WHITNEY, A COVERT DARWINIST?

In contrast to Bréal, with whom one has to guess under what influences he elaborated his view of the transformation and evolution of language, one has no difficulty in finding Whitney’s sources of inspiration. He had read Lyell in his youth and quoted him often. He also kept up to date on the Darwinian debate. In a series of articles he set out his thoughts on Darwinism and evolutionism. However, this does not mean that the conclusions he drew from his discussions are always clear. His article on ‘Darwinism and language’ (DL) (in fact a critique of Max Müller’s Lectures on Mr. Darwin’s Philosophy of Language [1873]) is a masterpiece in this respect.

Whitney tries to evaluate very carefully the pros and cons of the ‘doctrine of evolution, of the connected and progressive development of organic life on the earth, of the transmutation of animal and vegetable species’ (DL: 61). He does not want to emulate Schleicher in his wholehearted adoption of this theory, but nor does he want to follow Müller in his ready and harsh rejection of Darwinism. On the one hand, he thought it might harm the science of language to import a theory whose scientific value had not yet been established, and which had given rise to disputes that even the biologists themselves had not yet settled. On the other hand, he found it harmful—or at least not very helpful— to Darwinism itself to recruit blind followers in linguistics, to become embroiled in the internal quarrels of linguistic schools, or be used in theories that are antithetical to Darwinism, such as Schleicher’s view of the growth and decay of languages (cf. OLS: 309). He concludes, therefore, that ‘Darwinism is content to stand and fall by its own merits; it does not ask to be bolstered by linguistic science’ (OLS: 316). ‘So far, linguistic science has not been shown to have any bearing on Darwinism, either in the way of support or of refutation’ (DL: 83–4). He goes as far as to say that linguistic science and Darwinism ‘have no connection with each other’ (ibid.: 84). It seems that what Whitney wants to ensure by this move is the autonomy of linguistic science, even at the risk of making unsubstantiated statements. Having dismissed Müller’s rejection of Darwinism, which was based on the assumption that the power of language is so unique to man that it could never have evolved in gradual transitions from lower forms of life, he writes:

There is neither saltus nor gradual transition in the case: no transition, because the two [i.e. the instinctive expressions of animals and the conventional expression of man] are essentially different; no saltus, because human speech is an historical development out of infinitesimal

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beginnings, which may have been of less extent even than the instinctive speech of many a brute.

(DL: 87)

Stam, in his book on the origin of language, quotes these and other passages to show the helplessness of Whitney when confronted with the mystery of the origin of language. He writes that although ‘Whitney raised these objections [against Müller], he did not commit himself to Darwinism, or, for that matter, to any theory of language origin. He stoutly maintained that linguistic meaning is conventionally established, but how the conventions themselves were established he did not answer.’ Stam goes on to write that Whitney rejected the Darwinian as well as all theological explanations. ‘With all of these alternatives excluded, however, one is forced to wonder not only how but whether language ever originated’ (Stam 1976:249–50). In chapter 4, pp. 83–9, we shall see that Whitney formulated a theory of the origin of language, derived largely from Wedgwood, an admirer of Lyell and an enemy of Müller himself. In another book on Müller Whitney writes that the origin of language is one of the most interesting subjects in linguistic science (cf. 1892:35). But even in ‘Darwinism and language’, from which Stam quotes, one can glean a quite rational view of the origin of language, based on the principle of the primacy of pragmatics, a view according to which the origin of language can be sufficiently well explained by reference to a theory of human action, built on the assumption that human beings possess a global, all-purpose structure of the mind (cf. Herder 1772). This structure, an advance over the very strictly task-limited, localized, and specialized faculties and instincts of animals, enabled human beings to invent not only language, but instruments of all kinds, and use them. Whitney writes that if we could ever find the missing links between animal expressions and human language,

we should not find the more and more anthropoid beings possessing a larger and larger stock of definite articulations, to which they by instinct attached definite ideas; there are no such elements in human language, present or traceable past; and as we approach man, the detailed instincts leading to definite acts or products diminish rather than increase; we should find those beings showing more and more plainly the essentially human power of adapting means to ends, both by reflection and uncon- scious action, in communication and expression as in other departments of activity.

(DL: 87)

At the end of his article Whitney refers, for support of his theses and his criticisms, to Darwin himself who

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shows a remarkable moderation and soundness of judgment in his treatment of the element of language. Though he refers in a foot-note (Descent of Man, part I, ch. ii) to Schleicher’s pamphlet in his support, he does not deign to make the slightest use of it. Very little exception is to be taken by a linguistic scholar to any of his statements.

(DL: 88)

Coming from Whitney, this sentence is indeed the highest praise. It shows that he had read the Descent of Man, and it would be rather unlikely that he had not read the more important and innovatory Origin of Species as well.

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WHITNEY, A COVERT DARWINIST?