Part 2 — THE SCIENTIFIC UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE: ITS CHARACTER AND RELATION TO OTHER LANGUAGES.

ARTICLE ONE.

THE ORIGIN OF SPEECH.

The Continental for May contained an article, written by Stephen Pearl Andrews, entitled: A Universal Language: its Possibility, Scientific Necessity, and Appropriate Characteristics. Although then treated hypothetically, or as something not impossible of achievement in the future, a Language constructed upon the method therein briefly and generally explained, is, in fact, substantially completed at the present time. It is one of the developments of a new and vast scientific discovery—comprising the Fundamental Principles of all Thought and Being, and the Law of Analogy—on which Mr. Andrews has bestowed the name of Universology. The public announcement of this discovery, together with a general statement of its character, has been recently made in the columns of a leading literary paper—The Home Journal.

Although the principle involved in the Language discussed in the article referred to is wholly different from that upon which all former attempts at the construction of a common method of lingual communication have been based; and although such merely mechanical inventions were therein distinguished from a Language discovered as existing in the nature of things; several criticisms, emanating from high literary quarters, indicate that there is still much misunderstanding as to the real nature of a Universal Language framed upon the principles of Analogy between Sense and Sound. This misunderstanding seems most prevalent in respect to the two points relating directly to the practical utility of such a Lingual Organ. It is assumed that a Language so constituted must be wholly different in its material and structure from any now existing, and that the latter would have to be abandoned as soon as the former was adopted. It is supposed, therefore, that in order to introduce the Scientific Universal Language, the people must be induced to learn something entirely new, and to forsake for it their old and cherished Mother-tongues. The accomplishment of such an undertaking is naturally regarded as highly improbable, if not impossible.

It is also supposed that every word of the Language is to be determined in accordance with exact scientific formulas;—a process which, if employed, would, as is conceived, give a stiff, inflexible, monotonous, and cramped character to the Language itself; and would be wanting in that profusion of synonymes which gives an artistic and life-like character to the lingual growths of the past.

Both of these objections arise, as we shall hereafter see, from an erroneous impression of the nature of Language based on Analogy, coupled with a misconception of the real character and constituents of existing Languages. It is the purpose of the present papers to correct these false notions. In order to do so—and, what is essential to this, to present a clear exposition of the true character of the Language under consideration, and of its relations to the Lingual Structures of the past and present—it is necessary to give a preliminary examination to the fundamental question of the Origin of Speech. By means of this examination we shall come to understand that the existence and general use of a Universal Language with the elements of which Nature has herself furnished us, would not involve the abrupt or total abandonment of the Tongues now commonly employed; but, on the contrary, while preserving all that is substantially valuable in each, would enable us to acquire a knowledge of them with a facility which Comparative Philology, as now developed, lays no claim to impart.

How, then, did Language originate? In setting out to answer this question, Professor Max Müller says, in his Lectures on the Science of Language:[C]

'If we were asked the riddle how images of the eye and all the sensations of our senses could be represented by sounds, nay, could be so embodied in sounds as to express thought and to excite thought, we should probably give it up as the question of a madman, who, mixing up the most heterogeneous subjects, attempted to change color and sound into thought. Yet this is the riddle we have now to solve.

'It is quite clear that we have no means of solving the problem of the origin of language historically, or of explaining it as a matter of fact which happened once in a certain locality and at a certain time. History does not begin till long after mankind had acquired the power of language, and even the most ancient traditions are silent as to the manner in which man came in possession of his earliest thoughts and words. Nothing, no doubt, would be more interesting than to know from historical documents the exact process by which the first man began to lisp his first words, and thus to be rid forever of all the theories on the origin of speech. But this knowledge is denied us; and, if it had been otherwise, we should probably be quite unable to understand those primitive events in the history of the human mind. We are told that the first man was the son of God, that God created him in His own image, formed him of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. These are simple facts, and to be accepted as such; if we begin to reason on them, the edge of the human understanding glances off. Our mind is so constituted that it cannot apprehend the absolute beginning or the absolute end of anything. If we tried to conceive the first man created as a child, and gradually unfolding his physical and mental powers, we could not understand his living for one day without supernatural aid. If, on the contrary, we tried to conceive the first man created full-grown in body and mind; the conception of an effect without a cause, of a full-grown mind without a previous growth, would equally transcend our reasoning powers. It is the same with the first beginnings of language. Theologians who claim for language a divine origin, ... when they enter into any details as to the manner in which they suppose Deity to have compiled a dictionary and grammar in order to teach them to the first man, as a schoolmaster teaches the deaf and dumb, ... have explained no more than how the first man might have learnt a language, if there was a language ready made for him. How that language was made would remain as great a mystery as ever. Philosophers, on the contrary, who imagine that the first man, though left to himself, would gradually have emerged from a state of mutism and have invented words for every new conception that arose in his mind, forget that man could not, by his own power, have acquired the faculty of speech, which is the distinctive character of mankind, unattained and unattainable by the mute creation. It shows a want of appreciation as to the real bearings of our problem, if philosophers appeal to the fact that children are born without language, and gradually emerge from mutism to the full command of articulate speech.... Children, in learning to speak, do not invent language. Language is there ready made for them. It has been there for thousands of years. They acquire the use of a language, and, as they grow up, they may acquire the use of a second and a third. It is useless to inquire whether infants, left to themselves, would invent a language.... All we know for certain is, that an English child, if left to itself, would never begin to speak English, and that history supplies no instance of any language having thus been invented....

