the predicable stem, and having undergone a large amount of attrition for that purpose. Nor, again, are the inflectional languages wholly inflectional; Hebrew, for instance, abounds with agglutinative forms, and also avails itself largely of separate particles for the expression of relational ideas. Our own language, though classed as inflectional, retains nothing more than the vestiges of inflection, and is, in many respects, as isolating and juxtapositional as any language of that class." * Thus not unfrequently resemblances and affinities are disclosed where they had not been suspected. I have already mentioned the results following the discovery of the Sanskrit and its literature, this proving to be the "missing link" requisite to complete the chain of connection between the various members of the IndoEuropean family. In the same way, what is of late taking the name of the Hamitic group, or, as Bunsen denominated it, Khamism, gives indications of becoming a connecting link between the Aryan and Semitic families.† Hence, too, the difficulties of classification which are found in many cases, cer

*Smith's Dict. of the Bible, art. Confusion of Tongues.

"The old Egyptian clearly stands between the Semitic and the Indo-European, for its forms and roots cannot be explained by either of them singly, but are evidently a combination of the two." — Bunsen, Egypt's Place, etc. p. 10. See also the remark of Osburn, cited on pp. 161, 162.

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tain languages showing resemblances in opposite directions, leading them to be placed by one linguist in one class and by another in another. It is impossible to say, when all existing languages shall have been sufficiently studied, and their ultimate elements and principles of formation are known, how nearly they may be brought into affinity with each other. We hold the fact to be a significant one, that the tendencies are all one way, toward an original unity among the whole.

4. Languages, while in their unwritten and uncultivated state, are liable to rapid changes. There being nothing to retain them in their ancient forms, they are free to adapt themselves to the varying circumstances and necessities of the people who use them. There is, first, the law of" growth," already adverted to. In its earliest stage, language was monosyllabic, its words short, without grammatical variations, and with the simplest possible syntax — a fit vehicle for the simple thoughts of a primitive age. But gradually, as men's experience was enlarged, and new ideas were developed, this monosyllabic speech began to take on a more complex form, modifying and relational words attached or glued themselves to the roots, till another phase of language was reached, sufficiently removed from the former to rank it in a distinct class the agglutinative. Later

still, by a continuation of the same process, the inflectional stage was reached, differing as much from the last as that did from the original. "Among all languages, ancient and modern," says M. Maury, some have passed through the three phases; others have been arrested in their development. Thus agglutination includes the monosyllabic state, and inflection includes both the agglutinative and the monosyllabic states. Exactly as among species of animals, some remain as elementary organisms, whilst others progress, during the period of gestation, from that organism to a higher and more developed organization." *

Other changes also, equally important, have occurred in the ever-changing circumstances of mankind. Old languages have been broken up, and their fragments, assuming each a vitality of their own, have become separate living dialects, as the modern Romance languages of Europe have sprung from the Latin. Two or more languages, under outward force, have been compressed into one, as our own tongue sprung from the fusion of the Saxon and the Norman. And these changes have often taken place with great rapidity. In the instance last mentioned, two languages, greatly dissimilar in mate

* Quoted in Anc. Hist. of the East, by Lenormant and Chevallier, p. 67.

rials and structure, were, in a little more than three centuries, wrought into a third, so unlike both that it would be wholly unintelligible to those who spoke either of the parent tongues.

Among savage nations this susceptibility to change is still greater. "We read," says Müller, "of missionaries in Central America who attempted to write down the language of savage tribes, and who compiled, with great care, a dictionary of all the words they could lay hold of. Returning to the same tribes after the lapse of only ten years, they found that this dictionary had become antiquated and useless. Old words had sunk to the ground, and new ones had risen to the surface, and, to all outward appearance, the language was completely changed." Again, he refers to tribes in the north of Asia, who "though really speaking the same language, have produced so many words and forms peculiar to each tribe, that even within the limits of twelve or twenty German miles, communication among them becomes extremely difficult." In a limited district in the mountain ranges of the Irrawaddy, "were collected no less than twelve dialects, some of them spoken by no more than thirty or forty families, yet so different from the rest as to be unintelligible to the nearest neighbor."

* Science of Lang., vol. ii. pp. 62, 63.

With such evidences before' us of the susceptibility of language to change, we have no need to resort to the theory of a plurality of origin to account for all the diversities now existing in human speech. Growth alone is sufficient to have originated the differing characteristics of the three leading families. If we suppose that the ancestors of the Chinese, for instance, and the other tribes of Eastern Asia, departed from the original abodes at a period when language was still monosyllabic, we are enabled to see that this archaic type of speech should have prevailed and been perpetuated among them. This principle is distinctly recognized by all the leading philologists, though perhaps not to the extent which facts would warrant. Bunsen refers to it in numerous instances in explaining the differences between groups of dialects. Müller, upon this ground, attempts to show the relative ages of the Turanian races. er Muir remarks that the ancestors of the Indians and Persians appear to have lived together as one nation to a later period than the other branches of the Aryan race."* We would.. not claim that this alone is sufficient to explain the whole problem before us, but it is enough to relieve us of its chief difficulties.

The results, then, to which we arrive on this sub

*Sanskrit Texts, Part. II. chap. ii.