luilo- European Languages. 297 



of origin. Just as two brothers will always be two brothers, 

 notwithstanding differences of stature, feature, and disposi- 

 tion, so will two languages which have parted fi'om the com- 

 mon stock within the same decennium, be more closely allied 

 to each other, at any time and at all times, than two languages 

 separated within the same century ; and two languages sepa- 

 rated within the same century, will always be more cognate 

 than two within the same millennium. This will be the case 

 irrespective of any amount of subsequent similarity or dis- 

 similarity. 



Indeed, for the purposes of ethnology, the phenomena of 

 subsequent similarity or dissimilarity are of subordinate im- 

 portance. Why they are so, is involved in the question as 

 to the rate of change in language. Of two tongues separated 

 at the same time from a common stock, one may change ra- 

 pidly, the other slowly ; and, hence, a dissimilar physiognomy 

 at the end of a given period. If the English of Austra- 

 lia were to change rapidly in one direction, and the Eng- 

 lish of America in another, great as would be the difference 

 resulting from such changes, their ethnological relation would 

 be the same. They would still have the same affiliation with 

 the same mother-tongue, dating from nearly the same epoch. 



In ethnological philology, as in natural history, descent is 

 the paramount fact ; and without asking how far the value 

 thus given to it is liable to be refined on, we leave it, in each 

 science, as we find it, until some future investigator shall 

 have shewn that either for a pair of animals not descended 

 from a common stock, or for a pair of languages not origi- 

 nating from the same mother-tongue, a great number of 

 general propositions can be predicated than is the case with 

 the two most dissimilar instances (animal or language) de- 

 rived from a common origin. 



Languages are allied just in proportion as they were sepa- 

 rated from the same language at the same epoch. 



The same epoch. — The word epoch is an equivocal word, 

 and it is used designedly because it is so. Its two meanings 

 require to be indicated, and, Ihen, it will be necessary to ask 

 which of them is to be adopted liere. 



The epoch, as a period in the duration of a language, may 



