HIS GEOLOGICAL RELATIONS. 135 



of language is concerned," says Professor Max Miiller,* 

 " we cannot resist the conclusion that what is now 

 inflectional was formerly agglutinative, and what is now 

 agglutinative was at first radical. The great stream of 

 language rolled on in numberless dialects, and changed 

 its grammatical colouring as it passed from time to 

 time through new deposits of thought. The different 

 channels which left the main current and became 

 stationary and stagnant, or, if you like, literary and 

 traditional, retained for ever that colouring which 

 the main current displayed at the stage of their 

 separation. If we call the radical stage white, the 

 agglutinative red, and the inflectional hlue, then we 

 may well understand why the white channels should 

 show hardly a drop of red or blue, or why the red 

 channels should hardly betray a shadow of blue, and 

 we shall be prepared to find what we do find — 

 namely, white tints in the red, and white and red 

 tints in the blue channels of speech." Indeed, no 

 other line of argument save the ascensive will avail, 

 and to blink this would be to throw the whole 

 question of the unity and progression of the human 

 race into utter and inextricable confusion. High, there- 

 fore, as may be the geological antiquity of man in 

 Western Europe and Southern Asia, we must seek 

 for stiU earlier traces in other portions of Asia as 

 * Lectwes on the Science of Language, p. 318 ; 1861. 



