ON ETHNOLOGY. 
273 
living, and not io decayed roots ? and if there is, why should not n method 
be found to establish it? For if there is an incontestable (although more 
remote) affinity traceable in languages beyond the inflexions, what, it may 
be asked, is the method for such an investigation ? 
To this no answer is supplied by the Indo-Ciertnanic school, anv more 
than by the Semitic disciple of the schools of Geaemus and Ewald! The 
last-mentioned eminent scholar has enunciated a profound principle, already 
adverted to, in asserting that the investigation of the undeniable affinity of 
Jwnscntic and Hebrew roots cannot be prosecuted without going beyond 
these two languages. But he has not further pursued his own investigations*. 
*ome facte have been elicited by Delitzscli, but these establish no method of 
investigation. And, as we have already indit-alod, the method, so successfully 
applied by Bopp in the narrow iaotily circle of the Indo-Gcrmanic nations, 
cannot be applied to any further resrareh. The inflexions and formative 
words in the other two families arc exactly not the same as the Sanscritic : 
those of most or all of the remaining futuilica of mankind still less. Now is it 
noiali^ical error in itself, to attempt to prove the remote affinity of languages 
F X method as that of the nearest in kin ? Few of the philologers 
ihfl critical school will deny, that inflexions and fonnative jiarticles are the 
remains of roots; therefore a time existed when those inflexions did not exist, 
lhat time, and tin- relation of languages before that epnrb, cannot in con- 
requencp be investigated without a methodical inquiry into the living roots 
f i.*^^^** l^ormatiou. The furtiivr wc proceed, the more even the vestiges 
•i' die Sanscritic inflexions will jlis.ippear. 
It seems to me to result from tins preliminary view of the nature of lan- 
guapes, timt we must leave the strictly grauiiiiutical comparisons entirely out 
ol the question, as soon as we extend our researches beyond the nearest de¬ 
gree of affinity : otherwise we must necessarily fail, and contradict ourselves. 
'>e might as well try to base comparative anatomy upon principles exclii- 
Mvely deduced from the affinities and differences of the mammalia, or to 
r r I l^^pliinau and Newtonian problems by the four species and the 
bucudean theorems of plane geometry. 
^psius. in his ‘ b.ssay on the Numerals,* and Dr. Meyor, both in his review 
Cl thanipollion and Lepsius’ ‘ Hieroglyphic Ilcscurches,' and in his criticism 
•ni ricicts ‘ Celtic Grammar,’ have practically shown the insufficiency of the 
odsysteiri, and establUliwi beyond doubt the fact, that there exists not only 
w imileniable community of Jiving roots between the two families, but also 
that the Egyptian roots present the intermediate link between both, as well 
1^0 with Ewiild in believing, that Dr. K. Meyer has not succeeded in 
w ring (ill lu8 Hebriiisebes Wurzel-Worterbuch, 18-15) tiie great problem of redaciog the 
muteraj Hebrew roots to biliteral. It is inipoasiblo not Ut do justice to the learning and 
aeiiteness of the young but dialinguialicd autluir, himself of liwald’s school; but the prin- 
opu pan of this work {with wliidi I wm not ac(iuaiiiu-il at the time of the I.ecture) stands 
« rails with the fundamentHl asiiini{ition. tliat the third person masculine of tlic triliterai 
H^rew perfect bneomea triliteral by a reduplication analdgoiis to the Sanscrit and Greek 
periMt. Dr. Carl Meyer's view of the case teems to tne much nearer the truth. It is im- 
to carry out Dr. IJ. Meyer** theory without giving up immediatdy tins idea of re- 
Oaplicntiofi. Ai to his view of the Egyptian and its relation to the Hebrew, 1 confess that 
I liavo been suqirised to tee a pliilutuger of the Genaan schooi, and a man of undoubted 
tsleiit and U-mming, treat the Rgyptiau a* an unorganic aggregate, and romntain that two 
wagoagci, which are without any original connexion with each other, can have the pro- 
BoiiDt in cunuaon, at he cannot deny the Kgvytiiau and Hebrew have. I shall make no 
remark ou bis etymohigiea of EgyptUa wonts, and hit derivation of the names of the 
Egyptian gods and goddesses from Semitic divinities. They are far too arbitrary to require 
* mticnl cxaniinalioi). Other rrinarks of his show, ttiat he sec* dearly enough that both 
langimges must be most iurimately connected. 
184-7. 
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