




THE 
AMERICAN NATURALIST 
VoL. XXV. NOVEMBER, 18ot. 299. 


LANGUAGE AND MAX MULLER. 
BY S. V. CLEVENGER, M.D. 
Ee E talented linguist who has contributed the series on “ Lan- 
guage and Thought” to the Open Court says: “ Certain it is 
that no philosopher has as yet utilized the new facts which the 
science of language has placed at his disposal.” As most of these 
new facts are but corollaries of the evolutionary theory, and as 
philology was revolutionized by that theory and put upon a sure 
foundation, the remark is incautiously made. Herbert Spencer 
pointed out paths for the philologist and anticipated much that 
has been proven; August Schleicher discusses in accordance 
with the theory of natural selection how the various forms of 
speech have developed and divided into dialects and species; and 
Wilhelm Bleek has dipped into the origin of language. Friedrich 
Miller's ethnography, which accords language the first place in 
racial determinations, supplanted the Blumenbachian division into 
five races, based upon the Semitic myth of descent from a single 
pair. 
Language and speech are used interchangeably by Max Mil- 
ler, though gesticulation is tacitly and finally directly included ; and 
how proper this inclusion is the science of cerebral physiology 
fully shows, yet not a single allusion was made to this important 
field of research, Müller'claims a place among the physical 
sciences for the science of language, though he seems to com- 
pletely ignore brain anatomy, general physiology, ethnology, and 
_ other cognate sciences that interpret speech processes. 