'Speech is a specific faculty of man. It distinguishes man from all other creatures; and if we wish to acquire more definite ideas as to the real nature of human speech, all we can do is to compare man with those animals that seem to come nearest to him, and thus to try to discover what he shares in common with these animals, and what is peculiar to him, and to him alone. After we have discovered this we may proceed to inquire into the conditions under which speech becomes possible, and we shall then have done all that we can do, considering that the instruments of our knowledge, wonderful as they are, are yet too weak to carry us into all the regions to which we may soar on the wings of our imagination.'

As the result of a comparison of the human with the animal kingdom, Professor Müller remarks that, 'no one can doubt that certain animals possess all the physical acquirements for articulate speech. There is no letter of the alphabet which a parrot will not learn to pronounce. The fact, therefore, that the parrot is without a language of his own, must be explained by a difference between the mental, not between the physical faculties of the animal and man; and it is by a comparison of the mental faculties alone, such as we find them in man and brutes, that we may hope to discover what constitutes the indispensable qualification for language, a qualification to be found in man alone, and in no other creature on earth.'

Of mental faculties, the author whose ideas we are stating, claims a large share for the higher animals. 'These animals have sensation, perception, memory, will, and intellect, only we must restrict intellect to the comparing or interlacing of single perceptions.' But man transcends in his mental powers the barriers of the brute intellect at a point which coincides with the starting-point of language. And in this coincidence Professor Müller endeavors to find a sufficiently fundamental explanation of the problem of the origin of language.

In reference to this point of coincidence, he quotes Locke as saying that, 'the having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain to,' and then adds:

'If Locke is right in considering the having of general ideas as the distinguishing feature between man and brutes, and, if we ourselves are right in pointing to language as the one palpable distinction between the two, it would seem to follow that language is the outward sign and realization of that inward faculty which is called the faculty of abstraction, but which is better known to us by the homely name of reason.

'Let us now look back to the result of former lectures. It was this: After we had explained everything in the growth of language that can be explained, there remained in the end, as the only inexplicable residuum, what we called roots. These roots formed the constituent elements of all languages.... What, then, are these roots?'

Two theories have been started to solve this problem: the Onomatopoetic, according to which roots are imitations of sounds; and the Interjectional, which regards them as involuntary ejaculations. Having discussed these theories, and taken the position that, although there are roots in every language which are respectively imitations of sounds and involuntary exclamations, it is, nevertheless, impossible to regard any considerable number of roots, and much less, all roots, as originating from these sources, the distinguished Philologist announces as the true theory, that every root 'expresses a general, not an individual, idea;' just the opposite of what he deems would be the case if the Onomatopoetic and Interjectional theories explained the origin of speech.

Some paragraphs are then devoted to the examination of the merits of a controversy which has existed among philosophers as to

'whether language originated in general appellations, or in proper names. It is the question of the primum cognitum, and its consideration will help us perhaps in discovering the true nature of the root, or the primum appellatum. Some philosophers, among whom I may mention Locke, Condillac, Adam Smith, Dr. Brown, and, with some qualification, Dugald Stewart, maintain that all terms, as at first employed, are expressive of individual objects. I quote from Adam Smith. 'The assignation,' he says, 'of particular names to denote particular objects, that is, the institution of nouns substantive, would probably be one of the first steps toward the formation of language.... The particular cave whose covering sheltered them from the weather, the particular tree whose fruit relieved their hunger, the particular fountain whose water allayed their thirst, would first be denominated by the words cave, tree, fountain, or by whatever other appellations they might think proper, in that primitive jargon, to mark them. Afterward, when the more enlarged experience of these savages had led them to observe, and their necessary occasions obliged them to make mention of, other caves, and other trees, and other fountains, they would naturally bestow upon each of those new objects the same name by which they had been accustomed to express the similar object they were first acquainted with.''

