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astonishment at the 44 light heart ” with which numerous 
inquirers and theorists have essayed the subject, equipped with 
nothing much except a host of a priori fancies. The complicated 
character of language, as 44 the point of contact, where mind 
and matter, artificially, yet most intimately, blend, and recipro- 
cate their respective properties,”* * * § and as inexplicable in origin 
by any single science,! is also, I apprehend, at once apparent. 
Some have regarded language as being purely physical,! which 
is to confuse it with the mere process of phonetic ; and it were 
as reasonable to attempt to penetrate its labyrinth by means of 
the physical aspect alone, as to endeavour to discover the soul 
by the aid of anatomy. Prof. Muller, indeed, says, 44 I always 
took it for granted that the science of language is one of 
the physical sciences ” ;§ but at the same time he defines 
44 physical science ” as that which 44 deals with the works of 
God,” and is not 44 historical ” ; and thus the psychological 
element in language is not excluded. Bearing its general and 
complex character in mind, we shall not be confused, but some- 
what assisted, by more or less felicitous definitions and illustra- 
tions of language of a somewhat rhetorical, or of a symbolic or 
metaphorical character, as e.g., that it is 44 the reflection of the 
soul,” 64 the congealment of ideas,” 44 the correlation of the 
understanding,” 44 the gesture of the tongue,” 44 imitative 
sound,” 44 inexplicit things,” and the like. 
3. Language a Natural Development . 
It may next be observed that language, like sculpture, for 
instance, is a natural art ; with a beginning, progress, and 
development yet continuing. As in early Greece rude stones 
were reverenced instead of statues, and we read of an Artemis of 
unwrought wood, a Here merely a tree-trunk or a plank, an 
Aphrodite in the shape of a conical stone, and the like, || which 
forms at length expanded into the unsurpassed perfection of the 
Periklean age; so, similarly, language,by means of the continued 
efforts of centuries, blooms from a lowly beginning into the Zeus- 
like Greek of Plato or the stately diction of Gibbon. I do not 
suppose that this position will now be seriously controverted, 
* Isaac Taylor, Physical Theory of Another Life, cap. 8. 
f Vide Prof. Sayce, Introd. Sci. Lang., ii. 398. 
X Vide Prof. Whitney’s Essay on “ Schliecher and the Physical Theory 
of Language.” ( Oriental and Linguistic Studies, First Series, 298, et seq.). 
§ Lects. Sci. Lang., i. 23. 
|| On this subject, vide R B., The Great Dionysiqk, Myth, i. 350, et seq. 
