PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. Ill 



back by the Arabs to the extreme west of Europe, blended 

 with hypotheses of Indian origin. The ancient Indian and 

 Malayan tongues furthered the advance of commerce and the 

 intercourse of nations in the island-world of the southwest of 

 Asia, in Madagascar, and on the eastern shores of Africa ; and 

 it is also probable that tidings of the Indian commercial sta- 

 tions of the Banians may have given rise to the adventurous 

 expedition of Vasco de Gama. The predominance of certain 

 languages, although it unfortunately prepared a rapid destruc- 

 tion for the idioms displaced, has operated favorably, like 

 Christianity and Buddhism, in bringing together and uniting 

 mankind. 



Languages compared together, and considered as objects of 

 the natural history of the mind, and when separated into fam- 

 ilies according to the analogies existing in their internal struc- 

 ture, have become a rich source of historical knowledge ; and 

 this is probably one of the most brilliant results of modern 

 study in the last sixty or seventy years. From the very fact 

 of their being products of the intellectual force of mankind, 

 they lead us, by means of the elements of their organism, into 

 an obscure distance, unreached by traditionary records. The 

 comparative study of languages shows us that races now sep- 

 arated by vast tracts of land are allied together, and have mi- 

 grated from one common primitive seat ; it indicates the course 

 and direction of all migrations, and, in tracing the leading 

 epochs of development, recognizes, by means of the more or 

 less changed structure of the language, in the permanence of 

 certain forms, or in the more or less advanced destruction of 

 the formative system, which race has retained most nearly 

 the language common to all who had migrated from the gen- 

 eral seat of origin. The largest field for such investigations 

 into the ancient condition of language, and, consequently, into 

 the period when the whole family of mankind was, in the strict 

 sense of the word, to be regarded as one living whole, presents 

 itself in the long chain of Indo-Germanic languages, extending 

 from the Ganges to the Iberian extremity of Europe, and from 

 Sicily to the North Cape. The same comparative study of 

 languages leads us also to the native country of certain prod- 

 ucts, which, from the earliest ages, have constituted important 

 objects of trade and barter. The Sanscrit names of genuine 

 Indian products, as those of rice, cotton, spikenard, and sugar, 

 have, as we find, passed into the language of the Greeks, and, 

 to a certain extent, even into those of Semitic origin.* 



* In Sanscrit, rico is vrihi, cotton karpdsa, sugar ^sarkare, and spike- 



