363 



state of barbarism which has long been erroneously believed 

 to characterize the infancy of nations ; all have fixed gram- 

 matical forms, for the parts essentially organic in an idiom 

 are formed at the same time. (William de Humboldt, on 

 the progressive development of languages, in the Memoirs de 

 XAcad&nie Royale de Prusse, 1823.) The further we pene- 

 trate into the structure of a great number of idioms, the more 

 we distrust the great divisions of tongues (by bifurcation) 

 into synthetic and analytic. These classes, somewhat like 

 the great divisions of organized bodies, present a deceitful 

 simplicity, to which the naturalist begins to substitute a dis- 

 tribution by small numerous groupes, connected as if inter- 

 woven together. To ask if this multiplicity of idioms is 

 primitive, or the effect of progressive deviation, is to enquire 

 if that variety of plants that embellish the earth has always 

 existed, or if (according to the hypothesis of the great natu- 

 ralist of Upsal) the species have been diversified by mutual 

 fecundation. Questions of this kind do not belong to his- 

 tory, but to the cosmogonic fables of nations. 



Note D. 



The following are the very incomplete statements which 

 have been hitherto obtained on the population of the ancient 

 vice-royalty of Buenos Ayres, designated, under the govern- 

 ment of the mother country, by the name of Provincias del Rio 

 de la Plata, and divided into intendancies and governments, 

 (Buenos Ayres, Montevideo, Paraguay, Salta del Tucuman, 



