resent totally distinct powers, and to say that Sanskrit ever became Greek 8 is as irrational to-day as it was ten years ago. But historically I was entirely wrong, as will be seen from the last edition of Curtius' "" Grundzüge." The guttural sonant check was palatalized in the Southeastern Branch, and there became g and z, while in the Northwestern Branch the same g was frequently labialized and became gv, v, and b. Hence, where we have in Sanskrit, we may and do find 8 in Greek. But after withdrawing my former caveat, I make bold to propose another, namely, that the original palatal sonant flatus, which in Sanskrit is graphically represented by g, can never be represented in Greek by 8. Whether g in Sanskrit represents an original palatal sonant check or an original palatal sonant flatus can generally be determined by a reference to Zend, which represents the former by g, the latter by z. We may therefore formulate this phonetic law: "When Sanskrit g is represented by Zend z, it cannot be represented by Greek B.” In this manner it is possible, I believe, to utilize Ascoli's and Fick's brilliant discovery as to a twofold, or even threefold, distinction of the Aryan k, as applied to the Aryan g. They have proved that all Aryan languages show traces of an original distinction between a guttural surd check, k, frequently palatalized in the Southeastern Branch (Sk. k, Zend k) and liable to labialization, in Latin, Greek, Cymric, and Gothic; and another k, never liable to labialization, but changed into a flatus, palatal or otherwise, in Sanskrit, Lithuanian, and Old Slavonic. They showed, in fact, Sanskrit. Lith. Slav. Gadh. & Cym. श () = k =k, č, c = c = p = c, qu, v =к, «F, kk, #, ##, t, tt,=hv, h. =82= S с = C= = K = h In the same manner we ought in future to distinguish between a guttural sonant check, g, frequently palatalized in the Southeastern Branch (Sk. g, Zend g), and liable to labialization, like k; and another g, never liable to labialization, but changed into a flatus, palatal or otherwise, in Zend, Lithuanian, and Old Slavonic. As we never have = we never have ß, if in Zend is z. The evidence will be found under Sk. gan, gabh, gar (to decay, and to praise), gush, gñâ, gñu, gâmâtar; ag, bhrâg, marg, yag, rag (at a m). Gothic quino, Gadh. ben, Boot. Báva depend on Zend geni; Gadh. baith-is on Zend ga f-r a. It is wrong to connect oßeσ with gas, on account of Zend zas, and gyâ-ni with ẞía, on account of Zend zy â-ni. II. REDE LECTURE, DELIVERED IN THE SENATE HOUSE BEFORE THE PART I. ON THE STRATIFICATION OF LANGUAGE. THERE are few sensations more pleasant than that of wondering. We have all experienced it in childhood, in youth, and in our manhood, and we may hope that even in our old age this affection of the mind will not entirely pass away. If we analyze this feeling of wonder carefully, we shall find that it consists of two elements. What we mean by wondering is not only that we are startled or stunned, that I should call the merely passive element of wonder. When we say "I wonder," we confess that we are taken aback, but there is a secret satisfaction mixed up with our feeling of surprise, a kind of hope, nay, almost of certainty, that sooner or later the wonder will cease, that our senses or our mind will recover, will grapple with these novel impressions or experiences, grasp them, it may be, throw them, and finally triumph over them. In fact we wonder at the riddles 1 This Lecture has been translated by M. Louis Havet, and forms the first fasciculus of the Bibliothèque de l'École des Hautes Études, publiée sous les auspices du Ministère de l'Instruction Publique. Paris, 1869. of nature, whether animate or inanimate, with a firm conviction that there is a solution to them all, even though we ourselves may not be able to find it. Wonder, no doubt, arises from ignorance, but from a peculiar kind of ignorance; from what might be called a fertile ignorance: an ignorance which, if we look back at the history of most of our sciences, will be found to have been the mother of all human knowledge. For thousands of years men have looked at the earth with its stratifications, in some places so clearly mapped out; for thousands of years they must have seen in their quarries and mines, as well as we ourselves, the imbedded petrifications of organic creatures: yet they looked and passed on without thinking more about it - they did not wonder. Not even an Aristotle had eyes to see; and the conception of a science of the earth, of Geology, was reserved for the eighteenth century. Still more extraordinary is the listlessness with which during all the centuries that have elapsed since the first names were given to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field, men have passed by what was much nearer to them than even the gravel on which they trod, namely, the words of their own language. Here, too, the clearly marked lines of different strata seemed almost to challenge attention, and the pulses of former life were still throbbing in the petrified forms imbedded in grammars and dictionaries. Yet not even a Plato had eyes to see, or ears to hear, and the conception of a science of language, of Glottology, was reserved for the nineteenth century. I am far from saying that Plato and Aristotle knew nothing of the nature, the origin, and the purpose of language, or that we have nothing to learn from their works. They, and their successors, and their predecessors too, beginning with Herakleitos and Demokritos, were startled and almost fascinated by the mysteries of human speech as much as by the mysteries of human thought; and what we call grammar and the laws of language, nay, all the technical terms which are still current in our schools, such as noun and verb, case and number, infinitive and participle, all this was first discovered and named by the philosophers and grammarians of Greece, to whom, in spite of all our new discoveries, I believe we are still beholden, whether consciously or unconsciously, for more than half of our intellectual life. But the interest which those ancient Greek philosophers took in language was purely philosophical. It was the form, far more than the matter of speech which seemed to them a subject worthy of philosophical speculation. The idea that there was, even in their days, an immense mass of accumulated speech to be sifted, to be analyzed, and to be accounted for somehow, before any theories on the nature of language could be safely started, hardly ever entered their minds; or when it did, as we see here and there 'in Plato's "Kratylos," it soon vanished, without leaving any permanent impression. Each people and each generation has its own problems to solve. The problem that occupied Plato in his "Kratylos" was, if I understand him rightly, the possibility of a perfect language, a correct, true, or ideal language, a language founded on his own philosophy, his own system of types or ideas. He was too wise a man to attempt, like Bishop Wilkins, the actual construction of a philosophical language. But, like Leibniz, he just |