90 THH BT HMO LOOT 09 TUB INDIA* AHCHIPBLAOO. 



and unphilosophieaJ. The conlrasid afforded by different races in 

 our own day are more striking than any that the world ever 

 witnessed before. If we compare the English with the Papuaa 

 we ought, iu the same way, to consider the former a* a divine race. 

 Looking up from the Papua level of humanity, the intellect and 

 the formative power of a Goethe, a Humboldt or a Smeaton 

 have the same appearance of being supernatural, if we cease to 

 regard as natural all developments of which the human organism 

 is suseepti 1 t, The source of the error in question ia the vast magni- 

 tude assumed by the near or thp historical, and the dimness and 

 apparent diminutiveness of the archaic and primordial eras beyond. 

 The mind refers to a few centuries, numerous ethnic and linguistic 

 developments, while the last 4,000 or 5,000 years have not perfected 

 one, and to account for this marvellous circumstance, it assumes 

 that the infant human intellect possessed a gigantic power end 

 activity. TV only conclusions that a comparison of races and their 

 languegfs ju-'ifiesusin drawing are, that, in the earlier eras of human 

 history r the segregation of families in seats of which the ethnio 

 geography was new, happened more frequently than it could do 

 wiien men were spread over the world, and that most linguistic de- 

 velopments may have taken place during these eras ; • that the more 

 developed a linguistic organism becomes, the less susceptible is it of 

 striking changes ; that the first complete transition from the tonic or 

 monosyllabic to the harmonic or polysyllabic organism, was so 

 great a revolution that it must have been attended with intellectual 

 excitement and fresh energy, although there is no reason to believe 

 that it was not very slow in its progress, and by a succession of 

 developments in different tribes; and that no change save an 

 exceedingly slow and comparatively superficial one, is possible in 

 languages that have become fixed by the prevalence and permanence 

 of one kind of development or civilisation, whether progressive or 

 not. But the most simple as well as the most developed organisms 

 we liable to become nxed, and every successive Organic develop- 

 ment appears destined to endure for thousands of years. 



The extensive spread of any language must ha?e occupied a great 

 penod of lime. If we imagine rnigm lions proceeding from one 

 family, before the*ardi was occupied by previous human inhabitants, 

 a prodigious time must have elapsed before one of these primordial 

 streams could traverse *ome thousands of miles, when every natural 

 obstacle and enemy was formidable iu proportion to human 

 ignorance, timidity and want of art. f Migratory streams proceeding 

 in later eras from more developed centres would proceed more 

 rapidly, but they would everywhere be opposed oy the prior 

 occupants of the lands on which they moved. This would cause 



* Bui uV first spread uf mankind over the globe, ir'from a stogie cent re, roust ti&v 

 occupied *n enornjous period. 



t Morairar *» lan$ &a mail remained in this crtuiJtion. bi*inirl;ftci, H conse- 

 quently hit language, could rwltc tittle development, wve in* fiw favoured spot*. 



