465 
Mr. Row gave sufficient weight to the great effect of literature in the 
matter. If we go back to the Latin languages, we find that in the few years 
following the great break-up of the Roman empire these languages changed with 
an almost inconceivable rapidity compared with what they have done since 
Mr. Row. — I think not. 
Mr. White. — Take the Italian language as an example. The Italian of 
Dante, 500 years ago, is the same as the Italian of to-day ; but if you go back 
for 500 years before that, you will find a great difference. Languages change 
according to circumstances. Take a book 500 years old in our own language, 
and you will find it very troublesome reading ; you cannot get on without a 
glossary. But if you take up a copy of Dante you will read it as easily 
as you read the Italian of the present day. These things must be taken into 
account in drawing conclusions as to the immense time which is necessary 
for the alteration of languages. (Hear, hear.) 
Colonel Horsley. — Although I am only a stranger and a visitor, and not 
a member of the Institute, I shall have great pleasure, if I may be allowed, in 
bearing my testimony to what has fallen from the last speaker in reference 
to the changes which take place in aboriginal tribes. I have been in India 
for thirty years, and I have noticed the great changes which take place 
even in the countenances of those natives who have been educated in our 
stations. In a short period, even in one generation, there is such a change 
that you cannot fail to notice it. I have noticed in the schools of the 
Church Missionary Society how surprisingly low-caste children have been 
altered by education and the reception of the Gospel. And the same results 
are to be found even in the hill countries, where the people are the outcasts 
of society ; but where they have been brought under the influences of civiliza- 
tion by Mr. Baker, missionary in Travancore, they are now showing what 
education and the Gospel will do for them. 
Mr. Reddie. —The testimony which has been borne by Colonel Horsley is 
very valuable, and it is entirely borne out by the testimony of Mr. Pritchard, 
who lived for many years in the Feejee Islands. He says in his memoir, 
published by the Anthropological Society, that even in the outward appear- 
ance of the natives there is a marked change in the lifetime of the individual 
through the teaching of Christianity. The people become like different 
beings ; so there is even a kind of truth in saying that the outward beauty 
of form has some connection with the inward, beauty of the spirit, of which, 
probably, it is in some way a manifestation. The question of rapidity with 
which these changes go on, whether with regard to physique or to language, 
requires to be more carefully dealt with than Mr. Row seems inclined for. I 
do not agree with Mr. Row ; and -I give him fair warning that in his paper he 
must put his arguments on the development of languages well together, or 
we shall be prepared to do battle with him. If Mr. Row comes forward with 
an argument on the development of languages, we shall expect him to give 
us the reasons for that supposed great length of time which that development 
has required, and not allow him to fall back upon that line of argument 
which Mr. Wain wright has humorously illustrated by the supposititious case 
