they have been separated from the sources whence they arose, have, in a great measure, so altered the forms of words, that it is no longer practicable to refer them to the mother dialect, if it be still existing and known. Such languages may be regarded as independent, and the people who speak them may be considered Autochthones."-Borr's Compar. Grammar, vol. i., p. 74.

It should be added that the real difference in languages is not so great as is indicated by the different characters different nations employ in expressing the same sounds. No one can doubt that the word water in one language is the same as the word wasser in another, though the characters employed are not all of them the same in each case.

It should also be added that the analogies between languages of different stocks are still a matter of remote deduction. Philologists are now industriously gathering materials for a broad induction, by which they are expecting to prove that affinities exist between different stocks, just as they have already proved that affinities exist between different families of the same stock.

DIVERSITIES IN LANGUAGES.

§ 16. While affinities among languages have to be sought with painful care over a wide field, diversities are obvious, and have to be accounted for.

Three opinions have existed in respect to the origin of the diversities in languages.

One opinion proceeds, on the supposition that there were originally several distinct stocks of the human race, to the conclusion that there were as many distinct languages as stocks.

A second opinion is, that the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel will, by its miraculous origin and agency, account for the diversities in human languages, just as the flood has, by some divines, been considered as a cause adequate to the production of certain geological irregularities which are found in the structure of the earth. (?)

On the assumption that languages were originally one, a third opinion is, that causes now in operation will account for the existing diversities.

CAUSES OF DIVERSITIES IN LANGUAGE S.

§ 17. These causes are,

1. Difference of occupation. The vocabulary of a shepherd must differ from that of a mariner.

2. Difference of improvement in sciences and the arts of life. The man of science must increase the number of his terms as he becomes acquainted with new facts.

3. Difference of climate, both by bringing different classes of objects before the mind, and by producing different effects upon the organs of speech.

Hence it happens that, when two races of men of a common stock are placed in distant countries, the language of each begins to diverge from that of the other in various ways.

1. One word will become obsolete and lost in the one race, and another word in the other.

2. The same word will be differently applied by two distant races of men, and the difference will be so great as to obscure the original affinity.

3. Words will be compounded by two nations in a different

manner.

4. The pronunciation and orthography of the same word will be different, especially by the use of convertible consonants.

These statements appear to be sustained by facts. On the authority of RASK, the ancient Scandinavian, the Danska Tunga, or Old Norse, was, in the ninth century, the common speech in Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, where now there are great diversities. The progress of these diversities can be satisfactorily traced from that period to the present time. These diversities extend to all those features in which it is possible for one language to differ from another, viz., to words, grammar, inflections, arrangement of words in sentences. "In the various

kingdoms and provinces in which it was once spoken, different portions of the parent speech have been abandoned or preserved." Hence it follows that the primitive language of Scandinavia, or "Danska Tunga," does not exist entire in any one, but is dispersed in ALL its derivative dialects, illustrating the fate of the primitive language of the world, as intimated by GROTIUS. See $5.

This last opinion, namely, in respect to the causes now in operation, does not interfere with the supposition that the "confusion of tongues" may have hastened the diversities in language, if it did not originate them.

The general topic of this section can be fitly closed by a quotation from that distinguished philosopher, WILLIAM VON HUMBOLDT: "The true solution of the contrast of stability and fluc tuation which we find in language lies in the unity of human nature." "No one assigns precisely the same meaning to a word which another does, and a shade of meaning, be it ever so slight, ripples on like a circle in the water through the entirety of language." "We must regard speech not so much as a dead begotten, but rather a begetting; we must abstract from what it is as a designation of objects, and a help to the understanding; on the contrary, we must go back more carefully to a consideration of its origin, so nearly connected with the subjective mental activity, and to its reciprocal action thereupon." "Even its preservation by means of writing keeps it only in an incomplete, mummy-like fashion, in which it can get

vitality only by timely recitation. In itself it is not an Epyov,

but an évépyeta." It is not, in itself, a completed work, but it is ενέργεια.” an internal energy in the soul begetting new creations.

THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE.

§ 18. There is the same reason for the study of language that there is for the study of thought.

It is by means of language that the thoughts and emotions of one mind are projected upon another. Language is the medium through which the object of thought in the mind of the speaker or writer is exhibited to the hearer or the reader, and the object is projected upon the receiving mind in an image that is true, distinct, and bright, or in one that is distorted, blurred, and dim, according as that mind is acquainted or not with the medium. If language is only expressed thought, or the "incarnation of thought," and if thought is the copy of things, then the value of things becomes transferred to language, or, rather, is connate with it. As a matter of fact, so entirely are words the exponents of the thought, and purpose, and character of him who uses them, that they form the ground of judging of character for ourselves in our estimate of each other, and for God in his estimate of us all. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." "By thy words shalt thou be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned." It is true that there is a difference between words and things as well as an identity. "Things are the sons of God, and words are the daughters of men;" still, practically, they are so wedded to each other that they are one.

THE

CONNECTION

BETWEEN WORDS AND THINGS.

§ 19. Such is the connection between words and things, that a thorough study of language makes the student acquainted both with those minds of which it is the expression, and with those objects to which it is applied.

A language borrows its character, first, from the minds of those who use it in view of the objects to which it is applied, and, secondly, from the objects with which it is associated. The language of a nation is the accumulation of the experience, the wisdom, and the genius of a nation. "The heart of a people is