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Oxon. Fellow of the Eoyal Societies of London and Edinburgh ; one of the Examiners in Music to the University of London. The great and justly celebrated work recenth- published by Professor Helmholtz, of Berlin, " Tlie Doctrme of the Perception of Musical Sounds, considered as a Pliysiological Basis for the Theory of Music," consists of two parts, which may be called the Physical and the Musical Parts respectively. Tlie former, containing the author's novel investi- gations and discoveries in the domains of Acoustics, has been already made familiar in this country by popular illustrative works ; but the latter portion, which is the more interesting to the musical public, as containing the philosophical application of these investigations and discoveries to the Science of Music, has received, as yet, but little attention, and can only be studied in the elaborate form in which it exists in the author's treatise. 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LECTURES AND DISSERTATIONS LAZARUS GEIGEE, AUTHOR OF "ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF HUMAN SPEECH AND REASON. ^ran0lateti from ti)e Seconti (Serman (EBnition BY DAVID ASHEE, Ph.D. CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE BERLIN SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF MODERN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE. LONDON: TKUBNEE & CO., LUDGATE HILL. 1880. [All rights reserved.] TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. It is a source of lively satisfaction to me to have been chosen as the medium of introducing to the English public the late lamented author of the follow- ing Lectures and Essays, one of the most original thinkers Germany has produced in recent times, and the "greatest of her philologers," as he has been styled by a competent judge. His work itself, how- ever, will best speak for him, and needs no commen- dation on my part. Let me only add that, though these Lectures and Essays, now submitted to the Eng- lish reader, are but " chips " from the author's *' work- shop," as it were, yet I believe they afford a good glimpse of his eminent powers and brilliant genius as an investigator. But a word, I feel, is needed on behalf of myself as translator, l^o one can be more fully alive than myself to the difficulties of translation, and hence it is not with a "liprht heart" that I ever 576219 vi TRANS LA TOR'S PREFA CE. undertake the task. If I have ventured to do so on this occasion, it was owing to my belief in the adage : Amor vincit omnia. Love of the language into which I had to translate, happened to combine, in this instance, with love of the subject and adlniration of the author. From his exceedingly clear, aye, pellucid style, my difficulties have certainly been considerably lessened ; still, a conscientious translation is always an arduous task, and I can only hope, conscious of having honestly striven to do justice to the original, I may have succeeded in likewise satisfying the English reader. THE TKANSLATOR. Leipsic, June 1880. PREFACE, In editing the following Lectures and Dissertations of my late brother, I have to crave the indulgence of the public for having ventured, as a non-scientific man, to undertake such a task. But I deem it my duty not to withhold from the world any of the author's investigations, and now put forth, as a first instalment, the present pages, which the departed was about himself to revise for the purpose of publication when death overtook him. The first five Disserta- tions are a literal reprint of the Lectures as they were delivered, and partly already published; only in the second I have added from the MS. a passage in brackets which had been omitted in delivery so as not to exceed the measure of time allotted to each speaker. The last Essay, written in 1869-70, was intended for a scientific periodical, and was to open a series of similar dissertations. The unremitting viii PREFACE. endeavour which ever distinguished the author to improve and perfect his labours prevented him from sending the Essay to its destination, as he was not spared to give it a final touch. ALFRED GEIGER. Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Junt 1871. CONTENTS I. LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN THE HISTORY OP THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN RACE . I II. THE EARLIEST HISTORY OP THE HUMAN RACE IN THE LIGHT OP LANGUAGE, WITH SPECIAL RE- FERENCE TO THE ORIGIN OF TOOLS . . 32 III. ON COLOUR-SENSE IN PRIMITIVE TIMES AND ITS DEVELOPMENT 48 IV. ON THE ORIGIN OP WRITING .... 64 V. THE DISCOVERY OF FIRE 90 VL ON THE PRIMITIVE HOME OF THE IN DO-EUROPEANS II 7 I. Language and its Importance in the History of the Developinent of the Huma7i Race, [A Lecture delivered at the Commercial Club of Frankfort-on-the- Maine, December 7, 1869.] In the restless activity which science displays in our times, there appears, with ever-increasing distinctness, a phenomenon which, more than any other, confers on it a noble humanity and significance : it is the inter- penetration of the practical and ideal. The period is not yet far behind us when practical and scientific labour stood apart from each other as strangers. On the one side was seen the great mass of the toiling people, who did not understand how to respect their own activity, and were almost ashamed of it ; on the other, erudition, confined to a class, and often barren of any result. Occasionally there arose a lonely un- comprehended thinker, who carefully concealed himself from his contemporaries, because to be understood was almost sure to entail excommunication and death. Ho\v different is it now, when mechanical labour finds a hif^rher reward in the elevatincj consciousness of having co-operated in the mighty and arduous work of rendering mankind happy than in the wages it earns, 2 LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. 'a]a^Vhe]n,sc?;enc'e' takes refuge in warm, feeling hearts, to share their cravings and hopes, and perhaps, too, to raise them to those heights from which she has de- scended ! The chemistry of our days gives us information ahout the air we breathe, the provisions we are to select ; it teaches us how to cultivate the soil and how to pro- duce thousands of objects of art and industry ; but at the same time it lays open to us the mysterious nature of things. In decomposing before our eyes an appar- ently uniform body into various invisible elements, it rends the veil of outward appearance and of illusion, teaches us to doubt the evidence of our senses, and at the same time to comprehend the perpetual trans- formation and growth in nature. Mechanics, by means of which man's machines are built and the giant forces of heat and electricity rendered subservient to his use, at the same time put the great question to him, what light, sound, heat, and electricity are ; and suggest to him a primitive power which disguises itself, as it were, in all these phenomena, appearing now as sound, now as heat, and may be finally transformed even into mecha- nical force, a pressure, or an impulse. Equally so the study of language, besides its practical objects known to us all, has in our days acquired an incom- parable philosophical importance, seeing that it affords a key to one aspect of the world and existence which physical science could never have reached, and gives us an explanation of what we are and of what once we were, of our reason and our history. LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. 3 The first commonplace object which may induce us to study languages is, in the first instance, a purely practical one. We may wish to find our way in the streets of some foreign city or learn to converse with foreigners who have come to visit us. But, however commonplace such a proficiency may be, it already touches, without our always being aware of the fact, upon a marvellous domain. We face a being which thinks as we do, but which seems by nature to be relegated to another sphere as regards its mode of expression. The strangeness of this phenomenon is felt by every one who, for the first time, hears a foreign child speak its native language or sees him- self surrounded abroad by people all speaking a foreign tongue. Language seems to us so natural and human, and it seems such a matter of course that what we say should be at once understood — and now, all of a sudden, behold ! there is a barrier between man and man, analogous to, though infinitely thinner than, that between man and the brute, who likewise do not understand each other by nature, and can learn to do so only very imperfectly by art. The first discovery of a people speaking a foreign language must have been attended with tre- mendous surprise ; at least as great as the first sight of men of a different colour of the skin. In speaking a foreign tongue, therefore, we surmount in reality a barrier raised by Nature herself, and as the ocean, which, in the words of the Eoman poet, was created to separate the nations, has by navigation been con^ verted into an immense channel of communication, 4 LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. the study of living languages tends to create an asso- ciation of men out of groups of peoples scattered about by nature. In reading distinguished authors in a foreign language, we feel a kind of emancipation from the narrow boundary of nationality; new spheres of thought, new conceptions are opened up to us with every newly unlocked literature; the peculiar forms in which each people clothes its divinations, its love, its scientific thought, its political hopes, and its inspi- rations, enrich our minds ; all these become ours, we become all these. And how much greater will be our profit if we do not content ourselves with merely crossing the boundary line which a mountain or a stream or an accidental circumstance in the migration and spreading of our ancestors has drawn for our nation, but find in language a means of penetrating the darkness of ages, of transposing ourselves into the past in order to communicate with the minds of primeval times ! It is no small matter to say to one's self, " These words which I am reading, the sounds which I am reviving with my lips, are the same as those with which Demosthenes once called upon his native city, ensnared by treason, to try to regain her freedom, — the same in which Plato couched his own and his master's lofty teachings." By the Nile on the Theban plain there is seen a gigantic statue of King Ameno- phis, enthroned on high — the so-called pillar of Memnon — sixty feet high. In the days of the Eoman Empire there was heard in this statue daily at sunrise a musical sound ; all the world went on a pilgrimage to LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE, 5 the miraculous statue ; men and women for centuries left their names and hymns of praise expressive of their admiration inscribed on the gigantic monument, and told how they had beheld its stupendous size and heard its divine song. Homer resembles this Memnon statue. If all who have for millennia repaired to this marvellous monument of the earliest ages of Greece in order to listen to the sounds of the dawning of European poetry, could have left us their names in- scribed at his feet, what a catalogue it would be ! But however incalculably great is the influence which the treasures of ancient literature have exercised and are still exercising — thereby, at the same time, bearing an elevating testimony to the immortality of the crea- tions of the human mind, even beyond the life of the language in which they are written — yet they present another aspect which is calculated to stir our hearts, if not more strongly, at all events more deeply. The authors of past ages tell us a great deal that is sug- gestive and instructive, in the same way as they im- parted it to their compatriots, for whom they designed it ; but in doing so they, in addition, betray something else which they could not intend at all. Involuntarily they afford us, by a casual description, or an uninten- tional word, that was superfluous for them but is invalu- able to us, a picture of the life of their time ; and what results from the careful collection of all these minute traits is the lesson that human thought and volition, from the earliest times of which a record has come down to us, have been subject to a mighty trans- 6 LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. formation. Accordingly the writings of ancient times are no longer mere literary productions for us to enjoy, and to enjoy so much the better the nearer they come to our own time and the more congenial they are to our minds, but they are monuments which we study, and which, on the contrary, we grasp at the more eagerly the older and more alien they are to us. The conscious- ness of the importance of literature in this sense is of very recent date ; nay, I may say it is not even now sufficiently developed. It is true the study of antiquity has been in vogue ever since the revival of learning at the beginning of the modern era, but its object was not to gain from the reports of the authors an idea of the condition of mankind in their days, but inversely to gain that knowledge of the state of antiquity which was requisite for the purpose of understanding the authors. Even down to the last century Homer was judged by the standard of poets in general. He was ranked, let us say, by the side of Tasso or Milton, in the same way as we may mention Shakespeare and Schiller together. At length F. A. Wolf came forward with the question whether Homer had had any know- ledge of the art of writing, and more especially had practised it himself ; and having negatived it, he argued that such extensive poems could not possibly be pro- duced by a single person from memory. He then endeavoured to show that we have in them the work of many individual singers, who composed short detached pieces and recited them to the cithern, as the singers mentioned in Homer himself were wont to do. No LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. 7 doubt he had not yet found the right solution, and the question as to the origin of the Homeric poems con- tinues even now to be discussed over and over again ; but it is indubitable that the matter of these poems cannot possibly have sprung from one head. The Trojan war is not a true history dressed up by the poet, still less is it his own invention ; but in reality it is, with all its details, a primitive popular belief, much older than any line of any existing epic. Achilles and Odysseus are not imaginary poetical characters, but were demigods of the Greeks in primeval times; and mythology, with all its oddities, far from being invented by the poets for the purpose of ornamenting their poetry, was, on the contrary, the sacred conviction of that primeval age. The stories of Hera struck by Zeus in his anger and suspended in the clouds, of Hephsestos, who wishes to come to the rescue of his mother, and whom Zeus seizes by the leg and flings down to the earth, where he alights in Lemnos and is picked up half dead, formed in the age of Voltaire the subject of sneering criticism ; they were, in his eyes, insipid fancies, which a polite poet at the court of Louis XIY. would certainly not have indulged in. But there is no doubt tl>at, whoever was the Homer of these and similar poems, he fervently believed in the truth of precisely such legends. They were sacred to him and his audi- ence ; they were already then ancient and not under- stood; they conceal some deep mysterious meaning; how and when may they have originated ? Here the problem of the formation of myths, of the origin of 8 LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE, faiths, the solution of which has only just begun, is exhibited to our view. While an unexpected background became thus visible behind a book which thousands had read and fancied they understood, the present century has resuscitated an even remoter antiquity, and gained for the investi- gation of primitive times a new subject, the very extent of which alone cannot but raise astonishment, and of which our ancestors dreamt as little as of the great technical inventions of our age. We now know monuments and writings compared with which all that formerly was regarded as most ancient. Homer and the Bible included, appears almost modern. The French expedition to Egypt under Napoleon I. had an importance for European science similar to that which Alexander's to the East had : it gave rise to the investigation and representa- tion of ancient Egyptian monuments, and at the same time to the discovery of that ever-memorable stone of Kosetta, which in an Egyptian and Greek inscrip- tion contained the proper nouns that led to the de- cipherment of the hieroglyphics. Two discoveries, indeed, concurred