152 PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



hieroglyphic texts can be as easily read as Greek. This 

 great work has caused a revolution in history, revealing as it 

 does an antiquity undreamt of, and a civilisation seven thou- 

 sand years ago which was in many ways more astonishing 

 than ours. Not one of its least important results is the new 

 light it throws upon the antiquity of our race. 



1791 1 8 . Bopp investigated the growth of speech, and 

 traced up the connection existing between a certain group of 

 Oriental languages and those of Europe (Sanskrit, Slavonic, 

 Celtic. German, Greek, and Latin), and their common descent 

 from one original language of which there remains no literary 

 trace. This demonstration is almost conclusive as regards 

 the kindred of all the nations of Europe (the Turks, Hun- 

 garians, Finns, Laps, Esthonians, and Basques excepted), and 

 their descent from one extinct stock conventionally called 

 Aryan. Bopp's COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR, a monument of 

 research and learning, may be called the basis of modern 

 philology; but its value is considerably enhanced by the 

 flood of light it throws on the history of races, coming as it 

 did after ANQUETIL DUPERRON (1731 1805) by his dis- 

 covery and translation of the Vendidad (fourth book of the 

 ZEND AVESTA), and after BURNOUF (1775 1844) and Sir 

 Henry RAWLINSON (1816 ) by their discovery of the 

 key to CUNEIFORM LANGUAGES the lost languages of the 

 Semites, Persians, and Assyrians had furnished documentary 

 evidence of the Aryan theory. 



b. 1823. Max Miiller elucidated in a much further degree 

 the science of philology by a series of works unsurpassed for 

 learning and depth, among which his translation of the 

 Hitopadesa and of THE VEDAS, the HISTORY OF THE SAN- 

 SKRIT LANGUAGE, Lectures on the Science of Language, 

 stand foremost. By these labours and their purport the 

 author has established his title to be considered the champion 

 of the Aryan theory a theory which seems undisputable as 

 regards language, but which is disputed as regards race : 

 identity of speech by no means necessarily implying identity 

 of race. 



Closely connected with anthropology comes : 



