ON ETHNOLOGY. 
347 
upon Sanscrit elements. Thus every passive participle may be taken from 
the Sanscrit, and may, when followed by the Bengali verb hdile, to be, 
form a passive verb, as knt, done, krU kay, I am done. Besides, the Bengali 
lias, like other languages, some coinpositions by which a passive sense can be 
expressed, though, grammatically speaking, they are hardly to he considered 
as constituting a distinct passive tbrmation. Thus the verbe klidite (ro eat) 
and j}dUe (to get), are of very frequent occurrence, to express in certain com¬ 
binations a passive idea. Ex. duhkha khdite, to eat pain, to suffer pain, or 
to be pained ; mart klidy, he eats or he gets a beating, i. e. he is or gets 
beaten, piddle naskta piioek, he will get destroyed by grief. 
So much in answer to Dr. Stevenson, and enough, I hope, to vindicate 
tlie origin -which 1 ascribe to llie grammatical structure of the Bengali. It 
would be easy to bring ibrvrard a great many forms of this direct, the 
Sanscrit origin of which is beyond all doubt, but I think that the mere fact 
of Dr. Stevenson’s not mentioning them in support of his theory, shows 
eufiiciently that he alao did not con&ider them ai, arising from the language 
of the aburiginal inhabitants of India. 
But now it may be asked, whut is the use of tlieao comparisons ? what 
does it matter whether Bengali belongs, by its grammatical structure, to 
the Indo-Gerraanic or the Turkish family of languages, provided that a 
man knows enough of it to express what he wishes ? Aly answer is 
this : from comparing languages, from finding out analogies between them, 
from tracing the origin of forms in modern languages down to the living 
roots of more ancient languages, and from going back, as far as it is allowed 
to us, to ace the first manifestation of human mind by human speech, we 
derive, 1 think, a threefold advantage — an historical, practical, and |iA«7a- 
sop/iical. 
When poetical tradition is silent, when historical records are lost, when 
physiological researches fail, language will speak and decide whether there 
has been a community and connection in the iutellectual development of 
difierent people. One of the most important questions of ethnological phi¬ 
lology, which is now pending, the question of the origin and the con¬ 
nection of the Babylonian, Assyrian and Median civilization, art and lan- 
guuge, can only be solved effectively by tlie language of the inscriptions 
which have been found in tho ancient cities of Babylon, Nineveh and Perse- 
polis. It is as if it were by Providence that these monuments have been 
preserved iluring many centuries under the protecting veil of the earth, and 
(hat they are now discovered at a time wh^ comparative philology has, 
by the study of the ancient languages of Egypt, Aramea, Persia and India, 
grown strong enough to master ilieiu, and to read in the arrows of these 
inscriptions the hieroglyphics of the human mind. 
But in India too there are still many questions to be answered as far as 
ethnological philology is concerned. We are generally inclined to consider 
the inhabitants of this vast country us one great branch of the Caucasian 
race, differing from the other branclicH of the same race merely by its darker 
complexion. This difference of colour has been accounted for by the influ¬ 
ence of a climate which has produced a similar change of colour even in 
those who, like the Portuguese, have settled there only for some centuries. 
If we look however more attentively at tlie descriptions which have been 
given of the physical properties of many tribes inhabiting the west and a 
great part of the centre of India, some in the mountainous districts of the 
Vindhya, like the Bbillas, Meras, Kolas, Gondas and Paliarias, some even 
in the northern parts of the Himalaya and Beloochistan, as the Rajis or 