in bringing about this great result. The one, already previously made, was that the language of the ancient Egyptians was substantially identical with the Coptic, still preserved in the eccle- siastical literature of the Egyptian Christians; the other is ChampoUion's, that the hieroglyphics were a phonetic, partly even an alphabetical, writing. Those singular pictures, which had so long been thought LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE, 9 confused symbolical mysteries of priests, turned out to be writing once accessible and intelligible to the whole people. It was not always profound wisdom which was hidden beneath these hieroglyphics: over a picture representing oxen might be read the simple words, " These are oxen." Champollion read and trans- lated innumerable inscriptions ; he composed a gram- mar and a dictionary of the hieroglyphics, and already in the first of his works, masterly both for their style and matter, he communicated the decipher- ment of a quantity of names of Eoman, Greek, and national rulers of Egypt, from which an entire history of the kingdom up to an incredibly early period began to dawn. There appeared, composed of hieroglyphics, the names of Alexandres, PhUippos, Berenice, Cleopatra, Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, Ves- pasianus, Titus, Domitianus, Nerva, Trajanus, Had- rianus, Antoninus, Diocletianus, as well as Xerxes and Darius, Psammetichus, Shishank, and Eameses; and gradually there were gathered and identified from pyra- mids and rock-tombs, from the walls of temples and palaces, the whole long list of names which Manetho, a priest of the time of Ptolemseus Philadelphos, has preserved to us — a list of thirty dynasties, to the six- teenth of which, at the earliest, belonged the first Pharaoh, the contemporary of Abraham, mentioned in the Bible. The 331 names of kings which the Egyptian priests enumerated to Herodotus from a papyrus, the 346 colossal wood-carvings of Theban high-priests which they showed him, as they had succeeded each lo LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. other from father to son, all men and sons of men, without a sinojle orod or demisjod, are no lonf^er fables for us. All the Pharaohs have risen from their graves, and in addition to them the numberless gay pictures of a full and abundant life of the people, all ranks and all occupations being preserved with wonderful fidelity, and domestic scenes of touching truth and simplicity, three and four millennia old ! No inconsiderable relics of literature, too, have been found, — documents from daily life, historical records, and poetry, and of the sacred books, especially the so-called Book of the Dead, upon which criticism has already laid its hands, trying to separate a more ancient nucleus from subsequent commentaries. Far less important, but interesting as the solution of a problem which seemed almost impossible to be solved, is the decipherment of the Persian cunei- form writing. On a precipitate side of a rock about 1500 feet high, near Bisitun, in ancient Media, there was found, at an inaccessible height, the coloured relievo-portrait of a king, who, attended by his guards, sits in judgment upon his vanquished foes. One of them is lying prostrate, and the king sets his foot on his body; nine others are standing chained before him. This relievo is surrounded by not less than a thousand lines of cuneiform characters. Similar char- acters were found on the rocks of Nakhsh in Eustein, on the ruins of the palaces of Persepolis, and in other places. But neither the writing nor the language of the inscriptions was known ; aye, not even an LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. ii approximate guess at their contents could be made. How could hopes be entertained of their ever being read ? And yet we have succeeded so completely that at this day we are able to read the Persian inscriptions with nearly the same certainty as Latin. The first successful attempts in this direction were made here at Frankfort. Professor Grotefend, since 1803 vice- principal of the grammar-school of this city, with the sagacity of genius, recognised in some briefer inscriptions, copies of which were at his command, the passages where names of kings were to be ex- pected, and with a rare gift of combination he dis- covered, by a comparison of the names of the Persian rulers known to us according to their sounds and the relationships of the kings bearing these names, those of Xerxes and Darius. The latter called himself in an inscription son of Hystaspes; this, too, Grotefend recognised on finding that, in agreement with history, the title of king was absent in the case of Hystaspes. He had at once recognised in the Persian cuneiform inscriptions an al^abej^ic writing: from the names deciphered he traced out part of the alphabet and attempted lo read entire inscriptions. Upwards of thirty years, however, elapsed ere Professor Lassen succeeded in discovering an alphabet complete in all essentials, and, the science of language having mean- while made rapid strides, and languages which had great affinity with ancient Persian having become better known, in actually deciphering and translating the inscriptions. At present we read on the Bisitun 12 LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE, monument a whole history of the reign of Darius in his own words. The man on whom the king, armed with a bow, puts his foot, is the false Smerdis, or, in Persian, Barthiya, known to us from Herodotus. The inscription beneath his portrait runs thus: "This is Gumata, the magician ; he has cheated ; he said : I am Barthiya, son of Kurush. I am king." On the sites where Nineveh and Babylon once stood there have been quite recently, as is well known, like- wise brought to light, amongst ruins of palaces and imposing sculptures, numerous inscriptions, especially tiles and cylinders, bearing cuneiform writing — the only gloomy remnants of Assyrian and Babylonian magnificence and universal empire. Here, too, the problem was not only to decipher unknown contents conveyed in an unknown writing, but first to discover a language, nay, several languages, the very existence of which had partly been unknown. Fortunately the Assyrian language is met with on Persian monuments too; on several of them one and the same inscription is repeated in the Persian and Assyrian languages ; and the Persian text having once been deciphered, it also afforded a clue to the decipher- ment of the Assyrian. In order to appreciate the ejBPect which the coming to light of all these new and yet most ancient marvels could not fail to produce on the conception of our time, we need but realise the impression made by a ruin only a few centuries old, or the excavation of an ancient coin or utensil, or even a mere rough stone LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. 13 that in olden times passed through the hands of man, and still shows traces of having done so. The curiosity raised by what we have never before seen, the desire and craving of lifting the veil from the realms of the past, and of catching a glimpse, at least, of what has for ever perished, are blended with a feeling of awe and devoutness. How peculiarly are we moved at the sight of the slightest object brought to daylight from the buried streets of Herculaneum and Pompeii ; how many reminiscences it evokes ! In the case of an unknown, strange antiquity, however, that suddenly begins to revive and stir before our eyes, every one feels something analogous to what we feel at the sight of the curious extinct animals of the antediluvian world — the Ichthyosauri and the Mastodons. We cast a divinatory glance at unmeasured periods of creation, and begin darkly to guess at that great mystery — the mystery of our development. And yet it was not the treasures discovered beneath the soil which were destined to contribute most to the elucidation of tihat mystery. The finding, nay, one may say, the discovery of two literatures, which were indeed defunct, but were so in no other sense than the Latin or Hebrew — that is to say, which still continue to be studied and reverenced by living peoples — this discovery, with its consequences, it was which formed an era in European conception as to the past of humanity. Both literatures were dis- covered in East India. Zend literature, the sacred writings of the ancient Persians, ascribed to Zoroaster, 14 LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE, had been carried away with them to India by the Par- sees, who remained faithful to the ancient religion, on their flying from their native land to save themselves from the Mahomedans. Sanskrit literature is the holy national literature of the Brahmanic Hindoos them- selves. The merit of having discovered and promul- gated these treasures, of which, until about the middle of last century, no European scholar had any inkling, is due, in the first instance, to the English and the Erench, who were at that time engaged in a mutual struggle for the possession of India. The knowledge of the Zend writings we owe before all to Erench, that of Sanskrit to English science. It is German scholars, however, who in a pre-eminent degree have thoroughly investigated both, and who have more especially made use of them in perfecting linguistic science. As Columbus, urged on by an irresistible impulse which made him overcome all doubts and surmount all diffi- culties, went in quest of the western hemisphere, so Anquetil du Perron, from 1754, searched for the cele- brated writings of Zoroaster among the priests of the Parsees in India, and employed his life in translating and commenting upon them. Nothing more strikingly exhibits the contrast of our times to those than the disappointment which the writings, brought home at so much sacrifice, then caused in Europe. Of the wisdom which so great a name led to expect they con- tained but little. On the other hand, the god Ahura- mazda occasionally revealed in them things which, from their childlike naivete, could only call forth smiles ; LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. 15 so especially the well-known passages referring to the dog, the sacred animal of the Persians, in which the mode of his keep, his punishment when he bites, his character, his treatment in illness or when not quite in his senses, and how one has to proceed if he refuses to take the medicine, are discussed with solemn gravity. Yet the question as to the character of the people's imagination, by what motives it must have been swayed when the Persians nursed the dog with such solicitous care, or when the Egyptians built vaults at Memphis to the holy embalmed corpses of Apis, sixty- four generations thereof lying buried there, is of such importance to us, that we willingly forego the wise teachings of those times, seeing that there is no lack of such in our own days, would we but listen to them. We are here reminded of an incident communicated by Professor Max MuUer touching that portion of San- skrit literature which is the most important to us — the Yedas. A talented young German, Dr. Eosen, who died at an early age, being occupied in the rich library of the East In^lia Company in London with copying the Veda hymns, which he commenced editing in 1838, the enlightened Brahmin, Eamahan Eai, being then in London, could not wonder enough at this undertaking : the Upanishad, he said, were of greater importance and much more deserving of publication. These, the young- est portion of the Vedas, contain a mystic philosophy in which may be found a kind of monotheism or pan- theism, which seemed to the Hindoo rationalist, as to many others, the non plus ultra of all religious wisdom. i6 LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE, But in reality the primeval Veda hymns, quite pagan, naive, and often grotesque though they are, of which the Hindoo with his modern culture may have been secretly ashamed, but in which the youth of mankind breathes with delightful freshness, are to us the true jewel of Sanskrit literature. They do not, indeed, con- tain a religious system available for us, but they teach us how the religion of man was developed. The knowledge we gained of the Sanskrit language in itself, however, quite apart from its literary trea- sures, was perhaps productive of still greater effects. That language, notwithstanding the wide space that separates us from it, exhibited a close affinity to our European languages. There were found in it the words jpitar father, mdtar mother, hhrdtar brother, svasar sister, sunu son, duhitar daughter ; names of animals, such as go cow, hansa goose (German Gans) ; and numerals, such as dvau 2, trajah 3, shat 6, ashtau 8, and nava 9. This is quite a different relation from that existing between our language and French when we borrow from it such a word as, for instance, Onkel. Sanskrit has not only its vocabulary in common with German, but even the inflection : e.g., asti ist, santi sind. In words bor- rowed from the French, on the contrary — as, for in- stance, in marschiren (to march) — we retain the German inflection, and say, for instance, ich marschire (I march), du marschirst (thou mar chest). In eliminatino- from a language all foreign words, its vocabulary indeed diminishes, but nevertheless a complete languao-e still remains. Cognate languages, on the contrary, have so LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. 17 much in common that, were we to eliminate all of it, only something quite incomplete would be left. French, for instance, is closely related to Italian, and we here see quite plainly why both languages would cease to exist if they were to abstain from all the words and forms they have in common. The reason is, French was not by any means a finished lan- guage which borrowed Italian words, like German when it admitted the word Onkel, but the resemblance arises from the fact of French and Italian being both derived from the Latin, thus once forming a single lan- guage, viz., this very Latin. Such, too, must be exactly the case with German and Sanskrit; both must once have formed one language ; only this one language, of which German and Sanskrit may be almost called the daughters, as French and Italian are of Latin, is no longer extant. We know there has been a people that spoke Latin, viz., the Eomans. Equally there must have been a people that spoke the original language from which Germa^ and Sanskrit have descended, a people that existed at a time when there were as yet neither Germans nor Hindoos. Not only German, however, but Latin, Greek, Eussian, and all the Sla- vonic languages too, as likewise the Keltic, and in Asia the Armenian and Persian, with some collateral branches, are related to Sanskrit. The ancestors of all those peoples who spoke these languages must, there- fore, have constituted one people, together with the ancestors of the Germans and Hindoos, and the science of language must therefore assume a primitive people iS LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. much older than anything we know of in European history. Where it had its seat is not yet determined, still less the time at which we have still to think of its being united. On the other hand, language ajffords re- markable indications by means of which we may ascer- tain something as to that people's stage of culture. The common prehistoric language referred to can \ obviously have had words only for such objects as the ^people that spoke it were acquainted with. Thus if, for instance, shi'p in Sanskrit, as in Greek, is naus, in Latin navis, a word akin to our Naue and Nacheii, the Indo- European prehistoric people must have known the ship. Equally we find a common word for oar, but none for sail. Vehicles must likewise have been known to that people ; of arms it knew the sword, but scarcely the bow. In all probability the custom of painting and tattooing it had in common with the aborigines of America and Australia. Our word Zeichen (sign) is not only connected with zeichnen (to design, draw), but also with the Greek arly/Jba and to stigmatise, i.e., to tattoo. The first sign, and the first design, were those which were tattooed in the skin. Here we have an example of the employment of words as keys to the history of human civilisation. A word which we use now, but which originated at an earlier time, very often enables us to guess at the for- mer condition of the thing which it denotes. Suppose, e.g., we did not know what writing material preceded our steel pen, the word pen would perhaps suggest to us that it was taken from a bird. Such inferences, LANGUAGE AXD ITS IMPORTANCE. 