66 MAX MULLER ON LANGUAGE. 



period, though, perhaps, it may have already taken 

 place in the Pliocsene period of the Tertiary time. 



Such is Professor Haeckel's phylogenetic scheme. 

 After the arguments adduced in the preceding part 

 of this lecture against phylogenesis in general, it 

 would be supererogatory to make any further com- 

 ment on it here. I may, however, in addition to the 

 remarks on the evolution of language made in my 

 first lecture (p. 27), apply to what Haeckel says of 

 the development of speech, a word from Professor 

 Max Muller. That eminent philologist strongly 

 dissents from the idea that language could ever have 

 had any connection with the alleged evolution of 

 man from apes, and maintains that, at the outset, 

 the possession of the faculty of speech by man con- 

 stituted a definite and distinct line separating him 

 from the lower animals. ' Language, and what is 

 implied by language,' Muller considers to be ' the 

 specific difference between man and beast.' 



' All the materials of our knowledge,' continues 

 Muller, ' we share with animals. Like them we 

 begin with sensuous impressions, and then, like our- 

 selves and like ourselves only, proceed to the General, 

 the Ideal, the Eternal. In many things, indeed, 

 we are like the beasts of the field ; but like ourselves 

 and like ourselves only, we can rise superior to our 

 bestial self, and strive after what is Unselfish, Good, 

 and Godlike.' 



