Page:Man — Fragments of Forgotten History.djvu/129

 CHAPTER VIII. GROWTH OF LANGUAGE AND RELIGION. has been said in the previous chapters on the subject of the growth of language. As the careful reader might have already found out, the first seeds of language were sown in the fifth subrace of the first race, when the sense of taste appeared. The acquisition by man of the organ of taste rendered the evolution of language a possibility; and in combination with the sense of hearing the last-named faculty led to the birth of speech. So long as the spiritual power of thought transference was retained, no want was felt of any other mode of comuiunication between men; but the increasing grossness of the human body soon imposed upon man the necessity of finding some other method. His first attempt in this direction was the imitation of the sounds of birds and animals. This, no doubt, will be considered heretical by some schools of modern philologists who so violently deny what they call the "bow-wow" theory of language. These philosophers contend that language is coeval with reason, and in support of their views, refer, among other things, to the Greek word logos, which means both reason and speech. But it must be remembered, that language, like everything else proceeds in cycles. Philology,