19 indeed, lead far, very far back. If we do not limit them to a single family of languages, but endeavour to gather, as far as possible, all that is preserved of such indications in the languages of the whole earth, results will be arrived at of the utmost importance to our knowledge of the earliest ages of mankind. In our retrospect we finally come down to a condition which, though superior to that of animals, is yet inferior to that of any savage people whatever of whom history contains a record. All human beings possess tools, and have within the memory of man always possessed them ; aye, such possession belongs to the distinguishing character- istics of man as compared to animals. But now there is to be traced in a great number of the words denoting activity with tools a more ancient idea, implying an analogous activity, but such as is carried on with natural organs. What follows thence ? I believe nothing but that, as in modern times we have in writing passed from the bird's feather to the metallic pen, as in primeval times tattooing changed into drawing and writ- ing, so at a much earlier period all cutting to pieces was preceded by tearing. Man was at one time with- out tools^and in his outward mode of life differed but little from the animal. And as it is with the outward man, so the inner man, too, shows a strong contrast. If we regard his moral condition, we must not, in look- ing at prehistoric times, ask merely whether man has since improved, whether the passions have softened down and crimes diminished. We find, on the con- trary, and that partly down to historical times, the A% «/« >t»*v^ i^* 20 LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. notions of good and evil differing very essentially from ours, e.g., cannibalism, not merely practised out of glut- tony or barbarism, but regarded as a downright good and religious action. The notions of justice at the period when the Indian Code of Menu originated rested so entirely on a fantastic foundation, that, according to that code, an individual of the lower caste, for striking a member of the higher one with a stick, was to lose his hand, and for kicking him, his foot. And in con- formity with this, the breaking of a dyke is menaced with the punishment of drowning. This purely out- ward mode of retaliation, according to which justice is not sought for in the due proportion between the pun- ishment and the gravity of the offence committed, but in a material similarity between the two, is met with at the lowest stage of legislation among all nations. The oldest Eoman and German laws contain many such provisions. Thus we find in German antiquity the chopping off of the hand as a punishment of perjury, for no other reason than because the hand is raised in taking the oath. To the same category belongs the law of retaliation (lex talionis), which, was already known by this name to the Eoman law, and formed one of the most ancient elements in the laws of the twelve tables. But almost everywhere we find, as nations enter on the stage of history, the progress already made that, under the form of compensation and ransom, a new practice has been substituted for the primeval formulae, and a changed, more developed conception of law has taken ■ their place. The Biblical " eye for eye, tooth for tooth," LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. 21 was already in ancient times interpreted to mean a cor- responding fine, and the interpretation probably acted on throughout the historical period. If capital punish- ment appears to us at present most justified in the case of murder, we must not forget that this penalty is, after all, based only on the same principle of retaliating like for like, and therefore on a fantastic foundation. If we examine the words, those oldest prehistoric testimonies, all moral notions contain something morally indifferent. G-erecht (just), e.g., is only equivalent to recM, richtig (right) ; it is connected with ragen, recken (to stretch), and originally meant stretched out straight. Now Gerechtigkeis (justice), however, is not by any means likened merely to what is straight, such as we speak of straightforwardness of mind ; but, in reality, it only means the right, straight way. Treu and ivahr (true) are actually eq'aivalent to trustworthy ; still earlier they only signified firm, fortified. Bose (bad) we still use of what is damaged, and say bad (rotten) apples, bad (sore) fingers. But why have not the morally good and bad their , own names in the language ? Why do we borrow them / from something else that had its appellation before ? ^ Evidently because language dates from a period when a moral judgment, a knowledge of good and evil, had , not yet dawned in man's mind. / And as regards the intellectual condition of man, it must likewise have once been incredibly low. Thus it is not to be doubted that numeration is a relatively young art. There are still nations that cannot count 22 LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. three. But, what says more than anythiDg, language diminishes the farther we look back, in such a way that we cannot forbear concluding it must once have had no existence at all. Here I am touching upon the diffi- cult question as to the connection between language and thought ; and indeed I can to-day do no more than touch upon it. We can only imagine man to have at any time been without language under the supposition that the other advantage which distinguishes him now, reason, had not as yet manifested itself either. In the case of certain ideas, the dependence on the words is more particularly obvious. Thus the numbers, for instance, cannot possibly be separated from the nume- rals. Mere sight scarcely shows the difference between nine and ten. A child that cannot count will not perceive that of ten cherries one or two have secretly been taken away. For larger numbers counting is absolutely requisite ; without it no one will be able to distinguish a hundred objects or persons from ninety- nine. The dim feeling of the more or less which here supplies the place of consciousness would, if we wholly lacked names for the qualities, resemble the not less vague feeling that the one differed from the other, but we should not be able to account for it. Where language does not suffice, we are to this day in the same position. We cannot, for instance, clearly explain to ourselves wherein the difference between the national features of Frenchmen and Germans con- sists. Let us imagine a time when as yet there was no definite designation for hlach, and the contrast LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. 23 between the negro and the white man will be found to have then been doubtless perceived equally vaguely. If now, again, there was a time when man had no such words as " lamb," " dog," or " cat," the perception of the differences between these species of animals must have been much less distinct than ours. Though a dog differs considerably enough from a cat, and though we all alike think of something definite in using the word " dog," yet it will be extremely difficult to an individual not scientifically trained to state at once the charac- teristics by which a dog may be at a glance distin- guished from a cat. He will, if he tries, soon perceive that he never thought of the minute differences, but had always contented himself with the vague impres- sion which all the characteristics taken together pro- duce. And it is just here where the origin of the word played a great part. We must consider what a great difference in the understanding of a piece of music the knowledge of the notes makes; how the non-profes- sional man in a changed melody notices indeed the change, but only obscurely and without knowing in what it consists. But notes are to music what lan- guage is to the objects of human thought. Now, if the mind of man, according to all this, exhibits at that dark, immeasurably distant period, when language had not yet originated, an immense inferiority to its present condition, we shall in the next instance be eager to learn wherein his actual divergence from the animal consisted. And this eager- ness will be the greater, as in this very divergence y 24 LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. the reason will have to be found why he in the sequel developed language and reason and the animal did not. This question, I think, can only be answered out of lanoruage and its earliest contents themselves. I be- lieve I have found out that language originally and essentially expressed only visible activities. And this circumstance remarkably coincides with the fact that animals, especially mammalia, have only a very limited sense for the visible world in itself. On the whole, it is true, they see the same that we do, but they take interest in but few things. The dog, e.g., recognises his food solely by scent, so that when his olfactory nerve is cut through he is quite at a loss how to choose his nourishment, and com- mits the most incredible mistakes. When the traveller Kohl traversed the steppes of South Eussia, the well- known phenomenon of the Fata Morgana appeared on the horizon, and raised within him, as if by enchant- ment, the illusory hope of finding in the arid, waterless plains a large refreshing surface of water. His Tartar coachman explained the phenomenon, adding the horses could not be deceived, " for," said he, " they smell the water." The same may be said of the camels of the Arabian desert : they, too, are not exposed to the dis- appointments which occasionally await the languishing caravan through the flattering sense of sight. Certainly there are individual objects which interest the eyes of the mammalia, especially of the carnivorous species. At least I have decidedly noticed a cat being deeply interested in pigeons flying past at a rather considerable LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. 25 distance, though she could see them only through a closed window. Of course, it was only a very selfish interest that actuated her. It is only in the ape that the sense of sight and the interest in the visible world assumes more importance. We see mankind at a low stage of civilisation stiU availing themselves of the faculty of scent, and examin- ing objects by its means, while we are wholly deficient in such a faculty. At length sight attains higher x and higher dominion, and the interest concentrated / upon it seems therefore to be the real privilege of man. Jf now it could be proved that the importance of sight increased and extended in the course of history such as it is reflected in language, such a fact would be tantamount to a development of our race from a mere animal to a human nature.^ And it does seem capable of proof. Eeason in the species at large undergoes the same process as that which in individual instances we witness in ourselves on a smaller scale. When the Eomans for the first time came into contact with the Germans, they were so overwhelmingly struck by their high statures, blue defiant eyes, and light hair, that Tacitus says they all look alike. We should at first receive the same impression among a negro population. A nearer acquaintance enables us to perceive the dif- ferences which previously escaped, us. Something analogous happened to the earliest generations of man, only that it was the whole of creation which they had first slowly to learn partly to distinguish according to its individual objects and partly to notice at least with 26 LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. interest. And what may it have been which they soonest noticed in such a way? It was that which was nearest their hearts — the motions and actions of their fellow-men. For what ever again captivates and gratifies man most is man. Even the glory of Nature herself would fill us with shuddering if we knew our- selves alone, quite alone. Only exceptionally and temporarily things that do not live and act as we do can affect us. I will not attempt to describe the moment when for the first time the impression of a human motion found sympathetic expression in an uttered sound. But permit me to mention an incident which I have myself witnessed, not without surprise, and which is analogous to the moment that lies at such an immeasurable distance beyond all our recol- lection. A boy who had been almost totally bereft of hearing by an illness at an age when he was already able to lisp a child's first words, passed with his mother through our town on her way to our vicinity, where she hoped to get her unhappy child cured. The hand- some, lively boy was then six years old, and had long since forgotten the little he had ever spoken. He had lost all power of speech, but he could hear loud, rumbling noises. A carriage happened to drive past, unseen by him. Quite like a younger child that can hear, the boy put his finger to his ear, prepared to listen, and then waved his hand as if he were cracking a whip. It was, therefore, not the rolling of the wheels which he heard, nor the trotting of the horses which had most vividly impressed him. He chose, out of LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. 27 all that belonged to the carriage, only the one human action which he had witnessed on beholding the phenomenon of the rolling carriage, and imitated that action. And he did so in order to communi- cate his impression; but the whole interest of this communication consisted for the child only in the desire of awakening the like sensation within us that he felt; it was, in fact, only an expression of his own inward sensation. And such an expression, without any other purpose but the impulse to ex- press ourselves, to give utterance to our joyful interest in what we see, we must assume to have alone origi- nated the first sound, the germ of all speech. The evolution of language, which has long since clothed with its sounds the whole rich intellectual world from one primitive sound, has perhaps at first sight something surprising in it ; but there is no other solution of the riddle involved in it. The various attempts to find a reason why we name one object by one sound, another by another, have failed. We can, indeed, find a reason why we designate the head of man by the word Koipf. This word is nearly related to Knfe (coop or vat). Ko^pf, properly speaking, means skull, and in all probability in the sense of a drinking vessel, reminding us of those days when the skull of the enemy was converted into a drinking-cup. We likewise know " foot " to be derived from a root imply- ing " to tread." But as we proceed the possibility of assigning reasons ceases. The root of " foot," just men- tioned, was primarily 'pad ; but why the sound pad 28 LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. happened to be chosen for the meaning of " to tread " cannot be accounted for. It was thought, down to the most recent date, that the oldest roots had been imitations of animal sounds ; others have seen in them a kind of interjection, such as ah ! eh ! In the one case the root 'pad would be an imitation of the sounds produced by steps ; in the other, perhaps an expression of the surprise that was felt on hearing such steps. Max Miiller has sneered at both these hypotheses, bestowing on them the appellation of bow-wow and pah-pah theories — bow-wow being intended for an onomatopcetic designation of the dog. He himself is of opinion that man is a sounding being ; that his soul, in the earliest times, by means of a now lost faculty, like a metal, as it were, had responded to the ring of various objects in nature, and thus produced words. This view has not escaped a sneer on its part either. It has in England been called the ding-dong theory. What alone perfectly corresponds with experience is, that from one word several others spring differing in sound and meaning. A word for shell {Schale) may, on the one hand, come to mean husk, and on the other be used for tortoise-shell, drinking-cup, nay, for head. But that in this way all words have proceeded from one original form has not only its significant analogy in the history of the evolution of the organisms in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, but also in the origin of the nations, such as language itself teaches it. How different are Germans and Hindoos ! How much does the German language differ from the Sanskrit ! Only LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. 