358 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 



others. Another aspect under which we may- 



trace the development of language, is the differentiation of 

 words of allied meanings. Philology early disclosed the 

 truth that in all languages words may be grouped into fami- 

 lies having a common ancestry. An aboriginal name, ap- 

 plied indiscriminately to each of an extensive and ill-defined 

 class of things or actions, presently undergoes modifications 

 by which the chief divisions of the class are expressed. 

 These several names springing from the primitive root, 

 themselves become the parents of other names still further 

 modified. And by the aid of those systematic modes which 

 presently arise, of making derivatives and forming com- 

 pound terms expressing still smaller distinctions, there is 

 finally developed a tribe of words so heterogeneous in sound 

 and meaning, that to the uninitiated it seems incredible 

 they should have had a common origin. Meanwhile, from 

 other roots there are being evolved other such tribes, until 

 there results a language of some sixty thousand or more 

 unlike words, signifying as many unlike objects, qualities 

 acts. Yet another way in which language in 



general advances from the homogeneous to the heterogene- 

 ous, is in the multiplication of languages. Whether, as 

 Max Miiller and Bunsen think, all languages have grown 

 from one stock, or whether, as some philologists say, they 

 have grown from two or more stocks, it is clear that since 

 large families of languages, as the Indo-European, are 

 of one parentage, they have become distinct through a pro- 

 cess of continuous divergence. The same diffusion over the 

 Earth's surface which has led to the differentiation of the 

 race, has simultaneously led to a differentiation of their 

 speech : a truth which we see further illustrated in each 

 nation by the peculiarities of dialect found in separate dis- 

 tricts. Thus the progress of Language conforms to the 

 general law, alike in the evolution of languages, in the 

 evolution of families of words, and in the evolution of parts 

 of speech. 



