272 ON NATURAL OR INARTICULATE, AND 



this, though the etymologists have hitherto sought in vain for the origin of 

 femma. Yromfeomina, or, without the termination, feomin, we have derived 

 "our own and the common Saxon term, women; the j, and v or w, being cog- 

 irate, or convertible letters in all languages ; of which we have a familiar in- 

 stance in the words vater and father, which, in German and English, mean 

 precisely the same thing. 



But this subject would require a large volume instead of occupying the 

 close of a single lecture. It is, however, as you will find, when we come to 

 apply it, of great importance ; and I must yet, therefore, trouble you with 

 another example or two. 



Youth and young are as capable of as extensive a research, and are as com- 

 mon to all languages, barbarous and civilized, as the word man. I will only at 

 present remark, that we meet with it in Hebrew, where it is nj r (yunp.) ; 

 in Persia, and Palavi or ancient Persian, where it isjuani ; in Sanscrit, where 

 ji is yauvan; in Greek, vlov (yiori), from fo?, or ?$; in Latin, where we find 

 itjuvenis; in Gothic and German, where it is jung ; in Spanish, joven ; in 

 Italian, giovan ; in French, jeune ; and, as I have already observed, in our 

 own dialect, young. 



The word regent, in like manner, is, and ever has been, in equal use among 

 all nations. This, like the French regir, is derived from the Latin rege; 

 which runs through all the southern dialects of Europe; while in Germany 

 and the north, the derivative recht is the common term fo- *ule, law, authority. 

 The Hebrew is ""jo (raj), a conspicuous or illustrious person ; the Sanscrit, 

 raja ; the Greek, fa and fa<av\ of the same exact import as the Hebrew; and 

 hence ra, or raia, imports the sun, the most powerful and illustrious object 

 in creation, among a multitude of barbarous nations, and especially those of 

 the Sandwich Islands and New-Zealand ; and ooraye and rayan-ai, the day 

 or light itself, in different parts of Sumatra. Our own term ray, common, 

 indeed, to almost all Europe, ancient and modern, is obviously from the same 



source; and hence the Arabic k^j (rayhe), fragrancy, odour; the poetic 

 mind of the Arabians uniformly applying this image to legitimate rule and 

 government. 



The term name, in like manner, runs through all the leading languages of 

 ancient and modern ages, almost without a shade of difference, either in its 

 meaning or mode of spelling: for we thus meet with it in Hebrew, Sanscrit, 

 Arabic, Greek, Persian, Gothic, and Latin. 



The same theory might he exemplified from many of the terms significa- 

 tive of the most common animals. Our English word cow is of this descrip- 

 tion, and may serve as a familiar example ; nij (gouah], in Hebrew, imports 

 a herd (as of oxen) ; the very same word in Greek, yva, means a yoke of oxen ; 

 in both which cases the word is used in a collective sense. In Sanscrit, 

 fr^va imports, as among ourselves, a single animal of the kind, ox or cow; in 

 Persian, and ancient Persian or Palavi, it is gow ; in German, kuh ; and among 

 the Hottentots, as an example of a savage tongue, koos and koose; while 

 among the New-Zealanders, who have no cows, eu imports paps or breasts, 

 the organ of milk. 



Mouse is in like manner n#D (niusheh) in Hebrew, literally " a groper in 

 the dark;" in Sanscrit, mushica; in Persian and Palavi, mush; in Greek, pvs t 

 without the aspirate; in German, mous ; in English, mouse; in Spanish, 

 musgano: all, as I have already observed, confederating in proof that the 

 various languages, and dialects of languages that now are or ever have been 

 spoken, have originated from one common source; and that the various 

 nations that now exist, or ever have existed, have originated from one com- 

 mon cradle or quarter of the world, and that quarter an eastern region. 



Finally, and before I close this argument, and deduce from it its fair and 

 legitimate result, let me pointedly call your attention to that most extraor- 

 dinary act of correspondence between all nations whatever, in all quarters of 

 the globe, wherever any trace of the art exists, which is to be found in their 

 employment of a decimal gradation of arithmetic ; an argument which, though 

 I do not know that it has ever been advanced before, is, I freely confess to 



