ABSTRACT
Three widespread historiographical assumptions need to be discussed before we summarize the more general efforts of the century's central decades. It is often stated that the linguists of the time:
accepted in full Schleicher's naïve organicism: language was an independent organism subject to natural laws; it had no history, but a life similar to that of natural organisms.
were anti-uniformitarian, i.e. believed that the earliest phases of language were not subject to the same processes of change as the later ones.
obsessed as they were by the triumphs of comparative and historical work, not only had no interest in more general problems, but did not even realize that such problems existed. If and when they did, Schleicher's organic views satisfied them.
Predictably the real picture is more complicated; we shall consider each point in turn.