ON THE ELUCIDATION OF SOME PORTIONS OF THE 

 FABULOUS HISTORY OF GREECE, 



BY THE APPLICATION OF THE ANALYTICAL PRINCIPLES OF PHILOLOGY. 



BY WILLIAM SANKEY, 

 A.M. of the University of Dublin, and ad eundem of Cambridge, &c. 



TN a former essay I directed my attention to the legitimate 

 L principles which should guide us in the analysis of lan- 

 guages, and applied the same to the investigation of the origin 

 of some of the distinguishing characteristics, as well as apparent 

 anomalies, of the Greek tongue. I would now bring the prin- 

 ciples to bear upon points still more interesting, as shewing us 

 that this is a subject which does not confine its views to the 

 mere mechanism of language, but that it may be advantage- 

 ously employed in enabling us to arrive at the accurate mean- 

 ings of words on the one hand, or, on the other, in throwing 

 light upon the darker ages of history, while as yet dawning 

 through the thick mists of fable. 



With respect to the assistance we thus derive in ascertaining 

 the appropriate meanings of words, we may exemplify this in 

 the word Xaor, a people, which however, analytically, signifies 

 more accurately a multitude, being obviously resolvable into 

 the radix Xx and oy. Now, Xa is clearly the same as the 

 particle Xa, valde, presenting, therefore, at once, in the com- 

 pound Xst-os-, the idea of largeness. We are also enabled thus 

 immediately to detect the error of the older etymologists, 

 who, being unacquainted with the just principles of analytic 

 philology, deduced Xaos-, a people, from Xa*$-, a stone. 



Again, to take the particle <$s : this word generally ranked as 

 an adversative, but we shall probably be led to question the 

 justness of this classification when we consider that $e is closely 

 allied in sensible character to s-o;, ligo, from which it is at 

 once obtained by a direct analysis. The idea, therefore, con- 

 veyed by this particle e, must be connected with that of bind- 

 ing. This will further appear from its affinity to si, oportet, 

 which is, indeed, the third person singular of the former verb 

 Sew, the notion of a physical restraint, which is primarily con- 

 veyed by this latter being metaphorically transferred in what is 

 called the impersonal $a, to a moral obligation. Hence then 



