Darwinism tested by the Science of Language. Translated from the German of Professor August Schleicher

Abstract

IT is not very creditable to the students of the Science of Language that there should have been among them so much wrangling as to whether that science is to be treated as one of the natural or as one of the historical sciences. They, if any one, ought to have seen that they were playing with language, or rather that language was playing with them, and that unless a proper definition is first given of what is meant by nature and by natural science, the pleading for and against the admission of the science of language to the circle of the natural sciences may be carried on ad infinitum. It is, of course, open to anybody so to define the meaning of nature as to exclude human nature, and so to narrow the sphere of the natural sciences as to leave no place for the science of language. It is possible also so to interpret the meaning of growth that it becomes inapplicable alike to the gradual formation of the earth's crust, and to the slow accumulation of the humus of language. Let the definitions of these terms be plainly laid down, and the controversy, if it will not cease at once, will at all events become more fruitful. It will then turn on the legitimate definition of such terms as nature and mind, necessity and free-will, and it will have to be determined by philosophers rather than by scholars. Darwinism tested by the Science of Language. Translated from the German of Professor August Schleicher, by Dr. Alex. V. W. Bikkers. (London; J. C. Hotten, 1869.)