'ClIAP. II. 
MENTAL POWERS. 
61 
preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle 
'‘°r existence is natural selection. 
fhe perfectly regular and wonderfully complex con- 
struction of the languages of many barbarous nations 
bas often been advanced as a proof, either of the divine 
origin of these languages, or of the high art and former 
civilisation of their founders. Thus F. von Sclilegel 
" rites : “ In those languages which appear to be at the 
w lowest grade of intellectual culture, we frequently ob- 
“ serve a very high and elaborate degree of art m their 
“ grammatical structure. This is especially the case with 
u the Basque and the Lapponian, and many of the Ame- 
“ rican languages.” 45 But it is assuredly au error to speak 
°f any language as an art in the sense of its having 
been elaborately and methodically formed. Philolo- 
gists now admit that conjugations, declensions, &c., ori- 
ginally existed as distinct words, since joined together ; 
ond as such words express the most obvious relations 
between objects and persons, it is not surprising that 
they should have been used by the men of most races 
during the earliest ages. "With respect to perfection, 
tire following illustration will best shew how easily we 
may err : a Crinoid sometimes consists of no less 
tiian 150,000 pieces of shell, 45 all arranged with per- 
fect symmetry in radiating lines ; but a naturalist c oes 
"ft consider an animal of this kind as more perfect 
tiian a bilateral one with comparatively few parts, 
and with none of these alike, excepting on the opposite 
sides of the body. He justly considers the differen- 
tiation and specialisation of organs as the test ol per- 
fection. So with languages, the most symmetrical and 
complex ought not to he ranked above irregular, abbre- 
13 Quoted by C. S. Wake, ‘ Chapters on Man,’ 1SG8, p. 101. 
40 Buckland, ‘Bridgewater Treatise* p. 411. 
