stages of development through which each creature has passed.
The formation of different languages and of distinct species, and the
proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are
curiously parallel. (67. See the very interesting parallelism between
the development of species and languages, given by Sir C. Lyell in The
Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, 1863, chap. xxiii.) But
we can trace the formation of many words further back than that of
species, for we can perceive how they actually arose from the imitation
of various sounds. We find in distinct languages striking homologies
due to community of descent, and analogies due to a similar process of
formation. The manner in which certain letters or sounds change when
others change is very like correlated growth. We have in both cases the
reduplication of parts, the effects of long-continued use, and so
forth. The frequent presence of rudiments, both in languages and in
species, is still more remarkable. The letter m in the word am, means
I; so that in the expression I am, a superfluous and useless rudiment
has been retained. In the spelling also of words, letters often remain
as the rudiments of ancient forms of pronunciation. Languages, like
organic beings, can be classed in groups under groups; and they can be
classed either naturally according to descent, or artificially by other
characters. Dominant languages and dialects spread widely, and lead to
the gradual extinction of other tongues. A language, like a species,
when once extinct, never, as Sir C. Lyell remarks, reappears. The same
language never has two birth-places. Distinct languages may be crossed
or blended together. (68. See remarks to this effect by the Rev. F.W.
Farrar, in an interesting article, entitled Philology and Darwinism,
in Nature, March 24th, 1870, p. 528.) We see variability in every
tongue, and new words are continually cropping up; but as there is a
limit to the powers of the memory, single words, like whole languages,
gradually become extinct. As Max Muller (69. Nature, January 6th,
1870, p. 257.) has well remarked: A struggle for life is constantly
going on amongst the words and grammatical forms in each language. The
better, the shorter, the easier forms are constantly gaining the upper
hand, and they owe their success to their own inherent virtue. To
these more important causes of the survival of certain words, mere
novelty and fashion may be added; for there is in the mind of man a
strong love for slight changes in all things. The survival or
preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is
natural selection.
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