COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



to that in which Professor Huxley would, I 

 presume, reconstruct an extinct animal upon 

 seeing one of its fossilized bones or teeth. 



But what now chiefly concerns us is the fact 

 that all existing Aryan languages are the modi- 

 fied descendants of a common progenitor. Bear- 

 ing this in mind, let us note sundry features of 

 the classification of these languages. In the 

 first place, it is impossible to arrange them in 

 any linear series which will truly represent their 

 relations to each other. In some respects 

 Sanskrit is nearest the original type, in other 

 respects it is Lithuanian which shows the least 

 departure, in other respects it is Old Irish, and 

 in yet others it is Latin. Even if we decide to 

 make a compromise, and to begin with Sanskrit, 

 as being on the whole the least modified of these 

 languages, we cannot stir many steps without 

 getting into difficulties. Suppose we say San- 

 skrit, Lithuanian, Old Irish, Latin, Old Slavic, 

 Zend, Greek, Gothic, Old German. See now 

 what we have been doing ! We have indeed 

 got old Irish and Latin close together, as they 

 ought to be, and we have done right in putting 

 Gothic and Old German side by side ; but we 

 have been obliged to thrust in half a dozen lan- 

 guages between Sanskrit and Zend, and between 

 Latin and Greek there is a similar unseemly 

 divorce. When we come to take in the later 

 dialects, the confusion becomes still more hope- 

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