324 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



k muft neceflarily undergo many alterations even in the fame na- 

 tion ; nor do I believe, that there is a nation at prefent in Europe^ 

 in which the language novsr fpoken is the fame that was fpoken three 

 or four hundred years ago. But the change muft be much greater, 

 when the language paffes to a nation living at a great diftance, and 

 under a different climate, and where confequently the organs of 

 pronunciation muft be affefted more or lefs by the difference of 

 climate. And not only the pronounciation of the words, in this 

 paffage, from one country to another, wall be changed, but alfo the 

 fenfe of the words, which is a thing as arbitrary as the found, and 

 therefore very liable to be altered, as well as the found, by common 

 life. 



How much a language, derived from another, may be changed 

 from the original, both in found and fenfe, the French, the Italian, 

 and Spanilh languages are a clear proof. They are undoubtedly 

 derived from the Latin, and yet are languages fo different from the 

 Latin, as not to be underftood by a man w^ho only underftands the 

 original language; and fo different from one another, that the know- 

 ledge of one of them will not make you underftand the other two ; 

 vet there is a great funilarity to the Latin in the found of verj'- ma- 

 ny of the words, and in the fenfe alfo ; and there is a good deal of 

 the art of the Latin language in them, particularly in the genders 

 and numbers of nouns, and in the tenfes of verbs form^ed by fledion, 

 though they have loft the forming the cafes of nouns by fledion. 

 The fame is the cafe of the Englifh and other dialeds of the Gothic, 

 which are fo much changed from the original language, preferved in 

 Iceland, that the knowledge of it will not make you underftand any 

 of its dialeds fpoken on the continent of Europe, and which are all 

 fo different from one another, that by underftanding one of them 

 you do not underftand any other of them. Now, if thefe lan- 

 guages, which did not travel far, (and one of them did not travel at 



all, 



