The philosophy of life, and philosophy of language, in a course of lectures

by Friedrich von Schlegel

Still, together with this simple and childlike signification, it (like every other part of this divine book, thus written on the inside and the out) possesses also a far deeper meaning. That name by which each living creature is called by God, and designated from eternity, must embrace the sum of its inmost essence—the key of its existence—the reason and the explanation of its being. As, indeed, generally in the Holy Scriptures, so here, also, a high and holy import is combined with the notion of the name. Interpreted, then, by this profound sense and significance, this brief narrative, as I previously pointed out, conveys the idea that by this communication to man by God Himself, of the names of all living things, the former was set up as the lord and king of nature, and even as God’s vicegerent over the terrestrial creation. And indeed this was his original destination.

If, then, no existing speech or language can afford us an access to this veiled original, now become inaccessible to us, still the idea of one primary language, or, perhaps, of several such, is certainly any thing but devoid of an historical foundation. At least it is a very natural hypothesis, and founded in some degree on facts, which must not be forthwith rejected, but requires to be tested by further inquiry. It is, however, of no light importance to the maintenance of this hypothesis to form a right conception of the difference between derivatory and mixed languages, and, above all, to take a comprehensive survey of the whole of human language, in its nearly boundless wealth, so far as such a survey is serviceable to our present object of arriving at a true knowledge of man. And how can such a profitable application and applicability be well doubted? For the genealogical tree of human languages, in its manifold ramifications—the growth of language shooting forth from epoch to epoch, with all the vast riches of art, does but hold before us, as it were, a written monument and memorial of the thinking consciousness assuming, so to speak, a bodily shape, and visibly presenting itself before us, but still on a grand historical standard, and according to dimensions which reach over the whole habitable globe. That, therefore, the history of the thinking consciousness stands in most intimate connection, or at least in very close relation to the science of living thought, is surely a point which requires neither lengthened investigation nor an express demonstration.

In the attempt at this juxtaposition, I shall only project those points which either are of importance for the right understanding of the whole, or of interest in themselves. For this purpose I shall avail myself of nothing but the most certain and clearly demonstrated results of modern research into the nature and history of language. All that may appear in any way uncertain, or would lead us too far into the special branches of philology, will be left unnoticed.

A simile from physical science will perhaps lead us by the quickest and shortest road to the object we are in pursuit of. And, indeed, the geological branch of natural history may well be considered cognate to the inquiry before us. For what geology properly investigates is the antiquities of this terrestrial planet, and the primal condition of the mountain ranges, observing and seeking to read the long-hidden memorials that are daily brought to light of pristine convulsions, and to number the successive epochs of gradual change and decay. But it was not at once that geological science made any progress beyond the mere acquaintance with the surface of our globe. An insight into its primary internal constitution and subsequent process of formation was not gained until observation had enabled us accurately to distinguish between the two kinds of rocks—the alluvial and the secondary, with their fossiliferous strata of chalk and clay—and the primary, unstratified rocks of granitic and similar structure, and by patient and accurate observation of the superficial phenomena of the earth in different lands and climates to establish this classification as a general law. Now this geological distinction admits of application to language. Those composite languages which have been formed out of a mixture or aggregation of several, may be compared to the diluvial rocks which belong to the secondary formation. As the latter have arisen out of or have been formed by floods and inundations, so these mixed languages owe their origin to the great European migration of nations, or perhaps were formed by the East by similar Asiatic migrations, at a still older epoch, and in primeval times. Those languages, on the contrary, which, at least as compared with those which are manifestly mere derivatives from them, we may call primary. In this class we may mention the Roman among those of Europe, and the Sanscrit in those of Asia. These, then, stand on the same line and dignity with the so-called primary rocks. No doubt, even in these further investigation will discover many traces of a mixture, no less palpable indeed, but one, however, in which the constituents neither were originally so heterogeneous, nor since have continued so totally unchanged. For in the same manner, granitic rocks, and others of the primary order, are also found to be composite in their mineral constituents. These likewise point to a still earlier convulsion of nature, to which they owed their first production. Unquestionably, however, the primary mountains form the first line and earliest formation among the several epochs of revolution which the present earth has undergone. But it would be an error were we from this simple fact at once to draw any inference as to the interior of our globe; for this geological and mineralogical distinction of the two classes of rocks can not be proved to hold good beyond the mere surface and coat of the earth. To this alone is man’s observation and experience confined.

