474 Proceedings. 



of historical criticism. Look at our best modern histories as compared with 

 the dry chronicles of the middle ages. The historian now dives into the 

 springs of human action, he applies a rigid criticism even to the facts pre- 

 viously accepted as historical, and he arrives at conclusions with a degree of 

 moral certainty unattainable in early times. The early history of the native 

 race of New Zealand is not unworthy of the labours of the critical historian ; 

 their traditions are worthy of being collected and critically examined upon 

 recognized principles which constitute the science of history. The language 

 of the Maori proves beyond all doubt that he is a member of the widely-spread 

 Polynesian family. His own tradition points to Hawaiki as the place whence 

 he came, and Hawaiki is no more than a linguistic variety of the name 

 Hawaii, and the two languages have no more differences than are capable of 

 being accounted for by Grimm's law. Philology is now copiously applied to 

 the testing of traditions. This Society has already contributed something to 

 the common stock under this head, in the most interesting paper by Mr. J. T. 

 Thomson, printed in the fourth volume just issued. But we in Ota,go are too 

 remote from the great seats of the Maori population to be favourably situated 

 even for the collection of facts. The northern societies, however, have the 

 facts at their very doors, and I cannot help hoping that the attention of some 

 members of those bodies will be directed to the subject before it becomes too 

 late. 



There is another subject, or rather class of subjects, quite within the 

 province of this Society. I mean the science of language generally, and the 

 science of each particular language, and especially of our own mother English. 

 Much has been done of late years in Europe in these departments of science. 

 Max Miiller has produced two interesting volumes of lectures on the Science 

 of Language, and he has, I think, succeeded in showing that there is such a 

 science generally, without reference to particular languages except for purposes 

 of illustration. Writers in the present century — Grimm in German (" Ges- 

 chichte der Deutschen Sprache "), and Littr6 in France (" Histoire de la 

 Langue Frangaise "), Latham in England ("The English Language"), and 

 Marsh in America ("Lectures on the Origin and History of the English 

 Language "), have all treated their respective languages more or less scien- 

 tifically. Until the present century there were very few dictionaries which 

 were anything more than collections of words with fancied etymologies, which 

 were often misleading and sometimes false. The dictionary of the French 

 Academy, the Italian Vocabolario della Crusca, and even our own Johnson's 

 dictionary, all fall short of the requirements of the present state of philological 

 knowledge. The great German dictionary of Grimm, the French dictionary 

 of the learned Littre, and the new English dictionary of Latham, are of a 

 much higher character. 



