belong." (P. Giles, "Short Manual of
Comparative Philology", 2nd edition, page 57, London, 1901.)

Schleicher was wrong in defining a language to be an organism in the
sense in which a living being is an organism. Regarded physiologically,
language is a function or potentiality of certain human organs; regarded
from the point of view of the community it is of the nature of an
institution. (This view of language is worked out at some length by
Prof. W.D. Whitney in an article in the "Contemporary Review" for 1875,
page 713 ff. This article forms part of a controversy with Max Muller,
which is partly concerned with Darwin's views on language. He criticises
Schleicher's views severely in his "Oriental and Linguistic Studies",
page 298 ff., New York, 1873. In this volume will be found criticisms of
various other views mentioned in this essay.) More than most influences
it conduces to the binding together of the elements that form a state.
That geographical or other causes may effectively counteract the
influence of identity of language is obvious. One need only read the
history of ancient Greece, or observe the existing political separation
of Germany and Austria, of Great Britain and the United States of
America. But however analogous to an organism, language is not an
organism. In a less degree Schleicher, by defining languages as such,
committed the same mistake which Bluntschli made regarding the State,
and which led him to declare that the State is by nature masculine and
the Church feminine. (Bluntschli, "Theory of the State", page 24, Second
English Edition, Oxford, 1892.) The views of Schleicher were to some
extent injurious to the proper methods of linguistic study. But this
misfortune was much more than fully compensated by the inspiration
which his ideas, collected and modified by his disciples, had upon the
science. In spite of the difference which the psychological element
represented by analogy makes between the science of language and the
natural sciences, we are entitled to say of it as Schleicher said of
Darwin's theory of the origin of species, "it depends upon observation,
and is essentially an attempt at a history of development."

Other questions there are in connection with language and evolution
which require investigation--the survival of one amongst several
competing words (e.g. why German keeps only as a high poetic word
"ross", which is identical in origin with the English work-a-day
"horse", and