29 science recognises their identity, and shows that what is now different must once have been identical. And 'o^^ c< if we compare the difference between French and Italian with the much greater one between German and Sanskrit, and consider that only the longer separa- tion and greater distance of the nations from each other has called forth these differences, we shall at least not deem it impossible that all the languages of the earth have sprung from one single germ, and have only grown to be so very different by a still longer period of separation. That variety should proceed from unity seems to be the great fundamental law of all evolution, both physical and mental. In language this law leads us back to a quite insignificant germ, a first sound which expressed -the excessively little, the only thing that man then noticed and saw with in- terest ; and from that germ the whole wealth of lan- guage — aye, I do not hesitate to pronounce it as my conviction — all languages were gradually developed in ,^ the course of many, very many millennia. Thus we have come down to a primitive condition of man's mind, of which both the prospect and retrospect is equally great, far-reaching, marvellous, aye, even deeply affecting. The moment when the faculty of speech took its rise cannot well have coincided with that of his coming into being. As a being that neither speaks nor thinks, at least certainly not in the sense in which we are conscious of thinking as our own inborn human possession, man belongs to another sphere, and becomes subject to the history of the evolution of the animal '30 LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. kingdom. Thanks to the aid of language, the for- tunes of humanity, from its emerging from the animal condition up to its complete maturity, lie spread out more clearly before us. These I have to-day endea- voured cursorily to pass in review before you. It could not be my intention to convince by proofs, seeing that in such a narrow compass they would probably have been mere semblances of proofs. Enough for me if I have succeeded in awakening within you a sense of the mighty past of the human race. Of such unfathomable depth nature is here too ! Our deeds, our thoughts, all have an incalculably old pedigree, and to be man is a high nobility, though one that is newly acquired by taking a higher flight from generation to generation. No doubt occasionally, when on the farthest horizon the infancy of our race is seen to rise, when of the noble features which confer on man's stature its proud dignity, one after another threatens to fade from his picture, a melancholy, an uneasiness may seize us on looking down from the height on which we stand to so low a depth, in fact, on our primeval, now so metamor- phosed, selves. But between the infancy of man and his manhood lie the well-preserved ideals of his youth, the virgin blossoms of his thoughts, his works of art, reli- gion, and morality, the offspring of his beautiful and glowing inspiration. The veneration for the lofty crea- tions of antiquity, the admiration of all the great things that preceded us, and that we now, combined as they are to such wealth, are permitted to behold, enjoy, and 1 understand — these are our own undiminished posses- LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE. 31 sions, inviolable like an imperishable sanctuary. And who would venture to assert that we have already- reached the goal? Who knows whether the mighty movement which now, seizing all the nations of the earth, its waves rolling farther and farther, and rising higher and higher, and uncontrollably trans- forming our feeling, thinking, and acting, is not that very everlastingly young impulse of growth and deve- lopment ? And should there still be on this dark path on which we are led, without man's own individual will being able materially to promote or check his pro- gress, any guiding star, any ray of enlightenment, it will probably be nought else but that very light of consciousness which is dawning upon us in our days — the consciousness of our past. , ( 32 ) 11. The Earliest History of the Human Race in the Light of Language, with Special Re- ference to the Origin of Tools. [Read before the International Congress for Archaeology and History at Bonn, September 15, 1868.] The questions which have been placed at the head of your transactions comprise subjects of mighty import to the history of man, and, at the same time, of an almost unlimited range. If I now venture to express my views on a part of them, I am aware that the shortness of the time allotted to me will permit me to place only a very slight sketch before you, and I have asked permission to speak less for the purpose of dis- cussing results than with a view to directing your attention to an important source and method for such inquiries, hitherto taken notice of but sparingly. Archaeology proper, i.e., the searching out and investi- gating of palpable relics of antiquity, has to contend with difficulties which, it would seem, menace to set it limits before it can reach its final goal. I will say nothing about the more accidental difficulty of deter- mining with certainty, in each instance, the age of an HISTORY IN THE LIGHT OF LANGUAGE. 33 object found, and of duly appropriating it. But the higher the antiquity and the more primitive the con- dition of man, the more imperfect and the less durable must be his works, at least beyond a certain boundary : thus fewer relics will obviously have been preserved of a wood age than of a stone or metal age. At the same time, too, man's works are always the less recognisable the less artistic they are. We might, therefore, just happen to discover, from times which are the most important to the origin of things, implements in which we could not with certainty recognise the human hand that fashioned them. Besides, it is with these rude productions of art as with everything that has come into being ; we see them lie before us, indeed, but they tell us nothing about their origin or the mental process that preceded it. If there ever was a time when man was as yet without any tools and altogether without any industrial art, his earliest dwellings can at most manifest this to us by silence. Precisely as regards that remote period, I believe I may appeal to language as a living testimony, and I would beg of you to permit me just to touch upon this linguistic archaeology, the results of which I hope soon to publish in the second volume of my work on the Origin of Language and Eeason. Man had language before he had tools, and before he practised industrial arts. This is a proposition which, obvious and probable in itself, also admits of complete proof from language. On considering a word denoting an activity carried on with a tool, we shall invariably find 34 EARLIEST HISTORY it not to have been its original meaning, "but that it previously implied a similar activity requiring only the natural organs of man. Let us, e.g., compare the ancient word mahlen (to grind), Muhle (mill), Latin, molOy Greek, fivkr]. The process, well known from antiquity, of grinding the grains of the bread-fruit between stones, is no doubt simple enough to be pre- supposed as practised already in the primitive period in one form or another. Nevertheless, the word that we now use for an activity with implements has pro- ceeded from a still more simple conception. The root mal or mar, so widely diffused in the Indo-European family of languages, implies " to grind with the fingers" as well as "to crush with the teeth." I would remind you of mordeo, " to bite," and the Sanskrit root mrid, which implies to pulverise and to rub, e.g., one's forehead with one's hand ; of the Greek fioXwca, to spread over and soil with flour, mud, or the like, which may be compared to the Sanskrit mala, " soiling," Gothic mulda, " soft earth." On the one hand, fieXaf;, " black," on the other, fiaXa/co^, mollis, " mellow," belong to this class ; aye, so do even a number of designations of morass-like fluids and the word Meer (sea). In German, two different words from cognate roots per- fectly coincide in sound: the mahlen (grinding) of the corn and the malen (painting) of pictures. The fundamental meaning of both is to rub or spread with the fingers ; and an equally close resemblance may be found in the designation of these two notions in the Latin ]pinso and pingo. IN THE LIGHT OF LANGUAGE. 35 This phenomenon of the activity with implements deriving its name from one more simple, ancient, and brute-like, is quite universal ; and I do not know how otherwise to account for it but that the name is older than the activity with tools which it denotes at the present time ; that, in fact, the word was already extant before men used any other organs but the native and natural ones. Whence does sculpture derive its name ? Sculpo is a collateral form of scalpo, and at first im- plied only scratching with nails. The art of weaving or matting is of primeval date ; it plays a part in the earliest religious myths. History records no stage of culture which was wholly without it. As the Greeks often describe Athena to be employed in weaving, so do the Veda hymns make the sun-god, the goddess Aramati, and, in a mystic sense, the priests, occupy themselves with that work. Of the sun-god, e.g., they say, with reference to the alternation of day and night, " Such is the divinity of Surya, such his greatness, that amid his work he draws in again the stretched-out web." The root here used for to stretch out at the same time supplies the word for the warp of the texture, while the weft in Sanskrit is denoted by the root ve, the simpler form of our word weben (to weave), similar to the English weft and woof. If, now, we compare with this root the various others closely related to it, and beginning with the same consonant {w), e.g., the Latin vieo, many of them afford a hint enabling us to say on which objects the art of weaving, or rather matting, may first have been employed. The 36 EARLIEST HISTORY Latin vimen, for instance, which, properly speaking, implies a means for matting, is used of branches of trees and shrubs in their natural state and growth, and especially so far as they are worked up into all kinds of wickerwork, or serve as ropes for binding, of their artificial state. The Weide (willow) derived its name in the earliest times from the special fitness of its branches for such purposes, and so did many species of grass and reeds. That plant the fibres of which have pre-eminently continued among us to be made use of in the art of weaving, viz.. Flacks (flax), has its name from flecliten (plaiting), as Flechse (tendon), i.e., " band, sinew," clearly shows. Simple mattings of fibres of plants and of flexible twigs are the first objects of art in this department ; but language leads us still a step farther back. There are words in which the idea of the entanglement of the boughs of the bush or of trees with dense foliage is found so intimately allied with the plaiting of plants that it becomes probable this natural plaiting may have served the artistic activity of man as a model. The sight of closely entwined branches and of reeds growing in luxuriant entanglement, keeping pace with the transformation in the culture of man, gradually led to the first roughly plaited mat as a product of his art. Aye, the natural plaiting of the tree was, perhaps, the first object on which his art was practised. There are still extant transitions which render it ex- tremely probable that a kind of nest-building in the branches of trees with dense foliage was natural to IN THE LIGHT OF LANGUAGE. 37 man in the earliest times, and sufficed him for the preparation of his dwelling. From Africa, in so many- respects a land of wonders as regards the history of man, the traveller Barth gives an account of the Ding- Ding people, of whom he says they partly dwell in trees. In much the same low condition are the ex- tremely barbarous inhabitants of the island of Anna- tom, who use the branches of certain groups of trees fit for the purpose as a kind of very primitive hut. Of the Puris, Prince Maximilian, in his description of his Brazilian tour, tells us something similar, only that they, in addition, have the hammock, which is peculiar to the South Americans, and seems to be a remnant of their former habit of sleeping between the branches of trees. The word Hdngematte (iiammock) has come to us, along with the thing itself, from those parts. It belongs to the language of Hayti, where Columbus found it in the form of amaca, and whence, in various languages of Europe, it was transformed into hamac, hammock, and (among the Dutch) into hangmack, until finally, by misconception, it became hangmat, Hange- or Hdnge-matte (in German). Another point, viz., the figure of man, seems to me to be a decided indication that the tree must have been his original habitation. His erect gait finds its most natural explanation in his former climbing mode of life, and from his habit of clasping the tree in his ascent we can best explain the transformation of the hand from a motory organ into a grasping one, so tliat we shall be found to owe to the lowest stage of our culture 38 EA RLIEST HIS TOR V that seems credible our distmirmsliinfT advantagjes — the free and commandinsj elevation of our head and the possession of that organ which Aristotle has called the tool of tools. However mighty the transformation of human acti- vity which the secrets hidden in words betray to us, yet we have no reason for seeing aught else in it but the sum of quite gradual processes, such as, in other instances, we still daily see going on. Since a compara- tively few years we have denoted by the word ndhen (to sew), no longer merely a manual work, but also one of the machine ; by scJiiessen (to shoot) we under- stand something very different from that which was understood by it previously to the invention of gun- powder. How very differently is a ship now constructed from what it was at the time when it differed in nothing from a trough, a hollow wooden vessel, such as the name indicates 1 How little resemblance is there between our locomotives and the first thing which was called waggon, and which, I have reason to believe, was nothing but a simple stump of a tree rolling down- wards ! The transformation of man's mode of life pro- ceeds very gradually, and we have the right to assume, I think, that it has never done otherwise. We must guard against ascribing to reflection too large a share in the origin of tools. The first simplest tools were doubtless of incidental origin, like so many other great inventions of modern times. They were probably rather stumbled upon than invented. I have formed this view more particularly from having observed IN THE LIGHT OF LANGUAGE. 39 that tools are never named from the process by which they were made, never genetically, but always from the work they are intended for. A pair of shears, a saw, a hoe, are things that shear, saw, or hoe. This linguistic law must appear the more surprising as the implements which are not tools are wont to be desig- nated genetically, or passively, as it were, according to the material of which they are made or the work that produced them. Schlauch (hose), e.g., is everywhere thought of as the skin stripped off an animal. Be- side the German word Schlauch stands the English slough; the Greek aaKo^; signifies both hose and skin of an animal. Here, then, language quite plainly teaches us how and of what material the implement called hose was made. With tools such is not the case, and they may, therefore, as far as language is concerned, not have at first been made at all ; the first knife may have been a sharp stone accidentally found, and, I might say, employed as if in play. It might next be imagined that if tools have been named from the work for which they are intended, an idea of such work must have preceded the name ; e.g., if a cutting tool is designated as something cutting, the idea of cutting seems thereby to be presupposed. But we know that all these words originally denoted ac- tivities which were carried on without any other than the natural tools. The word " shears" plainly shows this. It denotes at present a double knife, a two-armed cutting tool. I need hardly mention that this meaning was not the oris^inal one. Indeed the Hindoos and the 40 EARLIEST HISTORY Greeks have a cognate word signifying shearing (or shaving) knife, and the Swedish slzdra means sickle. It may be fairly assumed that shears and shearing knives were primarily used by the Indo-European nomads of primitive times in shearing sheep. At the same time, however, the custom, not of shearing sheep, but of plucking them with the hand, may be traced down to comparatively late times. Varro maintains it to have been the general process previous to the invention of the shears, but he also speaks of such as were still practising it in his days ; and even Pliny says, " Sheep are not shorn everywhere ; in some places the custom of plucking continues " (viii. 2, 73). The close connection between the word scheren (to shear) and scharren (to scrape), and, among others too, the Old High German name of the mole, scero, the scraping animal, render it besides more than probable that again the original meaning of the word was only to shave, to scratch, to scrape, and show the shears there- fore to have been conceived as a tool for scraping and scratching the skin for the purpose of plucking it. In this way we may suppose the names of the tools and the work done with them sprung by a slow process from a quite gradual evolution of human movements, such as they were already from the first possible to the body of man left to itself. Permit me, gentlemen, on this occasion, at least to point out a most important difference, which is cal- [ culated to make the expression " evolution " as applied to the tool a full truth. I mean the difference between I IN THE LIGHT OF LANGUAGE. 