PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 471 



are compared together, and their internal structure and degrees 

 of affinity are investigated, as means of promoting a more pro- 

 found study of the history of mankind. The Greek language, 

 which is so intimately connected with the national life of the 

 Hellenic races, has exercised a magical power over all the foreign 

 nations with which these races came in contact.* The Greek 

 language appears in the interior of Asia, through the influence 

 of the Bactrian empire, as a conveyer of knowledge, which, a 

 thousand years afterwards, was brought back by the Arabs to 

 the extreme West of Europe, blended with hypotheses of Indian 

 origin. The ancient Indian and Malayan tongues furthered the 

 advance of commerce and the intercourse of nations in the 

 island-world of the south-west of Asia, in Madagascar, and on 

 the eastern shores of Africa ; and it is also probable that tidings 

 of the Indian commercial stations of the Banians, may have 

 given rise to the adventurous expedition of Vasco de Gama. 

 The predominance of certain languages, although it unfortu- 

 nately prepared a rapid destruction for the idioms displaced, 

 has operated favourably, like Christianity and Buddhism, in 

 bringing together and uniting mankind. 



Languages compared together and considered as obj ects of the 

 natural history of the mind, and when separated into families 

 according to the analogies existing in their internal structure, 

 have become a rich source of historical knowledge; and this is 

 probably one of the most brilliant results of modern study in 

 the last sixty or seventy years. From the very fact of their 

 being products of the intellectual force of mankind, they lead 

 us, by means of the elements of their organism, into an 

 obscure distance, unreached by traditionary records. The 

 comparative study of languages shows us that races now 

 separated by vast tracts of land are allied together, and have 

 migrated from one common primitive seat; it indicates the 

 course and direction of all migrations, and, in tracing the 

 leading epochs of development, recognises, by means of the 

 more or less changed structure of the language, in the per- 

 manence of certain forms, or in the more or less advanced 

 destruction of the formative svstem, which race has retained 



* Niebuhr, Rom. Geschichte, th. i. a, 69 ; Droysen, Gesch. der Bildung 

 des hellenistischen Staatensy stems, 1843, s. 31-34, 567-573; Fried. 

 Cramer, de Studiis quceveteres adaliarum Gentium contulerint Linguas t 

 1844, pp. 2-13, 



