﻿Note A. 335 



of such enormous complexity, that there is no real analogy 

 between it and the phenomena of instinct : therefore the fact 

 that Lamarckian principles cannot be applied to the case 

 of language is no evidence that they do not hold good as 

 regards instinct. Secondly, not only the construction, but 

 still more the use of language is quite out of analogy with 

 all the phenomena of instinct ; for, in order to use, or speak, 

 a language, the mind must already be that of a thinking 

 agent; and therefore to expect that language should be in- 

 stinctive is tantamount to expecting that the thought of which 

 it is the vehicle should be instinctive — i. e. that human parents 

 should transmit the whole organization of their own intellectual 

 experiences to their unborn children. Thirdly, even neglecting 

 these considerations, we have to remember that language has 

 been itself the product of an immensely long course of evolution; 

 so that even if it were reasonable to expect that a child 

 should speak by instinct without instruction, it would be 

 necessary further to expect that the child should begin by 

 speaking in some score or two of unknown tongues before 

 it arrived at the one which alone its parents could under- 

 stand. Probably these considerations are enough to show 

 how absurd is the suggestion that Darwinians ought to expect 

 children to speak by instinct. But, now, although it is for 

 these reasons preposterous under any theory of evolution to 

 expect that children should be able to use a fully developed 

 language without instruction, it is by no means so preposterous 

 to expect that, if all languages present any one simple set 

 of features in common, these features might by this time 

 have grown to be instinctive ; for these simple features, being 

 common to all languages, must have been constantly and 

 forcibly impressed upon the structure of human psychology 

 throughout an innumerable number of sequent generations. 

 Now, there is only one set of features common to all languages ; 

 and this comprises the combinations of vowel and consonantal 

 sounds, which go to constitute what we know as articulate 

 syllables. And, is it not the case that these particular features, 

 thus common to all languages, as a matter of fact actually 

 are instinctive ? Long before a young child is able to under- 

 stand the meanings of any words, it begins to babble articulate 