This view of the primitive formation of thought and language, is diametrically opposed to the theory held by Leibnitz, who maintained that 'general terms are necessary for the essential constitution of languages.' 'Children,' he says, 'and those who know but little of the language which they attempt to speak, or little of the subject on which they would employ it, make use of general terms, as thing, plant, animal, instead of using proper names, of which they are destitute. And it is certain that all proper or individual names have been originally appellative or general.'

Notwithstanding the contradictory and seemingly antagonistic nature of these positions, Professor Müller shows that they are not irreconcilable.

'Adam Smith is no doubt right, when he says that the first individual cave which is called cave, gave the name to all other caves; ... and the history of almost every substantive might be cited in support of his view. But Leibnitz is equally right when, in looking beyond the first emergence of such names as cave, town, or palace, he asks how such names could have arisen. Let us take the Latin names of cave. A cave in Latin is called antrum, cavea, spelunca. Now antrum means really the same as internum. Antar, in Sanskrit means between or within. Antrum, therefore, meant originally what is within or inside the earth or anything else. It is clear, therefore, that such a name could not have been given to any individual cave, unless the general idea of being within, or inwardness, had been present in the mind. This general idea once formed, and once expressed by the pronominal root an or antar, the process of naming is clear and intelligible. The place where the savage could live safe from rain and from the sudden attacks of wild beasts, a natural hollow in the rock, he would call his within, his antrum; and afterward similar places, whether dug in the earth or cut in a tree, would be designated by the same name ... Let us take another word for cave, which is cavea or caverna. Here again Adam Smith would be perfectly right in maintaining that this name, when first given, was applied to one particular cave, and was afterward extended to other caves. But Leibnitz would be equally right in maintaining that in order to call even the first hollow cavea, it was necessary that the general idea of hollow should have been formed in the mind, and should have received its vocal expression cav ...

'The first thing really known is the general. It is through it that we know and name afterward individual objects of which any general idea can be predicated, and it is only in the third stage that these individual objects, thus known and named, become again the representatives of whole classes, and their names or proper names are raised into appellatives.'

The italics in the last paragraph are my own.

But the name of a thing, runs the argument, meant originally that by which we know a thing. And how do we know things? Knowing is more than perceiving by our senses, which convey to us information about single things only. 'To know is more than to feel, than to perceive, more than to remember, more than to compare. We know a thing if we are able to bring it, and [or?] any part of it, under more general ideas.' The facts of nature are perceived by our senses; the thoughts of nature, to borrow an expression of Oersted's, can be conceived by our reason only. The first step toward this real knowledge is the 'naming of a thing, or the making a thing knowable;' and it is this step which separates man forever from all other animals. For all naming is classification, bringing the individual under the general; and whatever we know, whether empirically or scientifically, we know it only by means of our general ideas. Other animals have sensation, perception, memory, and, in a certain sense, intellect; but all these, in the animal, are conversant with single objects only. Man has, in addition to these, reason, and it is his reason only that is conversant with general ideas.

'At the very point where man parts company with the brute world, at the first flash of reason as the manifestation of the light within us, there we see the true genius of language. Analyze any word you like, and you will find that it expressed a general idea peculiar to the individual to which the name belongs. What is the meaning of moon?—the measurer. What is the meaning of sun?—the begetter ...

'If the serpent is called in Sanskrit sarpa, it is because it was conceived under the general idea of creeping, an idea expressed by the word srip. But the serpent was also called ahi in Sanskrit, in Greek echis or echidna, in Latin anguis. This name is derived from quite a different root and idea. The root is ah in Sanskrit, or anh, which means to press together, to choke, to throttle. Here the distinguishing mark from which the serpent was named was his throttling, and ahi meant serpent, as expressing the general idea of throttler. It is a curious root this anh, and it still lives in several modern words. In Latin it appears as ango, anxi, anctum, to strangle, in angina, quinsy, in angor, suffocation. But angor meant not only quinsy or compression of the neck; it assumed a moral import, and signifies anguish or anxiety. The two adjectives angustus, narrow, and anxius, uneasy, both come from the same source. In Greek the root retained its natural and material meaning; in eggys, near, and echis, serpent, throttler. But in Sanskrit it was chosen with great truth as the proper name for sin. Evil no doubt presented itself under various aspects to the human mind, and its names are many; but none so expressive as those derived from our root anh, to throttle. Anhas in Sanskrit means sin, but it does so only because it meant originally throttling—the consciousness of sin being like the grasp of the assassin on the throat of his victim ... This anhas is the same word as the Greek agos, sin ... The English anguish is from the French angoisse, the Italian angoscia, a corruption of the Latin angustiæ, a strait ... Mâ in Sanskrit means to measure, from which we had the name of the moon. Man, a derivative root, means to think. From this we have the Sanskrit manu, originally thinker, then man. In the later Sanskrit we find derivatives, such as mânava, mânusha, manushya, all expressing man. In Gothic we find both man and mannisks, the modern German mann and mensch.'

