86 The Descent of Man. ^art I. 



sounds and ideas; and this obviously depends on the Iiigh 

 development of his mental powers. 



As Home Took, one of the founders of the noble science of 

 philology, observes, language is an art, like brewing or baking .; 

 but writing would have been a better simile. It certainly is not 

 a truo instinct, for every language has to be learnt. It ditters, 

 however, widely from all ordinary arts, for man has an in- 

 stinctive tendency to speak, as we see in the babble of our 

 young children ; whilst no child has an instinctive tendency to 

 bruw, bake, or write. Moreover, no philologist now supposes 

 that any language has been deliberately invented ; it has been 

 slowly and unconsciously develo]ied by many steps.'* The 

 sounds uttered by birds offer in several respects tlie nearest 

 analogy to language, for all the memburrf of tlie same species utter 

 the same instinctive cries expressive of their emotions ; and all 

 the kinds which siiig, exert their power instinctively ; but the 

 actual song, and even the call notes, are learnt from their 

 parents or foster-parents. These sounds, as Daines Barrington*' 

 has proved, " are no more innate than language is in man.'' 

 The first attempts to sing "may bo compared to the imperfect 

 " endeavour in a child to babble." The young males continue 

 practising, or as the bird-catchers say, " recording," for ten or 

 eleven months. Their first essays show hardly a rudiment of 

 the future song ; but as they grow older we can perceive what 

 they are aiming at ; and at last they are said " to sing their 

 " song round." Nestlings which have learnt the song of a distinct 

 species, as with the canary-birds educated in the Tyrol, teach 

 and transmit their new sofig to their offspring. The slight 

 natural differences of song in the same species inhabiting 

 different districts may be appositely compared, as Barrington 

 remarks, " to provincial dialects ;" and the songs of allied, 

 though distinct species may be compared with the languages of 

 distinct races of man. I have given the foregoing details to 

 shew that an instinctive tendency to acquire an art is not 

 peculiar to man. 



With respect to the origin of articulate language, after having 

 read on the one side the highly interesting works of Mr. Hens- 



^^ See some good remarks on tliis " gards tlie immediate end to be 



head by Prof'. Whitney, in his "attained; unconsciously as regards 



' Oriental and Linguistic Studies,' " the further consequences of tlie 



1873, p. 354. He observes that the " act." 



desire of communication betiveen '* Hon. Daines Ban-iugton in 



man is the living force, which, ' Philosoph. Transactions,' 1773, p. 



m the development of language, 262. See also Dureau de la Malic, 



■■' works both consciously and an- in ' Ann. des. Sc. Nat." 3rd series. 



" <'ou.sciously ; couscioasly as re- Zooiog. torn. x. p. 119, 



