The Human Race. Figuier Louis

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СКАЧАТЬ makes use of language as the means of expressing his intelligence. If man is provided with the power of speech, which he has in common with no other animal, it is owing to the fact that in him intelligence is infinitely more developed than in the animal. It is through the simultaneous concurrence of all his senses that the faculty of speech is manifested in man; and the proof of this is, that through the absence of one of his senses, he loses this faculty. What is meant by a person born dumb? It is an individual similar in all respects to speaking man, but differing from him in this, that he came into the world perfectly deaf. The primary absence of the power of hearing has paralysed the child’s intelligence with special reference to his imitative faculty, and in fact, the person called deaf and dumb is originally simply a person born deaf.

      Language, then, is but the expression of the highest intelligence. “Animals have a voice,” says Aristotle, “but man alone speaks.” Nothing can be truer than this statement of the immortal Greek philosopher.

      It is well known how the languages and dialects spoken in the world have multiplied; and, indeed, nothing is more difficult than to classify all the languages and dialects that exist. This difficulty becomes more insurmountable when we consider that languages vary in course of time to a very considerable extent. The French of Rabelais and Montaigne, who wrote at the time of the Renaissance, is not very intelligible to us, and that of French chroniclers at the time of St. Louis can only be understood by studying it specially and with a dictionary. Modern Italians read Dante with great difficulty, and the same may be said for the English as regards their great writer Shakespeare. Languages then alter very rapidly, even though the people themselves remain stationary. The alterations are much more serious and rapid when two peoples amalgamate.

      These considerations are sufficient to convey an idea of the problem which scholars have propounded in wishing to ascertain the language of primitive humanity. It may be said that such a problem is incapable of solution. We must therefore despair of finding the mother tongue, and limit ourselves to those which are her offspring.

      Upon a comparison of these last, it has been decided to assign to three fundamental groups all the languages which have been, and are still, spoken on the earth; these are, as we have already said, monosyllabic, agglutinative and inflected languages.

      Chinese is the most decided example of a monosyllabic language. Each word comprises but one syllable, and has an absolute meaning in itself. Recourse must be had to the complicated combination of a quantity of utterances in order to impress all modifications of thought, all distinctions of time, place, person, condition, &c. One marvels to hear that the Chinese language comprehends such an immense number of words, that the life of a single man of letters is not sufficiently long to allow of his learning all. This apparent wealth is but the most utter poverty. This language, whose vocabulary is infinite, is simply detestable. To its imperfection must be attributed the smallness of the progress which the people of Asia have made in the direction of intelligence and commerce.

      Agglutinative languages, which are spoken by Negroes, as also by many people of the yellow race, are the first degree of perfection in human speech. In these the word is no longer unique; variable terminations attached to each word modify the primitive expression. They contain roots and words whose function it is to modify these roots.

      The third and last degree of perfection in human speech is found in inflected languages. Those languages are so called, in which the same word is capable of modification a great number of times, in order to express the different shades of thought, and to translate changes of time, person, or place. Inflected languages are made up of a series of different terms, the number of which is by no means large, but the modification of which, by means of adjuncts, or through the position they occupy, are indeed innumerable. All European languages, and those spoken in Asia by people of the white race, are inflected.

      If spoken language is the first element which served to constitute human societies, fixed, that is written language, has been the fundamental cause of their progress. By means of writing, one generation has been enabled to hand down to the other the fruits of their experience and investigation, and thus to lay the foundation of primitive science and history.

      The first forms of writing were mere mnemonic signs. Stones cut to a certain fashion, pieces of wood to which a conventional form had been imparted, and such like, were the first signs of written language. One of the most curious forms of mnemonic writing has been met with both in the Old and New Worlds; it consisted in joining little bundles of cord of different colours, in which were tied knots of various kinds. Whoever ties a knot in his handkerchief in order to recall to mind some fact or intention, makes use, without knowing it, of the primitive form of writing.

      An advance in writing consisted in representing pictorially objects which it was wished to designate. The wild Indians of North America still make use of these rough representations of objects, as a means of imparting certain information.

      This very system is rendered more complete, when the design is supplemented by a conventional idea. If prudence is indicated by a serpent, strength by a lion, and lightness by a bird, we here at once recognize writing properly so called. This last form of writing is known as the symbolical or ideographic.

      Symbolical writing existed among the ancients. The hieroglyphics which are engraved upon the monuments of ancient Egypt, and those which have been found upon Mexican remains, belong to symbolical writing.

      And yet this is not writing in the true sense of the word, which does not exist until the conventional signs, of which use is made, correspond with the words or signs of the language spoken, and can actually replace the language itself.

      By the alphabet, is meant the collection of conventional signs corresponding to the sounds which form words. The alphabet is one of those inventions which have called for the greatest efforts of the human mind, and it is not without good reason that Greek mythology deified Cadmus, the inventor of letters. The same admiration for the inventors of alphabets is, moreover, exhibited among all ancient nations.

      It is not only through its immense superiority as regards extent and power, that the intelligence of man is distinguished from that of the brute; there is an attribute of intelligence which is strictly peculiar to our species. This is the faculty of abstraction, which permits of our collecting and placing together the perceptions of the mind, by that means arriving at general results. It is through this power of abstraction, that our intellect has created the wonders which are familiar to all; that the arts and sciences have been brought to light and fostered by society.

      In connection with the faculty of abstraction, we must allude to the moral sense, which is a deduction from that same property. The moral sense is a special attribute of human intelligence, and it may be said that through this attribute, man’s intellect is distinguished from that of animals; for this characteristic is most truly peculiar to the mind of man, and is nowhere found among animals.

      Among all people, and at all times, the difference between good and evil, truth and falsehood, has been recognized. The abstract idea of moral good and moral evil may certainly differ in different people: one may admire, what the other detests; in one nation, that, may be held in good repute, which, in another, is a criminal offence; yet, after all, the abstract notion of evil and good, does not cease to exist. Observance of the right of property, self-respect, and regard for human life, are to be found among all nationalities. If man, in his savage state, occasionally casts aside these moral notions, it is in consequence of the social condition of the tribe to which he belongs, and must be regarded in connexion with the customs of war and the feeling of revenge. But, in a state of tranquillity and peace, which condition the philosopher and student must presuppose in framing their arguments, the notion of evil and good is always to be found. The forms which the feeling of honour dictates, vary for example in the white man and the savage, but the feeling itself is never СКАЧАТЬ