He then exclaims:—
“The utter futility of deriving such a doctrine from such a pair of incidents, or a thousand like them, is almost too obvious to be worth the trouble of pointing out. . . . High political station does not confer the right to make or unmake language,” etc.
Now every reader, even though looking only at these short extracts, will see that the real point of my argument is here entirely missed, though I do not mean to say that it was intentionally missed. The stress was laid by me on the words according to our pleasure; and in order to elucidate that point, I first quoted instances taken from those who in other matters have the right of saying car tel est mon plaisir, and then from others. I feel a little guilty in not having mentioned the anecdote about carrosse; but not being able to verify it, I thought I might leave it to my opponents. However, after having quoted the two Emperors, I quoted a more humble personage, Protagoras, and referred to other attempts at purism in language; but all that is, of course, passed over by my critic, as not answering his purpose.
Sometimes, amidst all the loud assertion of difference of opinion on Professor Whitney’s part, not only the substantial, but strange to say, the verbal agreement between his and my own Second Lecture is startling. I had said: “The first impulse to a new formation in language, though given by an individual, is mostly, if not always, given without premeditation, nay, unconsciously.” My antagonist varies this very slightly and says: “The work of each individual is done unpremeditately, or, as it were, unconsciously” (p. 45). While I had said that we individually can no more change language, selon notre plaisir, than we can add an inch to our stature, Professor Whitney again adopts a slight alteration and expresses himself as follows: “They (the facts of language) are almost as little the work of man as is the form of his skull” (p. 52). What is the difference between us? What is the difference between changing our stature and changing our skull? Nor does he use the word growth as applied to language, less frequently than myself; nay, sometimes he uses it so entirely without the necessary limitations, that even I should have shrunk from adopting his phraseology. We read—“In this sense language is a growth” (p. 46); “a language, like an organic body, is no mere aggregate of similar particles—it is a complex of related and mutually helpful parts” (p. 46); “language is fitly comparable with an organized body” (p. 50); “compared with them, language is a real growth” (p. 51); etc., etc., etc.
In fact, after all has been said by Professor Whitney that had been said before, the only difference that remains is this—that he, after making all these concessions, prefers to class the Science of Language as an historical, not as a physical science. Why should he not? Everybody who is familiar with such questions, knows that all depends on a clear and accurate definition of the terms which we employ. The method of the Science of Language and the physical sciences is admitted, even by him, to be the same (p. 52). Everything therefore depends on the wider or narrower definition which we adopt of physical science. Enlarge the definition of the natural sciences, and the science of language will enter in freely; narrow it, and it will enter with difficulty, or not at all. The same with the historical sciences. Enlarge their definition, and the science of language will enter in freely; narrow it, and it will enter with difficulty, or not at all. There is hardly a word that is used in so many different meanings as nature, and that man in many of his apparently freest acts is under the sway of unsuspected laws of nature, cannot sound so very novel to a student of Kant’s writings, to say nothing of later philosophers.[2] My principal object in claiming for the Science of Language the name of a physical science, was to make it quite clear, once for all, that Comparative Philology was totally distinct from ordinary Philology, that it treats language not as a vehicle of literature, but for its own sake; that it wants to explain the origin and development far more than the idiomatic use of words, and that for all these purposes it must adopt a strictly inductive method. Many of these views which, when I delivered my first lectures, met with very determined opposition, are now generally accepted, and I can well understand, that younger readers should be surprised at the elaborate and minute arguments by which I tried to show in what sense the Science of Language may be counted as one of the physical sciences. Let them but read other books of the same period, and they will see with how much zeal these questions were then being discussed, particularly in England. Writing in England, and chiefly for English readers, I tried as much as possible to adapt myself to the intellectual atmosphere of that country, and as to the classification of the inductive sciences, I started from that which was then most widely known, that of Whewell in his “History of the Inductive Sciences.” He classes the Science of Language as one of the palaitiological sciences, but makes a distinction between palaitiological sciences treating of material things—for instance, geology, and others respecting the products which result from man’s imaginative and social endowments—for instance, Comparative Philology. He still excludes the latter from the circle of the physical sciences,[3] properly so called, but he adds:—
“We have seen that biology leads us to psychology, if we choose to follow the path; and thus the passage from the material to the immaterial has already unfolded itself at one point; and we now perceive that there are several large provinces of speculation which concern subjects belonging to man’s immaterial nature, and which are governed by the same laws as sciences altogether physical. It is not our business to dwell on the prospects which our philosophy thus opens to our contemplation: but we may allow ourselves, in this last stage of our pilgrimage among the foundations of the physical sciences, to be cheered and animated by the ray that thus beams upon us, however dimly, from a higher and brighter region.”
