"Language Is Our Rubicon”: Max Müller’s Quarrel with Hensleigh Wedgwood

The paper analyses Max Müller’s criticism of the imitative theory of language upheld by the English philologist Hensleigh Wedgwood (1803–1891) and later endorsed by Charles Darwin in The Descent of Man. By recalling Müller’s and Wedgwood’s theoretical backgrounds and epistemological aims, it argues that their disagreement was more apparent than real, reflecting two different concepts of imitation: imitation as a strictly human capability for Wedgwood and as a broad cross-species behaviour for Max Müller, who critically foresaw the evolutionist challenge to the alleged uniqueness of human language. Darwin used Wedgwood’s theory of imitation in order to demonstrate an evolutionary continuity between humans and non-human animals, thus confirming Müller’s worries and partially betraying Wedgwood’s own beliefs.