AN ESSAY 
 
 ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE, 
 
 BASED ON MODERN RESEARCHES, 
 AND ESPECIALLY ON THE WORKS OF M. RENAN. 
 
 BY FKEDERIC W. FABEAE, M.A. 
 
 LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 JOHN MUEEAY, ALBEMAELE STEEET. 
 
 1860.
 
 LONDON : 
 BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
 
 EICHARD GARNETT, ESQ., 
 
 OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM, 
 
 ffihzst ^ag«s arc glcbkateb, 
 
 IN 
 
 REMEMBRANCE OF MANY ACTS OF HELF AND KINDNESS.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I wish this little book to be in every respect 
 as unpretending as possible. I do not presume 
 to represent niyself as an original investigator, 
 nor do I aspire to a greater distinction than 
 that of representing clearly and intelligentl}' 
 the views of those distinguished writers who 
 have made the study of philology the chief 
 pursuit of their lives. 
 
 While I have quoted my authorities for 
 almost every statement of importance, I have 
 generally used my own language, and even in 
 those paragraphs which I have put between 
 inverted commas I have so frequently abbre- 
 viated, expanded, or transposed, that the pas-
 
 yiii PREFACE. 
 
 sages must not be criticised as though they 
 had beeu intended for direct translations. 
 
 I do not think that I have ever borrowed from 
 any writer, English, French, or German, without 
 ample acknowledgment. I would not be so 
 dishonest as to shine in borrowed plumes. If 
 in one or two cases I have been guilty of 
 apparent plagiarism it is certainly only from 
 the works of those authors whom I cannot be 
 considered to have robbed wilfully, because 
 their writings are honourably referred to on 
 almost every page. I wish this remark to 
 apply especially to the very clear, learned, and 
 beautiful treatises of M. Ernest Renan, to which 
 I am largely indebted, and without which I 
 should not have undertaken this work. 
 
 The questions here handled have always been 
 to me full of interest; and these chapters have 
 been chiefly written because I have invariably 
 found that they are also full of interest to young- 
 learners. Should it be proved that I have rashly
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 intruded on a task beyond my powers, no one 
 will more regret this attempt than I shall 
 myself. 
 
 The books of which I have made chief use 
 in the following pages are 
 
 Grimm, Ueber den Ursprung der Sprachc. 
 Heyse, System der Sprachwissenschnft. 
 Lersch, Die Sprachphilosopkie der Allen. 
 'Kenan, De VOrigine du Langagc. 
 Renaii, Histoire G&iieralc des Langucs Semiiiqucs. 
 Charma, Essai sur le Langagc. 
 Nodier, Notions de LinguisUquc. 
 Bunsen, Philosophy of Universal History. 
 Max Miiller, Survey of Languages. 
 Pictet, Lcs Origines Indo-Europe< \ 
 Garnett's Philological Essays. 
 Dr. Donaldson's Cratylus, and Varronitmus. 
 
 It need scarcely be said, however, that I 
 have read and consulted very many besides 
 these, and indeed every book that I could 
 obtain which seemed to bear directly upon the 
 subject. 
 
 I will only add with M. Nodier — " J'ai ecrit
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 but la Linguistique, parce que je ne connois 
 aucun livre qui renferme les notions principales 
 cl'une maniere claire, sous une forme accessible 
 aux esprits simples, qui ne soit pas repoussante 
 pour les esprits delicats." 
 
 Falmouth, 
 
 Aug., 1860.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Toe faculty of speech. — Definition of language. — Importance 
 of philology. — Three main theories on the origin of 
 language — 1. That language was innate and organic. — 
 Curious errors. — Objections to this view. — 2. That lan- 
 guage was the result of imitation and convention. — 
 Objections. — 3. That language was revealed. — In what 
 sense this may be held to be true. — The phrase obscure, 
 and leads to many misconceptions. — Danger of a mis- 
 applied literalism. — Five objections to the common belief. 
 — The real meaning of Gen. ii. 19, 20. — Rightly under- 
 stood it exactly accords with the true theory. — Germ of 
 truth in each of these views. ..... 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEA OF SPEECH. 
 
 Germinal development of language. — How came words to be 
 accepted as signs ?— The inquiry not absurd. — What is 
 a word ? — Words only express the relations of things. — 
 Connection of thought and speech. — Growth of indi- 
 viduality. — Theory of M. Steinthal. — Speech depends 
 on the power of abstraction; «the transformation of 
 intuitions into ideas. — 1. Impressions awoke sounds.-
 
 \ii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 uncls, by the association of ideas, recalled un- 
 ions.— 3. Sounds became words by connecting the 
 i,al object and the inward impression. — Influence 
 of organism. — Earliest impressions expressed by the 
 simplest Bounds. — Influence of women.— Influences of 
 climate. ....»••■••»* 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 LA.WB "1 -ll<l\I. SIGNIFICANCE, OR THE CREATION OF 
 ROO I - . 
 
