Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/70

48 and growing organism, or pronounce linguistics a physical science, because zoölogy and geology are such. The point is one of essential consequence in linguistic philosophy. We shall never gain a clear apprehension of the phenomena of linguistic history, either in their individuality or in their totality, if we mistake the nature of the forces which are active in producing them. Language is, in fact, an institution—the word may seem an awkward one, but we can find none better or more truly descriptive—the work of those whose wants it subserves; it is in their sole keeping and control; it has been by them adapted to their circumstances and wants, and is still everywhere undergoing at their hands such adaptation; every separate item of which it is composed is, in its present form—for we are not yet ready for a discussion of the ultimate origin of human speech—the product of a series of changes, effected by the will and consent of men, working themselves out under historical conditions, and conditions of man's nature, and by the impulse of motives, which are, in the main, distinctly traceable, and form a legitimate subject of scientific investigation.

These considerations determine the character of the study of language as a historical or moral science. It is a branch of the history of the human race and of human institutions. It calls for aid upon various other sciences, both moral and physical: upon mental and metaphysical philosophy, for an account of the associations which underlie the developments of signification, and of the laws of thought, the universal principles of relation, which fix the outlines of grammar; upon physiology, for explanation of the structure and mode of operation of the organs of speech, and the physical relations of articulate sounds, which determine the laws of euphony, and prescribe the methods of phonetic change; upon physical geography and meteorology, even, for information respecting material conditions and climatic aspects, which have exerted their influence upon linguistic growth. But the human mind, seeking and choosing expression for human thought, stands as middle term between all determining causes and their results in the development of language. It is only as they affect man himself, in his desires and