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able evidence of the far-sighted policy of Catharine II., at whose command it was published, and of the industry of its author. It was in the same Eastern empire that these vast collections of material were first considered in their true light, as subservient to the deduction of great principles and the establishment of great truths. Admiral Schischkow, who, as president of the Academy at Petersburg, took a lively interest in these researches, said in a letter to his friend, Baron Mérian, on the subject of Balbi's ethnographical maps: "They lack the essential requisite, the consideration of the affinity of languages, not according to a superficial resemblance of words, but according to their radical affinity, based partly upon the changes in the elements of the word, and partly on that affinity of thought, which might be called the spirit of languages." This is the great fundamental principle upon which all comparison of idioms must be pursued, to produce more than "mere fragments, patchwork, and obscurity," as the Admiral's learned correspondent states in his

answer.

CHAPTER IX.

PRESENT STATE OF COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY.

Eichhorn-Frederick von Schlegel-Bopp-Duponceau-William von Humboldt-Jacob Grimm-Rask-Arndt-Prichard-Latham, &c.

IT is to Germany, however, that we must look for works of the highest merit, written by those men to whom, in fact, the existence of Comparative Philology is due. Eichhorn has the merit of having first suggested the idea, that languages ought to be arranged genealogically, whilst Frederick von Schlegel was probably the first, in 1808, to point out the importance of grammatical forms and their primeval, indestructible nature. In his work on the language and philosophy of the Hindoos, he assumed the high ground, that "language is an organism,” classified idioms as inorganic or organic, established the historical connection between the Sanscrit, Persian, Roman, and Greek, and may, therefore, justly be called the father of the modern linguistic school in Germany. Bopp, who stands professedly highest in historical grammar, and considers not the lexical but the historical connection of languages as the most important point in comparative philology, is thus brought into opposition to Schlegel, whom he charges with frequent contradiction and an imperfect knowledge of that branch of the science. His

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great merit is considered to lie in his division of languages into three classes according to their technical means and upon a principle corresponding to that which prevails in natural history -an arrangement which differs totally from that proposed by the American philologist, Duponceau, in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. Wilhelm von Humboldt found time in his high position as minister and statesman, to furnish in his work on the Basque the most accurate specimen of linguistic analysis which had yet been attempted. Whilst his general works have written his name with indelible letters in the annals of history and science, he treated in the preface to his work on the "Kawi Language," published by his young friend and assistant, Buschmann, the diversity in the construction of human language and its influence on the intellect; the Kawi served him as a canvas on which to weave those truths and that wisdom which have placed him, in universal Comparative Philology, by the side of Leibnitz.

It was left, however, to Jacob Grimm, to rise to the very summit of renown, and to become the highest authority in the science which owed already so much to German genius and German learning. In his Grammar and his History of the German Language, he traces his mother tongue in all of its numerous branches from Ulfilas to Goethe, from its most ancient form through an almost uninterrupted series of literary monuments for fifteen hundred years, down to the present age. Impressed with the dignity of this vast enterprise, he treats the subject with that reverence and anxious care which its almost sacred character seemed to require, and which alone could produce results so stupendous and bring to light truths as unde

niable now as they were then unexpected. He has thus given to the world a standard of the method and a model of the system by which every other effort must hereafter be judged. It is fortunate that whilst we are lost in admiration at the labor, the knowledge and the genius required to produce such a master work, the results are so encouraging and the path is henceforth so distinctly marked out, that his work now stands like the mariners' beacon, guiding the frail bark and the stately man-of-war with the same gentle, steady light past cliff and sunken rock to the safe harbor. His great laws of "Ablaut," "Umlaut," and "Lautverschiebung," earned for him not less fame than they added precision and dignity to the science of Language. He was the first to deduce them logically, to apply them with success, and thus to secure for them that authority which proved that language has its laws and eternal principles as well as its history and philosophic nature.

Numerous are the works which have since appeared on the subject in various parts of Europe; they all tend to prove the truth of these laws, and to add new interest and new importance to the youthful science. The Scandinavian Rask may be said to have stood at the head of a northern school of Comparative Philology, a post of lofty distinction, for which he was eminently qualified by his intimate acquaintance with the idioms of Eastern Asia as well as those of his native land. In his great work on the Zendavesta he establisnes the first elements and principles of his system with a lucidity and logical directness which secured to them, at once, general sympathy and acknowledgment. We owe to Rask, moreover, the first decisive expression and the establishment of the principle, that the gram

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matical development of a language and its style are its only genuine and all-important characteristics; in these two features the mind of the people is expressed, and, through them, deposited in literature. This reflection or image of the very soul of a nation changes as the character of the people changes. Still, there is below the surface a permanent and never-changing basis, which remains through centuries the same. This last idea a French writer, Genin, had already foreshadowed when he compared the language of a people to the ocean, whose surface is turbulent and never at rest, wave following wave. Underneath, however, there is profound, never-disturbed peace. So it is with idioms; in form and outline they vary for ever, but their fundamental character remains unchanged from age to age and amidst all the vicissitudes that may befall those who speak it. For languages live not in words only; they do not depend upon the laws of men or the will of sovereigns. Thus the Greek, opposed by the immense continent of Asia Minor and the gigantic monarchy of Persia, never perished under the pressure of the enormous linguistic power of the Orient. Even the Roman colossus could not destroy it, and the little Ionian dialect lives yet in the immortal history of Herodotus. Arndt, less known, was on the other hand the originator of what Latham, himself a master, calls a grand, suggestive guess: the fertile supposition that Indo-European races and languages were only a second race of immigration into Europe, overwhelming in their fierce onset the original Finnish population. This ingenious and well-supported theory, which alone offers a satisfactory explanation of the mystery which had, heretofore, hung around the Laps, Finns, Basques, and Magyars, is, as yet, mainly sup

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