ully
admitting that if this theory were true, the science of language would not
come within the pale of the physical sciences, I must content myself for
the present with pointing out that no one has yet explained how, without
language, a discussion on the merits of each word, such as must
necessarily have preceded a mutual agreement, could have been carried on.
But as it is the object of these lectures to prove that language is not a
work of human art, in the same sense as painting, or building, or writing,
or printing, I must ask to be allowed, in this preliminary stage, simply
to enter my protest against a theory, which, though still taught in the
schools, is, nevertheless, I believe, without a single fact to support its
truth.

But there are other objections besides this which would seem to bar the
admission of the science of language to the circle of the physical
sciences. Whatever the origin of language may have been, it has been
remarked with a strong appearance of truth, that language has a history of
its own, like art, like law, like religion; and that, therefore, the
science of language belongs to the circle of the _historical_, or, as they
used to be called, the _moral_, in contradistinction to the _physical_
sciences. It is a well-known fact, which recent researches have not
shaken, that nature is incapable of progress or improvement. The flower
which the botanist observes to-day was as perfect from the beginning.
Animals, which are endowed with what is called an artistic instinct, have
never brought that instinct to a higher degree of perfection. The
hexagonal cells of the bee are not more regular in the nineteenth century
than at any earlier period, and the gift of song has never, as far as we
know, been brought to a higher perfection by our nightingale than by the
Philomelo of the Greeks. "Natural History," to quote Dr. Whewell's
words,(17) "when systematically treated, excludes all that is historical,
for it classes objects by their permanent and universal properties, and
has nothing to do with the narration of particular or casual facts." Now,
if we consider the large number of tongues spoken in different parts of
the world with all their dialectic and provincial varieties, if we observe
the great changes which each of these tongues has undergone in the course
of centuries, how Latin was changed into Italian, Spanish, Portuguese,
Provencal, French, Wallachian, and Roumansch; how Latin again, together
wit