518 Evolution and Language 
tains a greater variety of languages by far than were ever held under 
one sway before. The Government of India is engaged in producing, 
under the editorship of Dr Grierson, a linguistic survey of India, a 
remarkable undertaking and, so far as it has gone, a remarkable 
achievement. Is it too much to ask that, with the support of the 
self-governing colonies, a similar survey should be undertaken for 
the whole of the British Empire ? 
Notwithstanding the great number of books that have been 
written on the origin of language in the last three and twenty 
centuries, the results of the investigation which can be described 
as certain are very meagre. The question originally raised was 
whether language came into being Oéce. or dices, by convention or 
by nature. The first alternative, in its baldest form at least, has passed 
from out the field of controversy. No one now claims that names were 
given to living things or objects or activities by formal agreement 
among the members of an early community, or that the first father of 
mankind passed in review every living thing and gave it its name. 
Even if the record of Adam’s action were to be taken literally there 
would still remain the question, whence had he this power? Did he 
‘develop it himself or was it a miraculous gift with which he was 
endowed at his creation? If the latter, then as Wundt says’, “the 
miracle of language is subsumed in the miracle of creation.” If 
Adam developed language of himself, we are carried over to the 
alternative origin of ¢vce. On this hypothesis we must assume that 
the natural growth which modern theories of development regard 
as the painful progress of multitudinous generations was contracted 
into the experience of a single individual. 
But even if the origin of language is admitted to be natural 
there may still be much variety of signification attached to the 
word: nature, like most words which are used by philosophers, has 
‘accumulated many meanings, and as research into the natural world 
proceeds, is accumulating more. 
Forty years ago an animated controversy raged among the sup- 
porters of the theories which were named for short the bow-wow, the 
pooh-pooh and the ding-dong theories of the origin of language. The 
‘third, which was the least tenacious of life, was made known to the 
English-speaking world by the late Professor Max Miiller who, how- 
ever, when questioned, repudiated it as his own belief*. It was taken 
by him from Heyse’s lectures on language which were published 
posthumously by Steinthal. Put shortly the theory is that “every- 
thing which is struck, rings. Each substance has its peculiar ring. 
We can tell the more and less perfect structure of metals by their 
1 Volkerpsychologie, 1. 2, p. 585. 
3 Science of Thought, London, 1887, p. 211. 
