[186] Horne Tooke, Part I. ch. ii.

[187] Dr. Whewell, Hist. of New Phil. in Eng. p. 72.

[188] We consider this on the whole a less objectionable term than “sensualist” or “sensuist;” the latter word is uncouth, and the former, from the things which it connotes, is hardly fair.

[189] See V. Cousin, Cours d’Histoire de la Phil. Morale.

[190] οὔτε τῆς ψυχῆς ἴδιον τὸ αἰσθάνεσθαι οὔτε τοῦ σώματος.—Arist. de Somno, i. 5. “Sensation is not an affection of mind alone, nor of matter alone, but of an animated organism, i.e. of mind and matter united.”—Mansell’s Metaphysics, p. 92.

[191] “Il n’y a rien dans l’intelligence qui ait passé par les sens; rien, pas même l’idée des sens!”—Charma, Essai sur le Langage, p. 34. This is far truer than the assertion of D’Alembert, that “the object of Metaphysics is to examine the origin of ideas, and to prove that they all come from our sensations.”—Elém. de Philos. p. 143.

[192] Ἡ μνήμη ταῖς αἰσθήσεσι συμπίπτουσα εἰς ταὐτόν ... φαίνονταί μοι σχεδὸν οἷον γράφειν ἡμῶν ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς τότε λόγους.—Plat. Philebus, p. 192.

[193] Penser c’est sentir.

[194] πάντων μέτρον ἄνθρωπος.—Protagoras.

[195] We allude to his monstrous hyperbole “that it would be our duty to hate God if bidden to do so by Him,” which is merely equivalent to the sycophant’s excuse, πᾶν τὸ πραχθὲν ὑπὸ τοῦ κρατοῦντος δίκαιον.

[196] On the title of Horne Tooke’s treatise, “Winged Words, or Language not only the Vehicle of Thought, but the Wheels,” see Coleridge, Aids to Refl. p. xv.

[197] Leibnitz, Nouv. Ess. The passage is quoted by Dr. Donaldson, New Crat. ch. iii., where the reader will find some admirable remarks on the subject of this chapter.

[198] Mr. Wedgwood’s Etym. Dict. p. ii.

[199] Essays, p. 18 seqq.

[200] Diversions of Purley, Part II. ch. v.

[201] Essays, p. 28.

[202] See Vinet, Essais, p. 349.

[203] Kant, quoted by Chalybäus, Speculative Philosophy, Tr. Tulk. p. 31.

[204] “There still remains the question, ‘Do things as they are resemble things as they are conceived by us?’—a question which we cannot answer either in the affirmative or in the negative; for the denial, as much as the assertion, implies a comparison of the two,” (which is impossible, if they are absolutely unknown). Mansell’s Metaphysics, p. 354.

[205] Act I. sc. iv.

[206] This was the ground taken both by Plato and Aristotle in refuting the Sophists. See Theætet. p. 176. Arist. Eth. Nic. v. 7. Aristoph. Nub. 902 (quoted by Mr. Mansell, Metaphysics, p. 387).

[207] See Proverbs, ch. viii. 22. Jewish philosophy reaches its most passionate and eloquent strains in the expansion and inculcation of this belief. Ecclus. passim.

[208] See Victor Cousin, Cours de l’Hist. de la Phil. Mor. iii. p. 214 seqq.

[209] Dr. Donaldson, ubi sup.

[210] Vinet, p. 349.

[211] See Harris, Hermes, iii. 4.

[212] Charma, p. 64.

[213] Bunsen’s Outlines, ii. 146. The whole chapter is well worthy of attentive study, for the profound and noble thoughts which it contains.

[214] Renan, p. 108. Grimm, 37.

[215] Renan, p. 185.

[216] Cf. 2 Kings, xix. 35. Such expressions as “a bullock that hath horns and hoofs” belong not so much to this tendency to avoid all possibility of mistake, as to the desire for something graphic—the πρὸ ὀμμάτων ποιεῖν.

[217] “L’opium endormit parce qu’il a une vertu soporifique.” e.g. “When the essence of gold and its substantial form was said to consist in its aureity, the attempt at philosophic explanation was no whit superior to those quoted in the text.” The word “aureity” was merely an effort of abstraction, but it was supposed to answer all questions and solve all doubts.

[218] First used by M. Duponceau in his English translation of the German Grammar of Zeisberger. Charma, p. 266. Schleicher called these languages “Holophrastic.”

[219] Humboldt, quoted by Charma, p. 222.

[220] Max Müller, p. 113. Compare Molière, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, iv. 4. “Mons. Jourdain: Tant de choses en deux mots?—Cov.: Oui, la langue turque est comme cela, elle dit beaucoup en peu de paroles.”