And now we are brought by the author of The Science of Language to the great question to which the foregoing is merely preparatory, to the fundamental consideration of Philological research: 'How can sound express thought? How did roots become the signs of general ideas? How was the abstract idea of measuring expressed by mâ, the idea of thinking by man? How did gâ come to mean going, sthâ standing, sad sitting, dâ giving, mar dying, char walking, kar doing?' Here is his answer:

'The four or five hundred roots which remain as the constituent elements in different families of languages are not interjections, nor are they imitations. They are phonetic types, produced by a power inherent in nature. They exist, as Plato would say, by nature; though with Plato we should add that, when we say by nature, we mean by the hand of God. There is a law which runs through nearly the whole of nature, that everything which is struck rings. Each substance has its peculiar ring. We can tell the more or less perfect structure of metals by their vibrations, by the answer which they give. Gold rings differently from tin, wood rings differently from stone; and different sounds are produced according to the nature of each percussion. It was the same with man, the most highly organized of nature's works. Man, in his primitive and perfect state, was not only endowed, like the brute, with the power of expressing his sensations by interjections, and his perceptions by onomatopoieia. He possessed likewise the faculty of giving more articulate expression to the rational conceptions of his mind. That faculty was not of his own making. It was an instinct, an instinct of the mind as irresistible as any other instinct. So far as language is the production of that instinct, it belongs to the realm of nature. Man loses his instincts as he ceases to want them. His senses become fainter when, as in the case of scent, they become useless. Thus the creative faculty which gave to each conception, as it thrilled for the first time through the brain, a phonetic expression, became extinct when its object was fulfilled. The number of these phonetic types must have been almost infinite in the beginning, and it was only through the same process of natural elimination which we observed in the early history of words, that clusters of roots, more or less synonymous, were gradually reduced to one definite type.'

Professor Max Müller occupies a commanding position in the foremost rank of the students of Philology. His work on The Science of Language, from which the preceding discussion of the Origin of Speech is taken, is, so far as I am aware, the latest volume treating of the problem in question which has issued from what is commonly regarded as high authority in the department of Language. It is to that volume, therefore, that we are to look for the last word of elucidation which the Comparative Philologist can furnish respecting it. And it is for this reason—in order that we might have before us the results of the latest research of the schools—that the exposition of the Origin of Language given in the work referred to has been so fully stated.

Where, then, does this explanation of the problem leave us? Does it go to the bottom of the matter? Is it sufficiently distinct and satisfactory? In brief, does it give us any clear understanding of the Origin of Speech? Does it not rather leave us at the crucial point of the whole inquiry, with the essence and core of the subject untouched and shrouded in mystery? Some indefinite hundreds of roots, obtained, it is assumed, by means of some indescribable and unknown mental instinct! This is the sober and contented answer of Philology to the investigator who would know of the Sources of Language, and its constituent elements. But of the component parts of these roots—the true and fundamental constituent elements of Speech, without a knowledge of which there can be no basic and conclusive comprehension of the meaning of roots—and of the nature of the method by which these elements become expressive of thoughts or ideas, there is no word. Language, as it now rests in the hands of the Comparative Philologists, is in the same state that Chemistry was when Earth, Air, Fire, and Water were supposed to be the ultimate constituent elements of Matter, ere a single real ultimate element was known as such. But Chemistry, as a science, had no existence prior to the discovery of the simple constituents of Physical creation. In like manner, a Science of Language must be founded on a knowledge of the nature and meaning of the simple elements of Speech. Until this knowledge is in our possession it is only on the outskirts of the subject that we are able to tread. Roots are, it is true, the actual bases of Language, so far as its concrete, working, or synthetical structure is concerned; in the same sense that compound substances are the main constituents found in the Universe as it really and naturally exists. But, although the proportion of simple chemical elements, in the real constitution of things, is small, as compared with that of compound substances; yet it is only by our ability to separate compound substances into these elements that we arrive at an understanding of their true character and place in the realm of Matter. So it is only by our ability to analyze roots—the compound constituents of Language—into the prime elements which have, except rarely, no distinctive and individual embodiment in it, that we can hope to gain a clear comprehension of the nature of Language itself, or of its most primitive concrete or composite foundations.

