ON ETHNOLOGY. 
271 
Iwo, which are not found between the different families of either stock ; and 
Wilhelm von Humboldt, in his universal view of languages, considers both 
fauiiltes as by character one. According to him, the Semitic tends to what 
the Japhetic accomplishes. Even before him, many inquiring minds, some 
led by theological, some by philological, some by historical considerations, 
took a similar view of a question which has been settled, as 1 believe, by the 
recent Egyptian discoveries. But w ithout being aware of the iiM|)ortance of 
these Egyptian researches, men of scientific character in our time, unwilling 
to bow under the yoke of the tw o critical schools of the Isolating system, 
the Sanscrit and the Hebrew, tried to establish the radical atKnity between 
the two great families. And. indeed, if the Japhetic and Semitic nations 
are of the same stock, and if it cannot be denied that there exists an affinity 
between many of the roots of their languages, why should wo uot try to 
find out a method for ascertaining whether, in spite of the difference of 
the grammatical system, they are not united radically? It is true that such 
ui affinity had been rather assumed than proved; and it must not be for¬ 
gotten that the proof had been attempted by entirely discredited and un¬ 
scientific niulhods. But ought the reaction against such assumptions and 
proceedings to prevent us from iiistituliiig more scientific researches? 
The ruling critical school, reducing everything to, and deducing every¬ 
thing from, Sanscrit, turned a deaf ear to such questions, even after the old 
Egyptian language had become accessible to every scholar. The heads of 
the critical Hebrew school, Gesenius and Ewald, had thrown out a hint that, 
by the reduction of the Iriliteral Hebrew rootn to biliteral ones (proposed 
already in the seventeenth century), we may find inucli reason to suspect a ra« 
dical affinity between I lebvew and Sanscrit. Klajjroth had pronounced, without 
reserve, tliat it was * 0 , and attempted a proof in the rarest of all linguistic 
books (1828)*. Ewald, without controverting the assertion, observed, with 
his usual acutencAH, that such etymologies must go beyond the historical 
age of Semitic forms; an observation in which Humboldt entirely concurst, 
but which evidently does not settle the question. It was only in 1838 and 
18+0 that two niaslers of the Ilebrt‘w tongue (themselves native Jews), 
Fliret in I.#eipzig, and in jwrticular DcUtzsch in Halle, endeavoured to break 
entirely down the wall of partition. Delitzsch acknowledges fully the rules 
laid down, and the methojl observed, by the Indn-Gcmmuic scholars: he 
rejects os strongly as they the former irregular and unscientific method of 
etymological comparisnus: but he maintains and cxiMupUfics the constant 
aod undeniable analogy between the ludo-Germanic and Semitic roots, 
sad thus estaldishcs fully the claims to a further ioveAtigatiun upon a more 
extended plan. 
Rodiger, the succeseor of Gesenius at Halle, was leil by bis own researches 
couccrtiing the most ancient Arabic forms to similar conclusions. Perhaps 
he or Delitzsch would even have been led to the csiebUshment of a new and 
higher principle of inveatigalion, if the great facts which Egyptian phi¬ 
lology at that period had already revealed, by Champollion’s grammar, to 
those who were willing to learn, had not been so strangely overlooked by all 
German scholars. Egypt is the connecting link between both; and the 
method of investigation, which tlic j»ecuUar nature of the Egyptian lan¬ 
guage demands in order to be understood, cannot but be intimately 
connected with that which seems requisite to establish the historical con¬ 
nexion between the Semitic and Japhetic languages, by a new and more 
• Obtservations sar Ics Racines des Laogucs Seudtiqnea: quoted by HumboWt. See the 
following note. 
t P. ccccxi. and foU. Compare Ewald. LchrL, § 4 . 
