OF LANGUAGES. 



27 



and Mongolians, who are both nomads, and speak totally 

 different languages. 



Moreover, the peculiar principle which guides the external 

 development of a language — whether it be monosyllabic, 

 incorporative, euphonic, alliteral, agglutinative, or inflec- 

 tional — is not a safe criterion by which to measure the 

 mental capabilities of those who speak such dialects. The 

 real test of a language consists in its being able to express 

 lucidly, and to communicate distinctly, all the various modu- 

 lations of ideas which occur to the speaker. A mechanic 

 who, having only most imperfect instruments at his disposal, 

 yet manufactures with them highly artistic and elaborately 

 executed specimens of art, competing successfully with 

 workmen who accomplish the same task with the help of 

 superior tools, is esteemed to be endowed with at least 

 equal, if not with higher, attainments than his rival. 

 Assuredly then ought a man who contrives to expound clearly 

 through the medium of a crude and unwieldy language the 

 subtlest and most intricate ideas and subjects — as a Chinese 

 discusses in his language very abstruse philosophical 

 problems — be credited with considerable faculties. 28 He 

 accomplishes an intellectual feat in spite of difficulties 

 which are not encountered by a person who speaks an 

 apparently more highly developed language. The dialect 

 also which can be handled in so successful a manner, can no 

 longer be despised or regarded to be wanting in refinement. 



(28) Compare Renan 1. c. page 44, 45 : " De meme les langues indo-europe. 

 ennes et semitiquesn'ont pas commence par etre analogues au Chinois. Lea 

 divers systemes de langues sont des partis adoptes une fois pour toutes par 

 chaque race ; ils ne sortent pas les uns des autres, " and page 94, " Chaque 

 famille d'idiomes est done sortie du genie de chaque race, sans effort comme 

 sans tatonnement." See also Sayce I.e., page 141 : " Chinese civilisation is the 

 oldest now existing in the world ; its origin is lost in myth, and its continuity 

 is unbroken. And yet its founders spoke an isolating language, while their 

 barbarian neighbours on the west were in the more advanced and civilised stage 

 of agglutination," and page 143 : "All goes to show that an isolating or 

 agglutinative stage does not imply civilisation or the reverse." 



