APPENDIX.— On GREEK ANALOGY. 377 



After all, I by no means wifh to be underftood as delivering 

 thefe fignifications with confidence : they are thrown out as con- 

 jectures merely, made upon a curfory investigation, which may 

 probably never be purfued farther. But though thefe particu* 

 lar conjectures may be erroneous, the fyftem, I am inclined to 

 believe, holds fo much of truth, that not only in the Greek, but 

 in every primitive language, if the roots were fully investigated, 

 fome common idea, fome common force, might be traced out in 

 the radical ufe of every individual confonant. A theory found- 

 ed on fuch an inductive procefs, would be by no means chimeri- 

 cal. Within the bounds of a particular language, etymology is a 

 pretty fafe guide : it is only when rafhly applied to various and 

 difcordant languages that it is ready to bewilder and miflead. 



Were it poffible thus to trace, with any degree of precifion, 

 in the roots of different primitive languages, the power and force 

 of the feveral letters, as employed in their radical words, and 

 from thefe to follow out the fubfequent ramifications of each 

 through all the component parts, an excellent track would there- 

 by be opened for investigating the procedure and advances of 

 the human intellect in the arrangement of ideas and the forma- 

 tion of language. A comparifon of thefe primitive roots would 

 likewife enable us beft to determine, whether any, and what, de- 

 gree of affinity exifted among the languages to which they be- 

 long. Could the various original languages of the globe be 

 brought into fuch a point of comparifon, the much-agitated que- 

 stion, Whether all are derived from one ? might be eafily refol- 

 ved. Probable as the opinion of their common origin muft be 

 allowed to be a priori, and Strengthened as it undoubtedly is by 

 many (Inking proofs of actual coincidence, flill to eftablifh it 

 completely, fuch an evidence a pofteriori feems to be wanting, as 

 a radical analyfis, founded upon the plan now mentioned, would l 

 alone be competent to furnim. 



3 C 2 XIV. 



