from them proceed the hopeless and helpless weaklings who are born paupers, bred paupers, die paupers. The greatness of degeneracy receives horrible illustration by this statement "The difference in weight of brain between the highest and lowest men is far greater, both relatively and absolutely, than that between the lowest man and the highest ape.' "" 1 The average weight of man's brain is 1400 grammes, of woman's 1250 grammes. Owen found the weight of a gorilla's brain to be 425'19 grammes (15 ozs.). Huxley thought that it may reach 567 grammes. Cuvier's brain weighed 1830 grammes-this is one of the largest known. One of the smallest was that of a Bojes-woman, which only weighed 872 grammes-more than twice that of a gorilla. Another fact, savage men, far from growing into higher intelligence by means of continual effort to increase their brain-power, already possess about one-third more than they use. Their mental property is an inheritance larger than they occupy; not an acquisition laboriously gained in the past, and so fully used in the present as to win enlargement for the future. To credit low forms of humanity with being the fathers of all that is great and good, ignores the fact that there is "hardly a single point of excellence belonging to the human character, which is not decidedly repugnant to the untutored feelings of human nature." Courage, cleanliness, disinterestedness, self-control, truthfulness, justice, are all a conquest over some natural impulse. Henry More says—“ Of a truth, vile epicureanism and sensuality will make the soul of man so degenerate and blind, that he will not only be content to slide into brutish immorality, but please himself in this very opinion that he is a real brute already, an ape, satyr, or baboon; and that the best of men are no better, save that the civilising of them and industrious education have made them appear in a more refined state. . . . But as many as are thus sottish, let them enjoy their own wildness and ignorance; it is sufficient for a good man that he is conscious unto himself, better bred and born." 2 Even those who are better born and bred know that it is easier to lose than increase the good. In the Australian bush and backwoods of America, individuals of the Anglo 1 "Man's Place in Nature:" Prof. Huxley. We have not grown Good too Fast. 299 Saxon race, possessing the highest feelings and noblest instincts, rapidly fall into comparative barbarism. No Australian language counts beyond four-are Australians the future mathematicians? Some wild tribes live together in herds, do not know the use of fire, every attempt to introduce civilisation has failed, it rather accelerates their destruction. The Austrian missionary, Morlang, who long laboured among the negro tribes on the Upper Nile, says " Any mission to such savages is absolutely useless... these brutal natives are utterly incapable of any feeling of gratitude." He must be hopeful indeed who can believe that this is a generation tending to life. No teacher, no system of culture, has ever raised an ignoble race to the fore-front of human progress. There are no facts on which to base a theory of humanity grounded on brutality planting a paradise. Another argument has been lately put forth-" The sense of original sin would show, according to my theory, not that man has fallen from a high state, but that he was rising in moral culture with more rapidity than the nature of his race could follow." 1 The theory is rather marvellous: we have been growing and growing, for millions and millions of years, very very slowly, and yet we have grown too fasthave outgrown our clothes. After all, we are a new race; translated into new conditions, our nature and instinct fail us; new men, made rich, we know not how to behave. Very few will accept the theory that we are too good already, and are rising in moral culture with more rapidity than our nature can follow. In correction of such views turn to God, and all is light; turn from Him, and all is dark. The Chinaman has for thousands of years been under "a system of examination notoriously strict and far-reaching; boys of promise are passed on from step to step until they have reached the highest level of which they are capable." 2 "Chuan Yuan, the senior classic and senior wrangler thrown into one, ," the best man out of four hundred millions, is so finished and polished that he remains for ever unruffled by any emotion or conviction that anything he does is immoral or wrong. He ought long ago to have outgrown his clothing, but he has not the least sense of having gone too far for the nature of his race, or too rapidly grown in purity. 'Galton's "Hereditary Genius." 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. The conscience of the poor negro is much more readily aroused than the conscience of a Chuan Yuan. The statement-"History is not wide enough, nor any recorded time sufficient, to take in the ages during which brute-man grew into human-man," surrenders the argument as to quick growth. There is truth in Schiller's words"Es wachst der Mensch mit seinen grössern zwecken," man grows as grow his greater aims; but, going back to the utmost limit of geological eras, there is no evidence that any inferior grew into a superior animal, one creature into another creature, that the nature of any surpassed that nature. During the historic thousands of years no creature regenerated itself, nor took one step thitherward. Are we to believe, against all experience, in asserted transformations beyond our experience? Ancient seeds, found in Egypt and Switzerland; the frescoed likeness on ancient walls of olden animals; are of the same form and size as those now existing. Variations are narrowly limited, and if the laws of Nature are unchangeable, no time, however