Darwin used the development of language as a model for species development.
He also argued that language was responsible for distinctly human mind.
Charles Lyell, the great geologist and Darwin's friend, further explored the
model, showing how Darwin's devices could be applied to language. Lyell,
however, could not go the whole orang: he thought that language was that
barrier the distinguished man from the animals, and that no animal of itself
could cross that Rubicon. August Schleicher, the great German linguist and
friend of Ernst Haeckel, fully endorsed Darwin's theory and showed how it
could explain the descent of language from primitive animal sounds.
Schleicher solved two critical problems for Haeckel's theory of human
evolution: Haeckel argued, of course, that man came up from ape-like
ancestors. But he had no theory of the transition from ape-like intelligence
to human reason. Further he believed that human beings formed several
species, some being more advanced than others--the Germans and English
leading the pack. But he had no good theory of the traits that provided the
superiority. He found the solutions to his problems in Schleicher's
conception of the evolution of language: some languages, Schleicher held,
were superior to others, more perfect, and these led to the differential
evolution of mind. What Haeckel didn't realize was that the essential
structure of Schleicher's theory was not due to Darwinian evolutionary
considerations but to Hegelian romantic considerations. Thus the missing
link in 19th- century evolutionary thought was Hegel.
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