TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 9 



As the translator of Dr. Mueller's treatise 

 says of himself — " My chief object has been 

 to furnish, as nearly as possible, a literal 

 version of the original, regarding mere ele- 

 gance of expression as of secondary impor- 

 tance in a scientific work." It is always 

 hard to have to deal with any scientific 

 dissertation written on a subject, the termi- 

 nology of which is still unsettled, and in a 

 language living on its own stock, possessing 

 such words as EntwicTieluvgsgescUichte, Ur- 

 sprache, Grundsprache, lautlich, Lautform, and 

 others of a similarly embarrassing nature. 



Not the shadow of a doubt lurks in my 

 own mind that the science of language, al- 

 though still in its infancy, is the highest 

 and at the same time the easiest test of Mr. 

 Darwin's theory. 



It is with such a conviction that I venture 

 to issue this English translation of Professor 

 Schleicher's brochure, not only as an addi- 