 Words never purely arbitrary. — They become conventional in 
 time. — Corruptions produced by the dislike of mechanical 
 words. — Inappropriate corruptions. — Words, significant 
 at first, are allowed to become conventional. — Grammar 
 the life of a language. — Onomatopoeic or imitative words. 
 r of "ids. — Delicacy of the appellative faculty. 
 — The imitation always purely artistic. — Instances of the 
 spontaneous tact which gives rise to new names. . . 53 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "MiMATOPOZIA. 
 
 M naturally used as' the signs of sounds ; as among 
 infant ige races. — \Yide application of this law 
 overlooked. — The imitation modified organically and 
 y. — Admirable perfection of the organs of sound. — 
 Boundless capabilities of language. — Diversity of relations 
 gave rise to different imitations. — Roots universally 
 onomatopoeic— Cause of dialectic variety. — Interjections 
 and onomatopoeia the two natural elements of language. — 
 Instances of worJs derived from exclamations ; and from 
 imitation. — Supposed vulgarity of onomatopoeic words. — 
 Their real dignity when well used. — Instances from 
 the poets. — They cannot be avoided. — Harmonies of 
 language. 72
 
 CONTENTS. X1U 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF ROOTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Roots supposed to be primitive and irreducible. — Words 
 derived from sensible images ; the personal pronouns ; 
 and even the numerals. — The verb 'to be,' in all lan- 
 guages, from a material root. — Permutations and com- 
 binations of a few roots. — Instances of their diffusiveness. 
 The root 'ach.' — The root 'dhu.' — The same root to 
 express opposite meanings. — Eoots refracted and re- 
 flected. — Important applications of these remarks. . 97 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 METAPHOR. 
 
 We know nothing absolutely. — Language an asymptote. — 
 Necessity of analogy to express things. — All words 
 ultimately derivable from sensible ideas. — Instances in 
 the Semitic languages. — Graphic effects thus produced. — 
 Words involve all history. — Catachresis and metaphor. — 
 Defence of both from the charge of imperfection. — 
 Necessity, power, and value of metaphor. — Comparisons 
 of style. — Rigid accuracy and clumsiness of scientific 
 terminology. — Words are but symbols. — The two worlds. 
 — Foetry of life to the primal man, and its influence on 
 language. — A nation's language expresses its character. . 116 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WORDS NOTHING IN THEMSELVES. 
 
 Inferences drawn from the derivation of all words from 
 'sensible ideas.' — Gradual degeneracy of the Sensational 
 School. — Cond iliac. — Helvetius. — The Diversions of 
 Purley. — Real derivation of the words 'If and 'Truth.' 
 — What words really stand for. — The conclusions of 
 nominalism need not be accepted. — Reason.' — Words 
 which can only be explained by the idea. . . .147
 
 XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE LAWS OF PROGRESS IX LANGUAGE. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 These laws psychological. — 1. Languages advance from 
 exuberance to moderation by eliminating superfluities. — 
 Unity of speech the result of civilisation. — Redundancy 
 marks an early stage of thought. — Superfluous words 
 dropped or desynonymised. — 2. Languages advance from 
 indetermination to grammar. — Simplicity succeeds com- 
 plexity. — Instances of agglutination. — 3. Languages ad- 
 vance from synthesis to analysis. — Tmesis a relic of 
 Polysynthetism. — Analysis not inferior to synthesis for 
 the expression of thought. — Instances ia the Indo- 
 European and Semitic languages. — Grimm on the English 
 language. — Some would add a 4ih law, viz. : the progress 
 from monosyllabism. — Arguments in favour of this law. 
 — It remains very questionable ; only a convenient 
 hypothesis. 166 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE FAMILIES OF LANGUAGES. 
 
 Stages of Language. — The logical order not the historical. — 
 1. The Indo-European and Arian family. — Its unity and 
 importance. — Life of the early Arians. — " Linguistic 
 Palaeontology."— 2. The Semitic family.- — Its character 
 and divisions. — 3. The Allophylian or Turanian (?) 
 family (?). — Can only be called a 'family' hypothetically. 
 — Includes a vast number of languages, which have very 
 little connection with each other. .... 185 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ARE THERE ANY PROOFS OF A SINGLE PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE? 
 