[221] Ampère, Rev. des Deux Mondes. Fevrier, 1853, p. 572.

[222] Also called “incorporant.”

[223] Charma, p. 223.

[224] Grimm, ss. 37-47.

[225] Renan, p. 160 seqq. It is doubtful whether the Pali was anything more than an artificial language. If so, however, it is an unique phenomenon, and it must not be forgotten that a similar opinion was once entertained respecting the Sanskrit and Zend.

[226] Precisely the same change takes place in the growth of English from Saxon, and Danish from Icelandic.

[227] Hist. des Langues Sém. v. 1, 2, and 3.

[228] Über den Urspr. d. Sprache, p. 50. Another weighty testimony to the splendour of the English language may be found in Adelung’s Mithridates.

[229] See Benloew, p. 15 sqq. Humboldt, Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues, ad finem.

[230] The Chinese ‘l’ is pronounced like ‘r.’

[231] Many readers may recall the story of the late Mr. Albert Smith about the Bishop being described in the mixed jargon of Hong Kong as the “A-one-heaven-business-man.”

[232] Adelung, Mithridates, i. p. 412. Some deny the monosyllabic character of Chinese. (Prof. Key, Art. Language, Engl. Cycl.)

[233] It should be observed that triliteralism is not necessarily incompatible with monosyllabism. See Hist. des Langues Sémitiques, p. 94, 2nde ed.

[234] As אָב father, אֵם mother, אָח brother, הר mountain, יָד hand, יוֹם day, &c.

[235] Renan, p. 168. I must content myself here with a general reference to M. Renan, to whose works I have been very greatly indebted throughout the chapter, and indeed, as I have repeatedly observed, throughout the book.

[236] Pott’s formula for the morphological classification of languages was that they are “isolating,” “agglutinative,” and “inflectional.” Professor Müller and Baron Bunsen have shown that these divisions nearly correspond with three stages of political development—“Family,” “Nomad,” and “State.”

[237] Encycl. Brit. Art. Language. (Dr. Latham.)

[238] “On l’a désignée par les noms de famille Indo-Germanique ou Indo-Européenne, lesquels ne sont ni logiques ni harmonieux, car ils n’expriment qu’imparfaitement le sens qui leur est attribué, et leur longueur démesurée en rend l’emploi fort peu commode.”—Pictet’s Origines Indo-Eur. p. 28. They have, however, the advantage of explaining themselves.

[239] Burnouf, Commentaire sur le Yaçna, p. xciii. See also Bunsen’s Outlines, i. 281.

[240] These traces are most ably pointed out in the Edinburgh Review for October, 1851, quoted in an interesting note by Prof. Max Müller, Survey of Languages, p. 28, 2nd ed. See, too, Pictet, pp. 27-34, who connects the root ar with the words Erin, Elam, Ariovistus, Arminius, oriri, &c. If this be a right derivation of Erin, the fact is important, as showing that some memory of the old name was preserved in the extreme West as well as in the East.

[241] By a writer in the Saturday Review for Nov. 19, 1859.

[242] P. 49.

[243] For a graphic sketch of early Arian life as deduced from the records of language, see Weber’s Indische Skizzen, pp. 9, 10; Pictet’s Origines Indo-Européennes; Müller’s Ess. on Comp. Mythology.

[244] Müller, p. 28 sqq.

[245] Except some popular modern divines.

[246] Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde. Renan, 219 seqq. Klaproth builds an argument for the Northern origin of the Arians on the word “birch,” which bears an analogous name “not only in the German and Slavonic tongues, but also in the Sanskrit—b’hurjja.... It seems birch was the only tree the invaders recognised, and could name, on the south side of the Himalaya; all others being new to them. The inference may be right or wrong—it is, at all events, ingenious.” Garnett’s Essays, p. 33. See Klaproth, Nouv. J. Asiat. v. 112. Pictet, Orig. Ind. i. 217. The fact that the words for oyster are derived from the same root in the European languages (Gk. ὄστρεον, Ang.-Sax. ostra, Irish oisridh, Cymr. œstren, Russ. üstersü, French huître, Germ. Auster, &c.), but not in the Sanskrit or Indian branch of the Arian family,—would seem to show that there was a great separation of Eastern and Western Arians before the family had reached the shores of the Caspian. A similar fact is observed in the name for flax, (Gr. λίνον, Lat. linum, Goth. lein, Ang.-Sax. lîn, Cym. llin, Russ. lenû, &c.), and shows that the Western Arians were the first of the family to desert pastoral for agricultural pursuits. Id. pp. 320, 516. Few studies are more interesting than the “linguistic palæontology,” which thus enables us to revive the form of an extinct language and civilisation.

