I had tried to show in my very first Lecture in what sense the Science of Language might properly be called a physical, and in what sense it might be called an historical science. I had given full weight to the arguments on either side, because I felt that, owing to the twofold nature of man, much might be said with perfect truth for one or the other view. When I look back on what I wrote many years ago, after having carefully weighed all that has been written on the subject during the last fifteen years, I am glad to find that I can repeat every word I then wrote, without a single change or qualification.
“The process” I said (p. 49), “through which language is settled and unsettled, combines in one the two opposite elements of necessity and freewill. Though the individual seems to be the prime mover in producing new words and new grammatical forms, he is so only after his individuality has been merged in the common action of the family, tribe, or nation to which he belongs. He can do nothing by himself, and the first impulse to a new formation in language, though given by an individual, is mostly, if not always, given without premeditation, nay, unconsciously. The individual, as such, is powerless, and the results apparently produced by him, depend on laws beyond his control, and on the coöperation of all those who form together with him one class, one body, or one organic whole. But though it is easy to show that language cannot be changed or moulded by the taste, the fancy, or genius of man, it is nevertheless through the instrumentality of man alone that language can be changed.”
Now I ask any reader of Mr. Whitney’s Lectures, whether he has found in them anything in addition to what I had said on this subject, anything materially or even in form, differing from it. He speaks indeed of the actual additions made by individuals to language, but he treats them, as I did, as rare exceptions (p. 32), and I cannot help thinking that when he wrote (p. 52):—
“Languages are almost as little the work of man as is the form of his skull, the outlines of his face, the construction of his arm and hand,”
he was simply paraphrasing what I had said, though, as will be seen, far more cautiously than my American colleague, because my remarks referred to the laws of language only, not to language as a whole (p. 47):—
“We might think as well of changing the laws which control the circulation of our blood, or of adding an inch to our height, as of altering the laws of speech, and inventing new words, according to our own pleasure.”
I cannot hope to convince Mr. Whitney, for after I had tried to explain to him, why I considered the question whether the Science of Language is to be classed as a physical or an historical science, as chiefly a question of technical definition, he replies:—
“That I should probably consider it as more than a matter of terminology or technical definition whether our science is an historical science, because men make language, or a physical science, because men do not make language.”
Everybody will see that to attempt a serious argument on such conditions, is simply impossible.
If Professor Whitney can produce one single passage in all my writings where I said that men do not make language, I promise to write no more on language at all. I see now that it is Schleicher who, according to Professor Whitney, at least, held these crude views, who called languages natural organisms, which, without being determinable by the will of man, arose, grew, and developed themselves, in accordance with fixed laws, and then again grow old and die out; who ascribed to language that succession of phenomena which is wont to be termed life, and who accordingly classed Glottik, the Science of Language, as a natural science. These are the very opinions which, with the exception of the last, are combated in my writings.