of the Human Species. 309 



of the globe, and whose fame has been recorded by the gratitude 

 of posterity upon the heavens as well as upon the earth. While 

 Malgalhaens was employed in tracing in the sky nebulae, and 

 new seas and oceans on the globe, his companion Pigafetta be- 

 thought himself of acquiring the means of rendering intelligible, 

 and of comparing with each other, the various dialects of the 

 new races of men, whose existence this voyage was destined to 

 make known. He began the practice of collecting vocabularies 

 which might furnish specimens of the idioms spoken in distant 

 islands of the ocean. His example has been followed by suc- 

 ceeding navigators, and has led by degrees to results of great 

 interest. The native tribes found in remote groups of islands 

 in the great southern ocean, looked upon themselves as the off- 

 spring of the sun and moon, or of the soil ; they knew nothing 

 of other branches of the human family ; their whole world and 

 sphere of existence was limited by their shores, or by the 

 small circle of their imperfect navigation. Accordingly, by 

 some writers it has been confidently assumed that these tribes 

 of men, like the bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees by which they 

 are fed, are the indigenous produce of the coralline or volcanic 

 soil on which they exist. This notion might have been stre- 

 nuously maintained, if researches into the structure and affinity 

 of languages had not furnished its refutation, and displayed, in 

 the idioms of these insular tribes, sufficient evidence of their mu- 

 tual relationship, and of the derivation of the whole stock of 

 people from a common centre." 



The author proceeds to give a brief survey of the history 

 of philological inquiries, and of the various collections exempli- 

 fying the diversity and affinity of languages which have been 

 made since the year 1555. " In 1555 was published the first 

 general essay on this subject, — the Mithrklates of the learned 

 Conrad Gessner, which may be considered, however, as an 

 abortive attempt, the author having aimed at more than it was 

 possible to attain in his age. The Mithridates of Adelung and 

 Vater, which followed ISO years afterwards, is the last general 

 history of languages which has appeared. Particular portions, 

 however, of the field of philology have been cultivated with 

 great success, either by private individuals or by societies of 

 'learned men. 