 Immense number of languages dead as well as living. — 
 Three irreducible families. — Arguments in favour of an 
 original language. — 1. All may be derived (not from
 
 CONTENTS. XV 
 
 each other, but) from some lost language. — Objections. — 
 2. Supposed affinities between different families, i. Non- 
 Sanskritic elements in Celtic, ii. Possible reduction of 
 the triliteral Semitic roots. — Objections. — 3. Languages 
 apparently anomalous. — Egyptian, Berber, &c. — How 
 they may possibly be accounted for. — Inference. — 
 Apparent successions of races. — 1. The inferior races. — 
 2. The semi- civilised. — 3. The great noble races . . 203 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE FUTURE OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 Destinies of the Arian race. — The future of the English 
 language. — The distinction of nations a design of Provi- 
 dence. — 2. Advantages which result from diversities of 
 language. — Indispensable for the preservation of truth. — 
 Value of knowing languages. — 3. A universal language 
 could, in the present state of the world, only last for a 
 short time. — Conclusion. ...... 220 
 
 A list of books valuable as forming an Introduction to the 
 
 Study of Philology 229
 
 AN ESSAY 
 
 THE OBIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 "Sprache ist der voile Atliem inenscliliclier Seele." — Grimm. 
 
 Of all the faculties wherewith God has endowed 
 his noblest creature, none is more divine and 
 mysterious than the faculty of speech. It is the 
 gift whereby man is raised above the beasts ; the 
 gift whereby soul speaks to soul ; the gift whereby 
 mere pulses of articulated air become breathing 
 thoughts and burning words ; the gift whereby 
 we understand the affections of men and give 
 expression to the worship of God ; the gift whereby 
 the lip of divine * inspiration uttering things 
 simple and unperfumed and unadorned, reacheth 
 
 * 2i'/3uA.A.ct Se fj.aivofj.4vca (TrSfiaTi k<x6' 'HpaicAeirov ayiKaara Kai 
 aKaWuiwiffra Kal afivpiara. <^6e-y7o^eVrj \i\iuv ircov e^i/ci/en-cu rrj 
 <pwvfj Sia. rhv 6e6v.— Plut. de Pyth. Orac. p. 397 et p. 627. Wytt. 
 Lapalle's Ileraclitus, p. 29. 
 
 B
 
 2 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 with its passionate voice through a thousand gene- 
 rations by the help of God. 
 
 Language is the sum total of those articulate 
 sounds which man, by the aid of this marvellous 
 faculty of speech, has produced and accepted as the 
 signs of all those inward and outward phenomena 
 wherewith he is made acquainted by sense and 
 thought. These signs are "those* shadows of 
 the soul, those living* sounds which we call words ! 
 and compared with them how poor are all other 
 monuments of human power, or perseverance, or 
 skill, or genius ! They render the mere clown an 
 artist, nations immortal, writers, poets, philoso- 
 phers divine ! " Let him who would rightly un- 
 derstand the grandeur and dignity of speech, 
 meditate on the deep mystery involved in the 
 revelation of the Lord Jesus as the Word of God. 
 
 No study is more rich in grand results than the 
 study of language, and to no study can we look 
 with greater certainty to elucidate the earliest 
 history of mankind. For the roots of language t 
 
 * Sir John Stoddart. ''Bei allem was Sprache heissen soil, 
 wird scklechterdings nichts weiter beabsichtiget, als die Bezeich- 
 nung des Gedankens." — Fichte, Von der Sprachfahiglceit und 
 d.rm Ursprwige der Sprache. "Die Sprache ist die Aeusserung 
 des deiikenden Geistes in articulirten Lauten." — Heyse, System der 
 Sjprachwissenschaft, S. 35. 
 
 + Grimm, Uher den Ursprung der Sprache, S. 11.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 3 
 
 spring in the primitive liberty of human intelli- 
 gence, and therefore its records bear on them the 
 traces of human history. We read with deep 
 interest the works of individual genius, and trace 
 in them the life and character of the men on 
 whom it has been bestowed ; we toilfulry examine 
 the unburied monuments of extinct nations, and 
 are rewarded for years of labour if we can finally 
 succeed in gaining a feeble glimpse of their history 
 by deciphering the unknown letters carved on the 
 crumbling fragments of half-calcined stone ; but 
 in language we have the history not only of indi- 
 viduals but of nations ; not only of nations but of 
 mankind. For unlike music and poetry, which 
 are the special privilege of the few, language* is 
 the property of all, as necessary and accessible as 
 the air we breathe. Of all that men have invented 
 and combined ; of all that the}' have produced or 
 interchanged among themselves ; of all that they 
 have drawn from their peculiar organism, lan- 
 guage is the noblest and most indispensible trea- 
 sure. An immediate emanation of human nature, 
 and progressing with it, language is the common 
 blessing, the common patrimony, of mankind. It 
 is ant admirable poem on tli2 history of all ages ; 
 
 * Grimm, s. 52. 
 
 t Renaii, Be VOriginc du Lanyacjc. Deux. ed. p. C9.
 
