74 GRAMMAR OP THE LANGUAGE 



and their writings have not a little contributed to the ad- 

 vancement of knowledge. Among those we must place 

 in the first rank the illustrious president l)e Brosses, whose 

 excellent treaiise on the mechanical formation of language* 

 contains more correct reasoning than any other work on 

 the same subject. Nor can 1 pass over in silence the 

 lights that are diffused through the Elements of Ideo- 

 logy of our venerated associate Destutt Tracvf, so fruit- 

 ful of important principles that still remain to be applied 

 to various unsettled points of our science. But. with these 

 helps and many others that could be mentioned, we are 

 not yet prepared for a general elementary treatise on phi- 

 lology taken in its whole extent: more facts are yet to be 

 collected, and inveterate theories submitted to the test of 

 truth, before this great woik can be undertaken with hopes 

 of suecess. 



Philology in fact, in the sense in which I wish to be 

 understood, is of immense extent. It not only embraces 

 oral language in all its varieties, but also writing and all 

 the signs by means of which ideas are communicated 

 through the organs of sight. The language of signs which 

 the deal' and dumb make use of is alone a science. But 

 setting ihese aside, and confining out selves to speech pro- 

 perly so called, we find in that alone a boundless field of 

 inquiry. We are arrested in the outset by the unnumbered 

 languages and dialects which are spread over the surface of 

 the earth, of which a very few only can be acquired by any 

 individual. But philology comprehends them all, it ob- 

 liges us to class and compare them with each other, for 

 which we have no other aid than the knowledge more or 

 less perfect of a few, and a superficial view of the rest. The 

 philologist must learn to catch the prominent traits !>y 

 w. ich the different modes of speech are distinguished, 



* Traite dc la formation mecanique des langues et des principes 

 physiques de l'etymologie, 2 vols, limo. Paris, An IX. 



f Elements d'ideologie, par A. L. C. Destutt Tracy, Scnateur, 3 vols. 

 Svo. Paris, 1804 — 1805. 