It is impossible to penetrate very far into the interior or the central mass of our planet, and investigate its internal constitution, and consequently this ring of rock can not be regarded in any other light than as analogical to the thin covering and epidermis of the organic living creature. And just so is it with the science of language. There are undoubtedly languages which, in a certain sense, we may term primary. Only in so doing, we must not think that in any one of them we have discovered and possess the long-hidden original of all existent languages. If, for instance, from this correct geological classification of rock, any bold speculator should go on to assert that the whole interior of the earth, or at least the center of it, is a mass of granitic or other primary rock, we feel at once that this would be a baseless hypothesis. And it would be as grave an error, in the domain of philology, were we to go on and draw a similar conclusion. The Sanscrit, for instance, holds unquestionably the foremost rank, as the oldest among those which belong to the same family, and, as compared with these, may undoubtedly, in a precise but limited sense, be regarded as a primary language; but it would be an idle assumption were we therefore to consider it in the same light that Hebrew was formerly, and to look upon it as the universal original, the first source and mother of all other languages on the surface of the earth.

But not even the historical prerogative of a high antiquity—no, nor even the merit of having preserved a primary form in greatest purity, however valuable a quality, is the sole standard of excellence in a language, nor that which alone determines its perfection. The English language affords a ready illustration of our remark. To it, beyond all others, the designation of being a mixed language applies; indeed it corresponds altogether to this character. It furnishes at the same time a striking proof of the height of excellence which even a mixed language is capable of attaining; meeting as it does, all the requisitions of a solemn and nervous poetry, the earnest appeals of eloquence, and the calm flow of descriptive prose. And yet, on analysis, it presents to the grammatical eye the somewhat heterogeneous compound of two wholly different elements, whose originally chaotic mixture has been reduced into a rare and happy proportion. For into its original High-Dutch, or Anglo-Saxon basis, many words have been introduced from the Latin or Norman-French, which among the living roots of the former appear so far aliens and foreigners, as, being little capable of grammatical declension or derivation, they do not, like the others, form so many fruitful verbal stems, from which new forms and compounds shoot forth. Of Asiatic languages the Persian is in this respect of a similar constitution to the English. Here also the essential foundation and living root of the whole is some peculiar and old national language, closely akin to the Sanscrit and Gothic-German; but its Arabian admixture is as great in degree as the Latin-French of the English, and indeed both were brought in by a similar political revolution. Still the Persian is generally, and with good cause, praised as a noble language, abounding in lively poetical ornament, and moreover, like the French in Europe is adopted throughout Asia as the general language, of business and conversation. Those derivatory languages also which stand next in order to the mixed, and in part also belong to them, and which have rather softened down than abolished the stricter grammatical forms, having rounded them off as it were for greater convenience of use, do not necessarily stand inferior to the mother-tongue in grace and vigor of composition. On the contrary, in respect of style, they are often vastly superior to them. Thus the Italian appears softer and more flexible for lyrical verse, and perhaps for every creation of the poetic fancy, sweeter and more graceful than its Roman mother-tongue. The French, too, at least as the language of society, moves with an unequalled freedom, while, for precision and distinctness of expression, its prose has attained to an unparalleled height of excellence. The Spanish also, besides being praised for the excellence of its prose, as admirably suited either for the dignity of serious narrative or the ingenious play of wit, is in poetry distinguished above most of its sister dialects by a wonderful richness and peculiar grace in the playful sallies of the fancy. And yet it is a derivative language, and compounded of the most heterogeneous elements. For not only it is highly probable that the Gothic-German admixture is even greater in this than in any other of the romance dialects which sprung up out of the Latin, but the Arabic also forms a very considerable element in it.

