INTRODUCTION. 11 



defined as one whicli is governed by an internal law of 

 development. 



Now, the most characteristic studies, and the most Genetic 

 characteristic methods, of this age, are the genetic ones, n^ethods" 

 The science of life is studied genetically : the laws of the are diarac- 



..,..-- . , , , teristic of 



development of mdividual organisms are among the most (-his age. 

 important of the results yet attained by the science, and Science of 

 the development of species is the most important of its ®' 

 problems. History is studied genetically : the historian History, 

 does not think he has done his work unless he can trace 

 the process by which one set of events, or one state of 

 things among mankind, has given origin to another. The 

 same is true of what may be called the secondary historical 

 studies, such as the history of art and literature ; and it 

 is eminently true of the history of law, which study may History of 

 be said witliout exaggeration to have attained to the rank *^^'' 

 of a science in the hands of Mr. jNIaine, whose work on 

 Ancient Law shows an amount of research which is quite 

 comparable to that of Gibbon, while at the same time it is 

 illuminated by such a conception of true historical method 

 as was never attained by any historian of the eighteenth 

 century. 



The same is true of the science of language. The Science of 

 science of language is the history of language. Every ^""""^^ • 

 language has been formed by a spontaneous genetic 

 process, and the problems of the science consist in ascer- 

 taining the laws of the process. Little is known of the 

 first origin of language, though it is not, perhaps, a totally 

 insoluble mystery ; but very much has been done towards 

 determining the laws according to which one language is 

 derived from another ; and it does not derogate from the 

 value of our knowledge of historical facts and genetic 

 laws, if the first origin of the subject of the history is 

 unknown. 



It has become an axiom in the science of life that 

 " development is the criterion of morphology ; " which may Develop- 

 be thus paraphrased, in untechnical language : " In order criterion of 

 to know what a thing reaUy is, we must know the process morpho- 

 of its origin." This law is subject to some remarkable 



