acted by artificial ventilation. Then there are the difficulties connected with the adaptation of machinery to these great depths; but even these can be overcome, though, of course, it would be impossible to work mines at such a depth, and yet sell the produce at any thing like the existing rates.

The system of sinking deep mines has already been put into operation. Twenty years ago, in Lancashire a two hundred yards' shaft was considered a very deep one, and no one then dreamed of sinking six or seven hundred yards. But such deep pits are steadily multiplying, suggesting to us what is likely to occur within the next twenty years. Mr. Hull has arrived at the following results from his own investigations on this subject:

'1. There are coal deposits in various parts of England and Wales at all depths, down to 9,000 or 10,000 feet.

'2. That mining is possible to a depth of 4,000 feet, but beyond this the high temperature will prove a barrier.

3. The temperature of a coal mine at a depth of 4,000 feet will probably be found as high as 120° Fahrenheit; but there is reason to believe that, by the agency of an efficient system of ventilation, this temperature may be so reduced, at least during the cooler months of the year, as to allow of mining operations without unusual danger to health.

4. That for working mines of greater depth than 2,000 or 2,500 feet, underground stages, with independent winding machinery and engines, will be found not only to render very deep mining practicable, but also to lessen the amount of risk from accident.

5. Lastly: Adopting a depth of 4,000 feet as the limit to deep mining, there is still a quantity of coal in store in England and Wales sufficient to afford a supply of sixty millions of tons for about a thousand years.'—Hull, p. 174.

These would be cheering results, if we could cordially accept them, but unfortunately we cannot; and we would urge with all the earnestness in our power, that government should pay more especial attention to this vital subject than it has hitherto done. Of course, there are but two points on which any interference could be effectual: these are, the exportation of coal, and the wasteful processes of mining now in vogue. The former of these involves the great free-trade question of the day, and the right of each coal proprietor to sell the produce of his land and labour at the best possible price. The latter is even a still more difficult thing to meddle with, and must, perhaps, be met rather by the provisions made on the part of landed proprietors, when leasing their subterranean property to practical miners, than by any thing that government can do. At present, the proprietor

Max Müller on Language.

451

having a life interest in his estate, or the lessee holding it for a limited term of years, desires to obtain from the mines the largest amount of the most valuable coal, at the smallest working loss. The result is, that vast quantities of inferior, but yet valuable, material are left in the pits; quantities that would do something towards meeting the growing consumption in this.kingdom.

At present we can do no more than give utterance to a warning note. Our manufacturing and commercial interests rest upon our supplies of coal as their foundation stone; our commercial rivals across the Atlantic possess magnificent coal-fields, that are practically of indefinite extent. It is true, that at present their commercial system is undergoing a rude disturbance which is shaking it to pieces;. but this is merely a passing storm. Their territorial advantages, and their Anglo-Saxon energies, will eventually raise them above these commotions of the lower atmosphere of political life. Exhaust our coal-fields, and their supremacy becomes complete. We trust it is not yet too late to ward off the coming evil, and to enable the British flag for yet another thousand years to brave the battle and the breeze.'

ART. VI.-1. Letter of PROFESSOR MAX MÜLLER to CHEVALIER BUNSEN; Oxford, August, 1853; on the Classification of the Turanian Languages. In BUNSEN's 'Outlines of the Philosophy of Universal History? Longman. 1854.

2. A Survey of the Three Families of Language,-Semitic, Arian, and Turanian. By MAX MÜLLER, M.A., Ph.D. Second Edition. Williams and Norgate. 1855.

3. Lectures on the Science of Language. By MAX MÜLLER, M.A. Longman. 1861.

Few sciences have made greater way the last few years than the one on which Mr. Max Müller writes with so much zest and spirit. It is, perhaps, the youngest of the sisterhood of the sciences. If it was not absolutely born in the present century, a decade or two of the century had passed before it left its cradle. And to this day it is without a fixed name. Glossology, Phonology, Linguistique,' Comparative Philology,—these and other titles have been given it, without finding general acceptance; and it is still open to any appellation which shall answer to its character, and gain the concurrence of its fathers and compeers. Mr. Müller, indeed, in the outset of his lectures above named, thinks it necessary to vindicate for his subject a place among the sciences, strictly so called. He argues

very forcibly, that language is not a historical study simply, like the fine arts. It is as truly inductive as astronomy or geology. He goes further. He maintains that it is one of the 'physical' sciences. We wish this term could be substituted by a better. It is ambiguous, and begets doubts which may prejudice the author's reasoning. There are two great divisions of human knowledge,' he says, 'which, according to their subject-matter, are called physical and historical. Physical science deals with the works of God; historical science with the works of man.' This is his definition; and, applying it, he refers art, law, politics, and, strange to tell, 'religion,' to the latter of the two classes; while he claims for language the title of a science physical, and puts it into the same category with geometry, botany, and comparative anatomy. But, even if this distinction of physical and historical science were a happy one, as we think it is not, it is surely undesirable to apply it without more precise definition, where it will so certainly be misunderstood. Language is not a physical science in the same sense in which many other sciences are physical. It borders too hard, at every point, on the province of mind to be adequately designated by this general term. It is a science. It is an inductive science. But it is, in truth, one of two great sciences-religion and speechwhich stand by themselves in the realm of knowledge, which are neither wholly physical nor wholly historical, and which it is undesirable to call by names that belong of right to what is either simply material or altogether human.

