THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 729 



teuce, "I didn't say nothing," the inevitable inference is that he has 

 lived with the ill-taught ; and further, that in his mind words and ideas 

 answer to one another very loosely. How is it, then, that in French, 

 notwithstanding Academic control, this use of superfluous symbols of 

 thought, which, logically considered, actually inverts the intended 

 meaning, has continued has become a rule instead of a solecism? 

 Once more, why has not the French Academy systematized the genders ? 

 No one who considers language as an instrument of thought, which is 

 good in proportion as its special parts are definitely adjusted to special 

 functions, can doubt that a meaningless use of genders is a defect. It 

 is undeniable that to employ marks of gender in ways always suggest- 

 ing attributes that are possessed, instead of usually suggesting attri- 

 butes that are not possessed, is an improvement. Having an example 

 of this improvement before them, why did not the Academy introduce 

 it into French? And then more significant question still how, 

 without the aid of any Academy, came the genders to be systematized 

 in Fnglish ? Mr. Arnold, and those who, in common with him, seem 

 to believe only in agencies that have visible organizations, might, per- 

 haps, in seeking the answer to this question, lose faith in artificial ap- 

 pliances and gain faith in natural processes. For, as, on asking the 

 origin of language in general, we are reminded that its complex, mar- 

 vellously-adjusted structure has been evolved without the aid or over- 

 sight of any embodied power, Academic or other, so, on asking the 

 origin of this particular improvement in language, we find that it, too, 

 arose naturally, not artificially. Nay, more, it resulted from one of those 

 unregulated, anarchic states which Mr. Arnold so much dislikes. Out 

 of the conflict of Old-English dialects, sufficiently allied to cooperate, 

 but sufficiently different to have contradictory marks of gender, there 

 came a disuse of meaningless genders and a survival of the genders 

 having meaning a change which an Acadenry, had one existed here in 

 those days, would doubtless have done its best to prevent ; seeing 

 that during the transition there must have been a disregard of rules, 

 and apparent corruption of speech, out of which no benefit could have 

 been anticipated. 



Another fact respecting the French Academy is by no means con- 

 gruous with Mr. Arnold's conception of its value. The compiling of 

 an authoritative dictionary was a fit undertaking for it. Just recalling 

 the well-known contrast between its dilatory execution of this under- 

 taking, and the active execution of a kindred one by Dr. Johnson, we 

 have more especially to note the recent like contrast between the per- 

 formances of the Academy and the performances of M. Littr6. The 

 Academy has long had in hand two dictionaries the one a second edi- 

 tion of its original dictionary, the other an historical dictionary. The 

 first is at letter D ; and the initial number of the other, containing A B, 

 issued fifteen years ago, has not yet had a successor. Meanwhile, M. Lit- 

 lr6, single-handed, has completed a dictionary which, besides doing all 



