146 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [ Von. TIt 
Grecs, je dis de simples racines, qui sont tirés de la langue des Celtes, 
avec presque tous les nombres. Par example, les Celtes disent dec, 
dix, et les Grecs déxa. Les Celtes disent Jem, cinq, et les anciens Grecs 
Eoliens zepré. Les Celtes disent pedwar ou fetoar, quatre, et les Eoliens 
n&topés. Les Celtes disent uudec, ouze ; ddoudec, douze, etc. Les Grecs, 
edvéxa, Oo éxa, etc. Jugez du reste par cet échantillon.”* Another 
pioneer in the Comparative-philological field, Col. Vans Kennedy, wrote 
a work wherein he quotes nine hundred words common to Sanskrit and 
other idioms. Lastly, in the early years of this century, the German 
Francis Bopp, in his Das Conjugationssystem, instituted a comparison 
between the grammatical systems of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Persian 
and German which won for him the title of founder of Comparative 
Philology. 
The paramount importance of such studies is evident, inasmuch as 
even those scholars who deny the common origin of the human race 
allow that identity or similarity of language between nations however 
distant cannot be the result of mere chance, but proves some real con- 
nection of origin or early relationship. Nor have believers in the 
original unity of mankind ever failed to perceive it. “It is then,” says. 
Abel Rémusat, “we should be able to pronounce with decision what, 
according to the language of a people, was its origin, what the nations 
with which it has stood in relations, what the character of those relations 
was to the stock it belongs to.”+ 
These researches which brought forth such valuable ethnological and 
archeological results in connection with peoples, as the European and 
most of the Asiatic nations, whose historical data are embodied in well 
authenticated records, cannot fail to prove at least as useful relatively to 
such races as the American tribes which have no other history than a 
few vague and disconnected legends and traditions. Nay, it might almost 
be said that Comparative Philology is in their case the only beacon which 
can throw any light upon their origin, their migrations and their connec- 
tion with the other branches of the human family. Unless, of course, we 
choose to believe in their autochthony and, thereby reject the only 
authority upon which we can depend as upon an unerring guide, I 
mean the inspired Books. For, as there is on our planet but one species 
of man, and as the Bible furnishes us with only one Genesis, it follows 
that, unless we regard the American continent as the cradle of the human 
race—which I think nobody is prepared to do—we must look to the old 
world for the birth place of our Aborigines. 
*Encyclopedie ou Dictionnaire universel raisonné, art. Celtes. 
+Recherches sur les Langues Tartares, Vol. I., p. XXIX. 
