RESULTS OF LINGUISTIC RESEARCH. 3 



of the chemical retort, or in the strangest results of phy- 

 sical experiment, are yet disposed to seek a dualism 

 behind the processes of life. Wherever, also, the ex- 

 planation of life, and the reduction of vital phenomena 

 to their true natural causes is concerned, they would 

 wish to deny point-blank the possibility of such ex- 

 planation or such knowledge, and to refer life to an 

 unapproachable and mystic domain. Or, if the solu- 

 tion of the problem of life be admitted in the abstract, 

 at least something peculiar, and a different standard from 

 that by which other living beings may be measured, is 

 required for the beloved Self. 



If we thus see, on the one side, a great portion of our 

 contemporaries either standing before the most impor- 

 tant of all problems in utter perplexity and helpless- 

 ness, or solving it by the theology of revelation, we 

 may, fortunately, point, on the other side, to the goodly 

 host of those who, since the development of science 

 has admitted of it, have encountered the investigation 

 of man's place in nature with sincere interest, and have 

 weighed the problem with intelligence. 



This craving for a knowledge based on philosophical 

 and natural science, became apparent about a century 

 ago, and coincided with the first beginnings of linguistic 

 science. It is the more appropriate to allude here to 

 this, as the theories of the origin of language are 

 profoundly affected and influenced by opinions as to 

 the origin of Man, and vice versa. 



The result of an inquiry, made in 1580, as to the lan- 

 guage of Paradise, having been that God spoke Danish, 

 Adam Swedish, and the serpent French, Leibnitz, 

 in his letters to Newton, first attempted to regulate the 



B 2 



