CONCLUSION OF THE SUBJECT. 369 



to the present. Thus deeply rooted in the innermost nature 

 of man, and even enjoined upon him by his highest tenden- 

 cies the recognition of the bond of humanity becomes one of 

 the noblest leading principles in the history of mankind."* 



With these words which draw their charm from the depths 

 of feeling, let a brother be permitted to close this general 

 description of the natural phenomena of the universe. From 

 the remotest nebula? and from the revolving double stars, we 

 have descended to the minutest organisms of animal creation, 

 whether manifested in the depths of ocean, or on the surface 



1 our globe, and to the delicate vegetable germs which clothe 

 the naked declivity of the ice-crowned mountain summit ; and 

 here we have been able to arrange these phenomena according 

 to partially known laws; but other laws of a more mysterious 

 nature rule the higher spheres of the organic world, in which 

 is comprised the human species in all its varied conformation, 

 its creative intellectual power, arid the languages to which 

 it has given existence. A physical delineation of nature 

 terminates at the point where the sphere of intellect begins, 

 and a new world of mind is opened to our view. It marks the 

 limit but does not pass it. 



* Wilhelm von Humboldt, Ueber die Kawi-Spraclie, bd. iii. s. 426. 

 I subjoin the following extract from this work : " The impetuous con- 

 quests of Alexander, the more politic and premeditated extension of 

 territory made by the Romans, the wild and cruel incursions of the 

 Mexicans, and the despotic acquisitions of the Incas, have in both hemi- 

 spheres contributed to put an end to the separate existence of many 

 tribes as independent nations, and tended at the same time to establish 

 more extended international amalgamation. Men of great and strong 

 minds, as well as whole nations, acted under the influence of one idea, the 

 purity of which was, however, utterly unknown to them. It was Christian- 

 ity which first promulgated the truth of its exalted charity, although 

 the seed sown yielded but a slow and scanty harvest. Before the reli- 

 gion of Christ manifested its form, its existence was only revealed by a 

 faint foreshadowing presentiment. In recent times, the idea of civilisa- 

 tion has acquired additional intensity, and has given rise to a desire of 

 extending more widely the relations of national intercourse and of 

 intellectual cultivation ; even selfishness begins to learn that by such a 

 course its interests will be better served, than by violent and forced 

 isolation. Language, more than any other attribute of mankind, binds 

 together the whole human race. By its idiomatic properties, it cer- 

 tainly seems to separate nations, but the reciprocal understanding of 

 foreign languages connects men together oil the other hand without 

 injuring individual national characteristics." 



2B 