Comparative Philology furnishes us with admirable guidance—so far as it goes. But we do not wish to stop at the terminus which it seems to consider a satisfactory one. The final answer it offers us, we do not regard as final. We gladly accept the analysis of Language down to its Roots. But we wish to analyze Roots also. That the Moon derives its name from being regarded as the Measurer of time; and Man, from the notion of thinking; that an (anh) is a widely-diffused root, signifying pressure; and that gâ denotes going; with similar expositions, is valuable information, and takes us a great way toward the goal of our seeking. But the question of questions relating to Language is not answered by it. Why should the abstract idea of measuring be expressed by mâ; and that of thinking by man? How did an come to signify pressure; and gâ, going? Is there any special relationship between these roots and the ideas which they respectively indicate? Or was it by chance merely that they were adopted in connection with each other? Might dâ just as meet have been taken to denote doing, and kar, giving, as vice versa? Has the root an any distinguishing characteristics peculiarly fitting it to suggest choking or pressure? Or might that notion have been equally well expressed by sthâ?

It is at this fundamental stage of the investigation, whence a true Science of Language must take its departure, that the labors and disclosures of Comparative Philology cease; leaving the problem of the Origin of Language involved in the same state of unintelligibility with which it has always been surrounded. It is just at this point, however, that the Scientific Universal Language previously noticed begins its developments. By means of its assistance we may hope, therefore, to arrive at a satisfactory solution of the problem in question, and, through this solution, at a clear understanding of the more specific objects of our present inquiry. Before approaching this main object—the exposition of the general character of the New Scientific Universal Language and its relations to existing Tongues—and still in aid of that purpose, I must offer some further comments upon the excerpts already made from 'The Science of Language;' and upon a few other points which remain to be extracted from that work.

Of the four or five hundred roots which remain, the insoluble residuum (so thought by Professor Müller) of Language, after eliminating the immense mass of variable and soluble material, he says: 1. That 'they are phonetic types produced by a power inherent in human nature;' 2. 'Man, in his primitive and perfect state, was not only endowed like the brute with the power of expressing his sensations by interjections, and his perceptions by onomatopoieia [mere imitation of sound]. He possessed likewise the power of giving more articulate expression to the rational conceptions of his mind.' The italics here are, again, my own, introduced for more emphasis and more ready reference to the central thought of the writer. 3. 'That faculty was not of his own making. It was an instinct, an instinct of the mind, as irresistible as any other instinct. So far as language is the production of that instinct, it belongs to the realm of nature. Man loses his instincts as he ceases to want them. His senses become fainter when, as in the case of scent, they become useless. Thus the creative faculty which gave to each conception, as it thrilled for the first time through the brain, a phonetic expression, became extinct when its object was fulfilled.' 4. 'The number of these phonetic types [root-syllables] must have been almost infinite in the beginning, and it was only through the same process of natural elimination which we observed in the early history of words, that clusters of roots more or less synonymous, were gradually reduced to one definite type.'

Professor Müller, in stopping with root-syllables (to the number of four or five hundred), as the least or ultimate elements to which Language can be reduced, has, naturally enough, and along with all Comparative Philologists hitherto, committed the error of insufficient analysis; an error of precisely the same kind which the founders of Syllabic Alphabets have committed, as compared with the work of Cadmus, or any founder of a veritable alphabet. The true and radical analysis carries us back in both cases to the Primitive Individual Sounds, the Vowels and Consonants of which Language is composed.

It is clear enough that the analysis must be carried to the very ultimate in order to reach the true foundation for an effective and sufficient alphabetic Representation of Language. Precisely the same necessity is upon us in order that we may lay a secure and adequate foundation for a True Science of Language. This will explain more fully what was meant in a preceding paragraph, when it was stated that the labors of Mr. Andrews begin, in this department of Language, just where the labors of the whole school of Comparative Philologists have ended. He first completes the analysis of Language, by going down and back to the Phonetic Elements, the ulterior roots, the Vowels and Consonants of Language. Then by putting Nature to the crucial test, so to speak, to compel her to disclose the hidden meaning with which each of these absolute (ultimate) Elements of Speech is inherently laden, he discovers—what might readily be an à priori conception—that these Elements, and not any compound root-syllables whatsoever, are the true 'Phonetic Types,' representative in Nature of 'the Rational Conceptions of the human mind.'

The ultimate Rational Conceptions of the Human Mind are confessedly, among all Philosophers of the Mind, not four or five hundred, but like the Alphabetic Sounds of Language, a mere handful in number. Precisely how many they are and how they are best distributed has not been agreed upon. Aristotle classed them as Ten. Kant tells us there are Twelve only of the Categories of the Understanding. Spencer, while finding the Ultimate of Ultimates in the idea of Force alone, admits its immediate expansion into this handful of Primitive Conceptions, but without attempting their inventory or classification. The discoverer of Universology, first settling and establishing the fact that the Elements of Sound in Speech are the natural Phonetic Types, equal in number to the inventory of the Primitive Rational Conceptions of the Human Mind, is then enabled to work the new discovery backward, and, by the aid of the classifications which Nature herself has clearly introduced among these Sounds (into Vowels, Consonants, Liquids, etc.), to arrive at a classification of all the Primitive Rational Conceptions, which cannot fail to be completely satisfactory and final. The same discovery leads, therefore, to the reconstruction of the Science of Language, on the one hand, and of Ontology, the Science of the highest Metaphysical domain, on the other.