extended, would suffice to make plant become animal, nor brute grow into man. We maintain the faith in which we were nurtured -“God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them." Those from whom the dignity of human life recedes, the Divine life recedes also. ii. It is asserted that Human Language was developed from Animal Cries. The improbability is felt at once: but a fact of great value may be gathered from the assertion. Sounds produced by animals and birds, notes evoked by the wind, mysterious noises of the forest, strains of musical instruments, are represented in the human voice. No wonder that some resemblance to human language should be found in utterances of the beast; yet those utterances were no more the guiding principle in formation of language, than the perpetually rolling ocean, in its motion rhythmically repeated, can be said to have taught the human artist, in the outflow of his own emotion-now gently gliding, now gracefully leaping, now violently stirred-to pour forth a stream of sound which brings to our mind mysterious moods, and raises our soul to the regions of everlasting harmony and repose. Origin of Language. 301 William Humboldt said- Man is man only by means of speech, but in order to invent speech he must be already man. . . According to my fullest conviction language must be regarded as naturally inherent in man, for it is altogether inexplicable as a work of his understanding in its simple consciousness. . . . There could be no invention of language, unless its type already existed in the human understanding." It is by use of language that we have the story without an end that angels throng to hear, which makes every faithful man one of a thousand. "To wish is to speak beyond hearing. It gives speech to the dumb, and to the deaf it gives ears. It is a telegraph of the mind to distant ages. To write and teach evil is to continue sinning in our grave." Co-ordination of many groups of muscles is necessary for speech, and the nervous arrangement of the brain is en rapport with the complexity of the function. Idiots never speak well, yet it is as natural for man to speak as for bears and birds to brum and twitter; whereas the large air-sacs of the gorilla, and most anthropoid apes, are incompatible with speech. There is no trace in man of these remarkable structures.1 It is impossible to trace all words to imitative and exclamatory sounds; we frequently come upon roots of fixed form and general meaning which are unexplainable; science stands helpless. There is no record, nor reliable tradition, that any race invented a language. All modern speech, however varied and adapted, has been derived from ancient; cognate roots strike into a depth of common structure. The educated man to-day uses substantially the method of the savage-expanded and improved in working out details. Speech represents mainly the same intellectual art, no new central principles are discovered, even the American languages seem rather the work of philosophers than savages. It is impossible to believe that the highly complicate and accurate ancient tongues, Sanscrit, Greek, Latin, were the workmanship of creatures not far removed from the brute: nor is it credible, judging from experience, that any time, however vast, could have sufficed to enable unaided mute creatures to invent, develop, and perfect the languages now in existence. There "Cassell's Natural History;" see Gorilla: P. Martin Duncan, F.R.S. is language because there is reason, and but for language reason would speedily be degraded. Did the beast or God give the origin to Job's (xxvi. 2, 3) wise questions? "How hast thou helped him that is without power? How savest thou the arm that hath no strength? How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom? and how hast thou plentifully declared the thing that is?" It was asserted by travellers, when language was seen to be the frontier line between man and beast, that human beings existed without religious ideas and without language. We were told, again and again, that the Veddahs in Ceylon have no language. Sir Emerson Tennant wrote--" "They mutually make themselves understood by signs, grimaces, and guttural sounds, which have little resemblance to definite words and language in general." In reply to this, Professor Max Müller1 states that more than half of the words used by the Veddahs are, like Singhalese itself, mere corruptions of Sanscrit; their very name is the Sanscrit word for "hunter," veddah, or, as Mr. Childers supposes, vyâdha. If they now stand low in the scale of humanity they once stood higher; they may possibly prove, in language if not in blood, the distant cousins of Plato, Newton, Goethe. The dwarf Negrito race, an early if not primitive type of humanity, as we are assured by Professor Owen, like those of some prehistoric races in Europe, have "a quadrumanous unconsciousness of nakedness," yet possess a language. Language seems a necessity of our race, and the direct consequences of intuition changing into idea; the capital act of language is the wish to speak.3 2 Low orders of men have poor languages, and little or no distinct sense of large numbers; some, as the natives of Kamtchatka, possess numerals, say to 100, but can only count to twenty by means of fingers and toes. Will it be said they are the latest evolutions from animals; their language is the most akin to brutal voice, an invention growing with the growth of their culture from low to high degree? We think not. The actual is—“ From the highest to the lowest, all men speak; all are able to interchange such thoughts as they have. Language, then, appears clearly 1 "Address." International Congress of Orientalists, 1874. 2 "De l'Origine du Langage : " M. Renan. 3 "Discours de la Connaissance des Bêtes: " Father Pardies. |