245 



are common to all the Germanic tongues, or 

 to those of Latin Europe : it is not considered, 

 that, with this resemblance of sounds, there is 

 another, which acts more powerfully on nations 

 of a common origin. Language is now the 

 result of an arbitrary convention. The me- 

 chanism of inflections, the grammatical con- 

 structions, the possibility of inversions, every 

 thing is derived from our interior, our indivi- 

 dual organization. There is in man an in- 

 stinctive and regulating principle, differently 

 modified among nations not of the same race. 

 A climate more or less severe, a residence in 

 the defiles of mountains, or on the borders of 

 the sea, or different habits of life, may alter 

 the pronunciation, render the identity of the 

 roots obscure, and multiply the number : but 

 all these causes do not affect what constitutes 

 the structure and mechanism of languages \ 

 The influence of climate, and of external cir- 

 cumstances, vanishes before that which depends 

 on the race, on the hereditary and individual 

 dispositions of men. 



Now, in America, and this result of the more 

 modern researches* is extremely important with 

 respect to the history of our species, from the 

 country of the Eskimoes to the banks of the 



* Vater, in Mithridates, T. iii, Part 2, p. 385—409. Id., 

 Bevcelkerung von America, p. 207. 