But, again, it is one of the demonstrations of Universology that all careers, that of the development of the Human Mind among others, pass through three Successive Stages correspondential with each other in the different domains of Being. As respects the Mind, these are: 1. Intuitional (or Instinctive); 2. Intellectual (or Reflective); and 3. Composite (or Integral). It is another of these demonstrations that the Intuitional (Unismal) development of Mind, and the Intellectual (Duismal), proceed in opposite courses or directions; so that the highest Intellectual development reaches and investigates in its own way just those questions with which the Intuitional development ('Instinct,' as Professor Müller denominates it) began; and which, in the very earliest times, it disposed of in its appropriate way as if finally.

By this means, the road having been passed over completely in both directions, the way is prepared for the inauguration of the third or Integral Stage, which consists in putting the road intelligently to all its possible uses.

To apply these statements to the instance before us, for the elucidation both of the statements themselves and of the matter to be expounded; it is the test labor of the highest Intellectual development to come back upon precisely those recondite points of knowledge which the nascent Intuition of the race felt or 'smelt' out blindly; and, by the sight of the Mind's eye, to arrive more lucidly at the understanding of the same subject. Not that the nature of the Understanding by any two senses or faculties is ever the same; but that each has its own method of cognizing the same general field of investigation. It is the re-investigation, intellectually, of the Relationship of the (true, not the pseudo) Phonetic Types with the Fundamental Rational Conceptions of the Human Mind, which is the first step taken by Mr. Andrews, in laying the basis for the new and coming stage of the development of the Science of Language.

It is the completion of this Intellectually Analytical process which offers the point of incipency for the new and immense Lingual Structure of the future, and the ultimate virtual unification of Human Speech. It may be quite true, as Professor Müller affirms, that the Instinctual Development of Language—by which we mean the whole Lingual History of the Past, with the exception of our present very imperfect Scientific nomenclatures—has never proved adequate to the introduction of a single new root, since the 'Instinct' exhausted itself, as he says, in the nascent effort. But it is a pure assumption, when he supposes, for that reason, that the informed Human Intellect of the Future will not be competent to constitute thousands of them. It is just as legitimate as would have been the assumption in the infancy of Chemistry, that because Nature never synthetized in her laboratory more than a few simple salts, the modern chemist would never be able to produce any one of the two thousand salts now known to him. This kind of assumption is the common error of the expounders of existing science, as contrasted with the bolder originality of discoverers.

But, again, though it is true that the Intuitional (or Instinctual) faculty of man has, in a manner, declined, as in the case of the sense of Smell, while the Intellect (the Analogue of the Eye) has been developed, still it is assuming too much to say that it utterly fails us even yet. It remains, like the sense of Smell, an important helper even in our present investigations. Professor Müller should not, because he may happen to have a cold, affirm that nobody smells anything any more. To explain what I mean in this respect, the following extract may serve as a text:

'It is curious to observe how apt we are to deceive ourselves when we once adopt this system of Onomatopoieia. Who does not imagine that he hears in the word 'thunder' an imitation of the rolling and rumbling noise which the old Germans ascribed to their god Thor playing at nine-pins? Yet thunder is clearly the same word as the Latin tonitru. The root is tan, to stretch. From this root tan we have in Greek tonos, our tone, tone being produced by the stretching and vibrating of cords. In Sanskrit the sound thunder is expressed by the same root tan; but in the derivatives tanyu, tanyatu, and tanayitnu, thundering, we perceive no trace of the rumbling noise which we imagined we perceived in the Latin tonitru and the English thunder. The very same root tan, to stretch, yields some derivatives which are anything but rough and noisy. The English tender, the French tendre, the Latin tener are derived from it. Like tenuis, the Sanskrit tanu, the English thin, tener meant originally what was extended over a larger surface, then thin, then delicate. The relationship betwixt tender, thin, and thunder would be hard to establish if the original conception of thunder had really been its rumbling noise.

'Who does not imagine that he hears something sweet in the French sucre, sucré? Yet sugar came from India, and it is there called 'sarkhara, which is anything but sweet sounding. This 'sarkhara is the same word as sugar; it was called in Latin saccharum, and we still speak of saccharine juice, which is sugar juice.'

