342 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



found from the original ; and very often the analogy of the fenfe is 

 net very evident. For this purpofe our author has compiled feveral 

 etymological didionaries, particularly a French one, a Latin, and a 

 Greek, wherein he has ranged the words according to their feveral 

 families^ as he calls them. And though fome of his etymologies 

 may be conjedural and fanciful, yet, upon the whole, he has made 

 fuch a fyftem of thefe languages as never was made before ; for it 

 is only by reducing the words of a language to a few roots, from 

 which all the other words proceed, that we can make a fyftem of any 

 language. And it is to be obferved, that in the etymological didi- 

 onaries of the languages I have mentioned, he has found almoft all 

 the roots in other European languages, fuch as the Celtic, or in the 

 Oriental languages, fuch as the Hebrew and Arabic ; for as all thofe 

 languages, of which he has given us etymological didionaries, are 

 derived from the other languages I have mentioned, it is of necet- 

 fity that a great part of the roots fhould be found in thefe other 

 languages. Thefe, therefore, muft be the parent languages of the 

 Greek, Latin, and French. But ftill the difficulty recurs, From 

 whence were the Celtic, Hebrew, and Arabic derived ? and M. Ge- 

 belin anfwers, From his Primitive Language^ to which, as I have ob- 

 ferved, he has not affigned a country; but this defed, I hope, I have 

 fupplied, and have proved that country to have been Egypt. 



Another thing to be obfer\'ed of thofe derivative languages, is, 

 that the words in them, derived from the original language, muft be 

 much altered from their roots in the found. Even in words deriv- 

 ed from the roots of the fame language, we obferve a great change 

 in the found, which is very obfervable in the Greek and Latin de- 

 rivatives, in which the difference is fometimes fo great, that it re- 

 quires a great deal of knowledge of etymology to find out the root. 

 But when the words are derived from another language, the change 

 muft be very much greater j for when a language is brought from 



another 



