A natural language is a spontaneous order; it is neither a natural phenomenon nor an artifact, but a phenomenon of the third kind. Its current state is, with few exceptions, an unintended, unreflective byproduct of the individual choices made by speakers in the course of their communicative efforts. Language change is thus a prototypical example of sociocultural evolution. The reconstruction of this change is a central component of a explanatory theory of a language state. The appropriate mode for this is explanation through the invisible hand. "The book is exceptionally good; it will require some effort to surpass it." Studies on language.