THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 
175 
ami constantly split and subdivided at every generation, instead of 
uniting into settled communities, these arts and customs, being inde¬ 
pendent of external influences and placed by their nature beyond the 
reach of forgetfullness, would not readily be obliterated. On the- 
other hand, every defect and peculiarity in the physical and moral or¬ 
ganization of an individual would exercise an influence on language. 
A single pair who w r ere sluggish in mind, taciturn, and defective in 
memory, might occasion the loss, in one of the divergent lines, of 
many words, and when the ideas of which these had been the ex¬ 
pression dawned on the more vivaceous minds of some of their off¬ 
spring, they would invent words anew r . In communities there is a 
general social prototype on which every person is formed. This great 
fixed life-mould imprints its shape on every fresh member bom into 
the community, and gives a sameness of direction to the wild and lu¬ 
xuriant growth in which nature indulges when free from such res¬ 
traint. But even in communities we see great differences in the 
command of words possessed by individuals, and in every family, ex¬ 
cluding the classes which are educated to a similar stage, we sec the 
abundance, style and matter of conversation to he influenced, more or 
less, by the idiosyncracies and habits of the parents. How many 
thousands of uneducated families are there in England, which, if tran¬ 
sported to the jungles of Borneo, would carry with them the use of 
but an insignificant fraction of the English language, and even. that 
little would be changed or ultimately lost if their social were sup¬ 
planted by a nomadic disposition. 
A nation pourtrays its existing condition better in its manners, ha¬ 
bits and customs than in its language. The expressions which were 
once a literal reflex of the former may remain, but, with reference to 
the present, they may have become entirely figurative. It is true that 
habits also lose much of their primitive significance, hut it cannot be 
so generally and entirely forgotten as that of words so often is. 
A close comparison of the customs and manners of the differ¬ 
ent races of the Archipelago promises not only to be highly in¬ 
teresting in itself, but will certainly tend to clear up many of the 
doubts, and dispel much of the darkness, which hang over their 
early and unwritten history. This comparison cannot be made 
without a full and minute account of the characteristics of each 
race. Traits which the general traveller, or the writer who merely 
' r 
