ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. XI 



languages, Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, as vehicles of thought more 

 pure and perfect than the spoken or so-called vulgar dialects of 

 Europe. We are not speaking at present of the literature of Greece, 

 or Rome, or ancient India, as compared with the literature of Eng- 

 land, France, Germany, and Italy. We. speak only of language, of 

 the roots and words, the declensions, conjugations, and constructions 

 peculiar to each dialect ; and with regard to these it must be admitted 

 that the modern stand on a perfect equality with the ancient languages. 

 Can it be supposed that we, who are always advancing in art, in 

 science, in philosophy, and religion, should have allowed language, 

 the most powerful instrument of the mind, to fall from its pristine 

 purity, to lose its vigor and nobility, and to become a mere jargon ? 

 Language, though it changes continually, does by no means contin- 

 ually decay ; or at all events, what we are wont to call decay and cor- 

 ruption in the history of language is in truth nothing but the neces- 

 sary condition of its life. Before the tribunal of the Science of Lan- 

 guage, the difference between ancient and modern languages van- 

 ishes. As in botany, aged trees are not placed in a different class 

 from young trees, it would be against all the principles of scientific 

 classification to distinguish between old and young languages. We 

 must study the tree as a whole, from the time when the seed is placed 

 in the soil to the time when it bears fruit : and we must studv Ian- 



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guage in the same manner as a whole, tracing its life uninterruptedly 

 from the simplest roots to the most complex derivatives. He who 

 can see in modern languages nothing but corruption or anomaly, 

 understands but little of the true nature of language. If the ancient 

 languages throw light on the origin of the modern dialects, many 

 secrets in the nature of the dead languages can only be explained by 

 the evidence of the living dialects. Apart from all other considera- 

 tions, modern languages help us to establish, by evidence which 

 cannot be questioned, the leading principles of the science of lan- 

 guage. They are to the student of language what the tertiary, or 

 even more recent, formations are to the geologist. 

 "In the modern romance dialects, we have before our eyes a more 

 complete and distinct picture or repetition of the origin and growth 

 of language than anywhere else in the whole history of human speech. 

 We can watch the Latin from the time of the first Scipionic inscrip- 

 tion (283 B. c.) to the time when we meet with the first traces of 

 Neo-Latin speech in Italy, Spain, and France. We can then follow 

 for 1,000 years the later history of modern Latin, in its six distinct 

 dialects, all possessing a rich and well-authenticated literature. If 

 certain forms of grammar are doubtful in French, they receive light 

 from the collateral evidence which is to be found in Italian or Span- 



