MY LECTURES ON MR. DARWIN’S PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE.
As this want of historical treatment among onomatopœic philologists has frequently been dwelt on by myself and others, these instances may suffice to mark the difference between the school so ably and powerfully represented by Mr. Wedgwood, and the school of Bopp, to which I and most comparative philologists belong. It was in the name of that school that I ventured to address my protest to the school of evolutionists, reminding them of difficulties, which they had either ignored altogether, or, at all events, greatly undervalued, and putting our case before them in such a form that even philosophers, not conversant with the special researches of philologists, might gain a clear insight into the present state of our science, and form their opinion accordingly.
In doing this I thought I was simply performing a duty which, in the present state of divided and subdivided labor, has to be performed, if we wish to prevent a useless waste of life. However different our pursuits may be, we all belong, as I said before, to the same army, we all have the same interests at heart, we are bound together by what the French would call the strongest of all solidarities, the love of truth. If I had thought only of my own fellow-laborers in the field of the Science of Language, I should not have considered that there was any necessity for the three Lectures which I delivered in 1873 at the Royal Institution. In my first course of Lectures on the Science of Language (1861), delivered before Evolutionism had assumed its present dimensions, I had already expressed my conviction that language is the one great barrier between the brute and man.
“Man speaks,” I said, “and no brute has ever uttered a word. Language is something more palpable than a fold of the brain or an angle of the skull. It admits of no caviling, and no process of natural selection will ever distill significant words out of the notes of birds or the cries of beasts.”
No scholar, so far as I know, has ever controverted any of these statements. But when Evolutionism became, as it fully deserved, the absorbing interest of all students of nature, when it was supposed that, if a Moneres could develop into a Man, Bow-wow and Pooh-pooh might well have developed by imperceptible degrees into Greek and Latin, I thought it was time to state the case for the Science of Language and its bearing on some of the problems of Evolutionism more fully, and I gladly accepted the invitation to lecture once more on this subject at the Royal Institution in 1873. My object was no more than a statement of facts, showing that the results of the Science of Language did not at present tally with the results of Evolutionism, that words could no longer be derived directly from imitative and interjectional sounds, that between these sounds and the first beginnings of language, in the technical sense of the word, a barrier had been discovered, represented by what we call Roots, and that, as far as we know, no attempt, not even the faintest, has ever been made by any animal, except man, to approach or to cross that barrier. I went one step further. I showed that Roots were with man the embodiments of general concepts, and that the only way in which man realized general concepts, was by means of those roots, and words derived from roots. I therefore argued as follows: We do not know anything and cannot possibly know anything of the mind of animals: therefore, the proper attitude of the philosopher with regard to the mental capacities of animals is one of complete neutrality. For all we know, the mental capacities of animals may be of a higher order than our own, as their sensuous capacities certainly are in many cases. All this, however, is guesswork; one thing only is certain. If we are right that man realizes his conceptual thought by means of words, derived from roots, and that no animal possesses words derived from roots, it follows, not indeed, that animals have no conceptual thought (in saying this, I went too far), but that their conceptual thought is different in its realized shape from our own.
From public and private discussions which followed the delivery of my lectures at the Royal Institution (an abstract of them was published in “Fraser’s Magazine,” and republished, I believe, in America), it became clear to me that the object which I had in view had been fully attained. General attention had been roused to the fact that at all events the Science of Language had something to say in the matter of Evolutionism, and I know that those whom it most concerned were turning their thoughts in good earnest to the difficulties which I had pointed out. I wanted no more, and I thought it best to let the matter ferment for a time.
MR. GEORGE DARWIN’S ARTICLE IN THE “CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.”
But what was my surprise when I found that a gentleman who had acquired considerable notoriety, not indeed by any special and original researches in Comparative Philology, but by his repeated attempts at vilifying the works of other scholars, Professor Whitney, had sent a paper to Mr. Darwin, intended to throw discredit on the statements which I had recommended to his serious consideration. I did not know of that paper till an abstract of it appeared in the “Contemporary Review,” signed George Darwin, and written with the avowed purpose of discrediting the statements which I had made in my Lecture at the Royal Institution. If Professor Whitney’s appeal had been addressed to scholars only, I should gladly have left them to judge for themselves. But as Mr. Darwin, Jr., was prevailed upon to stand sponsor to Professor Whitney’s last production, and to lend to it, if not the weight, at least the lustre of his name, I could not, without appearing uncourteous, let it pass in silence. I am not one of those who believe that truth is much advanced by public controversy, and I have carefully eschewed it during the whole of my literary career. But if I had left Professor Whitney’s assertions unanswered, I could hardly have complained, if Mr. Darwin, Sr., and the many excellent savants who share his views, had imagined that I had represented the difficulties which the students of language feel with regard to animals developing a language, in a false light; that in fact, instead of wishing to assist, I had tried to impede the onward march of our brave army. I have that faith in οἱ περὶ Darwin, that I believe they want honest advice, from whatever quarter it may come, and I therefore was persuaded to deviate for once from my usual course, and, by answering seriatim every objection raised by Professor Whitney, to show that my advice had been tendered bonâ fide, that I had not spoken in the character of a special pleader, but simply and solely as a man of truth.
MY ANSWER TO MR. DARWIN.
My “Answer to Mr. Darwin” appeared in the “Contemporary Review” of November, 1874, and if it had only elicited the letter which I received from Mr. Darwin, Sr., I should have been amply repaid for the trouble I had taken in the matter.