Through Vague Epochs
The fact that this faculty pertains exclusively to human beings is startling enough; but its creative powers are more remarkable; and they emphasize, moreover, the purely human character of the faculty. All this points to the spirit (or mind or x faculty) of man as the wellspring of speech; and thus it is easy to associate language with morals.
If we concede that the conscious human mind brought forth every word of every language, then we must admit that the totality of language is infinitely richer than any of its branches. The recognition of this provisional truth gave rise to the old saying that a man adds another to himself whenever he learns a new tongue.
The epoch of word-invention must remain vague. Naturally this is true if the epoch falls within the period covering the infancy of the race. This period has been pushed back into a very remote æon. It is probable that man became man, so to speak, sometime during the 500,000 years of the Pleistocene period,
14