[247] Renan, p. 235.

[248] Histoire des Langues Sém. pp. 1, 2.

[249] Müller’s Survey, p. 23 seqq.

[250] Hist. des Langues Sémitiques, pp. 70-90.

[251] The name was suggested by Baron Bunsen in 1847. Outlines, i. 64. He even argues for the Turanian character of the Chinese; “although it is certain that the same opposition exists between the two as there is between inorganic and organic life.” General laws, operative in the formation of all languages, ought not to be taken for indications of special affinity; who would maintain the identity of quadrupeds and birds from the analogy of their respiratory and digestive systems? In the formation of languages certain first principles were necessarily observed by all, and this of course leads to some general resemblances.

[252] “Turanian speech is rather a stage than a form of language; it seems to be the form into which human discourse, naturally, and, as it were, spontaneously throws itself.... The principle of agglutination, as it is called, which is its most marked characteristic, seems almost a necessary feature of any language in a constant state of flux and change, absolutely devoid of a literature, and maintaining itself in existence by means of the scanty conversation of Nomades.”—Rawlinson’s Herodotus, i. p. 645.

[253] It is rather strange that this name, so peculiarly appropriate, and so much preferable to the other, has not met with wider acceptation. It was suggested by Dr. Prichard, “the greatest of English ethnologists.”

[254] Dolly Pentreath, the last person who could speak Cornish, died in 1770.

[255] Bunsen, Outlines, ii. 92.

[256] Ferrier’s Institutes of Metaphysics, p. 13.

[257] Adr. Balbi, Atlas ethnographique. Disc. prélim. lxxv-lxxix.

[258] Garnett’s Philol. Essays, p. 85, &c., where the supposed instances are examined. Most of them are, as might have been expected, simple onomatopœias of the most obvious kind. See Renan, Hist. des Langues Sém. p. 450 seqq. Nothing requires more care than an inquiry of this kind;—often two words which have identically the same letters have no connection with each other, while two others derived from a common source have not one letter in common. As an instance of the former case, take the French souris “a smile,” and souris “a mouse,” (from subridere and sorex respectively); as an instance of the latter, take the word cousin, derived from soror through consobrinus.

[259] Outlines, i. 476.

[260] Outlines, i. 143, 165 seqq.

[261] A very curious instance of this is the word שווין shoes, found in a Syro-Chaldaic Lectionarium in the Vatican. We may here remark that Dr. Young’s celebrated calculation—that, if eight words are identical in two languages, the chances of a direct relation between the languages are 100,000 to one—is very exceptionable. See Dr. Latham, in the Encycl. Brit. Art. Language. The greatest care is necessary to distinguish between words really cognate, and accidental isolated resemblances. See Pictet, Orig. Ind. p. 13, 17.

[262] Survey of Lang. p. 11.

[263] Renan, p. 216.

[264] Hist. des Langues Sém. p. 84 seqq.

[265] Renan quotes Mövers, Die Phœnizien, i. 33.

[266] Hist. des Langues Sém. 490, 491. Whenever passages are in semi-inverted commas, it will be understood that they are almost directly translated from the author referred to.

[267] The accounts of various missionaries among the New Zealanders, American Indians, and aboriginal Australians, give a strange and mournful confirmation of these assertions.

[268] That there is more probability in favour of English becoming prevalent throughout the globe, than in favour of any other language acquiring a future universality, is admitted by all who have studied the subject. See Benloew, Aperçu Général, p. 92. Grimm, Ueber der Ursprung, p. 50. Russian is another language which probably has a great future.

[269] Benloew, Aperçu Général, p. 91.

[270] Aids to Reflection, p. 1.

[271] Mill’s Logic, ii. 221.

[272] These thoughts are admirably developed in a beautiful Essay on the Abstract Idea of the New Testament, by Mr. Jowett (ii. 90). See, too, W. von Humboldt’s tract Ueber d. Entstehen d. grammat. Formen und ihren Einfluss auf die Ideenentwickelung, as well as the chapter Ueber die Verschiedenheit des Menschlichen Sprachbaues, which forms the introduction to the treatise on the Kawi language.

[273] “Q. Ennius tria corda se habere dicebat, quod loqui Græce et Latine et Osce sciret.”—A. Gell.

[274] Rückert.

[275] “Il disoit et répétoit souvent, quand il tomboit sur la beauté des langues, ... qu’autant de langues que l’homme sçait parler, autant de fois est il homme.”—Brantôme.

[276] See Destutt de Tracy, Grammaire Or. vi.