ON ETHNOLOGY. 
285 
(or syllable) is an undeveloped sentence; or, if we follow out tlie analogy 
with nature (wliicb to us is by no means a mere metaphor), wo may say, 
every word spoken in a sentence is a ujagneti:ied mineral, forming itself with¬ 
out any outward change into polarity (the. nominal and the verbal pole), 
and thus having for its centre, as the iudiffercntial point between the two, 
the adjective-participle quality. Position, assisted by accent, elicits the pola¬ 
rity required, or reduces the %vord to its iudiffercntial point. Suppose the 
creative human mind absorbed in this first formative process of .speech, and 
you will allow that it must shrink, during the power of that process over 
the mind, from the notion of having its produce treated as an imperfect plant 
or a maimed animal formatioo. Only by decay does such a language ac¬ 
quire a superficial and deceptive likeness to the lorroationa of our languages. 
It is intrinsically the very opposite of them. It has a life of its own, capable 
of manifold development and endless variety ; and it cannot receive an essen¬ 
tially different one without ceasing to exist, just as a plant may grow on 
soil formed by the calcined mineral, but the mineral can never develop itself 
into a plant. 
Now, if we consider that almost half of inankiml sfieak in tongues of this 
nature, you will agree with me that it is worth while to consider well its 
original and peculiar character, before we pronounce for or against the 
genealogical unity <jf the human race. 
I believe you will also agree with me, that, in order to see whether a 
raetheni can be proposed for finding out the probability, and gradually the 
certainty, of the one or the other solution of our great problem, we must 
enter into a philosophical consideration of language itself in general. 
Philosophical co7mderutions on thu uripin of Laityuages, and the jirinciple of 
development in them. 
The theories about the origin of language have followed those about the 
origin of thought, and have shared their fattf. The materialists have never 
been able to show the possibility of the first step. Tliey attempt to veil 
their inability by the easy, but fruitless assumption of an infinite space of 
limp, destined to explain the gradual development of animals into men; as 
if millions of years could sujiply the want of the agent necessary for the first 
movement, for the first step in the line of progress! No numbers can effect a 
logical impossibility. How indeed could reason spring out of a state which 
i» destitute of reason ? How can epecch, the expresaioii of thought, develop 
itself, in a year or in millions of years, out of unarticulated sounds, which 
express feelings of pleasure, pain, and appetite? Animal sounds are the 
echoes of blind instincts within, or of the phenomena of the outward world, 
uttered by suffering or .satisfied animal nature, and in all cases resulting from 
mere passivpuess. The eoniinon sense of mankind will therefore always shrink 
from such theories. So did the mind of Ifrederic the Great, in bis memorable 
answer to d’Alembert and bis school. He protested against whut he calls the 
talto mortale, which that scliool wanted him to make, from a monkey to 
man, from reasonlessness to reason. In our times nobody has expressed 
himself more strongly against such a materialist explanation of language 
than the greatest and most acute unatoraizer of almost all human tongues, 
Wilhelm von Humboldt, iu his admirable Letter to Abel Rfimusat on the 
nature of grammatical forms in general, and on the genius of the Chinese 
language in particular*, a letitr whicli contains all the germs of his posthu- 
* Letlrc a M. Abel Kcinutal lur U natura lien foruica grnmniaticales en general, et sur la 
gvnie «tc li langue chlnalse en pvticuUer, (uir M. G. de liuniLuldc. Farit, 1827, 8vo. M. Abel 
RmuMt, who published hlnuelf (bis Iciier, has added bis valuable remarks as to the points 