41 primary and secondary tools. The tool, observed in its \ evolution, marvellously resembles a natural organ ; ex- actly like this it has its transformations and its differ- entiations. "We should vrhoUy misconceive the tool if we always wanted to find the cause of its origin in its immediate purpose, just as we should misconceive the webbed foot of the duck were we to think of it as un- connected with the formation of the feet of birds that cannot swim. Thus, e.g., Klemm has already drawn attention to the fact that the^ gimlet originated in the / fire-drill of primitive times, that remarkable apparatus, the common use of which in various parts of the earth quite remote from each other would alone suffice to let us presume an external connection, an intercom- munication between the various peoples of the earth to an almost unbounded extent. The aborigines of North and South America, from the Aleutes to the Pescherse, and the Caffres in South Africa, as well as the Austra- lians, have the custom of drilling a stick of hard wood into a softer one, and to turn it round in the latter until the shavings themselves and the dry leaves used as tinder ignite. It is well known that this process, which, as contrasted with the use of the flint, repre- sents the^ wood age;^ is met with in quite a surprising agreement In the Veda hymns, where the two arani or friction-sticks play an important part in the sacrifice. Nor is this a solitary instance in which archaeology and linguistics teach us to trace back the condition of highly civilised nations to the lowest stage of culture still to be met with among one or the other savage 'P 42 EARLIEST HISTORY tribe, and lets us recognise a universal laio where we at first should have been disposed to see an isolated pecu- liarity. There is hidden in the history of language, nay in what often even later vrriters of antiquity betray to us, an immense deal which is of importance to the knowledge of our earliest history, and it will be pains well bestowed to penetrate into these depths and dig up their treasures. An analogy to the origin of the secondary tool by transformation is presented by the development of the musical string from the bowstring, such as Wilkinson has pointed it out. How well the bowstring was cal- culated to excite the musical sense to such an applica- tion is shown in a remarkable passage in Homer: " As when a man skilled on the cithern and in song lightly fastens the string to a new peg, tightening on both sides the well-twisted sheep-gut, so without labour Odysseus stretched his great bow. Then with his right hand he seized the string and examined it ; it emitted a beautiful sound, resembling the voice of a swallow" (Odyss. 21, 406 sqq.). How comparatively re- cent stringed instruments are may be inferred from the circumstance alone that, at the time of the discovery of America by the Europeans, none such were met with among the indigenous population. If we consider of what importance the sight of the vibrating string is to musical consciousness, we must admire the momentous effects which were produced by a trifling and accidental observation, by the chance possession of a bow provided with a vibratinfij sinew. IN THE LIGHT OF LANGUAGE. 43 In order to recognise how much we are ourselves still undergoing the process of a like transformation, and to gain, at the same time, a standard by which to judge of those [remote] processes, it suffices to point out the quite modern invention of the umbrella, which is an imitation of the primitive parasol, only for a different purpose. The parachute of aeronauts is likewise such a transformation. Do not such develop- ments of the productions of man's ideas and volition present a parallel to what happens in nature when, under altered conditions and necessities, the arm is, in the case of birds, converted into a wing ? But it may here be mentioned that the parasol, in the earliest times, served religious purposes, and we here arrive at a new point of the highest moment in the history of implements, which I can here only touch upon. Eeli- gion, in its primitive form, gives so mighty an impulse to the customs, conceptions, and creations of man — it was, in fact, the source of so much of whose connec- tion with religion we have not the faintest notion — that without entering upon its investigation we are unable ever to learn to understand from an historical point of view our own doings, and more especially the objects that surround us, that have been produced by our hand, and distinguish us in our outward life from the brute. The use of implements shaped by himself is more decidedly than aught else an evident distinctive char- acteristic of man's mode of life. For this reason the question as to the origin of the tool is a subject of the greatest moment in our early history, and I therefore 44 EARLIEST HISTORY thought I might treat the question as to the nature of the implements of man in primitive times in this partly rather narrower, partly wider sense. I do not hesitate to assert that there must have been a time when man did not possess any implements or tools, but contented himself to work wholly with his natural organs; that then followed a period when he was already able to recognise and use accidentally found objects resembling those organs, and by their aid to enlarge, heighten, and arm the power of his natural tools ; e.g., to employ a hollow shell of a plant as a sul> stitute for the hollow hand, which was the first vessel. Not until after the employment of these objects that accidentally presented themselves had become fami- liar did man's creative activity in the shape of imita- tion take its rise. [Perhaps, gentlemen, you will the more readily permit me to cast a side glance at one special prepara- tive activity, seeing that it is likewise connected with another subject proposed to this meeting for discus- sion, viz., our nourishment. Among the various modes of preparing food, boiling is naturally one of the most .recent. Cook found the aborigines of Tahiti totally unacquainted with the process of boiling in pots; meat they roasted either by the fire or in earth- holes between hot stones. The Homeric heroes, too, ate their meat roasted on the spit or stewed in the pan ; boiling it in water seems to have been unknown to the poet. Thus, too, the German word kocfien^ " to boil," is a foreign word derived from the Latin coquo. IN THE LIGHT OF LANGUAGE. 45 The idea is clearly developed from direct preparations by the fire, such as roasting and baking, even in words from which these meanings were subsequently wholly excluded. One more step and we find these very words, which, from denoting the effect of the boiling water, have returned to express that of the fire, used of the sun. Thus the Greek TreVo-a), " to cook," still implies in Homer to ripen, and this mean- | ing the Sanskrit ^ak likewise bears. The Eussian 'pdch still signifies the burning, stinging of the sun. A very remarkable adjective from the same root, in its notional relations common to the early period of the Greek and Sanskrit languages, leads us still farther. It is the Greek ireircov, Sanskrit jpKhi'a. IHttcov, signi- fies " ripe ; " in Homer and Hesiod, however, it does not occur in this sense, but in another which cannot have sprung from the former. They invariably use it as an address ; in two passages it signifies a reproach for indolence or cowardice ; in many others, however, it is equivalent to "0 dear one." In observing the use of the word paJcva in the Yeda hymns we shall not be able to find in it a reference to cooking or ripening either ; it there obviously means only " sweet " or " eatable." The fact is, it is used not only of grain, of a tree, of branches, when it may mean to ripen, but also of milk in the frequently recurring thought "In the living cows, the black, the red, thou hast put the milk, ready and white." " Sweet " may be the meaning of the Greek word too in the insinuating address, and when, e.g.^ the dazzled Cyclop in the 46 EARLIEST HISTORY " Odyssey " says to his favourite ram, Kpil irkirovy we shall have to render it by " sweet or tender ram.'* As a reproach, however, it would, according to the de- velopment of the word, mean effeminate or lazy. Herewith, then, all that refers to the preparation of food has disappeared from the word kochen (to cook), for to this the adjective in question bears close affinity. From something soft and eatable, let us say, from some fruit met with in this condition, the idea merges into that of softening by the sun, by fire, or boiling water. By the way, let me observe here that language shows no period when man did not eat meat; on the contrary, it seems to have been his earliest food. At the same time there is nothing to show that it was from the first prepared in any way ; it was, doubtless, for a long time consumed in a raw state only.] The vestiges of his earliest conceptions still pre- served in language proclaim it loudly and distinctly that man has developed from a state in which he had solely to rely on the aid of his organs, differed little in his habits from the brute creation, and with respect to the enjoyment of existence, nay, to his pre- servation, depended almost entirely on whatever lucky chance presented to him. He became more powerful the more his ability to avail himself of the things around him increased. And how came it to be in- creased ? Simply because his faculty of 'perceiving the things increased, a faculty which is none other than reason itself. It is the theoretical nature of man IN THE LIGHT OF LANGUAGE. 47 that has made him so great. The present age has opened for the tool a new grand development; it creates in the machine, which is constantly being perfected and becomes more and more powerful, an implement emancipated from the hand of man, and inspiring its own maker with a peculiar admiration. It is not accidental that in this same age mankind should endeavour with so much consciousness to reflect on its past, and a meeting such as yours should make the beginnings of human culture the subject of its scientific investigations and debates. The state of culture of our species and its historical conscious- ness are quantities that increase simultaneously. We at once, with wistful and searching glances, take a retrospective view of the dark past from which we have started, and with bold hope look forward towards the no less dark goal whither we are being led. Shall we ever wholly penetrate the night of the primeval ages? Shall we ever reach the goal of perfection that so temptingly lures us onward from afar? We do not know. But our inner impulse irresistibly urges us on to pursue our inquiries in either direction and bids us march on ! ( 48 ) III. On Co lotir- Sense m Primitive Times and its Develop7nent, [Read before the Meeting of German Naturalists at Frankfort-on-tlie- Maine, September 24, 1867.] The subject to which, for a brief space, I would request your attention, will, I hope, not be found unworthy of it. Has human sensation, has perception by the senses, a history ? Were the organs of man's senses thousands of years ago in the same condition as now, or can we perhaps prove that at some remote period these organs must have been incapable of some of their present functions ? These questions, it is true, fall within the province of physiology, or, if I am permitted to coin the term, oi jpalceo-]physiology ; but the means of answering them necessarily differ to some extent from those which in general are at the command of natural science. By means of geological "finds" we may gain a conception of the skeleton, and perhaps the whole external appearance, of an extinct species of animals; we can from remnants of skulls draw general conclusions as to an imperfectly developed human race of early times; but it would ON COLOUR-SENSE, 49 be difficult to form an idea from the sight of the head, the remnants of which have been preserved in the Neander valley as a problem for our days, as to how it may have thought. Fortunately, the history of the mind, too, has its primeval relics, its deposits and petrifactions of another kind, affording more instructive explanations than one should be inclined to believe; and, if carefully pursued, they lead to perhaps unexpected, but, I think, on that account not less trustworthy results. The history of colour-sense is of paramount im- portance to the total development of sensation. In the earliest mental productions that are preserved to us of the various peoples of tha earth there lies stored up an uncommonly rich material for the study of the impression which colour made in primitive times ; and I beg, in the first instance, to direct your attention to a negative result that arises from a search into that rich material. At an early stage, notwith- standing a thousand obvious and often urgently press- ing occasions that presented themselves, the colour hlue, is not mentioned at all. If we consider the nature of the books to which this observation applies, . the idea of chance must here be excluded. Let me first mention the wonderful, youthfully fresh hymns of the Eigveda, the discovery of which amidst the mass of Indian literature seems destined to become as im- portant to the present century in awakening a sense of genuine antiquity as the revival of Greek antiquity at the threshold of modern times was to that period in D '-" h; 9'/ 50 ON COLOUR-SENSE. arousing the sense of beauty and artistic taste. These hymns, consisting of more than 10,000 lines, are nearly all filled with descriptions of the sky. Scarcely any other subject is more frequently mentioned; the variety of hues which the sun and dawn daily display in it, day and night, clouds and lightnings, the atmos- phere and the ether, all these are with inexhaustible abundance exhibited to us again and again in all their magnificence ; only the fact that the sky is blue could never have been gathered from these poems by any one who did not already know it himself. I re- frain from adducing proofs, which, in order to be ex- haustive, might easily swell on to the entire contents of the books, and will only state, with respect to the astronomical standpoint of those poems, that, according to all appearance, they know of a lunar year with a thirteenth intercalary month; in genuine passages, however, hardly the name of any constellation is men- tioned, and most certainly not the difference between planets and fixed stars, which, indeed, belongs to the relatively late discoveries of the ancient science of astronomy. The Yeda hymns represent the earliest stage of the human mind that has been preserved in any literature, if one may use this term of hymns transmitted orally. But as regards the blue colour, the same observation may be made of the Zendavesta, the books of the Par- sees, to whom, as is well known, light and fire, both the terrestrial and heavenly, are most sacred, and of whom one may expect an attention to the thousand-fold hues ON COLOUR-SENSE. 51 of the sky similar to that in the Vedas. The Bible, in which, as is equally well known, the sky or heaven plays no less a part, seeing that it occurs in the very first verse, and in upwards of 430 other passages besides, quite apart from synonymous expressions, such as ether, &c., yet finds no opportunity either of mentioning the blue colour. Nay, even in the Homeric Poems the blue sky is not mentioned, although in the regions where they originated^ it exercises such a special charm on every visitor. You will grant that such a series of agreements cannot well be deemed mere chance, but that we must seek an explanation of them in some law. The words by which we designate the colours are divided in two easily recognised classes. The most definite, but at the same time most recent terms, are as a rule derived from objects which have a definite hue and admit of easy comparison, e.g., strohgelh (straw- yellow), veilchenUau (violet-blue), rosa (pink). Such terms are artificial. At the time when words originated naturally, people contented themselves with the con- trast, for instance, between the yellow and the red ; all particulars appeared as insignificant niceties. In all spheres in which we are able to separate in language more recent notions from older ones we observe some- thing analogous. The notions start from extremities, and gradually pass on to designations of similar things of a less extreme character. I can here state this law only thus broadly. As to the colours, the indifference with respect to the intermediate ones rises, as we ap- 52 ON COLOUR-SENSE, proacli primeval ages, to an ever-increasing degree, until at length only the outermost extremes, black and red, are left. Aye, the historical progress may be shown to have taken place in conformity with the scheme of the colour-spectrum, so that, e.g.