156 THE ORIGIN AIND 



THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF LANGUAGE, NO. II. 



After an examination of these two great families, ('the Indo-European 

 and the Semitic,) which may be said to include the languages of three 

 continents, there are discovered sufficient analogies to justify the con- 

 clusion, that they have a common origin. I will take the liberty here 

 of quoting, from Dr. Wiseman's lectures on the connexion between sci- 

 ence and religion, the conclusion to which we are justified in ariiving 

 from the information accessible on this subject. 1 give the conclusions, 

 referring the reader to the work itself for the details. 



"And here let us look back for a moment at the connexion between 

 our study and the sacred records. From the simple historical outline, 

 which I have laid before you, it appears that its tiist rise seemed fitter to 

 inspire alarm, than confidence ; insomuch as it broke asunder the great 

 bond anciently supposed to hold them together; then, for a time, it went 

 on still further, severing and dismembering ; consequently, to all appear- 

 ance, even widening the breach between itself and sacred history. In 

 its further progress, it began to discover new affinities, where least ex- 

 pected, till by degrees, many languages began to be grouped and classi- 

 fied in large families acknowledged to have a common origin. Then, 

 new discoveries gradually diminished the number of dependent lang- 

 uages, and extended, in consequence, the dominion of the larger masses. 

 At length, when this field seemed almost exhausted, a new class of re- 

 searches has succeeded, so far as it has been tried, in proving the extra- 

 ordinary affinities between these families — affinities existing in the very 

 character and essence of each language, so that none of them could have 

 ever existed without those elements, wherein these resemblances consist. 



Now, as this excludes all idea of one having borrowed them from 

 the other, as they could not have arisen in each by independent proces- 

 ses, and as the radical difference among the languages forbids their be- 

 ing considered dialects or oti-slioots from one another, we are driven to 

 the conclusion that, on the one hand, these languages must have been 

 originally united in one, whence they drew these common elements es- 

 sential to them all ; and, on the other hand, that the separation between 

 them, which destroyed other no less iniporlanl elements of resemblance, 

 could not have been caused by any gradual departure or individual de- 

 velopment — for these we have long since excluded — but by some vio- 

 lent, unusual and active force, sufficient alone to reconcile these conflict- 

 ing appearances, and to account, at once, for the resemblances and the 

 difiercncc.'^.''"' Tliis force must be the Scriptural account of tlic confu- 

 sion oi' the tongues at Babel. In like manner, the numerous lanijuages 