But it was not to descend into the grammatical specialities of philological erudition, or to heap up a mass of purely æsthetical remarks, that I have alluded to these pregnant instances. What I chiefly had in view was to remove, if possible, all erroneous notions from the conception of the primal language. It was, in short, my object to bring before your minds its origin and growth, according to that continuous process which may even still be seen going on in any spoken language. And although in our own neighborhood it is only in a few partial instances, and these far from definite, that we can trace this living process, still they are not on this account to be neglected, since they furnish much instruction, and are calculated to throw much light upon the whole matter.

Now, as regards the historical origin, not only of language in general, but also of its several extant dialects, and especially those which relatively to such as are derived and compounded out of them may pass as primary, there is one essential point toward a right understanding of the matter. We must not attempt to account for their origination and development merely by a mixture and derivation from many individual parts, but rather endeavor to set them before our minds as productions similar in nature to that of a poem or any other piece of art. For the latter are severally the result of a conception which, from the very first, was a whole—they never could have been produced by any successive agglomeration of atomistic parts. In this view of language we must, in thought, place ourselves at a very different epoch of mind from the present. Now we can not well hesitate to allow that, in the primal period of the human race, and of nations individually, the productive fancy would manifest itself in the creation of words with far more of inventive genius and fertility than would be likely to be displayed at a subsequent period of mental culture, when the analytical reason had, step by step, succeeded in gaining the preponderance.

Commonly, indeed, men speak strangely enough of the origin of languages. They talk of the matter somewhat in the same fashion as it would be to say of a picture, that it had its origin in ochre, lake, ceruse, asphalt, and such like coloring substances, together with the addition of oil, which holds here somewhat the same place that in language the reason does with its grammatical arrangement and logical combinations. Of these motley materials, it might be said, one little particle after another is laid on the canvas, till, gradually, long streaks appear, which again swell gradually into fuller and deeper outline, until, at last, a complete form and figure stands forth, to which, at last, there accrues an expressive physiognomy. And so, at last, the picture is finished. But in all this description it seems totally forgotten, that unless the ideal conception—the picture as a whole—had, from the very first, been present to the mind of the painter, it would never have attained to such a realization, thus growing up, step by step, under the hand of the artist. At least, without this it would not be a true artistic work of genius, since this is, in every instance, the result of some foregoing conception of a whole.

Not piecemeal, therefore, and fragmentarily, did language arise. It came forth, rather, at once, and in its totality, out of the full inner and living consciousness of man. We shall have no difficulty in thus considering it, if only we can succeed in ideally transplanting ourselves to that foretime when the thinking faculty was more creative, and when, in the designation and expression of its ideas, it moved more freely and with the elasticity of genius. But if speech answers to thought, and if language itself is but a true copy, a shifting diorama, as it were, of man’s inward self, then (to make use of that oldest record of the human race, which, as it is better and more natural than all others, so it also furnishes the best clew for unraveling the riddles of olden tradition), we might well ask whether the language of Cain, the accursed vagabond wandering over the face of the earth, could have been the same as that of the pious patriarchs and saints of the primeval world, some of whom, under other names, but in equal honor, are found mentioned in the traditions of the ancient Persians, and the sacred books of the Hindoos and other Asiatic nations? Or could it well have been the same with that of Noah, the second progenitor and the restorer of the human race, whom, likewise, the earliest traditionary records of every people recognize and mention. The family of the Cainites holds no inconsiderable place in the earliest history of civilization, and the first working of metals, and the invention of several useful arts, is expressly ascribed to them. But still their difference in language from the other families of the antediluvian world, and generally in their whole civil constitution, must have been very great and palpably noticeable. And this favors the hypothesis, which, in itself, is any thing but impossible, and deserves rather to be called highly probable, of several primary languages, or, at least, of different epochs in the primeval speech of the earliest foretime, which, moreover, serve to indicate so many natural sections in the progression which the mental development of the aboriginal family of man observed, and the shapes which its mode of thinking successively assumed.