^ the sensibility to yellow was awakened before that to green. On the other hand, language, as may be easily conceived, does not acknow- ledge the proposition that black is no colour ; it desig- nates it at a very early period as the most decided contrast to red ; nay, more, it joins the weakest tone of the colour-scale for which it has still a name, viz., blue, to this dark end. Of the words that in any language are used for hluCy a smaller number originally signified green ; the greater number in the earliest time signified hlach. This ap- plies to our term llau (blue), which is to be met with in the Old North in the compound bld-madhr, " black man. Moor," and is related to the English " black." It equally applies, to mention a remote example, to the Chinese hiuan, which at present signifies sky-Uue, but in early times meant Uack. In ancient books it occurs in the combination hiuan te, te meaning virtue or merit, and both words together naturally not blue, but obscure or unknown merit. A word for blue at present diffused over a great part of Asia is nil, probably identical with the name of the Nile, which seems to be derived from the Persians.^ Nila, too, in ancient writings, signifies 1 The Nile, according to Greek records, is said to have originally been called "the Black." The name Neilos does not occur as yet in Homer (the Nile with him is called Aigyptos), and in Hesiod is per- haps not to be understood as applying to the Egyptian, but to some mythological river. ON COLOUR-SENSE. 53 only black, and is nothing but the Hindoo form of the Latin niger. What may have been the physiological condition of a generation that could have called the colour of the sky only black ? Does the contrast with us consist in the appellation or in the perception ? In this re- spect it is interesting to notice the singular gravity with which different colours bearing one name are considered alike. Thus a Hindoo philosopher, in investigating the cause of the blue colour of the sky, quotes a certainly somewhat strange opinion, according to which the cause is subjective, and the black colour of the eye is com- municated to the heavens, just as to the jaundiced eye everything looks yellow. No one, I should think, who reflects on the way in which Homer speaks of blue and violet objects will fail to be somewhat surprised. According to the ana- logies already cited, it may be less surprising that the word Kvavo/)09, which Hesiod uses of a green bough, in the Homeric poems almost everywhere quite un- mistakably signifies yellow: it alternates with w%/oo9, whence our Ocher (ochre) is derived. Only in a later DW^z^C)'a hymn to Apollo the same epithet bears the sense of the green of the mountain and the visible impression of the vegetable kingdom, which till then we find taken notice of only from the aspect of its utility, -i.e., in so far as it is appreciable by the taste. Yet the Greek word has never wholly acquired the meaning of our green, but always only that of a beginning of that colour, including yellow; and so late as in the Aristotelian "Book of Colours" it is contrasted with the proper green, which is paraphrased by " grass- coloured " or " leek- coloured." Another remarkable instance of the difference in the conception of a natural phenomenon at different periods is the rainhow. Aristotle, in his " Meteorology," calls it tri- coloured, viz., red, yellow, and green. Two cen- turies before, Xenophanes had said, " What they call Iris is likewise a cloud, purple, reddish, and yellow in appearance ; " where he leaves out the green, or, at all 58 ON COLOUR-SENSE. events, does not clearly define it. In the Edda, too, the rainbow is explained to be a tri-coloured bridge. Democritus and the Pythagoreans assumed four fun- damental colours, hlack, white, red, and yellow, a con- ception which for a long time obtained in antiquity.^ Nay, ancient writers (Cicero, Pliny, and Quintilian) state it as a positive fact that the Greek painters, down to the time of Alexander, employed only those four colours. This has been deemed incredible, since, with such appliances, neither the green of the earth nor the blue of the sky could be represented. But whatever may be thought of the statement of those writers, judging from the above-mentioned analogies, this objection does not warrant us to pronounce it false. There is nothing at all contradictory in the assumption that those times did not yet feel the want of representing the colours of the heavens and the earth. In one passage of the Zendavesta we have found the blossoms designated as fragrant ; in the Veda hymns I have not met with a similar epithet. The sense of fragrance too — and this remark will perhaps not be found quite unserviceable as an analogy for the ques- tions concerning the sense of sight — has not been at all times innate in man. The custom of offering incense with the sacrifice is not yet met with in the Rigveda, though it is found in the more recent Yadshurveda. Among the biblical books, the sense of the fragrance 1 The Chinese have since olden times assumed five colours, viz., green in addition to the above. The same we meet with among Arabic philosophers. I ON COL UR-SENSE. 5 9 of flowers first makes its appearance in the " Song of Songs." According to the description in Genesis, there were in Paradise all kinds of trees " that were pleasant to the sight and good for food." The apocryphal book of Henoch (of the last century before Christ, or still somewhat later), extant in Ethiopian, likewise describes Paradise, but does not omit to extol the delightful fra- grance of the Tree of Knowledge as well as of other trees of Paradise. That the sense of fragrance is not innate " may be proved from language too ; and though it may not be always advisable to draw an exact parallel be- tween the development of the child and that of the human race, yet in this case it is instru,ctive to observe how indifferent children for a long time continue to — fragrance, and even to bad odours. The objection that among the keen senses of savage tribes the sense of smell plays a prominent part is only an apparent one. Scent by means of the sense of smell materially differs ^ from the sensibility to pleasant or unpleasant sensa- tions that lie in the perception of odour itself ; nay, the two perhaps bear an inverse ratio to each other. As regards the brute creation the fact is self-evident. The dog is distinguished for his scent ; but how much soever this animal is extolled for his good and human-like qualities, his greatest admirer would hardly be tempted to gladden his dog with a nosegay. The sense of euphony or the pleasure of hearing has a similar history. That sense is not innate in man either. Man does not sing " as the bird sings that lives in the branches." There is no natural song any more than 6o ON COLOUR-SENSE. there is any natural plastic art. Art has its laborious reflected development, and with it the sense of art is developed. Here the results of linguistic science meet most decidedly those of physics and physiology. In returning to the subject of colour- sense, I should like to try and unroll before you, in however concise a completeness, the picture which I have gathered from a thousand details of the literatures and lin- guistic history of the human race. But I will only detain you some minutes longer in order to add a few words on the range of colours known to the earliest ages. In the genuine ancient Veda hymns there is not only no green, but even their yellow is not the pure colour of our spectrum. In the course of centuries the words signifying yellow lapse into the signification of green ; in earlier times they themselves spring from roots by which gold is wont to be named, ^.e., from yellow-red and red-brown. When in the pictorial representations in ancient Egyptian tomb-chambers we see the black- red-golden sun-fans carried about, we are reminded of the vast historical background on which is exhibited a primitive type of many a modern object. There really seems to have existed a Uack-red-golden age in the his- tory of the sense of sight. The genuine Eigveda hymns represent this stage in contrast to the white-yellow- red-black of the nascent Greek natural philosophy. In these hymns white is scarcely as yet distinguished from red. The circumstance that the colour-terms originate according to a definite succession, and originate so ON COLOUR-SENSE, 6i everywhere, must have a common cause. This cause cannot consist in the primarily defective distinction merely, for in the earliest times the colour of the sky is by no means called black or gold-yellow, which would be the proximately fittest word for its desig- nation, but no mention at all is made of it. It would seem, indeed, that we must assume a gra- dually and regularly rising sensibility to impressions of colour, analogous to that which renders glaring contrasts of colour so unbearable to a cultivated taste, while the uneducated taste loves them. Perhaps, too,-^ the intensity of the original impressions decreases in proportion as their extent and multir.Ticity increases. To men in the earliest antiquity at least the sense of the colours familiar to them was exceedingly keen and ' lively. The three phenomena upon which in reality the three colour-notions of that time were based — the night, the dawn, and the sun — produced an impression on the people of those times such as we are now scarcely able to conceive or to feel. The dualism of Hack and red stands out in very marked features as a first and most primitive period of all colour-sense behind the one hitherto described. But even this dualistic epoch is not without a recognisable beginning either. We can by the aid of etymology arrive at a still earlier stage, when the notions of black and red coalesce in the vague conception of something coloured. ^ The final decision as regards the nature of this whole development will only be come to by the co-operation of two scientific disciplines. It will not be possible, * * n \^ 62 ON COLOUR-SENSE. without availing ourselves of the important progress and discoveries which have been made in the most recent times precisely in the way of explaining the perception of colour; but neither will it be possible without a regard to the intimate connection of the i entire development of language and ideas, and to its bearing on sensation and conception. Here a whole world of antique relics for our investigation lies hidden, not in fragments, but in unbroken, well-connected links. The whole chain of development of each of our ideas up to its most primitive form is lying buried before us in words, and is awaiting its excavation by linguistic science. I have ventured to appear before you with a view to indicate the results to which this science is capable of leading us. Would I had succeeded in making you, gentlemen, share my own conviction that the time has ' arrived when linguistic and physical science, conscious of their common aims, must join hands. As the organ- ism, notwithstanding the twofold manifestation of its existence, constitutes an indivisible unity, so only undi- vided science can lead to a knowledge of it — the science of nature, vast, entire, and indivisible. F.S. — It is not without some hesitation that I sub- mit the above lecture to the public at large. It could only be a coinpressed and scanty extract from extensive researches made already ten years ago, and ever since, from time to time, gone into again and completed ; so that I am all the more fully aware how much there is still left for competent and reflecting readers to supply ON COLOUR-SENSE. 63 and to object to in its present form. To avoid the semblance of a completeness which time and place of delivery forbade me, I have even foreborne to add the more particular references to the passages quoted. I hope, however, soon to be able to publish all the facts bearing upon the questions here mooted, and must entreat my readers meanwhile to suspend their judgment on any doubtful point. As regards the general inferences, too, a fuller examination of many facts stated will naturally tend to modify them. Since, however, on the other hand, they likewise partly depend on the decision as to the relation between ideas and words, notions and sensations, I beg in this respect to refer to my inquiries into Language and Eeason, of which the first volume is in the press. What encourages me to do so is the indulgent and appreciative, and to me highly gratifying, manner in which the above lecture has been listened to by an assembly which numbers the most unprejudiced thinkers and investigators of Germany among its mem- bers. The universality of German physical sdence — a noble acquisition of perhaps only the last decennia — vouches for its having a great future, which promises to embrace all the interests of the human race. ( 64 ) IV. On the Origin of Writing. [Read before the General Meeting of the German Oriental Society at Wiirzburg, October 3, 1868.] If I undertake to submit for renewed investigation to a meeting of highly honoured colleagues the ques- tion as to the origin of writing, it is not my inten- tion once more here to discuss before you the origin of alphabetic writing, or of any other fully developed system. I rather propose to treat here the prehistoric beginnings of writing, so far as they may be inferred from the course which their development has taken since their appearance in history, and from other ana- logies. Only in this sense I beg you will permit me to take a brief survey of what has been revealed to us by historical discoveries about the origin of the systems of writing at present in use. The alphabets proper, it is well known, radiate, notwithstanding all their variety, from but a few centres. We not only know that our European characters are all pri- marily of Greek and secondarily of Semitic origin, but through Professor Mommsen's researches we also know exactly in what way the Italic alphabets have deve- ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING. 65 loped. The Gothic alphabet of Ulfilas is not less of Greek origin than the Cyrillian of the Slavs ; nay, even the Kunes are undoubtedly a form of development from the same source, having probably come at an early date to the Gauls by way of Massilia, and from them to the Teutons.