ABSTRACT
The philosophical question about the origin and nature of language is basically as old as the question about the origin and nature of being. Of course, nothing in any of the parts of his works on the philosophy and science of language corresponds with Humboldt's awareness of the brilliant exercise of this art in which it presents itself to him. The concept of the organic retained its central position; however, its sense and its tendency underwent a radical transformation once the biological concept of the development of modern natural science had opposed the concept of development of Romantic philosophy. If the people look back over the whole development of the philosophy of language from Humboldt to the "neogrammarians", from Schleicher to Wundt, they see that with all its increased specialized knowledge and insight, it has, from the purely methodological point of view, moved in a circle.
