THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 65 



The extinction of sucli a vast multitude 

 of idioms entailed tlie death of many 

 intermediate forms ; the migration of the 

 peoples caused the shifting of the original 

 kinship of languages, so that it may now 

 happen that idioms of essentially different 

 form have all the appearance of neighbours, 

 whereas no intermediate forms are found be- 

 tween them. Such, for instance, is the case 

 with the Basque, a stray island in the Indo- 

 Germanic Archipelago. Darwin says essen- 

 tially the same of the relations of animals 

 and plants. 



This, my dear friend and colleague, is 

 about what occurred to me as I studied 

 your favourite Darwin, of whose theory 

 you are such an energetic advocate and 

 missionary, so much so that, as I have just 

 been informed, you have even incurred the 

 wrath of journalistic zealots. Of course 

 no more than the principles of Darwinism 



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