The doctrine of descent and Darwinism / by Oscar Schmidt.

  • Schmidt, Oscar, 1823-1886
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The doctrine of descent and Darwinism / by Oscar Schmidt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    method of linguistic research by recommending as its basis the study of the more recent and known lan- guages. And when, in the middle of last century, the two opinions, that language was invented or revealed, were sharply opposed to each other, and when Stissmilch (1764), in contradiction to Maupertuis and Jean J. Rousseau, had established that invention was not possi- ble without thought, nor thought without language, and, therefore, that the invention of language was a self-con- tradiction, Herder opportunely entered the lists with his work on language (1770), which formed an epoch in the science. According to him, language begins with imitations of sounds, at first almost unconscious; the tokens, as he expresses it, by which the soul distinctly recalls an idea. He makes language develop itself from the crudest beginnings, by the increasing need of such verbal tokens ; and shows that with the development of mankind, the store of words must also have uncon- sciously and instinctively increased. The multiplicity of languages is due to the dispersion of nations, whose idiosyncrasies are reflected in the various languages. Thus Herder long ago pointed out the importance of a psychology of nations. He was joined by Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose opinions form the basis of the present science of language, and who held that the imi- tations of sounds are instinctively crystallized into words, and that with this formation of words and language thought commences. It follows from the nature of these o beginnings, that language is the natural expression of the spirit of a people ; that it does not stand still, but is for ever in process of transformation.