 4 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 a living monument, on which is written the 
 genesis of human thought. Thus "the ground* 
 on which our civilisation stands is a sacred one, 
 for it is the deposit of thought. For language, 
 as it is the mirror, so is it the product of reason, 
 and as it embodies thought, so is it the child of 
 thought. In it are deposited the primordial 
 sparks of that celestial fire, which, from a once 
 bright centre of civilisation, has streamed forth 
 over the inhabited earth, and which now already, 
 after less than three myriads of years, forms a 
 galaxy round the globe, a chain of light from pole 
 to pole." 
 
 Philology, the science which devotes itself to 
 the study of language, has recently! arrived at 
 results almost undreamed of by preceding cen- 
 turies. Indeed, it received its most vigorous im- 
 pulse from the acquaintance with the languages 
 of India, and, above all, with Sanskrit, which, 
 like so many other great blessings, directly re- 
 sulted from our dominion in India. Already it 
 has thrown new light on many of the most per- 
 plexing problems of religion, history, and ethno- 
 graphy ; and, being yet but an infant science, it 
 is in all probability destined to achieve triumphs, 
 
 * Bunsen on the Philosophy of Universal History, ii. 126. 
 + Humboldt's Cosmos, ii. 107 — 109, ed. Sabine.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 5 
 
 of which at present we can but dimly prophesy 
 the consequences.* 
 
 Since the most ancient monuments of Sanskrit, 
 Zend,f Hebrew, and in fact of all languages, are 
 separated, perhaps by thousands of years from f 
 the appearance of language (£. e., from the creation 
 of the human race), it might seem impossible to 
 throw any light on that most interesting of all 
 considerations, the origin of language. And yet 
 so permanent are the creations of speech, so in- 
 variable and ascertainable are the laws of its 
 mutation, that the geologist is less clearly able 
 to describe the convulsions of the earth's strata 
 than the philologist to point out, by the indica- 
 tions of language, the undoubted traces of a 
 
 * Philology has been well defined as the cognitio cogniti, and 
 Comparative Grammar, (the branch of Philology which occupies 
 itself with the study of the birth, the development, and the 
 decadence of various languages, together with their divergences and 
 affinities), has deserved the title of Qpiyubs jj.aQr t fxirc)iv <pi\o\oytKoiv, 
 "the coping-stone of philological inquiries." See Science Com- 
 parative dcs Langues, par Louis Benloew. Paris, 1858. 
 
 + Thus, though Zend and Sanskrit are the oldest languages of the 
 Indo-European family, they are offsets of an older primitive one. 
 "Among other evidences of this, maybe mentioned the changes 
 that words had already undergone in Zend and Sanscrit from the 
 original form they had in the parent tongue ; as in the number 
 'twenty,' which being in the Zend ^visaiH,' and in Sanscrit 
 ; vinsaiti,' shews that they have thrown off the 'd' of the original 
 'dva,' two." — Sir G. Wilkinson in Rawlinson's Herod, i. p. 280.
 
 6 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 nation's previous life. On the stone tablets of 
 the universe, God's own finger has written the 
 changes which millions of years have wrought on 
 the mountain and the plain ; in the fluid air, 
 which he articulates into human utterance, man 
 has preserved for ever the main facts of his past 
 history, and the main processes of his inmost 
 soul. The sonorous wave, indeed, which transmits 
 to our ears the uttered thought, reaches but a 
 little distance, and then vanishes like the tremu- 
 lous ripple on the surface of the sea ; but, con- 
 scious of his destiny, man invented writing to 
 give it perpetuity from age to age. Its short 
 reach, its brief continuance, are the defects of the 
 spoken word, but when graven on the stone or 
 painted on the vellum it passes from one end of 
 the earth to the other for all time ; it conquers at 
 once eternity and space.* 
 
 From the earliest ages the origin of language 
 has been a topic of discussion and speculation, 
 and a vast number of treatises have been written 
 upon it. But it is only in modern times that we 
 have collected sufficient data to admit of an}' 
 consistent or exhaustive theory, and the earlier! 
 
 * Charma, Essai sur Ic Langage, p. 60. 
 
