capable and worthy of the finest cultivation. The languages, in other words, grouped themselves into various large and well-connected families, and thus greatly reduced the number of primary idioms from which others have sprung. And after this, we have seen, how every succeeding research, so far from weakening this simplifying result, has on the contrary still farther strengthened it, by ever bringing new tongues, thought before to be independent, into the limits of established families, or uniting into new ones such as promised little or no affinity. Such are the two first results of this science, and I will reserve for another day its farther advance. But before closing this lecture, I may not withhold a few reflections suggested to me by looking back on the sort of enquiry I have therein followed. For, when I consider how many different men have laboured almost unwittingly to produce the results I have laid before you,-one for no sensible purpose hunting out the analogies of this speech, another, that knew not wherefore, noting the dialects of barbarous tribes, a third comparing together, for pastime, the words of diverse countries ;-when I see them thus, all like emmets bearing their small particular loads, or removing some little obstruction, and crossing and recrossing one the other, as though in total confusion, and to the utter derangement of each other's projects; and yet when I discover that from all this there results a plan of exceeding regularity, order, and beauty; it doth seem to me as though I read therein signs of a higher instinct, and of a directing influence over the thoughtless counsels of men, which can bring them unto great and useful purposes. And such methinks is to be found in the history of all sound learning. For, as a day appearing now and then of brighter and warmer sunshine doth foreshow that the full burst of summer's glory is about to break upon the earth, so do certain privileged minds, by some mysterious communication, ever foresee, as it were, or rather feel sometime beforehand, and announce the approach of, some great and new system of truth; as did Bacon, of philosophy; and Leibnitz, of our science; and Plato, of a holier manifestation. Then arise, and come in from all sides, we know not how, workmen and patient labourers, like those who cast down faggots under a foundation, or raise stones thereon; whom no one takes for the architects or builders of the house, for they know and comprehend nought of its plans or objects; and yet every stone which they place fitteth aright, and adds to the usefulness and beauty of its parts. And so, after this fashion, by the work of many conjoined, though not combined in any plan, a science is builded up in fair proportions, and seemeth to stand well and in its proper place among the others already raised; and so at length cometh to be a joint, as it were, in the general fitness of things, and a maxim in the universal truth, and a tone or accord in the harmony of nature. Now I cannot persuade myself that there is not an overseeing eye in this ordering of things dissimilar to one great end, when I see that this great end is the confirmation of God's holy word; but rather of this seeming human industry I would say with the divine poet ; "Lo Motor primo a lui si volge lieto, Sovra tant' arte di natura, e spira Che ciò che truova attivo quivi, tira DANTE, "Purgat." xxv. Not that He partaketh in the errors and follies of such as labour in these pursuits, but, as He useth the evils of this world for the most holy purposes, and unfolds often therefrom the most magnificent passages of His blessed providence, so may He here overrule and guide even the ill-intended labours of many, and so dispose thereof, as that a new and beautiful light may come forth upon His truths, when such is most truly needed. The primal mover with a smile of joy On such great work of nature; and imbreathes VOL. I. Cary's Translation. F Thus would I consider the rise and development of any new science, as entering essentially into the established order of God's moral government; just as the appearance, from time to time, of new stars in the firmament, according to what astronomers tell us, must be a pre-ordained event in the annals of creation. And if you agree with me in these reflections, you will also methinks feel as I do, that in tracing the history of any pursuit, we are not so much indulging a fond curiosity, or following the progress of man's ingenuity, as watching the beautiful courses whereby God hath gradually removed the veil from before some hidden knowledge, first lifting up one corner thereof, then another, till the whole is rolled away; and you will with me delight in studying the purposes and applications thereby intended, both towards our humble instruction and His increasing glory. LECTURE THE SECOND; ON THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF LANGUAGES. PART II. SUMMARY OF RESULTS exposed in the preceding Lecture.Continuation.-Third; Relationship between the different families.-Present state of the study; its two principal Schools, founded on the comparison of words, and of grammatical forms.—Remarks directed towards reconciling them.-Errors regarding the supposed power of development in Languages; opinion of Humboldt.Power of external circumstances to alter the grammatical structure of a language.—Proposed rule for the comparison of words.-Dr. Young's application of the calculus of probabilities to the discovery of the common origin of two languages, by a comparison of words.— Lepsius on the affinities between Hebrew and Sanskrit. -His farther and inedited researches into the connexion between Hebrew and ancient Egyptian.Proposed comparison of Semitic and Indo-European grammatical forms (referred to a note).-Conclusions of modern Ethnographers. First; That all language was originally one; Alex. von Humboldt, Academy of St. Petersburgh, Merian, Klaproth, Fred. Schlegel.-Secondly; That the separation was by a violent and sudden cause; Herder, Turner, AbelRémusat, Niebuhr, Balbi. |