o? M i w Y ork 



THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



FEBEUAEY, 1891. 



NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 



XI. FKOM BABEL TO COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY. 



By ANDEEW DICKSON WHITE, LL. D., L. H. D., 



EX-PKESLDENT OF CORNELL UNIVEKSITY. 



PART II. 



IN the first part of this article we saw the steps by which the 

 sacred theory of human language had been developed ; how it 

 had been strengthened in every land until it seemed to bid defiance 

 forever to secular thought ; how it rested firmly upon the letter 

 of Scripture, upon the explicit declarations of leading fathers of 

 the Church, of the great doctors of the middle ages, of the most 

 eminent theological scholars down to the beginning of the eight- 

 eenth century, and was guarded by the decrees of popes, bishops, 

 Catholic and Protestant, kings, and the whole hierarchy of au- 

 thorities in church and state. 



And yet, as we now look back, it is easy to see that, even in 

 that hour of its triumph, it was doomed. 



The reason why the Church has so fully accepted the conclu- 

 sions of science which have destroyed the sacred theory is in- 

 structive. The study of languages has been, since the revival of 

 learning and the Reformation, a favorite study with the whole 

 Western Church, Catholic and Protestant. The importance of 

 understanding the ancient tongues in which our sacred books are 

 preserved first stimulated the study, and church missionary efforts 

 have contributed nobly to supply the material for extending it, 

 and for the application of that comparative method which, in phi- 

 lology as in other sciences, has been so fruitful of good. Hence it 

 is that so many leading theologians have come to know at first 

 hand the truths given by this science, and to recognize its funda- 

 mental principles. What the conclusions which they, as well as 



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