PRESENT PROBLEMS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 263 



bee. Here we find graphically presented, so as easily to be included at 

 a glance, not only the rare survivals of the Latin apis, and the abun- 

 dant modifications of its regular diminutive apicula, but also such 

 other diminutives as avette for*apitta, and such periphrases as mouche 

 a miel, with the various diminutives mouchette, mouchatte, mouchotte. 

 The advantage of having such series of facts as these, systematically 

 grouped and presented with so great a degree of richness and fullness, 

 needs no comment. Moreover, it can never be foreseen in what new 

 directions the immense array of material can be judiciously utilized. 

 Who, for example, would be likely to look to such a source as this 

 for light upon the vexed question of the position of the tonic accent 

 in French? Yet, the indications of this atlas would appear to lend 

 support to the theory of some distinguished scholars that in French 

 the tonic accent has been to a large extent transferred to the initial 

 syllable. Apropos of such a problem it may be remarked here, by 

 way of transition to the consideration of phonetics in their relation 

 to Romance philology, that Gaston Paris, in his later years, was 

 accustomed to relegate the question of the French tonic accent to the 

 query-box of the future, when the testimony of the mechanically 

 perfected phonograph and of other scientific appliances may pre- 

 sumably be relied upon to furnish a trustworthy answer. If, per- 

 chance, the experimental appliances of the future shall corroborate 

 in this regard the apparent results of the Atlas linguistique, then 

 it will remain for the Romance philologist to compare these results 

 with those of Gaston Paris's epoch-marking Role de V Accent Latin, 

 with a view to determining the significance of so astonishing a break 

 in the historic continuity of development. In any case, the deference 

 of Paris for the applications of modern physical science in the do- 

 main of phonetics, and his recognition of the existing need of the 

 most rigorous accuracy in applying the physical science of phonetics 

 to the historical problems of phonology, is characteristic of the 

 growing consciousness on the part of scholars that the methods of 

 the historical sciences must continue wherever possible to be brought 

 into even closer correlation with those of the experimental sciences, 

 if results worthy of the present period are to be attained. At the 

 same time it gives occasion for emphasizing the fact that, as at 

 present understood, the science of phonetics has already become so 

 highly specialized a department of linguistics, and requires aptitudes, 

 gifts, and training so unusual on the part of its devotees, that the 

 day cannot be far distant when individual chairs and laboratories 

 of phonetics, in emulation of the provision made for the Abbe" 

 Rousselot at the College de France, will require to be established in 

 our universities in order to maintain the standards of university 

 work on a level with the needs of the situation. Surely the recent 

 brilliant work of Rousselot and his school in throwing light on the 