If there be difference of opinion, however, as to the style by which the science of language should be designated, there can be none as to the rapidity of its growth, or the promise which it gives of a robust and active manhood. Young as it is, it is a veritable Hercules. Already it has strangled more serpents than its enemies are at all willing to believe; and there is a fire in its eye, and a firmness in its tread, and a muscular energy in its grasp, which augur well for its future health and power. How many absurdities it has exploded,-what a new face it has put upon ancient literature, sacred and profane,-and to how important issues it points, both in speculative and practical knowledge, is known to all who have marked its history, and are even moderately conversant with its leading facts and principles. There is an end now to the empiricism, which made the Welsh a dialect of the Hebrew, for no better reason than that certain words in the one language bore an external likeness to certain words in the other. We shall no longer hear Latin spoken of as the daughter of Greek, or wander about without a clue in the weary labyrinth formed by the 'Ionic,' 'Doric,' and their

Recent Origin of the Science.

453

brethren. To say nothing of the worthy members of the Metropolitan Chapter of Pampeluna two centuries since, whom Mr. Müller quotes as having no doubt that Bask was the primitive language of mankind, Grimm, Bopp, and Renan would ask hard questions of any one, who should affirm that even Hebrew, as we have it, held this high honour. In regard to the lineage of human tongues, indeed, and to what is nearly connected with this, the ethnical relations which subsist between the various races of mankind, the light which has come from the modern study of language is so abundant, that it is difficult to reproduce to the mind the dimness and confusion which previously obtained respecting them. Some of the darkest places of history have received a sudden if not a brilliant illumination from the lights of the new science; and, after what we have seen the last ten or twenty years, it is impossible to divine the extent to which classical philology, biblical science, and even some of the highest problems of our nature, so far as they fall within the range of scientific inquiry, may be resolved or furthered by means of it. De Quincey called the study of languages the dry-rot of the human mind; and he would not be far wrong, if it were true, as he alleges, that in language everything is arbitrary. The precise contrary is the fact. In language-so the new-born science is bold enough to assure us-nothing is arbitrary. And it is doubtless the discovery of this, and of what it involves, which has secured for it the general attention it enjoys, and which makes it a favourite scarcely less in the parlour and domestic schoolroom, than in the cloisters of colleges and the closets of divines.

If it be marvellous that mankind allowed so many centuries to pass away without finding the key to the mysteries of speech, it is not difficult to enumerate some at least of the causes which led, under the hand of Divine Providence, to our present acquaintance with them. The general quickening which the mind of Western Europe received at the period of the French Revolution,-the progress of modern geographical discovery, stimulating the interest which man everywhere feels in his fellow man, the sudden access of facilities for communication between distant parts of the earth,-the literary and scientific curiosity awakened by growing connexion with the peoples of the further East,—the rapid spread of the Gospel among heathen nations by missionary and other agencies,-the demand for the Scriptures in languages hitherto unstudied and unknown, the labours of continental scholars over the hieroglyphics of Egypt, -these, and a crowd of other influences, served to bring the subject of language before men's eyes, to invest it with a new

importance, and to force upon scientific thinkers the necessity of endeavouring to use this great instrument of mind with an intelligence and certainty such as had never before been reached. Early in the eighteenth century the genius of Leibnitz, forestalling the science of a hundred years later, had employed the inductive method in the study of languages; and by the zeal with which he strove to call the attention of European literati to this long-neglected subject, he became the author of two great works, which, jointly with the forces already named, contributed not a little to pave the way for the science of language as it now is. The first of these was the so-called Catalogue of Languages, published in 1800 by the Spanish Jesuit Hervas; the other was the still more famous 'Mithridates' of Adelung, published a few years after. Both these books owed their existence less or more to Leibnitz, and both opened the door to their more illustrious successors. Adelung was much indebted to the less known Hervas, though he wrought with other and independent materials, the bulk of which came from the Glossarium Comparativum Linguarum totius Orbis, printed at St. Petersburg in two editions, 1787-1791, under the auspices of the Empress Catharine. Mr. Müller has only done an act of literary justice in giving Hervas's work a high place among the immediate precursors of Schlegel, Bopp, and their associates. He was the first to point out the true grounds on which the affinity of languages must be determined. He traced the organic unity of the Hebrew, Arabic, and other Semitic tongues. He proved that Bask was not, as commonly supposed, a language of the Celtic stock. He established the family likeness of the MalayoPolynesian group of languages. He had even glimpses of the connexion which subsists between the Greek and the then almost fabulous language of ancient India. Still, important as the appearance of these great works was, the principles upon which they were constructed were often altogether unscientific; and we may very well doubt, with Mr. Müller, whether, of themselves, they could long have sustained the interest of the student of languages,' or have led to any such results as have come of a yet more important event which followed close upon them. The discovery we speak of,-the day-spring of comparative philology, was the discovery of Sanskrit. This venerable and majestic language, the speech of Northern India centuries before the Christian era; the tongue which, even so early as the days of Solomon, made its echoes heard on the banks of the Jordan; the language of the Vedas, the Mahabharata, and the Puranas; the parent of Pali and its colossal literature; studied in Hindustan by Buddhist pilgrims from China long before the days of Con