Considering the high position which Dr. Whewell held among the conflicting parties of philosophic and religious thought in England, we should hardly have expected that the hope which he expressed of a possible transition from the material to the immaterial, and the place which he tentatively, and I more decidedly, assigned to the Science of Language, could have roused any orthodox animosities. Yet here is the secret spring of Professor Whitney’s efforts to claim for the Science of Language, in spite of his own admissions as a scholar, a place among the moral and historical, as distinct from the physical sciences. The theological bias, long kept back, breaks through at last, and we are treated to the following sermon:—
“There is a school of modern philosophers who are trying to materialize all science, to eliminate the distinction between the physical and the intellectual and moral, to declare for nought the free action of the human will, and to resolve the whole story of the fates of mankind into a series of purely material effects, produced by assignable physical causes, and explainable in the past, or determinable in the future, by an intimate knowledge of those causes, by a recognition of the action of compulsory motives upon the passively obedient nature of man. With such, language will naturally pass, along with the rest, for a physical product, and its study for physical science; and, however we may dissent from their general classification, we cannot quarrel with its application in the particular instance. But by those who still hold to the grand distinction,” etc., etc., etc.
At the end of this arguing pro and con., the matter itself remains exactly where it was before. The Science of Language is a physical science, if we extend the meaning of nature so far as to include human nature, in those manifestations at least where the individual does not act freely, but under reciprocal restraint. The Science of Language is an historical, or, as Professor Whitney prefers to call it, a moral science, if we comprehend under history the acts performed by men “unpremeditately, or, as it were, unconsciously,” and therefore beyond the reach of moral considerations.
I may seem to have entered more fully into this question than its real importance requires, but I was anxious, before replying to Mr. Darwin’s objections, to show to him the general style of argument that pervades Professor Whitney’s writings, and the character of the armory from which he has borrowed his weapons against me. I have not been able to get access to Professor Whitney’s last article, and shall therefore confine myself here to those arguments only which Mr. Darwin has adopted as his own, though, even if I had seen the whole of the American article, I should have preferred not to enter into any personal controversy with Professor Whitney. I have expressed my sincere appreciation of the industry and acumen which that scholar displays in his lectures on the Science of Language. There are some portions, particularly those on the Semitic and American languages, where he has left me far behind. There are some illustrations extremely well chosen, and worked out with a touch of poetic genius; there are whole chapters where by keeping more on the surface of his subject, he has succeeded in making it far more attractive and popular than I could have hoped to do. That treatment, however, entails its dangers, unless an author remembers, at every moment, that in addressing a popular audience he is in honor bound to be far more careful than if he writes for his own professional colleagues only. The comparative portion, I mean particularly the Seventh Lecture, is hardly what one would have expected from so experienced a teacher, and it is strange to find (p. 219) the inscription on the Duilian column referred to about B.C. 263, after Ritschl and Mommsen had pointed out its affected archaisms; to see (p. 222) the name Ahura-Mazda rendered by “the mighty spirit;” to meet (p. 258) with “sarvanâman,” the Sanskrit name for pronoun, translated by “name for everything, universal designation;” to hear the Phœnician alphabet still spoken of as the ultimate source of the world’s alphabets, etc. Such mistakes, however, can be corrected, but what can never be corrected is the unfortunate tone which Professor Whitney has adopted throughout. His one object seems to be to show to his countrymen that he is the equal of Bopp, Renan, Schleicher, Steinthal, Bleek, Hang, and others—aye, their superior. In stating their opinions, in criticizing their work, in suggesting motives, he shrinks from nothing, evidently trusting to the old adage, semper aliquid hœret. I have often asked myself, why should Professor Whitney have assumed this exceptional position among Comparative Philologists. It is not American to attack others, simply in order to acquire notoriety. America has possessed, and still possesses, some excellent scholars, whom every one of these German and French savants would be proud to acknowledge as his peers. Mr. Marsh’s “Lectures on the English Language” are a recognized standard work in England; Professor’s March’s “Anglo-Saxon Grammar” has been praised by everybody. Why is there no trace of self-assertion or personal abuse in any of their works? It is curious to observe in Professor Whitney’s works, that the less he has thought on certain subjects, the louder he speaks, and where arguments fail him, epitheta ornantia, such as worthless, futile, absurd, ridiculous, superficial, unsound, high-flown, pretentious, disingenuous, false, are poured out in abundance. I believe there is not one of these choice counters with which, at some time or other, he has not presented me; nay, he has even poured the soothing oil of praise over my bruised head. Quand on se permet tout, on peut faire quelque chose. But what has been the result? It has actually become a distinction to belong to the noble army of his martyrs, while, whenever one is praised by him, one feels inclined to say with Phocion, οὐ δὴ πού τι κακὸν λέγων ἐμαυτὸν λέληθα.