In the text, the expression “to put forward” (.22) can be correctly replaced by define or establish.

Translation exists because men speak different languages. This truism is, in fact, founded on a situation which can be regarded as enigmatic and as posing problems of extreme difficulty. Why should human beings speak thousands of different, mutually incomprehensible tongues? Why does homo sapiens, whose digestive tract has evolved and functions in precisely the same complicated ways the world over, whose biochemical fabric and genetic potential are, orthodox science assures us, essentially common, the delicate runnels of whose cortex are wholly akin in all peoples and at every stage of social evolution – why does this unified, though individually unique mammalian species not use one common language? We do not speak one language, nor half a dozen, nor twenty or thirty. Four to five thousand languages are thought to be in current use. This figure is almost certainly on the low side. It seems reasonable to assert that the human species developed and made use of at least twice the number we can record today. A genuine philosophy of language must grapple with the phenomenon and rationale of the human ‘invention’ and retention of anywhere between five and ten thousand distinct tongues. However difficult and generalizing the detour, a study of translation ought to put forward some view of the evolutionary, psychic needs or opportunities which have made translation necessary. To speak seriously of translation one must first consider the possible meanings of Babel, their inherence in language and mind.