 + " Ici comme ailleurs on a commence par batir des systSmes_. 
 au lieu de se borner a 1'observation de faits." — Abel Remusat.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 7 
 
 writers contented themselves for the most part 
 with building systems before they had collected 
 facts. 
 
 There hare been three main theories to account 
 for the appearance of language, and it will be both 
 interesting and instructive to pass them in brief 
 review. They are : — 1. That language was innate 
 and organic. 2. That language was the result 
 partly of imitation, and partly of convention. 
 3. That language was revealed. It will be seen 
 from our consideration of them, that none of 
 these theories is in itself wholly true or adequate, 
 yet that each of them has a partial value, and 
 that they are not so irreconcileably opposed to 
 each other as might at first sight be imagined. 
 
 1. It was believed by the ancients generally, 
 and perhaps by the majority of moderns, that 
 language was innate and organic; i.e., a distinct 
 creation synchronising with the creation of man. 
 The inferences drawn from this supposition led 
 men to regard words as " types of objective 
 reality, the shadow of the body and the image 
 reflected in the mirror."* The words were sup- 
 
 * Bunsen, Phil, of Un. Hist. i. 40. The philosophers who 
 held these views were called "Analogists," while those who leaned 
 to the conventional origin of language were styled " Anomalists." 
 But Plato and Aristotle admit the existence of both principles, and 
 have written on the subject with a depth of philosophical insight,
 
 3 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 posed to be not only a sign of the thing intended 
 by them, but in some way to partake of its nature, 
 and to express and symbolise something of its 
 idea. Hence the very notion of arbitrariness was 
 well-nigh expelled from language, and there was 
 supposed to be a deep harmony* between the 
 physiological quality of the sound and its signifi- 
 cance — between the combination and connection 
 of sounds with the connection and combined 
 relations of the things they represented. Who- 
 ever, therefore, knew the names, knew also the 
 things which the names implied. f However 
 
 which, in spite of their defective knowledge, has never been sur- 
 passed. See Humboldt's Cosmos, i. 41, ii. 261. 
 
 * Plato's Cratylus, p. 423, et passim ; and Schleiermacher's Intro- 
 duction. The great authority on the ancient views of philology 
 is Lersch, Sprachphilosojihie der Alien. (Bonn. 1838-1841.) 
 The question which agitated the schools was, <pvaei ra dvo/xara ?) 
 CeVei ; it was generally decided in favour of the " Analogists," 
 though often for frivolous reasons. See Aul. Gell. Nod. All. x. 
 4. (Renan, p. 137.) Cf. Xen. Mem. iv. 6. 1. Arrian, Epict. 
 i. 17, ii. 10. Marc. Aur. iii. 2 ; v. 8 ; x. S. These views of the 
 mimetic character of words (Arist. Jihet. iii. 1, 2), and their 
 intrinsic connection with things, did not seem to be much disturbed 
 by the fact of the multiplicity of languages, although this fact led 
 Aristotle to place the conventional element first. The very word 
 BdpBapos implies a lofty contempt for all languages except Greek, 
 and traces of a similar contempt may be found in the vocabulary 
 of many nations. Cf. Timtim, Zamzummim, &c, Kenan, p. 178. 
 Pictet'a Origmes Indo-Eur. p. 56, seqq. (1 Cor. xiv. 11.) 
 
 T <Js av to. ov6jj.ci.Ta [iiriarriTai iiriffTaadai Kal ra. wpdyixara. 
 Tlato, Orat. 4S5, c. In proof that Plato did recognise both
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 9 
 
 strange and even ridiculous these views may 
 appear to our somewhat superficial and unphilo- 
 sophical age, it is far more difficult to understand 
 them truly than to speak of them contemptuously, 
 and they led to a reverence for the use of speech 
 which reacted beneficially in producing careful 
 writing and accurate thought. 
 
 The belief that language was innate led to the 
 strange hallucination that if a child were entirely 
 secluded from human contact, he would speak 
 instinctively the primitive language of mankind. 
 According to Herodotus, the experiment was 
 actually made by Psammetichus, King of Egypt, 
 who entrusted two new-born infants to a shep- 
 herd, with the injunction to let them suck a goat's 
 milk, and to speak no words in their presence, but 
 to observe what word they would first utter. After 
 two years the shepherd visited them, and they 
 approached him, stretching* out their hands, and 
 uttering the word fienos. It was found that this 
 vocable existed in the Phrygian language, and 
 meant " bread ; " whence it was sagely inferred 
 that the Phrygians spoke the original language, 
 
 elements of language — the absolute and the conventional, see 
 Crat. 435, c, and Philol. Trans, iii. 137. For an able exposition 
 of the Cralijlm, see Dr. Donaldson's New Crat. p. 93, seqq. 
 * Herodot. ii. 2.
 
