ich was
the least tenacious of life, was made known to the English-speaking
world by the late Professor Max Muller who, however, when questioned,
repudiated it as his own belief. ("Science of Thought", London, 1887,
page 211.) It was taken by him from Heyse's lectures on language which
were published posthumously by Steinthal. Put shortly the theory is
that "everything which is struck, rings. Each substance has its peculiar
ring. We can tell the more or less perfect structure of metals by their
vibrations, by the answer which they give. Gold rings differently
from tin, wood rings differently from stone; and different sounds are
produced according to the nature of each percussion. It may be the same
with man, the most highly organised of nature's work." (Max Muller as
above, translating from Heyse.) Max Muller's repudiation of this theory
was, however, not very whole-hearted for he proceeds later in the same
argument: "Heyse's theory, which I neither adopted nor rejected, but
which, as will be seen, is by no means incompatible with that which for
many years has been gaining on me, and which of late has been so clearly
formulated by Professor Noire, has been assailed with ridicule and torn
to pieces, often by persons who did not even suspect how much truth was
hidden behind its paradoxical appearance. We are still very far from
being able to identify roots with nervous vibrations, but if it should
appear hereafter that sensuous vibrations supply at least the raw
material of roots, it is quite possible that the theory, proposed by
Oken and Heyse, will retain its place in the history of the various
attempts at solving the problem of the origin of language, when other
theories, which in our own days were received with popular applause,
will be completely forgotten." ("Science of Thought", page 212.)

Like a good deal else that has been written on the origin of language,
this statement perhaps is not likely to be altogether clear to the plain
man, who may feel that even the "raw material of roots" is some distance
removed from nervous vibrations, though obviously without the existence
of afferent and efferent nerves articulate speech would be impossible.
But Heyse's theory undoubtedly was that every thought or idea which
occurred to the mind of man for the first time had its own special
phonetic expression, and that this responsive faculty, when its object
was thus fulfilled, became extinct. Apart from the philosophical
quest