Download or read book On the Origin of Language (Classic Reprint) written by Hensleigh Wedgwood and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2018-03-07 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from On the Origin of Language A preliminary objection to the supposition of any natural origin of language has been raised by the modern German school of philos phers, whose theory leads them to deny the possi ility of man having ever existed in a state of mutism. Man is only man by Speech, says W. V. Humboldt, but in order to discover speech he must already be man. And Max Muller, who cites the epigram, adopts the opinion it expresses. Philosophers, he says (lectures on the Science of Language, p. Who imagine that the first man though left to himself would gradually have emerged from a state of mutism and have invented words for every new conception that arose in his mind, forget that man could not by his own power have acquired the faculty of speech, which is the dis tinctive character of mankind, unattained and uh attainable by the mute creation The supposed difficulty is altogether a fallacy arising from a confusion between the faculty of speech and the actual knowledge of language. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.