ON ETHNOLOGY. 
2S9 
of the primitive language, if, as we must suppose, it is not a conventional 
arbitrary expression of the iniiid, but the protluce of instinctive necessity. 
Kut it is equally true, that the ideal principle, or the action of the mind, 
which produced language by a spontaneous repercussion of the perception 
received, must not be considered as ever resting or ceasing, but, on the con¬ 
trary, as being continually working upon the language. If substantiality is 
the principle of existence in a language, ideality is as essentially its principle 
of development or evolution. Language has m ihr/f, hy the very 7 iafttre of 
Ikt principle of its origin, a prinriple of dcvelojiment. The mind which forms 
a language changes it also. It starts from sentonct^forming words, and tends 
to break their absolute isolating nature, by making them subservient to the 
whole of a developed sentence, and changing them into parts of speech; and 
this it can only do by gradually using full ancient remts for the expre.ssion of 
all that is formal in language. The same principle which works upon those 
angaagess the formation of which we cun investigate, must therefore have 
hwu working upon the most ancient language of mankind. What we found 
^apromineut phenomenon is the necessary effect of a general law, of that 
law without which there would be no laiigimge. What exists in thought 
intBl gradually find its positive expres*sion in language. 
Language therefore is driven by this incessant action of the mind to ex¬ 
press what is not substantial,—that ideal conception by which men connected 
irofu the beginning of all speocli (yea before it) things with existence and 
things with things. But it carmot c‘xj)ress these ideal connexions except by 
usiflg the substantial materials it possesses. The substantial words become 
L what the tlungs themselves were at the beginning of speech,— 
the objects of its action. 
TTie affirmation or negation of the connexion between a subjVct and predi- 
and the accidental relations as to space and time, certainly claim now 
*1 Mpliclt expression : so too do the inlcrnal necessary relations of nt)uns 
^wrbs in general. All these must gra<lually be expressed ; and this can 
be done by words origirmlly coined for things subslarjtial. This is the 
enginof personal pronouns (the consciousness of self and Its antithesis, which 
* abstraction), of other pronouns, of prepositions, lastly, of con- 
J“wtioiui, or words expressing the relation of whole sentences to each other, 
do the relation of nouns with nouns or with verbs. The 
Mi Ulus divested of their subslantiul moaning, lose their substantiality, in 
“«^proper sense of the term. 
Will monosyllabic languages 
bjji/ Perhaps we may also find the necessary steps of deve- 
from such a beginning to the perfection of formative languages. 
uinMi ^Lerc; is above all one step which forms the paramount di- 
between the languages of niankind; tliat in which all the component 
themselves signs of an undeveloped sentence, and in- 
. '"Edification according to their specific meaning in a given sentence, 
TTiudiff'^ ^Lich the form of words baa been made subwfrvient to this sense. 
*ord<L ** between languages with unorganic and with organic 
lyllihif. unorganic structure, ami therefore in the rigidly mono- 
P®” *8^** establish that there must be one considerable and 
step, which is that from simple roots or syllables to compound ones. 
consist either of a vowel alone (pure syllables m the 
1847 having its inherent vowel either before or alter 
HM stm coincides necessarily with the division between syllables and 
and precedes the origin of affixes and infiexior 
uxu preceuos tnc origin of affixes ami intlexions. 
very really nriniitivp Inncrnafro li.r.w. nm nior/» Hinn oni.l niiist there* 
