y or
paternity of a language, we must remember that the parents are alive
as well as the children, and that all the preceding generations survive
(after a manner) in the latest form of it. And when, for the purposes of
comparison, we form into groups the roots or terminations of words, we
should not forget how casual is the manner in which their resemblances
have arisen--they were not first written down by a grammarian in the
paradigms of a grammar and learned out of a book, but were due to many
chance attractions of sound or of meaning, or of both combined. So many
cautions have to be borne in mind, and so many first thoughts to be
dismissed, before we can proceed safely in the path of philological
enquiry. It might be well sometimes to lay aside figures of speech, such
as the 'root' and the 'branches,' the 'stem,' the 'strata' of Geology,
the 'compounds' of Chemistry, 'the ripe fruit of pronouns dropping from
verbs' (see above), and the like, which are always interesting, but are
apt to be delusive. Yet such figures of speech are far nearer the truth
than the theories which attribute the invention and improvement of
language to the conscious action of the human mind...Lastly, it is
doubted by recent philologians whether climate can be supposed to have
exercised any influence worth speaking of on a language: such a view is
said to be unproven: it had better therefore not be silently assumed.

'Natural selection' and the 'survival of the fittest' have been applied
in the field of philology, as well as in the other sciences which are
concerned with animal and vegetable life. And a Darwinian school of
philologists has sprung up, who are sometimes accused of putting words
in the place of things. It seems to be true, that whether applied to
language or to other branches of knowledge, the Darwinian theory, unless
very precisely defined, hardly escapes from being a truism. If by 'the
natural selection' of words or meanings of words or by the 'persistence
and survival of the fittest' the maintainer of the theory intends
to affirm nothing more than this--that the word 'fittest to survive'
survives, he adds not much to the knowledge of language. But if he means
that the word or the meaning of the word or some portion of the word
which comes into use or drops out of use is selected or rejected on the
ground of economy or parsimony or ease to the speaker or clearness or
euphony or expressiveness, or greater or less demand for it, o