46 DARWINISM TESTED BY 



have gradually developed themselves and 

 grown out of each other ; they differ more- 

 over characteristically in every group of 

 languages. Thus, for instance, the re- 

 lationship between the various languages 

 of the Semitic family is essentially diffe- 

 rent from that between the offshoots of 

 the Indo- Germanic stock, and quite distinct 

 from both is the kinship of the Finnic 

 languages (Finnish, the idioms of the 

 Lapps and Magyars, &c.) This will ex- 

 plain the fact that no glossologist is as 

 yet able actually to give a satisfactory 

 definition of language in contradistinction 

 to dialect, and so forth. What some call 

 a language, others term a dialect, and vice 

 versd. Even the field of the Indo-Germanic 

 languages, however accurately explored, is 

 a point in evidence. Thus many glos- 

 sologists speak of the Slavonic dialects, 

 others of the Slavonic languages; even 



