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progress of civilization, as plough, weave, sew, the names of weapons, tools, and instruments of chase; these are often found to agree where even domestic terms differ, and are of incalculable value for the history of such languages.

It is now considered utterly insufficient to limit inquiries into the nature of a language to certain parts only. Some philologists used to study the numerals, others the pronouns or conjunctions of certain idioms, and hoped by such means alone to obtain an insight into their history and nature. Even now the first five or ten numbers are frequently given as the only specimens of a newly discovered tongue. This is the less satisfactory, as the value of the numerals compared with that of a like number of other words, is naturally different in different languages. Throughout the whole of the Indo-European family they are alike, and yet the whole remainder of some of these idioms may be entirely unlike. On the other hand, the American languages have throughout different names for the numerals, while the remainder frequently shows less considerable differences, and often striking and general analogies. Conclusions drawn from so small, and, in some instances, quite unimportant parts of a language, must therefore be accepted with great caution.

A large number, moreover, of resembling words, does not by itself prove a relation between two idioms: it is not so much the number as the kind of words that must be regarded, and not so much the outward resemblance of radicals, which, as has been shown, is but too frequently quite accidentally, as the analogy of etymological development and of grammatical structure. The French "jour" appears to have little in common

with the Latin "dies," and still it is the same word. Both are derived from the Sanscrit "div," which meant clear or bright, and gave to Greeks and Romans their words for God and day: the Latin derived from "dies" and "dives" the adjective "diurnus,” which the Italian softened into "giorno," and the French shortened into "jour."

It is this branching off from a common root which has caused etymology so frequently to be compared with botany. The structure of a word is in this respect certainly not less wonderful than that of a flower. It springs forth from the human mind as mysteriously as the tender blade rises from the bosom of the earth; it has a root and a stem, its leaves and branches in its flexions and derivations, and to all these it adds a meaning, which the botanist in vain seeks for in the flower. But the word passes not like the flower with the light of the day, springing up in the morning and withering with the setting sun. The word is to-day a tender shoot, scarcely visible, bending under the weight of a butterfly, and two hundred years later it stands like the proud oak, with its massive branches darkening the sun and defying the fury of the storm. But herein lies one of the dangers besetting the path of the student of words. Often the branches are still living, or have taken roots of their own when the parent stock is long forgotten. The English "better" and worse" have lost their positives, "bet" and "woe," the past "went," its present, "I wend;" and English grammarians hesitate not to call them "irregular" forms! In other cases, two branches have assumed independent forms and meanings, as the English words "bishop" and "episcopal," "minster" and "mo"priest" and "presbyter," and the superficial investi

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INNER LIFE OF LANGUAGES.

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gator considers them both as original words. To avoid these mistakes, comparative philology makes it the duty of every inquirer from the beginning to enter into the spirit of each idiom, to trace out its living principles and its operative power. He must constantly bear in mind, that a near affinity of languages is impossible without an identity of structure in inflexions and formative words or syllables. If language exhibits as it embodies the spirit of a nation, the spirit of the language itself is, in its turn, exhibited in its grammatical system. All accidental resemblances must, therefore, here also be laid aside; all mere affixes and suffixes; all terms borrowed from neighboring races; in fine, the idiom must be stripped of all that is either not genuine or not essential, and then only can analogies and their comparison be useful for the purpose of pointing out the historical connection between different languages. Their grammatical structure then appears as an inborn element; each epoch, moreover, will have its own peculiarities in grammatical forms, periods of transition which connect these with each other, and the whole idiom thus presents itself as a complete and genuine organic structure. Inquiries pursued in this spirit have led to most remarkable results, and already brought to light laws of great importance. Such is the law of Bopp, who first proved that the personal terminations of the verb are, in all Indo-European languages, derived from the same source as those of other cognate idioms, and that they contain the remains of personal pronouns which have been added to the verbal root, and, of course, changed more or less in the gradual development of different languages.

The next step in such researches is to seize upon the parti

cularly distinguishing characteristics of each idiom. To do this successfully, a certain instinct has to be acquired, which will enable the student to identify himself with the mode of thinking and feeling of that people whose language he means to investigate and to compare with others. Great minds have already of old felt this imperfectly; and when Charles V. spoke of the English as a language fit for birds, German for horses, Italian for ladies, French for men, and Spanish for God himself, he gave utterance to the general but characteristic impression which these idioms are apt to produce.

Languages appear, then, no longer mere mechanical structures, but, in their higher vocation, as enveloping and embodying specific national notions. Gray theory now blossoms forth into a green living tree. Formerly words were treated very much as plants were studied by the older botanists. Their Decandolle or Cuvier in their pocket, they would gather the tender children of Flora into the recesses of their huge maps, dry them at home, analyze them with a magnifying glass, classify them, and, finally, deposit them, well dried and pasted, for the learned world, in their splendid but lifeless herbarium. There was the plant, says Vinet, authenticated and easily to be recognized; but where were its color and graceful shape; where the breath that made it gently wave to and fro; where the perfume it gratefully sent up to God; the bright water in which it reflected its lovely form; the whole glorious scene for which it was intended by nature, and to which it lent, in return, life and beauty? So it was with words. Long enough have grammarians taught dry rules and long exceptions, but too long have they spoken of idioms, caprices, and irregularities. Modern science knows

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no such anomalies; it sees even in the caprices and fancies of an idiom only so many crystallized expressions of that mind of the nation which works unceasingly at the loom of its language, and weaves the fine texture of its idiom.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE MORAL PRINCIPLE IN LANGUAGE.

Their Vocal and Musical Element-Grimm's Law of Commutation-The Accent-The "Click" of Hottentots, &c.

LANGUAGES have their moral principle as well as the races whose minds they represent. Whilst the Frenchman laughs at the "sentiment and pipe" of the German, he claims for himself "esprit et champagne." This "esprit" again appears in a concise form in his "bon-mot," and decks itself with all possible finery in his "causeries," where mere "riens" are made important by artistic skill, and the insignificancy of the subject is concealed by the brilliant firework of the style. Other nations can rarely appreciate, much less imitate this "esprit," because it is so thoroughly and exclusively French. In the same way the German "minne" is as untranslatable into French-where “mignon " and "amignoter" are the poor remnants of a noble word -as the English "home." The Spanish "picaro," the Italian concetti," the Swedish "ja so," the Arabic "tayeb," and a thousand similar words, express delicate shades of moral conceptions which can but seldom be represented even in cognate

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