A 11 TIC LE II. 



ON TJIE MATHEMATICAL PROBABILITY 01? ACCIDENTAL LINGUISTIC RESEMBLANCES. 



BY PLINY EAELE CHASE, M. A. 



Bead September 18, 1803. 



Most of the philological research of our day rests exclusively on a grammatical basis. 

 The results that have been attained by such men as Edwards,* Schlegel, Bopp, and Grimm, 

 cannot be too highly estimated, but their labors have been confessedly restricted within 

 narrow boundaries, and they can be properly regarded only as preliminary, or introductory. 

 The process of grouping languages into families, has already been extended nearly to its 

 utmost practicable limits, and the question of connection between the families themselves, 

 where no grammatical analogy can be discovered, must be solved, if it can be solved at all, 

 by a comparison of radical words or syllables. Such comparisons have fallen into some 

 disrepute for four principal reasons, viz. : 



1. The progress of philology has brought to light old national affinities that had been 

 previously unsuspected, showing that instances of supposed dialectic parentage were merely 

 relations of fraternity or consanguinity, and many of the verbal derivations of the early 

 etymologists have been consequently discarded. 



2. Radical philology is a new science, and like most new sciences it has sometimes 

 suffered from hasty generalizations, which, added to the occasional mistakes of enthusiasts, 

 have brought undeserved reproach upon the whole study. 



3. The natural desire to generalize results, has given rise to crude theories, some of 

 which have been easily overturned, and others have been feebly propped by unsound 

 or inconclusive arguments. 



4. An undue importance has been sometimes attached to superficial analogies, and 

 plausible grounds have thus been given to pretentious sciolists, for the summary dismissal 

 of any newly discovered resemblance, by branding it as fanciful or accidental. 



Let us give a brief passing glance at each of these points. 



1. The old etymologies that have been discarded, have not, thereby, been rendered 



* See Haven's Archaeology of the . United States, p. 55, for some remarks on the anticipation of Schlcgel's idea, 

 by Jonathan Edwards and others. 

 VOL. XIII. — 4 



