506 SYSTEMS OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



the same diverging lines ; first breaking up into dialects each of which in course 

 of time became the fountain of still other dialects, until this not less wonderful 

 attendant of the blood in all its multitudinous branches has become worn by the 

 friction of time, into indurated forms. These now interpose serious obstacles 

 to a reascent along the several lines of outflow beyond certain points of 

 demarcation. The ideas deposited in its grammatical structure, and the laws 

 governing the development of its grammatical forms, are analogous to the ideas 

 contained in a system of relationship, and to the laws which govern its develop- 

 ment; but language has been subjected to more subtle, long-continued, and pow- 

 erful influences than consanguinity. Whilst the instrument for the perpetua- 

 tion of their respective ideas was the same in both cases, the ability of this instru- 

 ment to hold and transmit the original indicative features of language was greatly 

 less than in the other case, from the magnitude of the burden imposed ; and also 

 from the nature of language, which must advance and unfold with the growth of 

 knowledge. Consanguinity advances by great stages, and these are few in number 

 with immense intervals between ; but language changes imperceptibly and con- 

 tinuously, the change stamping it with a monotonous flow. The terms of relation- 

 ship have passed through the same ordeal as the other vocables of language, and 

 have lost themselves as completely ; but the ideas and conceptions they represent 

 are independent of the mutations of language, and they have lived without essential 

 modification, because they were defined and made perfect once for all, both 

 separately, and in their relations to each other. 



It is a striking as well as instructive fact that all the nations of mankind have 

 been traced, by conclusive linguistic evidence, to a few primitive stems or families. 

 If philologers could possess themselves of their several languages precisely as they 

 existed when they represented the speech of the entire human family, they could 

 readily determine the question whether these languages were derived from a single 

 original; but inasmuch as they are limited to the forms in which the several dia- 

 lects of each are at present found, after the great changes produced by the wear of 

 centuries, their efforts have hitherto been arrested by the barrier which separates 

 one grammatically distinct language from another. No grammatical analysis, how- 

 ever minute and searching, has been able to reveal the subtle processes by which 

 the radical structure of these languages has been changed. The achievements of 

 comparative philology have been so brilliant and so remarkable as to justify the 

 expectation that, with its augmented means and improved methods, it will yet be 

 able to solve the great problem of the linguistic unity of mankind, of which, as a 

 science, she has assumed the charge. In this great work philology will welcome 

 any assistance, however slight, which may be offered from other sources. The ob- 

 ject of this investigation was to determine the question whether an instrumentality 

 could be found, in systems of consanguinity and affinity, which was able to take 

 up the problem at the point where philology is now arrested; and having crossed 

 the barrier which separates these languages from each other, find the links of con- 

 nection between any two or more of these stocks or families through the constancy 

 of the ideas embodied in this system of relationship as an organic structure, and 

 as the oldest existing institution of mankind. 



