324 
REPORT—1847. 
the first efforts of the awakening conscience of the human race, the gigintif. 
soineiinies sublime and sometimes monstrous forms of which must be reiintH 
to their simple form and true meaning by the general laws of language 
thought, just in the same manner as comparative physiology reduces tb- 
stupendous farms of antediluvian fossils to the laws of the liviog 
w Inch they are found to belong—then we must give up theories which hi^ 
jrrcvuiled for centurits, as that of deriving the luytliology of Greece 
that of Kgypt. Tor as far as the language of these two couotries b ditfwK 
ill all that constitutes ihcir rosjieclivc peculiarity and character, gofirf 
mythology of Greece is ditfevent from that of £gypt. Inthatcountry.»i - 
ctyaiology has found the roots and the most primitive and transparent 
of the grammatical system of the Greek aud Latin languages, ujydioli?? 
will find the first formations aud the very geniais of their religious wstfif' 
In order to succeed, however, such an inquiry must be based npoow 
and hUturicai principles. It can lead to no satisfactory conclusion, tor 
pare a secondary formation of Indian mythology like the system oft* 
rurunas with the mythology of Ilomer, which although on manypoatir,^ 
ancient than the Puranic mythology, is .nevertheless not to be cousidciW'" 
a primitive one. But if we go back to the oldest form of Indian mytbiit '. 
which we fimJ in the Vedus, if even then we divest the old Vodic concept 
of all that is accidental or sccomiury in them, then we may expect— 
deed to find Greek or Latin mythology any more than the Greek or 
language — hut at all events to come nearest to the focus from wliidi 
logical ideas took their first beginning, following afterwards in their de *?' 
meot Ihc individual and national development of the different braiictic' 
tin: Arian stork. . , 
In the same way as comparative philology has formed this new basw 
true appreciutioii of mythology, it has also given quite a new featurr 
ethnology and archeology. Ii, 1ms become possible to arrawgi'the ^ 
prominent nations of the world into great fauiilies, on the grouni 
connection between the languages spoken by them,and particularly 
to the grammatienl genius of the.se languages. And if we look at tho* 
portaiit discoveries, whicli partly have been made, partly are still 
in rcfm'iice to the old history and nrcha-ology of the empires 
Ion. Assyria, Media ami Persia, how could these grand results 
achieved without the aid of a tjiorougli knowledge of general rmd^r 
tivc grainmar? If we compare the manner in which,at the beginnmi:^' 
century, a man of the name of Lichtenstein tried to decipher themself* 
.-rx,. . , . . •tbewpP^ 
ir 
» »«•. Himuar stuaies are now conducted by men like Burnout, 
son. Hmeksand Bcnfey, we must admit that linguistic science has 
a new field fur these arehmological imiuiries. For when once we • 
whieh family of hmguagcs the idiom of these old inscriptions 
grammatical forms tiieniselvos. ms they maybe determined by 
coojectures, become an instrument for deciphering the alphabet, an< 
arly the vocalism of the old language. It is true tliat till at 
ecu achieved with the Iranian inscjaptlons onlv, when all the lat»i , 
*'*,r!* ‘^‘^•tt-‘<*rnitig the peculiar character of many letters and the 
iiiliei^nt vowels have only been arrived at by means of a 
rniii grammar. But. the light begins to dawn ^ 
pMnir, ^ .1*1 ruins of Babylon; and if we may ^,{i 
tile language of the one will be an Indo-Germanic one, w 
nr points more to a Semitic origin. 
