76 GRAMMAR OF THE LANGUAGE 



When we find such men as Court de Gehelin, Bishop Wilkins, 

 Maupertuis, Rousseau, Adam Smith, and so many other*, seri- 

 ously employed in the pursuit of those unattainable objects, 

 we can but lament the disposition of the human mind to 

 transgress the bounds which Eternal Wisdom has prescribed 

 to human knowledge and human power. 



If philology had no other object than to promote and fa- 

 cilitate the intercourse between nations, and make men 

 better acquainted with the globe they inhabit, it would be 

 well worth all the trouble and labour that may be bestowed 

 upon it. What further results it may produce, useful or 

 interesting to mankind, it is impossible to foretel. Thus 

 much is certain, that no science more powerfully excites 

 that desire of knowledge which is inherent in our nature, 

 and which, no doubt, was given to us by the Almighty for 

 wise purposes. 



Moved by these considerations, the American Philosophi- 

 cal Society have thought it incumbent upon them to add to 

 the mass of facts which are accumulating on all sides, by the 

 publication of this grammar. While the languages of Asia 

 occupy the attention of the philologists of Europe, light is 

 expected from this quarter to be shed on those of our own 

 continent. This Society was the first to discover and make 

 known to the world the remarkable character which per- 

 vades, as far as they are yet known, the aboriginal languages 

 of America, from Greenland to Cape Horn. In the period of 

 seven years which has elapsed since the publication of the 

 Report presented to their Historical Committee in 1819*, all 

 the observations which have been made on Indian languages, 

 at i hat time unknown, have confirmed their theory, if theory 

 it cun be called, which is no more than the general result of 

 a multitude of facts collected with care. This result has 

 shewn that the astonishing variety of forms of human speech 

 which exists in the eastern hemisphere is not to be found in 



* Transactions of the Historical and Literary Committee of the Ame- 

 rican Philosophical Society, vol. 1. Philadelphia, 1819. 