 10 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 and were the most ancient of people. There is 
 in this story such a delicious naivete, that one 
 could hardly expect that it would have happened 
 in any except very early ages. It can, however, 
 be paralleled by the popular Opinion which attri- 
 buted the same experiment to James IV. and 
 Frederic II. * in the Middle Ages. In the latter 
 case the little unfortunates died for want of 
 lullabies ! Similarly, almost every nation has re- 
 garded its own language as the primitive one. 
 One of the historians of St. Louis says that a deaf 
 mute, miraculously healed at the king's tomb, 
 spoke, not in the language of Burgundy, where 
 he was born, but in the language f of the capital. 
 A similar belief seems to underlie the extreme 
 anxiety and curiosity of savages to learn the name 
 of any article hitherto unknown to them, as though 
 
 * Raumer, Gesch. der Hohenstaufen, iii. 491, quoted by Baehr, 
 Herod,. 1. c. For some other theories on the primitive language, see 
 Cardinal Wiseman's Lectures on Science, i. 19. Becanus supposed 
 seriously that Low Dutch was spoken in Paradise. Jlennathena, 
 lib. ix. p. 201. "That children naturally speak Hebrew," is one 
 of the vulgar errors which had to be exploded even in the time of 
 Sir T. Browne. Vulg.Err. v. ch. 26. When James IV. of Scotland 
 repeated the experiment of Tsammetichus, the infants were shut up 
 with a dumb man, and spoke Hebrew spontaneously ! Basque, 
 Swedish, Russ, &c., have all had their advocates. Charma, Essai 
 sur le Langage, p. 242, seqq. Leibnitz, Lettre a M. de Sparven- 
 fchl, § 8. f Henan, p. 147.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 11 
 
 the name had some absolute significance. This 
 is not the place to enter into a discussion of that 
 deep germ of truth which such fancies involve ; 
 but hints of it may be found in Holy * Scripture. 
 
 No doubt at first sight it appears that much 
 might be said in favour of the innate and organic 
 nature of language. Its beauty,! its diversity, its 
 power, its diffusion over the whole surface of the 
 globe, give it the supernatural air of a gift which 
 man, so far from originating, can only ruin and 
 destroy. We see that in favourable situations 
 language, like vegetation, flourishes and blos- 
 soms, while elsewhere it fades and dies away as 
 a plant loses its foliage when deprived of nourish- 
 ment and light. It seems, too, to participate in 
 that healing power of nature, which effaces rapidly 
 all trace of wounds received. Like nature, it 
 produces mighty results out of feeble resources — 
 it is economical without avarice, and liberal with- 
 out prodigality. 
 
 Again ; do we not see that almost every living 
 thing is endowed in infinite variety with the 
 
 * There are some noble remarks to this effect in Schlegel's 
 Pliilosophische Vorhsungen. Wiem. 1830. Hebrew scholars will 
 readily remember cases of the importance attached by the sacred 
 writers to the mere sound of words ; a remarkable instance may 
 be seen in Jer. i. 11, 12, and a curious play on sounds occurs in the 
 second verse of Genesis. t Grimm, s. 12.
 
 12 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 faculty of uttering sounds, and even of inter- 
 communicating feelings ? * The air is thrilled 
 with the voice of birds, and some of them even 
 possess a power of articulation, which among 
 many nations is the distinctive f definition of 
 man. Nay, fancy has attributed to animals a 
 power of language in the age of gold — a power 
 which under certain + circumstances they are 
 supposed to be still allowed to exercise. 
 
 But this leads us to the true point of difference. 
 The dog barks, as it barked § at the creation, and 
 the crow of the cock is the same now as when it 
 reached the ear of repentant Peter. The song of 
 the nightingale, and the howl of the leopard, have 
 continued as unchangeable as the concentric 
 
 * "I am by no means clear that the dog may not have an 
 analogon of words." — Coleridge. Similarly Plato attributes a 
 SkxAektos to animals, adducing some very interesting proofs. See 
 Clemens Alexandr. Strom, i. 21, § 413. See, too, Thomson's* 
 Passions of Animals. "They also know, and reason not con- 
 temptibly." — Milton. 
 
 *t* /xepoTres fiporoi. — Homer, passim. 
 
 J As in the instance of Balaam. — Numb. 22. Cf. Tibull. ii. 
 v. 78. Horn. 11. t. 407, &c. 
 