^ Professor Albrecht Weber has made a Semitic origin of the Indian Devanagari, too, appear very probable, whereby a great number of Asiatic sys- tems of writing are referred to the same source, since not only the indigenous systems of Hindostan and Farther India, such as Bengali, Uriya, Telinga, Tamil, as well as the Burmese and Javanese systems, but also the Tibetan, are offsprings or sister-system^; of the Devana- gari. The writings of the Mongols, Tunguses, and Manchus, as Klaproth has already observed, are formed out of the Syrian by changing the horizontal into the upright position of the Chinese columns. If we add to these the still preserved characters of the funda- mental Semitic alphabet itself in its Hebrew, Ethio- pian, Samaritan, Zend or Middle Persian, Syrian, and Arabic branches, and if we further consider that the latter branch has been adopted by the Turks, Per- sians, Malays, and the Hindustani, we cannot but be astonished at the capability in such a discovery of being diffused from one point. Permit me only, for the sake of completeness, to mention the two youngest and ^ Lauth, on the contrary, assumes the German Runes to have come from the Teutons to the Gauls, and at the same time gives a different and satisfactory explanation of the passage in Tacitus, which has been construed to imply the un acquaintance of the Germans with alphabetic writing, by referring it to a merely epistolary intercourse. E 66 ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING. not least noteworthy scions of our alphabet, which are not borrowed from it, but merely invented in imitation of it from vague report, viz., the writing of the Cherokees, invented by Sequoyah about 1823, and that of the Negroes of the Vei country, dating ten years later, by Doalu Bukere. The two inventions present interesting points of agreement. Both the Indian and the African inventor, by observing the epistolary intercourse of the Europeans, were set to reflect on the possibility of writing their mother tongue ; both had an imperfect knowledge of the English alphabet. Neither of them set up an alphabetic, but both a syllabic writing. Sequoyah, indeed, had at first set up, as the Vei writing had, about 200 characters, but subsequently reduced them to 85. Leaving these psychologically interesting phenomena of the most recent times out of the question, of all the modes of writing in use on the whole earth, only the Chinese and the syllabic writing of the Japanese, formed out of it, may be with certainty excluded from the universal descent from the one Semitic alphabet. But the ever-memorable discoveries of the present century have made us acquainted, in the Egyptian hieroglyphs, with a most remarkable antique parallel to the Chinese; in various species of arrow-headed writing with very complete alphabets ; in the Assyrian with an intermediate stage between word- and syllabic- writing, promising the most important clues; and by the side of these we have the hieroglyphs of the abori- gines of America, being an as yet unsolved though not insolvable problem. Have we thus arrived at a last ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING. 67 and radical variety ? Do the three systems of picture- writing of the Egyptians, Chinese, and Americans, the mixed system of the Assyrians, and, finally, the alpha- betic writings of the Persians and Semites, offer ns at least six independent solutions of the gigantic problem as to the exhibition of our ideas to the eye ? Although the time for the final decision of this question has not yet arrived, I cannot forbear stating it as my conviction that such a sixfold origin of the most marvellous art which it was at all possible for man to create appears to me incredible. Nay, from what has in other respects forced itself upon my mind as probable with regard to a primeval intercourse between the entire human race, the diffusion of that art from one common centre seems by no means impossible. The original home of the alphabet destined to such wide dissemination was doubtless Babylon, which, since Professor Bockh, we have known to be the starting-point of the system of weights and measures universally adopted in antiquity, and come down thence to us, and the importance of which to astronomy and mathematics is perhaps not even yet sufficiently appreciated. The names of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are of Chaldean origin ; at least the occurrence of the camel as the name of the third letter precludes our thinking of Palestine proper. The Phoenicians may indeed have been the disseminators, but cannot have been the inventors, of the alphabet. Although the connecting links are not yet discovered, according to all analogy hardly any one, considering the close vicinity, will be inclined to be- 68 ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING. lieve that the ancient Persian alphabetic writing should have had a second independent origin. But I ask, did this Persian mode of writing originate independently of the varieties of the cuneiform writing connected with it, especially independently of the Assyrian ? Should not Egypt have been able to influence Assyrian writing in the earliest time, in the same way as at a later period Assyrian influence on the hieroglyphs becomes percep- tible ? The similarity of the principle of Semitic writing to that of the hieroglyphics, expressing as these do only the initial consonant of the word represented in the ) picture, was noticed already by Champollion at an early date.i On the other hand, the most ancient pictures, which, <^«A,\/wvv\^ according to Prof. Oppert, belong to a Scythian or Tura- nian people, and from which the arrow-headed forms are derived, have in them something that, as regards at least their general impression, reminds one of the an- cient Tchuen writing of the Chinese. Considered on the whole, there is no reason why we should think a trans- mission, at a very early period, of the rudiments of a system of writing from one people and part of the earth to another impossible. Nay, the traces discovered by 1 Already, in his "Lettre a M. Dacier," Champollion expresses himself clearly on this subject. He says, " J'oserai dire plus : il serait possible de retrouver, dans cette ancienne ecriture phonetique egyp- tienne, quelque imparfaite qu'elle soit en elle-meme, sinon I'origine, du moins le modele sur lequel peuvent avoir ete caiques les alphabets des peuples de I'Asie occidentale," &c. After dwelling upon the resem- blance of the two systems, he arrives at the conclusion, and says : *' C'est dire enfin que I'Europe, qui regut de la vieille Egypte les ele- ments des sciences et des arts, lui devrait encore 1' inappreciable bien- fait de I'ecriture alphabetique. " ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING. 69 Alexander von Humboldt of an intercourse that once ,, existed between Mexico and Eastern Asia do not even wholly exclude a migration of picture-writing as far as those parts. But as all this must still remain simply an hypothesis, we may meanwhile be quite satisfied with the inner unity which, so far as any mode of writing had a natural development, is every- where conspicuous. It may perhaps 'be regarded as an acknowledged fact, which only does not always admit of proof owing to the lack of authorities to refer to, that every phonetic symbol springs from a pictorial representation. As every element of language, even derivative syllables at present all b^'t meaningless, originally had its signification, so every letter was origi- nally a picture. This statement, however, must not be understood to imply that writing once originated in a species of painting, or that the first representation of man's ideas were paintings. Even if we leave all secondary employments of Chinese and Egyptian hiero- glyphics out of consideration, and assume a period when writing consisted only of the sensuous copies of things, such as a man, the sun, a bird, it does not on that account become — what misconception has to this day made of the Mexican — the total representation of an event intended for the eye instead of for the mind. That writing is a s^^bol for language, has been already said by Aristotle, and the definition is verified / by the hieroglyphics up to their very first origin. Even where the word and the thing coincide, the pic- ture is only the symbol of the word : it is intended 70 ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING. to awaken language, to remind ns of a sound, not of a thing ; to speak through the eye to the ear, not imme- diately to reason. Writing, in fact, is not an object for mute contemplation; it wants reading — loud reading. Kot like figures in a painting, but as words are co- ordinated to sentences, so must these pictures be com- bined to the totality of an action. They also represent the symbolised word to the whole extent of its idea, and not only from its symbolised side. Or can it be supposed that the Chinese picture for the sun ever signified the word shi only in the sense of sun and not likewise in that of day ? That is quite impossible. Precisely in the earliest time man with his whole reason was so completely under the dominion of the word, that necessarily a picture would signify what its name was, and be understood as it sounded when read. It is well known in what way the hieroglyphics could dwindle down to phonetic symbols, aye, even to mere letters. But in their earliest form they in- variably denoted words, never anythiug more. The fundamental law of the development of writing is the gradually growing independence of the sound, while at first sound and conception are represented as not divorced from each other. Of course not every word comes at once to be represented; those have prece- dence the conception of which, from its corresponding to something shaped, invites representation. Already at an early period the word-pictures contained more than could be conveyed in a drawing which had to ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING. 71 start from a far more limited object than the concep- tion of the word in all its bearings. The process of painting in words conquers a wider territory for the meanings of a sign : it gives the same sound a wider scope, seeking for conceptions which seem to coincide with what it originally denotes. The first mode, however, of multiplying signs by the representation of such words as, after the invention of word-pictures — which are to writing what roots are to language — had been brought to an end, had not fitted in with any of those extant, was that of forming col- lective pictures by juxtaposition. The Chinese simple pictures g shi, " sun," and^ yue, " mor.n," signify when placed together, the word ming, " lustre " ( 0y^ ). It can hardly be supposed that we have here the abstract idea of lustre as a quality of both heavenly bodies pre- sented to us; but the first meaning represented was undoubtedly morning, being the time when the sun is seen in the heavens simultaneously with the moon, — the meeting of day and night. Thus the morning-star is called 'ki-ming ( B^ y^^ Shi-King, ii. 5, 9), properly speaking, "opening the morning," ming-shi, "to-mor- row ; " and the employment of the word for the future likewise proceeds from this meaning. Another repre- sentation of the idea of morning is the picture of the word tdn, " morning, day,'' EJ , representing the sun above the horizon. If below this sign that of the moon too is placed, so that the latter is represented as below, the sun as above, the horizon, there arises ^^^ the 72 ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING. picture of the word ydng, " sunrise, bright sky, bright- ness." But the sun above the moon, ^^ , signifies the word I, " change," which e.g., is met with in the name of the book I-King. The sign evidently represents the moon as alternating with the sun, that is to say, the alternation of day and night. The first phonetic signs seem to have proceeded from an enlarged use of the pictures for homonymous words, similar in idea but yet distinguishable.^ The sign ^ for tsing, signifying the blue and green colours, combined with the sign -j— }- for thsao, " plant," form the nearly homonymous word tsing, " flourishing, luxuriant " (Shi, ii. 3, 2), and with the ^ for m%, " rice, food," the ^ ^ for 'tsing, " ripe, full grown, finished, able." The pictures for " growth" or for " rice " certainly never denoted the words tsing, 'tsing ; but it is probable that the sign representing colour was also once used for them, and only subsequently received the explanatory supplement defining the idea. The same holds good of / ^ 'tsing, " pure," of fluids (Shi, ii. 5, 10, 6, 6; iii. i, 5 ; iv. 3, 2), which is combined with the notional sign 'Y for water. We must not imagine that a character ever proceeded from an idea without ^ Professor Steinthal, too ("The Development of "Writing," p. 94), finds the bridge between notional and phonetic writing ' ' where the identity of the sound of two words coincides with a cognate significa- tion." The description of the phonetic element of Egyptian and Chinese writing and its development is perhaps the most beautiful, and, according to my conviction, most successful, portion of that bril- liant treatise. ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING. 73 regard to the sound, since the remoter the period, the more the former was extant in the latter only for the conception, and the mind was chained to the word. Not the designation of the sound, but its independent designation, detached from the idea, forms the essen- tial feature of the higher stage of writing. All that we know of the nature of Mexican writing shows us that it is subject to the same laws. The same difference that we observe between the Egyptian pic- tures and the hieroglyphics accompanying them is equally to be remarked among the Mexican. Even as regards the Chinese characters, it took a long time before Europe came to know to what extent "they are phonetic WTiting. The French missionaries, who read these characters with ease, who understood the language in which they are written, who lived in the country where they were constantly employed and where the principle of their composition was perfectly understood, enter- tained, nevertheless, the most erroneous ideas of their figurative signification. It was reserved for M. Abel E(^musat to disseminate more correct notions on this subject. What trouble it cost to gain the convic- tion that the Egyptian hieroglyphics have a phonetic value, how isolated and obscure are the utterances on this matter of the elder writers down to ChampoUion, who, in his turn, was aided by the light thrown on Chinese writing and justly often refers to it, is notorious. We need certainly, therefore, not wonder at Spanish writers who represent Mexican picture-writing as consisting of actual paintings. But it is with this 74 ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING. exactly as with the two other modes of writing similar to it. On a closer inspection we find in all of them the contrast to ours indeed great enough, but not so absolute as at first sight it appeared. We find the true and irreconcilable contrast between writing and painting by no means annulled in them ; the picture represents the thing while writing represents the word, and in this sense the hieroglyphics of the Mexicans, as well as those of the Egyptians and Chinese, are, no doubt, writing and not pictures. What, therefore, we may designate as the real invention of writing would have been the collection of a limited cycle of pictures of visible objects, each of which reminds us equally of the word, i.e.^ the name of the object. Here writing certainly coincides with drawing, but not in such a way as to necessitate our believing there had previously existed an independent, non-symboli- cal employment of painting. Language points to a re- versed way : the German malen, as derived from Gothic meljan, primarily signifies "to write;" of jpdcfKo the same holds good. The Slavonic pisatj, to whose affinity with the nipistam of the Persian inscriptions Professor Spiegel has drawn attention, signified already among the two Indo-European peoples " to write," while the Greek itolklKo^, and the well-known corresponding Sanskrit words refer to colour. But, I would ask, what was the object of these ancient drawings, and what gave rise to them? It is plain that this ques- tion is inseparable from that as to the earliest employ- ment of writing, its subject-matter, and even the material ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING. 75 on which people wrote. And here, again, language affords us a momentous hint. It is well known that a great number of the words signifying " to write " can be proved to be derived from the signification "to scratch," Fpdcjico and scriho, the English to write, the !N"orthern rista runir, to scratch Eunes, our reissen, Miss, are obvious examples. The same may be said of the Sanskrit root likh. The earliest writing was scratched. But on what ? We see it in the remotest antiquity engraved on rocks and applied to sacred monu- mental purposes. But there are also numerous testi- monies to the process of scratching in wood, and this seems the more likely as regards the jirimitive time at which the very first beginnings of writing took their origin. I would remind you of the Chinese wood-tablets which are mentioned in the Shi-King (ii. 8), where a warrior laments, saying, " Why should I not think of my return home ? But I fear the writing on this tablet," i.e., the command written on a wooden tablet. Still simpler and as numerously testified is the process of writing on the bark of trees, especially on that of the birch. Pliny (xvi. 1 3) gives an account of the proceed- ings of spies who carve letters, which are at first invi- sible, in the fresh bark of trees. In our German Zache we have a special word for a sign carved in a tree; it is probably related to the Sanskrit root liJch. In " Yikramorvasi " we meet with a passage spoken of in Professor Max Muller's "History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature," where Urvasi writes a love-letter on a 76 ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING. birch leaf, i.e., a leaf of birch bark. Even in " Simpli- cissimus" we still read of a book written on birch bark. But if we inquire more searchingly into the motives that may have determined the people in primitive times to supersede with such consistency as, at least, etymology renders it probable, so simple a process as the spreading of colour by carving, and altogether if we seriously ask ourselves what might have been their immediate motive for writing or drawing, we shall perhaps be induced to go a step farther guided by language. A closer observation of nearly all the words used for the idea of writing seems to go a considerable way towards proving that the writing material which floated, as it were, before language in bestowing these appellations was no other than the human body; in other words, that writing has developed from tattooing. The special direction which the development of the meaning has in each case taken is a subject never to be neglected in tracing the historical root of a word-notion. Thus, e.g., it would be insufficient to have set up in rypdcpco, " to write," a general primary meaning of " to grave," and we should be even absolutely wrong if we attempted to find the connecting link between the two ideas in stone or wood writing. Eor the Greek word has its definite history; before it acquired its special meaning to write, it already had a special signification, which was not that of chiselling and hewing of stone and wood, but quite distinctly the ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING. 77 scratching into the skin. Its idea is in the first instance connected, not indeed with sculpo, ry\v(f)Q}, but with scal^po and fyXdcpco. Homer seven times uses the word with its derivations of slight wounds caused by missiles, of hurts in the skin, grazing or flaying, also of scratching with thorns ; once, too, iiriypdcpco occurs in the " Iliad " of the sign which is scratched on the lot; once ypacjxo in the much-discussed passage (vi. 167 sq.) where Proitos "dreads indeed to kill Bellerophon, but sends him to Lycia, giving him sad signs, after having scratched many fatal ones on a folded tablet, which he commands him to show his father-in-law, so that he may perish." The reference to the skin, moreover, is still extant in the later word jpaTrrT]^, " wrinkled." To the word ypicj^ao-daL, which Professor Benfey very correctly places by the side of scriho, " to write," Hesychius ascribes the additional meanings in the Laconic dialect of " to scrape " and " pluck " {^vetv, (TKvXkeLv). The Hebrew sefer, "writing," may in the same way be explained by the Chaldean sappar, " to shear," mispera, "shears," for which, according to all analogy, we may assume the scraping of the skin to have been the fundamental idea. The word Jcatah, common to the Semitic family, occurs at such an early date as Semitic writing is mentioned at all (Lev. xix. 28), in the prohibition "not to print any marks upon" the skin, and the hetdbet there used seems to be a deriva- tive expressly intended to convey the sense of tattooing, which is thereby at the same time indicated as, accord- 78 ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING, ing to all appearance, a religious practice among the Semitic peoples.