distance, though she could see them only through a closed window. Of course, it was only a very selfish interest that actuated her.

It is only in the ape that the sense of sight and the interest in the visible world assumes more importance. We see mankind at a low stage of civilisation still availing themselves of the faculty of scent, and examining objects by its means, while we are wholly deficient in such a faculty. At length sight attains higher and higher dominion, and the interest concentrated upon it seems therefore to be the real privilege of man. If now it could be proved that the importance of sight increased and extended in the course of history such as it is reflected in language, such a fact would be tantamount to a development of our race from a mere animal to a human nature. And it does seem capable of proof. Reason in the species at large undergoes the same process as that which in individual instances we witness in ourselves on a smaller scale. When the Romans for the first time came into contact with the Germans, they were so overwhelmingly struck by their high statures, blue defiant eyes, and light hair, that Tacitus says they all look alike. We should at first receive the same impression among a negro population. A nearer acquaintance enables us to perceive the differences which previously escaped us. Something analogous happened to the earliest generations of man, only that it was the whole of creation which they had first slowly to learn partly to distinguish according to its individual objects and partly to notice at least with

interest. And what may it have been which they soonest noticed in such a way? It was that which was nearest their hearts-the motions and actions of their fellow-men. For what ever again captivates and gratifies man most is man. Even the glory of Nature herself would fill us with shuddering if we knew ourselves alone, quite alone. Only exceptionally and temporarily things that do not live and act as we do can affect us. I will not attempt to describe the moment when for the first time the impression of a human motion found sympathetic expression in an uttered sound. But permit me to mention an incident which I have myself witnessed, not without surprise, and which is analogous to the moment that lies at such an immeasurable distance beyond all our recollection. A boy who had been almost totally bereft of hearing by an illness at an age when he was already able to lisp a child's first words, passed with his mother through our town on her way to our vicinity, where she hoped to get her unhappy child cured. The handsome, lively boy was then six years old, and had long since forgotten the little he had ever spoken. He had lost all power of speech, but he could hear loud, rumbling noises. A carriage happened to drive past, unseen by him. Quite like a younger child that can hear, the boy put his finger to his ear, prepared to listen, and then waved his hand as if he were cracking a whip. It was, therefore, not the rolling of the wheels which he heard, nor the trotting of the horses which had most vividly impressed him. He chose, out of

all that belonged to the carriage, only the one human action which he had witnessed on beholding the phenomenon of the rolling carriage, and imitated that action. And he did so in order to communicate his impression; but the whole interest of this communication consisted for the child only in the desire of awakening the like sensation within us that he felt; it was, in fact, only an expression of his own inward sensation. And such an expression, without any other purpose but the impulse to express ourselves, to give utterance to our joyful interest in what we see, we must assume to have alone originated the first sound, the germ of all speech.

The evolution of language, which has long since clothed with its sounds the whole rich intellectual world from one primitive sound, has perhaps at first sight something surprising in it; but there is no other solution of the riddle involved in it. The various attempts to find a reason why we name one object by one sound, another by another, have failed. We can, indeed, find a reason why we designate the head of man by the word Kopf. This word is nearly related to Kufe (coop or vat). Kopf, properly speaking, means skull, and in all probability in the sense of a drinking vessel, reminding us of those days when the skull of the enemy was converted into a drinking-cup. We likewise know "foot" to be derived from a root implying "to tread." But as we proceed the possibility of assigning reasons ceases. The root of "foot," just mentioned, was primarily pad; but why the sound pad

happened to be chosen for the meaning of "to tread " cannot be accounted for. It was thought, down to the most recent date, that the oldest roots had been imitations of animal sounds; others have seen in them a kind of interjection, such as ah! eh! In the one case the root pad would be an imitation of the sounds produced by steps; in the other, perhaps an expression of the surprise that was felt on hearing such steps. Max Müller has sneered at both these hypotheses, bestowing on them the appellation of bow-wow and pah-pah theories-bow-wow being intended for an onomatopoetic designation of the dog. He himself is of opinion that man is a sounding being; that his soul, in the earliest times, by means of a now lost faculty, like a metal, as it were, had responded to the ring of various objects in nature, and thus produced words. This view has not escaped a sneer on its part either. It has in England been called the ding-dong theory. What alone perfectly corresponds with experience is, that from one word several others spring differing in sound and meaning. A word for shell (Schale) may, on the one hand, come to mean husk, and on the other be used for tortoise-shell, drinking-cup, nay, for head.

But that in this way all words have proceeded from one original form has not only its significant analogy in the history of the evolution of the organisms in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, but also in the origin of the nations, such as language itself teaches it. How different are Germans and Hindoos! How much does the German language differ from the Sanskrit! Only

science recognises their identity, and shows that what is now different must once have been identical. And if we compare the difference between French and Italian with the much greater one between German and Sanskrit, and consider that only the longer separation and greater distance of the nations from each. other has called forth these differences, we shall at least not deem it impossible that all the languages of the earth have sprung from one single germ, and have only grown to be so very different by a still longer period of separation. That variety should proceed from unity seems to be the great fundamental law of all evolution, both physical and mental. In language this law leads us back to a quite insignificant germ, a first sound which expressed the excessively little, the only thing that man then noticed and saw with interest; and from that germ the whole wealth of language-aye, I do not hesitate to pronounce it as my conviction-all languages were gradually developed in the course of many, very many millennia.

Thus we have come down to a primitive condition of man's mind, of which both the prospect and retrospect is equally great, far-reaching, marvellous, aye, even deeply affecting. The moment when the faculty of speech took its rise cannot well have coincided with that of his coming into being. As a being that neither speaks nor thinks, at least certainly not in the sense in which we are conscious of thinking as our own inborn human possession, man belongs to another sphere, and becomes subject to the history of the evolution of the animal