254 MAJOR C, RB. CONDER, R.E., D.C:L., LL.D., M.RB.A.S., 
tongues, and an acquaintance with which has been and is the 
passport to distinction in the Empire, introducing to all positious 
of general culture and official rank. 
Now with regard to the conclusions to which the author comes, 
I am happy to agree with him to a very great extent. ‘There are 
the different families of languages to which Major Conder has 
referred: the Semitic languages, the Aryan languages, and the 
Mongolian languages; and that there is a close connection between 
the individual languages constituting those different families there 
is no doubt. Their affinities are many and they may be derived 
from one source, and one centre; the Semitic speech, the Aryan 
speech, and the Mongolian speech; but, when we advance further 
than that and say that all the varieties of human speech belong to 
these families, and that other divisions of the human race are from 
one source connected together by links which we hope by-and-by 
to understand, there I am unable to follow. There I am left as 
much in the mist, behind the shadow of the mystery, as ever I was; 
and the fact is that I have often resolved to have done with the 
study of languages: but then there has come in this thought, that 
all the treasures of human thought—all whereby man _ has 
endeavoured to enunciate what he is capable of—are only to be 
ascertained by a study of them. Suppose the Aryan languages of 
all kinds to be blotted out of the world, how poor it would be; so 
with the Semitic languages, and so, in a less degree, with the 
Mongolian languages; and shall I say so, also, of the Chinese 
language? But it so happened, when I was quite a young man, 
some sixty years ago and more, my attention was directed to the 
study of Chinese and, as I said, that has been my recourse and 
mental food, and very often my bugbear, all through life. So let 
men give their time and energy to the study of all those languages 
that have a literature, and are capable of instructing other races, 
and bringing out treasures that in time, in their own language, 
or in other languages, shall be unfolded to the study of other 
races; and I conceive that by-and-by, through these philological 
studies, we shall come to a better understanding of one another 
all over the world, and possess more of brotherly feeling, more 
of mutual consideration, more of mutual helpfulness and co- 
operation in what is good, than ever we have yet attained to, 
and we shall gradually, perhaps, find that ultimately we have one 
race of human beings in the world bound together by the com- 