 § Dr. Latham points out that this statement requires modifica- 
 tion ; e.g., it is doubtful whether a hold, and not a bark, is not 
 the organic and instinctive sound uttered by dogs. (Encycl. Brit. 
 Art. Language.) Still we do not anticipate that any one will dispute 
 the general proposition. See Heyse, System der Sprachwisscnschaft, 
 §25.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 13 
 
 circles of the spider, and the waxen hexagon of 
 the bee. The one as much as the other are the 
 result of a blind though often perfect instinct. 
 They are unalterable because they are innate, 
 and the utterances of mankind would have been 
 as unchangeable as those of animals, had they 
 been in the same way the result not of liberty 
 but of necessity. To the cries of animals we 
 must compare, not man's ever-varying language, 
 but those instinctive sounds of weeping, sobbing, 
 moaning — the changeless scream, sigh, or laughter 
 — by which, since the creation, he has given re- 
 lief or expression to his physical* sensations. 
 
 In point of fact — as a thousand experiments 
 might have proved to Psammetichus — a new-born 
 infant possesses the faculty of language, not 
 actually, but only potentially. It is obvious that 
 an Italian infant, picked up on the field of Sol- 
 ferino and carried to Paris, would not have spoken 
 Italian but French, and an English babe, carried 
 off by the Caffirs, would find no difficulty in 
 learning the rich language of Caffraria, with its 
 five-and-twenty moods. For language is clearly 
 learned by imitation. This is the intermediate 
 
 * Grimm, 13, 14. "Language," he adds (p. 17), "can only 
 te compared to the cries of animals, in respect that both are sub- 
 jected to certain physical conditions of organism."
 
 14 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 link between the bvvanis and the epyov. When 
 poor Kaspar Hauser tottered into the streets of 
 Niiremburg, the only words he could say were, 
 " I will be a soldier as my father was," because 
 those were the only words which he had heard 
 in his miserable confinement. Doubtless, the 
 Egyptian children pronounced the word (Beads, 
 because it approached as nearly as possible to 
 the bleating * of the goat by which they had been 
 suckled. 
 
 Had there ever been an innate organic lan- 
 guage, it is quite certain that it must have left 
 some traces; for, as Dr. Latham observes, "lan- 
 guage (as an instrument of criticism in ethnology) 
 is the most permanent of the criteria of human 
 
 * "On a ties judicieusement remarque sur celle-ci," says M. 
 Nodier, "que la seule induction qui en resultat naturellement, 
 fort concluante pour la langue primitive et iinmodifiable des 
 chevres ne prouvoit rien en favour de la premiere langue de 
 l'homme ; puisque les chevres formoient elles-memes d'une maniere 
 tres-distiucte les deux articulations dont ces enfants avoient com- 
 pose leur etroit vocabulaire." Sir Gardner Wilkinson discredits 
 the whole story, and supposes that it originated among the Greek 
 ciceroni in Egypt, because he thinks that children, unless arti- 
 ficially instructed, would not have been able to get beyond the 
 labial sound "be." (Rawlinson's Herodotus, i. 251.) Surely this 
 is merely a begging of the question. The fact that the inference 
 from the experiment was one unfavourable to the national vanity 
 of the Egyptians, is only one of the reasons which induce us to 
 credit its reality. Larcher (ad loc.) rightly regards the os as merely 
 the Greek termination.
 
 THE OEIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 15 
 
 relationships derivable from our moral constitu- 
 tion." TallejTand's wicked witticism, that " lan- 
 guage was given us to conceal our thoughts," 
 arose from the fact that it is used for that pur- 
 pose on a thousand occasions. But although a 
 man may " coin his face into smiles," and utter a 
 thousand honeyed words, his real sentiments will 
 flash out sometimes in passionate gesture and 
 rapid glance ; and just in the same way, had there 
 even been a language which was the organic 
 expression of emotion, it is absolutely impossible 
 that it should have wholly disappeared. That 
 which is really implanted is for the most part 
 unalterable. 
 
 2. Seeing, then, that positive experiment, as 
 well as other considerations, disprove the inneity 
 of language, other philosophers believed that it 
 was simply conventional, and grew up gradually 
 after a period of mutism. The Epicurean phi- 
 losoplry, deeply tainted with the error of man's 
 slow and toilsome development from a savage and 
 almost bestial * condition, gave the problem the 
 
 * " Mutum et turpe pecus." — Hor. Saf. i. 3. 99. Similar 
 views are to be found in Diod. Sic. i. 1 ; Vilruv. Archit. ii. 1. 
 " Thrown as it were by chance on a confused and savage land, an 
 orphan abandoned by the unknown hand that had produced him." 
 — Yolney. Epicurus thought that men spoke just as dogs bark, 
 .(pvGMais Ktvov/jievoi.
 