It may appear, on a closer inspection at this point, that it is Professor Müller who is deceived, and not the common verdict, both in respect to the question whether such words as thunder, sucré, etc., really do or do not have some inherent and organic relation in the Human Mind to the ideas of rumbling noise and sweetness respectively; and in respect to the value and significance of the fact. He has, it would seem, confounded two separate and distinct questions. 1st. Is there such a relation between the sound and the sense? and 2d. Were these words introduced into speech because of that resemblance?

In respect to the latter of these questions, Professor Müller's answer, so far as the word thunder is concerned, is rather in favor of an affirmative answer than against it. So far from its being 'hard to establish the relationship betwixt tender, thin, and thunder,' on the hypothesis that 'the original conception of thunder had really been its rumbling noise; 'it is just as easy to establish this relationship as it is to show the connection between the root tan, to stretch, and its derivatives tonos, tone, tendre, tener, thin, and delicate;—an undertaking which Professor Müller finds no difficulty whatever in accomplishing.

The idea of stretching signified by the original root tan has no direct or immediate connection with any of the conceptions expressed by the derivative words. But by stretching an object it is diminished in breadth and depth, while it increases in length; hence it becomes thinner; so that the Mind readily makes the transition from the primitive conception of stretch to that of thinness, indicated by the English word, and by the Sanskrit tanu, and the Latin tener, tenuis. Thinness, again, is allied to slimness, slenderness, fineness, etc.; ideas which are involved in the conception of delicate, and furnish an easy transition to it.

But it is also from the notion of stretching, though in a still less direct manner, that we gain an idea of sound as conveyed by musical tones; 'tone,' as Professor Müller remarks, 'being produced by the stretching and vibrating of cords.' Still further: if we cause a heavy piece of cord to vibrate, or, what is better, the bass string of a violin or guitar, or strike a very low key on the piano, and pronounce the word tone in a full voice at the same time, the remarkable similarity of the two sounds thus produced will be clearly apparent. Thus the root tan, to stretch, becomes also expressive of the idea of sound as seen in the words tonos, tone, tonitru, thunder, etc. But what is especially to be noticed is this: that in those derivatives of tan, to stretch, which are not indicative of ideas of sound (as tenuis, thin, etc.), the sounds of the words do not cause us to imagine that we hear the imitation of noise; while in those derivatives which are expressive of it, we not only imagine that we do hear it, but, in the case of tonos and tone at least, have an instance in which we know that the word employed to convey the idea is a proximately perfect representation of the sound out of which the idea arose. Even in tanyu, tanyatu, tanayitnu, thundering, in which Professor Müller affirms that 'we perceive no trace of the rumbling noise which we imagined we perceived in the Latin tonitru and the English thunder'—although he seems to admit that it is perceptible in the Sanskrit word for thunder expressed by the same root tan—the reason why we cannot trace it may be because of the terminations, which, as it were, absorb the sound that is there, although less obviously, in the tan, or shade it off so that it becomes diluted and hardly traceable.

Vowel Sounds are so fluctuating and evanescent that they go for comparatively little in questions of Etymology. Tan is equivalent to T—n; the place of the dash being filled by any vowel. T is readily replaced by th or d, and n by ng; as is known to every Philological student. The object, which in English we call tin, and its name, are peculiar and important in this connection, as combining the two ideas in question: 1st, that of outstretched surface or thinness; and, 2d, that of a persistent tendency to give forth just that species of sound which we call, by a slight shade of difference in the form of the word, a din. The Latin tintinnabulum, a little bell, and the English tinkle, the sound made by a little bell, are among the words which are readily recognized as having a natural relation to a certain trivial variety of sound. The English ding-dong and ding-dong-bell are well-known imitations of sound; and are, at the same time, etymologically, mere modifications of the root under consideration. As tone and strain or stretch are related in idea, as seen in the case of musical notes or tones, is it not as probable that the original root-word of which tan, ton, thun, tin, din, ding, dong, etc., are mere variations, took its rise from the imitation of sound, as it is that the fact of strain or stretch was the first to be observed and to obtain the name from which, afterward and accidentally, so to speak, were derived words which confessedly have a relation in their own sound to other and external sounds, as in the case of thunder, musical tone, the sheet of tin, and the bell? Is it not, in fact, more probable?

In respect to the question whether sucre and sucré were introduced into Language because of their resemblance to the idea of sweetness, Professor Müller gives a valid negative answer. He shows that the word is derived from the Sanskrit 'sarkhara, 'which,' as he says, 'is anything but sweet sounding.'

The question whether the words under consideration (sucre, sucré) are really sweet-sounding words, Professor Müller decides by implication in the affirmative, and, perhaps, quite unconsciously, by the very act of contrasting them with another word which, as he affirms, is not at all sweet sounding.

But this is by far the more important point than that of the mere historical genesis of the word; and a point which really touches vitally the whole question of the nature and Origin of Language.

