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There are then sufficient reasons (without taking into con- 
sideration the Scriptural statement) for us to consider the 
doctrine of the original unity of language quite as tenable > as 
the polygenist hypothesis— or at least not untenable, lor that 
is amply sufficient for our purpose : we are quite satished it it 
be allowed that, however many reasons there may appear tor 
holding* to another theory, there are not sufficient scientihc 
grounds for considering the Scriptural statement as at variance 
with the conclusions of philology ; and that, if the truth of the 
Scriptural record be granted, the whole matter is clear. 
But there are also certain affirmative arguments,— arguments, 
I mean, which make in favour of the monogemst doctrine ol 
language. To prove constructively and actually the oneness 
of all existing languages,— to show in them all marks of unity 
which could be explained satisfactorily only on the supposition 
of identity of origin, would be a superhuman task It would 
require that a man should be able to overcome the fiat of Babel, 
and to learn all languages more or less perfectly ; and that He 
should be further able to exert upon this mass of knowledge a 
stupendous analysis: to do, in short, for ' all tongues of every 
family, what it was the labour of half of Grimm s life to do for 
one division of one family, in his great Deutsche Grammatik. 
Yet it is possible, in a cursory manner, to show that there 
are similarities between the great families, which seem to be 
consistent rather with the idea of unity than of plurality ol 
°T T he readiness with which words are assimilated from one 
family to another. A very deep acquaintance with grammatical 
and inflexional forms,— deeper perhaps than has been yet 
attained —would, I am convinced, show a unity of principle 
in all, from which a unity of origin might be justly mferred. 
But as I have already hinted, grammar is a constant quantity 
in languages such as we are able to deal with, viz., those 
which have a written literature. Though the grammar even 
of a written language still has a tendency to change m its 
own direction, it can never retrograde; every change must 
tend to remove it farther from others, and to dimmish the 
argument for identity of origin; or rather to remove all m arks 
from which arguments on either side can be brought. We 
must be content with drawing our proofs from vocabularies. 
Within the same family there is no wonder at words being 
easily borrowed and assimilated; but this operation is not 
restrained within this limit. We can borrow and incorporate 
into our own language such words as sofa from luraman, 
coffee from Shemitic (<£**), taboo from Polynesian. The Modern 
