第130章

And by the aid of those systematic modes, which presently arise, of makingderivatives and forming compounds expressing still smaller distinctions,there is finally developed a tribe of words so heterogeneous in sound andmeaning, that to the initiated it seems incredible they should have had acommon origin. Meanwhile, from other roots there are being evolved othersuch tribes, until there results a language of a hundred thousand differentwords, signifying as many different objects, qualities, acts. Yet anotherway in which language advances from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous,is by the multiplication of languages. Whether, as Max Müller and Bunsenthink, all languages have grown from one stock, or whether, as some philologistssay, they have grown from two or more stocks, it is clear that since largefamilies of languages, as the Indo-European, are of one parentage, therehave arisen multiplied kinds through a process of continuous divergence.

The diffusion over the Earth's surface which has led to differentiation ofthe race, has simultaneously led to differentiation of its speech: a truthwhich we see further illustrated in each country by the dialects found inseparate districts. Thus linguistic changes conform to the general law, alikein the evolution of languages, in the evolution of families of words, andin the evolution of parts of speech. If in our conception of language weinclude not its component words only but those combinations of them by whichdistinct ideas are conveyed -- namely sentences -- we have to recognize onemore aspect of its progress from homogeneity to heterogeneity which has accompaniedthe progress in integration. Rude speech consists of simple propositionshaving subjects and predicates indefinitely linked; and anything like a complexmeaning is conveyed by a succession of such propositions connected only byjuxtaposition. Even in the speech of comparatively developed peoples, asthe Hebrews, we find very little complexity. Compare a number of verses fromthe Bible with some paragraphs from a modern writer, and the increase inheterogeneity of structure is very conspicuous. And beyond the fact thatmany of our ordinary sentences are by the supplementary clauses, secondarypropositions, and qualifying phrases they contain made relatively involved,there is the fact that there is great variety among the sentences in a page: now long, now short, now formed in one way, now in another, so that a doubleprogress in heterogeneity in the style of composition is displayed.

On passing from spoken to written language, we come upon several classesof facts, having similar implications. Written language is connate with Paintingand Sculpture; and at first all three are appendages of Architecture, andhave a direct connexion with the early form of settled government -- thetheocratic. Merely noting the fact that sundry wild races, as the Australiansand the tribes of South Africa, are given to depicting personages and eventson the walls of caves, which are probably regarded as sacred places, letus pass to the case of the Egyptians. Among them, as also among the Assyrians,we see mural paintings used to decorate the temple of the god and the palaceof the king (which were, indeed, originally identical); and as such theywere governmental appliances in the same sense that stage-pageants and religiousfeasts were. Further, they were governmental appliances in virtue of representingthe worship of the god, the triumphs of the god-king, the submission of hissubjects, and the punishment of the rebellious. And yet again they were governmental,as being the products of an art reverenced by the people as a sacred mystery.