442 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



more heavy artillery was wheeled into place, in order to make a 

 last desperate defense of the sacred theory. The leaders in this 

 effort were the three great Ultramontanes, De Maistre, De Bo- 

 nald, and Lammenais. Condillac's contention that " languages 

 were gradually and insensibly acquired, and that every man had 

 his share of the general result," they attacked with reasoning 

 based upon premises laid down in the Book of Genesis. De 

 Maistre especially excels in ridiculing the philosophic or scientific 

 theory. Lammenais, who afterward became so vexatious a thorn 

 in the side of the Church, insisted, at this earlier period, that 

 " man can no more think without words than see without light." 

 And then, by that sort of mystical play upon words so well 

 known in the higher ranges of theologic reasoning, he clinches 

 his argument by saying, " The Word is truly and in every sense 

 'the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the 

 world.' " 



But even such leaders as these could not stay the progress of 

 thought. While they seemed to be carrying everything before 

 them in France, researches in philology made at such centers of 

 thought as the Sorbonne and the College of France were undert 

 mining the last great fortress. Curious indeed is it to find tha- 

 the Sorbonne, the stronghold of theology through so many cent- 

 uries, was now made in the nineteenth century the arsenal and 

 stronghold of the new ideas. But the most striking result of 

 the new tendency in France was seen when the greatest of the 

 three champions, Lammenais himself, though offered the highest 

 church preferment, and even a cardinal's hat, braved the papal 

 anathema, and went over to the scientific side.* 



In Germany philological science took so strong a hold that its 

 positions were soon recognized as impregnable. Leaders like the 

 Schlegels, William von Humboldt, and, above all, Franz Bopp 

 and Jacob Grimm, gave such additional force to scientific truth 

 that it could no longer be withstood. To say nothing of other 

 conquests, the demonstration of that great law in philology which 

 bears Grimm's name brought home to all thinking men the evi- 



* For Johnson'8 work, showing how Moses learned the alphabet, see the Collection of 

 Discourses by Rev. John Johnson, A. M., Vicar of Kent, London, 1728, p. 42, and the 

 preface. For Beattie, see his Theory of Language, London, 1788, p. 98 ; also pp. 100, 101, 

 For Adam Clarke, see, for the speech cited, his Miscellaneous Works, London, 1837 ; for 

 the passage from his Commentary, see the London edition of 1836, vol. i, p. 93 ; for the other 

 passage, see Introduction to Bibliographical Miscellany, quoted in article, Origin of Lan- 

 guage and Alphabetical Characters, in Methodist Magazine, vol. xv, p. 214. For De Bonald^ 

 see his Recherches Philosophiques, Part III, chap, ii, Dc l'Origine du Langage, in (Euvres 

 Completes, Paris, 1859, pp. 64-78, passim. For Joseph De Maistre, see his (Euvres, Brux- 

 elles, 1852, vol. i, Les Soirees de Saint Petersbourg, dcuxieme entretien, passim. For 

 Lammenais, see his (Euvres Completes, Paris, 1836-'37, tome ii, 78-81, chap, xv of Essai 

 sur I'lndifference en Matiere de Religion. 



