18 rnocRF-ss : ITS LAW AND CAUSE. 



suits a language of some sixty thousand 01 more unlike 

 words, signifying as many unlike objects, qualities, acts. 



Yet another way in which language in general advances 

 from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, is in the mul 



o ~ 



tiplication of languages. Whether as Max Miillcr and 15un- 

 sen think, all languages have grown from one stock, or 

 whether, as some philologists say, they have grown from 

 two or more stocks, it is clear that since large families of 

 languages, as the Indo-European, are of one parentage, 

 they have become distinct through a process of continuous 

 divergence. The same diffusion over the Earth s surface 

 which has led to the differentiation of the race, has simulta 

 neously led to a differentiation of their speech : a truth 

 which we see further illustrated in each nation by the pecu 

 liarities of dialect found in several districts. Tims the pro 

 gress of Language conforms to the general law, alike in the; 

 evolution of languages, in the evolution of families of words, 

 and in the evolution of parts of speech. 



On passing from spoken to written language, we come 

 upon several classes of facts, all having similar implications. 

 Written language is connate with Painting and Sculpture; 

 and at first all three are appendages of Architecture, and 

 have a direct connection with the primary form of all Gov 

 ernment the theocratic. Merely noting by the way the 

 fact that sundry wild races, as for example the Australians 

 and the tribes of South Africa, are given to depicting per 

 sonages and events upon the walls of caves, which arc prob 

 ably regarded as sacred places, let us pass to the case of 

 the Egyptians. Among them, as also among the Assyrians, 

 we find mural paintings used to decorate the temple of the 

 god and the palace of the king (which were, indeed, origi 

 nally identical) ; and as such they were governmental appli 

 ances in the same sense that state-pageants and religious 

 feasts were. Further, they were governmental appliances 

 in virtue of representing the worship of the god, the tri- 