^ The word " tattoo " is borrowed from the Marquesas dialect of the Oceanic family of languages, its form there being tatu. In the language of the Sandwich ^ In connection with the above lecture, Professor Fleischer has added from the Arabic a considerable number of examples of the transi- tion of the idea from scratching to writing, but expressed his dissent with regard to the derivation of hataba from the same fundamental idea, and, comparing it with ^-afiSa^ww, "army," kattaba, ** collecting such a one, levying " — though it is to be presumed without associating with it the idea of conscription — assumed for it the signification of joining, stringing together. I will not attempt to oppose such a meaning of the root in question, and am ready to acknowledge that the parallel quoted by Professor Fleischer is well worthy of attention. Yet, apart from the consideration that the words quoted might be kept wholly distinct from the root signifying "to write," a root having two quite diiferent significations being notoriously nothing uncommon in Semitic languages, two further explanations appear to me admissible. First, the meaning "host" might equally with the German word Schar be derived from "separating" as well as from "joining," and go back to the primary sense of "scratching" assumed for hataba, which would be connected with qasab, "to split, to shear," chasab, "to carve," e.g., writing on rocks, and the like. But, secondly, there are some positive instances in which the idea of counting proceeds from that of writing, i.e., in the sense of "making strokes." Thus the Kafir word bala signifies to "write," "count," and "reckon," and finally, too, to " relate ; " and yet the words here formed of the root with the meanings of "sign," " stain," " colour," show writing to be the fundamental idea. Dohne in his Zulu Kafir Dictionary (Cape Town, 1857) expresses himself on this subject on the whole very correctly thus : ' ' The original idea of writing and numbering with the Kafir Avas that of representing things by a simple figure, and coincides with those of other nations. If a description of a thing was to be given, a certain shape, form, stroke, or line was made in the sand, or in the ground. These were the signs for both writing and numbering, every new number being represented by another stroke or mark. Or, if this practice was not convenient for counting, one finger of the hand was raised instead of a stroke in the ground. The sense of writing is, therefore, primary, and that of counting secondary." Compare with this, too, the above-mentioned ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING. 79 Islands k is substituted for the missing t; the word hakau, "to write," belonging to it, does not there- fore materially differ from tatu. In the language of the Marquesas itself, too, tatau means "to read, cipher, draw." Another word, common to both dialects, with significations "to reckon," **to draw," in the word tatau of the Marquesas Islands. The analogy of ideas here quoted from quite distant spheres of language, on the nature of which in general I beg to refer the reader to the first volume of my work, " Ursprung und Entwickelung der menschlichen Sprache und Vernunft " ("On the Origin and Evolution of Human Speech and Eeason," Stuttgart, J. G. Cotta, 1868) — the above lecture is only an abridged extract from a chapter of the as yet unpublished second volume — seems to me important, too, for the history of the Hebrew root safar, of which Fiirst justly lays down three principal* meanings in the folloAving order :— i. To incise, write ; 2. to count, appropriately to make incisions, marks ; and 3. to relate. While, namely, safar means only "to count," and sipper (in the Piel), "to count" and "relate" (subsequently also "to speak," e.g., "Adam spoke Aramean," Synh. 38b.), and the substantive derivation mispar and some others less in use convey the same meaning, sefer mostly signifies "book, " often, too, "document, letter, "in some passages the material on which was "WTitten, besides absolutely " wiiting," to, ypd/xfiara, e.g., " to teach the wiiting and language of the Chaldeans" (Dan. i. 4); the prophet Isaiah expresses "to know to read" (xxix, 1 1, 12) by yada sefer. The sense of "register," which the word, Gen. v. i, may be taken to bear, is intermediate between to count and WTite ; and the same applies to the remarkable word sofer. This word evidently denoted the dignitary whom we find represented on Egyptian and Assyrian monuments with the writing tablet or scroll in the act of recording, and might therefore be translated by "writer" as well as by " teller, recorder." In the post-biblical language the word appears in quite a different meaning, viz., as scholar. Only with reference to Ezra we meet with this signification also in several biblical passages. Should it here be only a change made in the spirit of the time in the case of Ezra's title, which perhaps he had brought with him from Babylon in quite a different sense ? For the rest, the honourable title in the passages in question seems only intended to express that Ezra was able to read well (see especially 'Neh. viii. and Ezra vii 6) ; at most perhaps that he was well read {litteratus), i.e., in the law ; and I Vfould here render it rather by " reader " than " scribe" {i.e., writer). 8o ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING. a slight variation, is tiki — in the Sandwich Islands, hihi — " to tattoo, paint, write." It also means " carved image," in which sense it springs from " token " (sign), like signum. A New Zealand tomb, too, an illustra- tion of which is given in Hochstetter's " Neuseeland " The meaning "scholar*" doubtless proceeds from sefer in the sense of writing, art of reading ; a " scholar " was originally he that could read and write, for this earliest import of grammar and the grammarian {ypa/x/j-aTiK-^, ypafifiartKds) was for some time the sum total of all erudition. When matters changed, sofer not only received the idea of learned man (scribe, ypafifiareiLis), but even that of elementary teacher, as conveyed by the Greek word ypa/x/xaTLari^s ; nay, as the once rare learning had passed on to the children, we meet even with a Talmudic passage (of the third century) where the Abecedarians are called Soferini (Kidd. iv. 13). Another Talmudical passage (Kidd, 30) derives this (at that time obsolete) appellation of the ' ' former " scholars from the sig- nification "to count," i.e., as of those who had counted the letters of the law. In the latest Hebrew, sofer means scribe {scriba, notarius), copyist (of the law, religious documents, &c.). Now, as regards Jcatab, this root does not occur in Genesis, as, indeed, it is significant that before the exodus from Egypt writing is not spoken of in the Bible, and even sefer only in the passage quoted above (Gen. v. i), in the sense of register. Subsequently Jcatab, as is well known, is the ordinary verbal root for to write, with which the substantive sefer is very frequently connected. But there are also some few passages in which the verb signifies nothing but to count, especially Isa. x. 19, "And the rest of the trees of his forest shall be few, that a child may count (write) them," where mispar too, in the first half of the verse, properly speak- ing, means as much as "what can be counted." Again, "The Lord shall count (yispor), when he writeth up the people, that this man was born there " (Ps. Ixxxvii. 6). Such a use of Jcatab no doubt proceeds from counting by strokes, not from a more complicated notation. If in the first quoted passage the writing of the number in Hebrew letters was perhaps to be conveyed, we have to consider that in them 400 is easier to write than 11, and not much more difficult than i. Accord- ingly the Arabic Jcattbatun too might go back to such a primitive counting in writing and simply mean "number," the rather as the sofer of the ancient Hebrew writings, too, had principally to note down the army (see particularly Isa, lii. 25, 2 Kings xxv. 19, 2 Chron. xxvi. II). Indeed counting by strokes is to be traced back to as early a date as writing in general, and even the employment of the letters of the alphabet as figures was introduced along with it in Europe. ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING. 8r (p. 20i), was pointed out to him by the natives by the designation of tiki. As regards the original significa- tion of tiki, we gather it from tikao, " to sting, irritate," tikaue, "gnat," tikao and tiko-tiko, "sensual pleasure." According to Wilhelm von Humboldt's statement in " Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprach- baus" (On the Variety of Structures of Human Languages," p. 406), Jacquet observes "that among those tribes the ideas of writing and tattooing are closely connected." In Zimmermann's " Dictionary of the Gang Language," which is spoken by a tribe on the Gold Coast of West Africa, the root nma is explained by ''to scratch" — e.g., the face—" to make strokes or signs, to write." In the Burmese language koh (according to Schleier- macher) means "to scratch," as children do, and "to write." The same transition is found in the Kafir word loba. In order to find a similar connection of the two ideas among the ancient civilised nations probable, we should remember the testimony we have to the early and widely diffused practice of marking the body with signs scratched in. Tattooing itself occurs among the savage tribes in Europe and Asia, as well as in the more recently discovered parts of the earth. Of the Kabyls it is reported that, by way of dis- tinguishing their tribes, they wear pictures of aninaals on the forehead, nose, temples, or on one of the cheeks ; such tattooing is done by puncturing the skin with fine needles dipped in a caustic fluid. A similar process is 82 ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING. met with everywhere in Central Africa, as well as in the Caroline Archipelago. " Tattooing," says Hero- dotus (v. 6), speaking of the Thracians, " is considered aristocratic ; non-tattooed people are looked down upon as ignoble." Xenophon gives a somewhat more minute description of the same practice among the Mosynoekoi (An. V. 4, 32). He says, "They showed us pampered children of aristocratic parents, who had been fed with boiled chestnuts; they were very delicate and white, and nearly as stout as they were tall; their backs and fronts were tattooed, the former in gaudy colours, the latter all over with marks." Also on the Egyptian monuments of Biban-el-Moluk tattooed men are found depicted. Among the Greeks and Eomans, as we learn from Petronius (Sat. c. 103 sqq}), it was a common practice to brand criminals and slaves, for which latter it seems to have been originally introduced; and equally so among the Persians, of whom Herodotus (vii. 233). reports they ha,d, at Xerxes' orders, branded with the royal mark the Theban deserters at Thermopylae. This practice, which had no other intention but that of dis- tinguishing by some mark, proceeded from tattooing. At all events, we are wrong in giving the Greek word a different sense, especially that of an actual burning in of the mark. It is, in fact, the GTiCiio used for tattooing in the passages quoted. The correspond- ing, punishment of the Chinese has adhered to this original form. It consists in pricking with a needle marks in the flesh of the culprit and then making them durable by a black dye. This process, which ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING. 83 closely resembles tattooing, is called thsi, S ij, and Jchinff, p^^f y J||, ^f,. The Manchu word for it is sahsimhi (according to von der Gabelentzj, "to brand, to tattoo, and a work with the needle." Perhaps the idea of acupuncture, which in times im- memorial the Chinese employed as a remedy, is like- wise to be traced to the tattooing process, so far as it might be regarded as holy and salutary. Horses were notoriously provided among the Greeks with marks branded in their haunches for the purpose of distinguishing their breed. For this object characters were employed, and their being thus employed was probably as old a practice among the Greeks as alpha- betic writing itself; at least the letter Jccppa, that so early ceased to be used in writing, was among those characters. The Caucasians have to this day a complete and abundant alphabet of signs which likewise serve no other purpose but that of distinguish- ing their horses. The Biblical expression, " I will not forget thee (Zion) ; I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands ; thy walls are continually before me " (Isa. xlix. 15, 16), may, perhaps, remind us of the practice of tattooing. Equally so the well-known incident reported by Herodotus (v. 35), that Histiseus, w^ith a view by stealth to summon Aristagoras to revolt, shaved a slave, wrote the missive on his head, and, his hair having grown again, despatched him on his errand, points to a sphere of ideas which is not un- 84 ON THE ORIGIN OF WRITING, accustomed to regard the human body as writing material. It only remains to be mentioned as note- worthy that Herodotus in the passage cited uses the word earc^e, which proceeds from the idea of tattooing or puncturing. With respect to form, writing presents no contrast to tattooing. Some tribes mark their skin with figures of animals of the most various kinds. Such marks are in form regular pictures like the earliest writing. Mostly, however, the marks scratched in the flesh are linear. Hochstetter says of the sepulchral monuments of the Maoris, the aborigines of New Zealand (" Neuseeland," p. 299), " They are figures four feet high, carved out of wood, round which are hung garments or cloths, and on which the faithful imitation of the tattooed lines on the face of the deceased is the most remarkable feature. By them the Maori knows to whom the monument is erected. Certain lines de- note the name, others the family to which the deceased belonged, and others again the person himself. Close imitation of tattooing in the face, therefore, is to the Maori tantamount to the likeness of a portrait, and he requires no further inscription to know what chief lies buried underneath." The style of drawing here is linear, and it is noteworthy that the words used for " writing " likewise generally have the primary sense of making strokes. From the Greek