How should any word be either sweet-sounding or not sweet-sounding? Sound is a something which has no taste, and sweetness is a something which makes no noise. Now the very gist and crux of this whole question of Language consists in confounding or not confounding a case like this with mere Onomatopoieia, or the direct and simple imitation of one sound by another. All that Professor Müller says against the Origin of Language in this 'bow-wow' way is exceedingly well said; and it is important that it should be said. But unconsciously he is now confounding with the Bow-wow, something else and totally different; and something which is just as vital and profound in regard to the whole question of the origin and true basis of the reconstruction of Language, as the thing with which he confounds it is trivial and superficial.

The point is so important that I beg the reader's best attention to it, in order that he may become fully seized of the idea.

I can imitate very closely the buzz of a bee, by forcing the breath through my nearly-touching teeth. A mimic can imitate the natural sounds of many animals, and other sounds heard in Nature. This mere imitation is what Lingual Scholars have dignified by the high-sounding and rather repulsive technicality, Onomatopoieia. In the early and simple period of Lingual Science much has been made, in striving to account for the Origin of Language, of this faculty of imitation, and of the fact that there are undoubtedly certain words in every language consisting of such imitations. It is against this simple and superficial theory that Professor Müller has argued so well. But in these words sucre, sucré, incautiously included by him as instances of the same thing, we are in the presence of a very different problem. To imitate one sound by another sound is a mere simple, external, and trivial imitation; onomatopoieia, and nothing more than that. But to imitate a sound, by a taste, or to recognize that such an imitation has occurred, is a testimony to the existence of that recondite and all-important echo of likeness through domains of Being themselves the most unlike, which we call Analogy.

That we do recognize such analogy or correspondence of meaning, that Professor Müller himself does so, is admitted when he tells us that another form of the words in question is 'not at all sweet-sounding.' It is not in this perception, therefore, that we deceive ourselves, but only in supposing that these particular words came to mean sugar, because they were sweet-sounding. That there is this perception of the analogy in question is again confessed by the fact that we have the same feeling in respect to the German süsse, sweet; while the English words sugar and sweet, notwithstanding any greater familiarity of association, do not convey the same ideas in the same marked degree. The words mellifluous (honey-flowing) and melody (honey-sound) are themselves standing witnesses in behalf of the existence of the same perception. The fact that we instinctually speak of a sweet voice, is another witness.

If, then, there is an echo of likeness (real analogy) between these two unlike spheres of Thought and Being, Sound and Taste, may there not be precisely a similar echo through other and all spheres; so that there shall be a Something in Number, in Form, in Chemical Constitution, in the Properties of Mind, in Ultimate Rational Conceptions, in fine, that echoes to this idea, which, by a stretch of the powers of Language, we call sweet, both in respect to Sound and Taste? May it not have been precisely this Something and the other handful of primitive Somethings, each with its multitudinous echoes, that the Nascent Intuition of the race laid hold of and availed itself of irreflectively for laying the foundations of Speech? Again, may it not happen that the Reflective Intellect should in turn discover intelligently (or reflectively) just that underlying system of Analogy which the primitive Instinct was competent to appreciate unintelligently; and, by the greater clearness of this intelligent perception, be able to elevate the Science of Language, and found it upon a new and constructive, instead of upon this merely instinctual plane? To all these questions the Universologists return an affirmative answer. They go farther, and aver that this great intellectual undertaking is now fully achieved, and is only awaiting the opportunity for elaborate demonstration and promulgation.

A word further on this subject. To pronounce the words sucre, sucré, süsse, the lips are necessarily pinched or perked up, in a certain exquisite way, as if we were sucking something very gratifying to the taste. This consideration carries us over to the further analogy with shapes or forms, and, hence, with the Organic or Mechanical production of sounds; another grand element, the main one, in fact, of the whole investigation.

Among the infinite contingencies of the origin and successive modifications of words, it is very possible that the word 'sarkhara, although meaning sugar in a particular tongue, may not have primarily related to its property of sweetness; and that, therefore, its phonetic form should not be accordant with that property. It may have meant the cane-plant, for instance, before its sweetness was known. Then it is possible that a derivative and modified form of the same word should happen to drift into that precise phonetic; form which is accordant with that property. But the marvel, and the point of importance is, that so soon as this happens, the 'instinct' of the race, even that of Professor Müller himself, remains good enough to recognize the fact. 'Who does not imagine,' he says, 'that he hears something sweet in the French sucre, sucré?' But why do we all imagine that we hear what does not exist? The uniformity of the imagination proves it to be a real perception. If the universal consciousness of mankind be not valid evidence, where shall we hope to find it?

The consideration of Analogy as existing between the Ultimate Elements of Sound and Ultimate Rational Conceptions will be the subject of the next paper.