390 Professor Owen's Address. 



Prof. Max Miiller has opened out a similar vista into the remote 

 past of the history of the human race by the perception and ap- 

 plication of analogies in the formation of modern and ancient, of 

 living and dead languages. From the relations traceable between 

 the six Romance dialects, Italian, Wallachian, Rhsetian, Spanish, 

 Portuguese, and French, an antecedent common " mother-tongue" 

 might be inferred, and, consequently the existence of a race an- 

 terior to the modern Italians, Spanish, French, <fcc, with conclu- 

 sions as to the lapse of time requisite for such divisions and mi- 

 grations of the primitive stock, and for the modifications which 

 the mother-language had undergone. History and preserved 

 writings show that such common mother-race and language have 

 existed in the Roman people and the Latin tongue. But Latin, 

 like the equally "dead" language Greek, with Sanscrit, Lithuanian, 

 Zend, and the Gothic, Sclavonic, and Celtic tongues, can be simi- 

 larly shown to be modifications of one antecedent common lan- 

 guage whence is to be inferred an antecedent race of men, and a 

 lapse of time sufficient for their migration over a tract extending 

 from Iceland in the north-west to India in the south-east, and for 

 all the above-named modifications to have been established in 

 the common mother "Arian" tongue. 



THE GOVERMENT AND SCIENCE. 



In reference to the relations now subsisting between the State 

 and Science, my first duty is to express our grateful sense of such 

 measure of aid, co-operation and countenance as has been allotted 

 to scientific bodies, enterprises and discoveries. More especially 

 to acknowledge how highly we prize the sentiments of the Sove- 

 reign towards our works and aims, manifested by spontaneous 

 tribute to successful scientific research, in honourable titles and 

 royal gifts, and above all, in the gracious expressions accompanying 

 them, with which Her Majesty has been pleased to distinguish 

 some of our body. Happy are we, under the present benignant 

 reign, to have, in the Royal Consort, a Prince endowed with ex- 

 emplary virtues, and with such accomplishments in Science and 

 Art as have enabled His Royal Highness effectually, and on some 

 memorable occasions, in the most important degree, to promote 

 the best interests of both. We rejoice, moreover, in the prospect 

 of being honoured and favoured at a future meeting by the Pre- 

 sidency of the Prince Consort ; and that, ere long, this Associa- 

 tion may give the opportunity for the delivery of another of those 



