258 
REPORT— 1847 * 
our grammatical system, and establish by themselves the great principlp.ta 
language is the immediate produce and expression, as it were the minw 
of logic and thought. In the speculations of both we see the entire winii 
an abstract knowledge of the etymological rules of their own lacgue 
and still more of a system, or even a tendency, to compare the 
with those of the barbarians. Nor did the later philosophers and pw 
gers of tJrcece and Home follow such a course. The Stoics gave, iiw«. 
the first theory of the (ircek verb ; and Apollonius Dpcolus and other u» 
and learned mentbers of the Alexandrian Academy erected that fabnts 
grammatical definitions and terms, which, brought nearer to uibyH'r- 
and the later Latin grammarians (of wdiom Priscian and 
known by name to our schoolboys), has formed down to the present c«W? 
exclusivcdy, and forms to a certain degree even now, the basis of 
matical nystem. The defieieney of the lexicographic inquiries and sp^ 
tiona of the ancients is proverbinl, and constitutes an im{>ortant fact m 
history of the human mind. Their absurd etymologies ore the 
proof of the irapoasibility of man to become cimscious of bis 
except by cooirast and comparison with those of others. They 
over the iiicajiacity of any nation to understand itself, without having re 
undersinod and appreciated tiie idea of humanity, and the feelingot b 
hood towards all mankind. 
If the Roman world did little for the philosophy of langut^ie, a j. 
great men like Cajsar speculated upon it, the llyzantinc 
also, did nothing but preserve the corpse of ancient science, reduced 
mulari(*8 and epitomes, such as ages, sinking into materialism or ant 
form of barbarism, generally prefer to scientiho and learned ^ 
Thu Germanic middle ages had not the means, and did not le® 
vocation of iiiquiriiig into realities, although Christianity had 
the itlea of humanity as distinct from nationality, and although the i 
Latin, ajjil later of Greek, and the acquaintance with tlie 
them naturally to a greater knowledge of tlie properties and dircrsi 
languages. . ^ 
1 he genial and free philology of the fifteenth century, which ^ 
hand prepared the way for the great Reformation of the 
the other, by this most memorable event of modern historj’, an 
liberty of inquiry and the feeling of tlie sacredness of *^^**!“® 
It tlius opened the way to wider researches, at the same 
discoveries of the Spaniarda and Portuguese laid a new world 
the awakening European mind. Antonio Pignafetta, 
lists ot words out of the tongues of the tribes and nations throug * 
had travelled. 
But tlie only efiective progress in linguistic philosophy wd ^ 
which the sixteenth century made, was due to classical 
with the study of Hebrew.’ The necessity of explaining the Old 
frorii its original language led to the. studv and. comparison ® 
Syriac, and Aramaic; and it is only necessary to know the two ji- 
naries of l-rance, Joseph Scaliger and Boebart, to form an idea 
tcru and imjiortanco of the progress made in this field of 
^ On this loundatiun the seventeenth century attempted to bui / 
Its struggles for religious and civil liberty would allow. 
ovenrjjclniing power of the political and eedesiasricalTeactioD m 
part ot that century, all it achieved in this field was a 
lexicography. There was no philosophic^ P"!. Lide ^ 
P ulation ot that century, nor any great historical problem 5“^ 
