112 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



appearances which these aucient Aryan languages of Europe present 

 to us. 



The objections which have been made to the new theory of the 

 origin of languages, in the form in which it was set forth, very briefly 

 and imperfectly, in my former essay on the subject, resolve them- 

 selves into two, which take the form of questions. The first proceeds 

 from philologists who are inclined to accept the theory, but ask for 

 more evidence, and particularly for evidence that children would be 

 able not only to invent a speech, but also, as they gi*ew older, to 

 endow this speech with inflections. The other objection comes from 

 those who have heretofore held the common and, it may be said,, 

 natural view that inflected languages are the growth of ages of slowly 

 accumulated cultux-e. They ask for evidence that languages equal in 

 variety of inflections, in the capacity for subtle distinctions, and in 

 comprehensive power of expression, to the classic Aryan and Semitic 

 tongues, have ever been found among barbarous peoples. 



These objections, or rather inquiries, are both entirely reasonable ; 

 and both have been presented, with equal courtesy and force, by very 

 eminent authorities, — the first, for example, by Professor Sayce, who 

 in his late most interesting address, as President of the Section of 

 Anthropology in the British Scientific Association, while compli- 

 menting the theory as " very ingenious," and pointing out, more 

 clearly than its author had done, its utility in explaining some im - 

 portant linguistic problems, yet demui's to the sufliciency of the 

 evidence thus far offered ; the second by an illustrious statesman and 

 scholar, who has done me the honor of turning aside for an hour fi'om 

 the afifairs of em]>ire, and from Homer, to consider the views suggested 

 by me, and to discuss them with his usual candor and acuteness. I 

 need not add that any suggestions )>roceeding from Mr. Gladstone on 

 a question of philology must always deserve the most respectful con- 

 sideration. 



On the question of the capacity of children for inventing entirely 

 new words and forms, evidence is steadily accumulating. For the 

 present, it will be suflicient to present one testimony which, alike 

 from its source and its character, will be found eminently satisfac- 

 tory. It comes from a very distinguished German professor, the first 

 Sinologist of Europe, himself the son of a master of philological 



