LANGUAGE. 357 



Larguages, as intellectual creations of man, and as closet y 

 interwoven with the development of ir.ind, are, independently 

 of the 'national form which they exhibit, of the greatest im- 

 portance in the recognition of similarities or differences in 

 races. This importance is especially owing to the clew which 

 a community of descent affords in treading that mysterious 

 abyrinth in which the connection of physical powers and in- 

 tellectual forces manifests itself in a thousand different forms. 

 The brilliant progress made within the last half century, in 

 Germany, in philosophical philology, has greatly facilitated 

 our investigations into the national character* of languages 

 and the influence exercised by descent. But here, as in all 

 domains of ideal speculation, the dangers of deception are 

 closely linked to the rich and certain profit to be derived. 



Positive ethnographical studies, based on a thorough knowl- 

 edge of history, teach us that much caution should be applied 

 in entering into these comparisons of nations, and of the lan- 

 guages employed by them at certain epochs. Subjection, 

 long association, the influence of a foreign religion, the blend- 

 ing of races, even when only including a small number of the 

 more influential and cultivated of the immigrating tribes, 

 have produced, in both continents, similarly recurring phenom- 

 ena ; as, for instance, in introducing totally different families 

 of languages among one and the same race, and idioms, having 

 one common root, among nations of the most different origin. 

 Great Asiatic conquerors have exercised the most powerful 

 influence on phenomena of this kind. 



But language is a part and parcel of the history of the de- 

 velopment of mind ; and, however happily the human intel- 

 lect, under the most dissimilar physical conditions, may unfet- 

 tered pursue a self-chosen track, and strive to free itself from 

 the dominion of terrestrial influences, this emancipation is 

 never perfect. There ever remains, in the natural capacities 

 of the mind, a trace of something that has been derived from 

 the influences of race or of climate, whether they be associated 

 with a land gladdened by cloudless azure skies, or with the 

 vapory atmosphere of an insular region. As, therefore, rich- 

 ness and grace of language are unfolded from the most luxu- 



the Torgodi and Dsungari (Mongolians), the same habits of nomadic 

 life, and the same use of felt tents, carried on wagons and pitched 

 among herds of cattle. 



\\ilhelm von Humboldt, Ueber die Verichiedenheit der mensthUcht* 

 Sprachbauet, in his great work Ueber die Kntzi-Sprachc aitf der Irur{ 

 i, bd. L, s. xii., xlviii., and ccxir. 



