

 most frequently come upon roots of fixed form and gen- 

 eral meaning which are inexplicable in themselves. He 

 deems the existence of these ready-made roots, before 

 which linguistic science stands helpless, an insurmounta- 

 ble impediment to the apprehension of man as a link in the 

 general evolution of organisms. 



This point excepted, this excellent scholar naturally 

 admits all those phenomena of heredity, acquisition, and 

 degeneration, which are manifested in the laws of lan- 

 guage, and find their most perfect analogies in our doc- 

 trine of Descent. If, for instance, we compare Zend 

 with Sanscrit, and hear several of its words explained, 

 we are at once reminded of the rudimentary organs and 

 their significance. A host of anomalies are, like the 

 isolated organisms of present times, primaeval and pe- 



