APPENDIX.— On GREEK AN JLOGT. 375 



feems to me not improbable, that by proceeding upon fuch a fy- 

 ftem to analyfe any primitive language, feme curious and inte- 

 refting fads regarding the formation of fpeech and the progrefs 

 of thought might be difcovered. 



From a Hight and imperfed furvey of the Greek, (which may 

 ■J"0!y.^^°'^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^ original language *), in its primitive 

 radicals, it appeared to me that fomething of fuch a I'egular ana- 

 logy was to be found in it ; that each of the different confonants, 

 united with the vowel founds in the form of the duads, was em- 

 ployed to exprefs fome one general idea, which might be traced 

 in various ramifications through all the words emanating from 

 that primitive root. The radical ideas, announced by the 

 different confonants, ftruck me as fomewhat of the following 

 nature. 



B Impulfe, or impulfive force, 

 r Expulfion, extruding force. 



A Piercing force, or connedled with that, dividing force. ' 

 Z Expanfion or expanfive force, force diffufmg itfelf round on 

 every fide. 



K Laying force, the force by which one objedl is made to lie 



upon or occupy a determinate place. 

 L Abrafion or abrafive force, the force by which objeds are 

 ftripped, fmoothed or pared. 

 VoL.V.-P.II. 3C MCon- 



• I DO not here enter at all into the difpute about the origin of the Greek lan- 

 guage from the Hebrew, through the medium of the old Pelafgic. In faft, fuch 

 a derivation does not aiFea the ftruaure of the language as complete within itfelf j 

 for this derivation, if real, was not partial, but total : it was not the engrafting of 

 parts upon a language already formed, but a tranfplantation of the whole, in its 

 native form ; fo that not only the branches, but the roots, with all their natural ra- 

 mifications, were carried to, and eftablilhed in, a new and fomewhat different foil. 

 In reafoning, therefore, on the ftrufture of the language, the Greek may juftly be 

 reckoned an original language, forming its roots within itfelf 5 and the other words 

 from thefe roots, by a regular progreiEon, 



