of a Dominant Language for Science. 409 



language-master heavy, his grammar tiresome, thinks very 

 differently when his mother, his sister, or his sister's friend 

 addresses herself to him in some foreign tongue. This will 

 often be English — and for the best of reasons : there is no 

 language so rich in works (written in a spirit of true morality) 

 upon subjects which are interesting to women — religion, educa- 

 tion, fiction, biography, poetry, &c. 



The future preponderance of the language spoken by Eng- 

 lish, Australians, and Americans thus appears to me assured. 

 The force of circumstances leads to this result ; and the nature 

 of the language itself must accelerate the movement. 



The nations who speak the English tongue are thus bur- 

 thened with a responsibility which it is well they should recog- 

 nize at once. It is a moral responsibility towards the civilized 

 world of the coming centuries. 



Their duty, as it is also their interest, is to maintain the 

 present unity of the language, at the same time admitting the 

 necessaiy or convenient modifications which may arise under 

 the influence of eminent writers, or be arranged by common 

 consent. The danger to be feared is that the English lan- 

 guage may, before another century has passed, be broken up 

 into three languages, which would be in the same relation to 

 each other as are Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, or as 

 Swedish and Danish. 



Some English authors have a mania for making new 

 words. Dickens has invented several. Yet the English lan- 

 guage already possesses many more words than French, and 

 the history of its literature shows that there is greater need to 

 suppress than to add to the vocabulary. No writer for three 

 centuries past has employed nearly so many different words as 

 Shakspeare ; therefore there must have been many unneces- 

 sary ones. Probably every idea and every object had formerly 

 a term of Saxon origin and one of Latin or French origin, 

 without counting Celtic or Danish words. The very logical 

 operation of time has been to suppress the double or triple 

 words. Why reestablish them V A people so economical in 

 its use of words does not require more than one term for each 

 thing*. 



The Americans, on tlie other hand, make innovations of accent 

 or orthography (they almost always s[)ell labour " labor," and 

 harbour^ "harbor "). The Australians will do the same if they 

 do not take care. Why should not all possess the noble am- 



* A clever English writer has just published a volume on the institu- 

 tions of the people called Swiss in En^jflish. He names them Stcitzcrs. 

 For what reason!'" Will there soon be I)ci/t,^c/icrx? 



