102 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES 



of the modern spirit in that very asylum which Francis I had 

 thrown open to independent research, opposite the University 

 devoted to tradition. In 1530 Greek and Hebrew were sanctioned 

 by the royal will; it was the overthrow of the principle of authority 

 represented by the Latin of scholasticism. In 1814 Sanskrit and 

 Chinese, admitted on equal terms with classical studies, foretold a 

 wider humanity. 



Che'zy had not foreseen the far-reaching results of his work, any 

 more than Sacy or Louis XVIII. He was an Orientalist steeped in 

 classic rhetoric, and he sacrificed to elderly Muses and superannuated 

 Graces. His opening lecture seems addressed to the retired magis- 

 trates who translated Horace into French verse. "Do not believe, 

 gentlemen, that this literature has treasures only for science and 

 stern reason. No; lively imagination also has a large part, and among 

 no people in the world has brilliant poesy displayed itself in more 

 magnificent outward garb, or been accompanied by a retinue more 

 lovely and more captivating. From the haughty Epic to the timid 

 Idyll the most varied productions of taste will present themselves 

 in crowds to your enchanted gaze and arouse in you by turns every 

 kind of emotion of which the soul is susceptible." And to prove 

 " the fecundity of the Indian Muses " he enumerated all these kinds 

 "treated with equal success by the Bards of the Ganges." 



But more vigorous minds were already preparing to resume the 

 work and render it fruitful. It was the period in which the author of 

 Indian Wisdom, Schlegel, summed up the programme of Sanskritists 

 in three stages, Paris, London, India. Since 1812 Bopp had settled 

 in Paris, and, without allowing the din of near battles to distract 

 him, patiently collected the materials which his genius was to bring 

 into order. Others before .him, since the sixteenth century, had 

 observed the evident relationship of the Sanskrit vocabulary with 

 the classical languages. No European could hear the Sanskrit names 

 of relationship, pitar, mdtar, bhrdtar, the names of numbers, dvi, tri, 

 etc., the verb "to be" (French $tre, Sanskrit, asti}, but there awoke 

 in him a far-off echo of his mother tongue or of ancient languages. 



Comparison, discussion, and speculation had gone on without rule 

 or measure; Bopp created the science of comparative grammar, 

 classed facts, and recognized laws. Under the varieties of language 

 prevailing in Europe, Iran, and India he pointed out a common 

 stock and succeeded in explaining most of the deviations from it, 

 going back by way of induction to the primitive type. Then appeared 

 a word which soon became current, a compound no less unexpected 

 than expressive, a symbol which summed up the revolution that 

 had been accomplished. India and Europe, which everything seemed 

 to separate till that time, came together and were henceforth fused 

 into one in the accepted expression "Indo-European." The Brah- 



