654 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



I ought perhaps here to confess that, on first readmg this, I 

 was not only a httle incredulous, but I even doubted whether 

 Mr. Tregear was altogether in earnest. I saw, however, I must 

 be wrong, on noticing that " The Aryan Maori " came from the 

 Government Printing Office, and that " The Maori in Asia " not 

 only appeared in the " Transactions," but was there awarded 

 the place of honour ; a sufficient sign that the learned editors oi 

 our only scientific journal deemed it at least a serious contribu- 

 tion to science : this, of course, was more than enough for me. 



Mr. Tregear distributes his proofs under several headings : 

 Language, Animals and Customs, Mythology, Time of Migration, 

 Esoteric Language, and others ; but it is on language and its 

 evidence that he mainly relies : it is his linguistic method, 

 including his method of exegesis, which is at once his peculiarity 

 and his strength, and it is to this that I wish to call your attention. 



"It does not follow," he says, "because two peoples have 

 (even many) words in common that they are closely connected 

 by descent. . . . But if there be two nations, all whose 

 vital words come of the same stock, then there are two nations 

 whose ancestors were brothers." 



But how to find out the identity of these vital words ? that 

 is evidently the fundamental question lying at the root of the 

 whole inquiry. 



Unfortunately Mr. Tregear does not, as some do, begin by 

 enunciating and discussing his method, but, with just a hint of 

 its nature, leaves his reader to discover it by its use. After 

 mentioning, and illustrating by an example or two, some of the 

 difficulties of the etymologist with the European languages, he 

 says : " These examples are as shadows of what the student of 

 European tongues must look for. My task is an easier and 

 more delightful one : the reader will be able to follow the 

 derivations with ease and pleasure." It is this method, or 

 faculty, of easy derivation and of not less easy interpretation, 

 which enables Mr. Tregear not only to charm his readers by the 

 way, but, after a remarkably short time spent upon the road, to 

 bring them a very long distance from where they started. 



In his two works he compares a very large number of Maori 

 words with those of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, English, and other 

 Aryan languages : unfortunately, as I have said, the principles 

 guiding him in so doing arc not explicitly laid down, but the 

 following, I think, arc among them : — 



1. Reduce the given words, as nearly as is easily practicable, 

 to a common alphabet ; then pair any two which have a more 

 or less similar appearance or sound, and a more or less similar 

 meaning ; and then treat the components of each pair so formed 

 as derived one from the other, or as both derived from some 

 third form, and, in either case, as giving evidence that the 

 languages from which they have been taken are cognate, 



