24 THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCES OF 



that we should everywhere observe this progres- 

 sive shading off of characters common to larger 

 groups, into more and more specialized characters 

 distinctive only of smaller and smaller groups. 

 At any rate, to say the least, the law of parsi- 

 mony forbids us to ascribe such effects to a 

 supernatural cause, acting in so whimsical a 

 manner, when the effects are precisely what we 

 should expect to follow from the action of a 

 highly probable natural cause. The classification 

 of animal forms, indeed, as Darwin, Lyell, and 

 Haeckel have pointed out, strongly resembles the 

 classification of languages. In the case of lan- 

 guages, as in the case of species, we have genetic 

 affinities strongly marked ; so that it is possible 

 to some extent to construct a language-tree, the 

 branches of which shall indicate, in a diagram- 

 matic form, the progressive divergence of a large 

 group of languages from a common stock. For 

 instance, Latin may be regarded as a fossil 



