RECORD: Darwin, C. R. n.d. Abstract of Whitney, Man's mental Powers. CUL-DAR87.74; CUL-DAR87.76. Edited by John van Wyhe (Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

REVISION HISTORY: Transcribed by Christine Chua and edited by John van Wyhe 3.2022. RN1

NOTE: See record in the Darwin Online manuscript catalogue, enter its Identifier here. Reproduced with permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and William Huxley Darwin. The volumes CUL-DAR 87-90 contain material for Darwin's book Descent of man 2d ed. (1874-1877).

Darwin cited this in Descent 2d ed., pp. 88-89, n: "The judgment of a distinguished philologist, such as Prof. Whitney, will have far more weight on this point than anything that I can say. He remarks ('Oriental and Linguistic Studies,' 1873, p. 297), in speaking of Bleek's views: "Because on the grand scale language is the necessary auxiliary of thought, indispensable to the development of the power of "thinking, to the distinctness and variety and complexity of cognitions to the full mastery of consciousness; therefore he would fain make thought absolutely impossible without speech, identifying the faculty with its instrument. He might just as reasonably assert that the human hand cannot act without a tool. With such a doctrine to start from, he cannot stop short of Müller's worst paradoxes, that an infant (in fans, not speaking) is not a human being, and that deaf-mutes do not become possessed of reason until they learn to twist their fingers into imitation of spoken words." Max Müller gives in italics ('Lectures on Mr. Darwin's Philosophy of Language,' 1873, third lecture) the following aphorism: "There is no thought without words, as little as there are words without thought." What a strange definition must here be given to the word thought!"

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Citation: John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

File last updated 13 November, 2022