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ON COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY. 



So capricious is the human mind in the desire of knowledge, that while 

 it would be grieved if nothing remained to learn, it is discouraged at the 

 thought that too much remains to learn. We love to see before us neither 

 a blocked up way, nor an immeasurable plain j but a landscape of suitable 

 extent. Accordingly, the vast accession of facts to be known and studied, 

 which modern literature has opened in all departments, has a tendency in 

 many cases to palsy the mental powers : a tendency, however, which is 

 counteracted, when general principles are discovered, around which the 

 details naturally arrange themselves. Few studies seem to the world at 

 large so tasteless as Philology. The numerous names of languages and 

 dialects with which the British public has been made acquainted, chiefly 

 by means of the Bible Society, are enough at first to inspire disgust in the 

 mind, which, conscious of its powers, fancies the whole range of science 

 its natural possession. While this is a useful check against the craving 

 insatiate desire of knowledge for its own sake, and an admonition that all 

 is vanity, save as God is in all the final end of our adoration ; those who 

 will so take it, will find in every field of nature so much the more instruc- 

 tion the more varied and extensive it is. Philology is not, therefore an 

 unreal science, because it has to do with words ; for words are facts. 

 Language is a record of the human mind. The science is degraded by 

 being supposed to deal only in the elegancies of composition, of which most 

 are factitious, or in the dogmas of grammarians, of which many are false. 

 Sir William Jones gave the first impulse to the inquiry concerning the 

 affinities of languages, through which modern Philology has taken so new 

 and so interesting a shape. But in his day it was premature to attempt so 

 arduous a problem as to decide on the number of primitive tongues, even 

 of Europe and Asia : and it would seem that we are not yet agreed on 

 some preliminary questions involved in treating such a problem. In the 

 expression primitive tongues, I mean what all mean, who, believing the 

 records of Moses, see no ground to doubt the popular interpretation of the 

 miracle at Babel : and without such a miracle, it appears impossible to be- 

 lieve the descent of the human race from a single pair. But what points 

 of similitude are to be confidently expected in any two dialects of one and 

 the same language ? for unless this can be safely answered, our inquiries 

 will soon meet their termination. We ought to seek a reply, by induction 

 from those languages which are historically known to be, and from those 

 which are supposed not to be, akin : for although a priori considerations 

 are quite in place, they must be checked by historical facts. 



The agreements between kindred dialects may be Jirst, in the material 

 of speech, or secondly, in the structure of grammar : in the words, as roots, 

 or in the mode of inflexion : and it is alike agreeable to reason and illus- 

 trated by fact, that such dialects retain very generally those words which 



