36 DARWINISM TESTED BY 



make our table a correct picture in every 

 respect ; the sub-dialects (varieties) could 

 merely be pointed out ; the ramifications of 

 the Iranic and Indie brancli we were com- 

 pelled to omit. 



If our diagram could speak it would 

 express itself most likely in the following 

 strain : — 



At a remote period of the existence of 

 the human species, there was a language, 

 a primitive language,* which we can pretty 

 clearly recognise in the so-called Indo-Ger- 

 manic languages to which it has given 

 birth. t This primitive language, after 

 having been spoken for several generations 

 — the people who used it probably increas- 

 ing and extending meanwhile — gradually 



* " Ursprache " in the original. — T. 

 ■j- In its application to grammatical formsl liave made the ex- 

 periment in my Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of 

 the ludo-Germanic Languages. Weimar, Bohlau, 1861-2. — A. 