 1G AN ESSAY ON 
 
 hardest of all material solutions. This school 
 found in Lucretius its most splendid exponent, 
 and the poet accounts for the appearance of 
 speech as the gradual and instinctive endeavour 
 to supply a want.* In short, words came because 
 the} r were required, much in the same way that, 
 according to the theory of Lamarck, organic 
 peculiarities are the result of habit and instinct, 
 so that the crane acquired a long neck and long 
 legs by persevering attempts to fish. Lucretius 
 compares language to the widely diverse sounds 
 which animals emit to express different sensations, 
 and, scornfully rejecting the theory of one Name- 
 giver, asserts repeatedly that — 
 
 " Utilitas* expressit nomina rerum." 
 
 It was generally believed by this school that 
 man originally acquired the faculty of speech by 
 an observation of the sounds of nature. The 
 cries of animals, " the hollow murmuring wind 
 and silver rain," the sighing of the woods, 
 
 * Lucret. v. 1027 — 1089. The whole passage is one of remark- 
 able beauty and ingenuity. Neither Epicurus nor Lucretius ex- 
 cluded altogether the innate element ; v. Diog. Laert. x. 75, sq. 
 Lucretius rightly regards language as no less natural than 
 gesticulation, and so might have taught a lesson to Reid and 
 Dugald Stewart. See Fleming's Tocab. of Philosophy, s. v. Lan- 
 guage. The whole theory is stated and ridiculed by Lactantius, 
 Institt. Divv. vi. 10.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 17 
 
 " The tongue of forests green and flowery wilds," 
 
 these, it seems, were man's * teachers in the power 
 of articulation. 
 
 " The joyous birds shrouded in cheerful shade, 
 Their notes unto the voice attempted sweet ; 
 Th' angelical soft trembling voices made 
 
 To th' instruments divine respondence meet, 
 
 With the base murmurs of the water's fall ; 
 
 The water's fall with difference discreet, 
 
 Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call ; 
 
 The gentle warbling wind low answered to all." + 
 
 Man, too, would endeavour to take his part in 
 the divine harmony ; he would translate into 
 living and intelligent utterances the dim and 
 sublime music of this unconscious hynm. 
 
 Like most theories that have met with any 
 amount of acceptance, this belief contains a germ 
 
 * He began 
 
 " In murmurs which his first endeavoring tongue 
 Caught infant-like from the far-foamed sands." 
 
 An extremely curious Esthonian legend (the only one which 
 Grimm has discovered bearing any resemblance to the Babel- 
 dispersion) seems to involve the same conception. God, seeing 
 that population was too crowded, determined to disperse men, by 
 giving to each nation a distinct tongue. Accordingly, he placed on 
 the fire a caldron full of water, and made the different races 
 successively approach, who appropriated respectively the various 
 sounds of the hissing and singing water. — Grimm, p. 28. Others 
 have compared with it the Mexican legend about the doves. See 
 Winer, Biblisches Realwdrterb. s. v. Sprachc. 
 
 + Spenser's Faerie Queen. 
 
 c
 
 IS AN ESSAY ON 
 
 of truth. It originated from the onomatopoeic 
 character of a large part of all languages. 
 But we reject the conclusion drawn from this 
 fact. That man produced a large or very large 
 part of his vocabulary by an imitation of natural 
 sounds is entirely true, but that the idea of 
 speech was created in him by the hearing of 
 those sounds we believe to be eminently false. 
 This theory, however, found especial favour 
 among the philosophers of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, except that with them a mysterious con- 
 vention seemed not even to require this natural 
 basis. Maupertuis, Condillac, Rousseau, Volney, 
 Nodier, Herder, Monbodclo, and Dr. Smith,* all 
 seem to believe in an original time when a few 
 intonations, joined to gesture and expression of 
 the face, sufficed for the wants of nascent 
 humanity, and formed, in fact, a natural language ; 
 but in course of time this was found inadequate, 
 and so " on convint,t on s'arrangea h l'aimable, 
 et ainsi fut etablile langage artificiel ou articule." 
 According to Monboddo the steps of the process 
 
 * For assertions of the conventional character of language, see 
 Arist. ircpl 'Epfrniveias, ii. 1. Plato, Crat. ad in. Harris, Hermes, 
 iii. 1. Locke, iii. 1 — 8. Fenelon, Lctlre sur les occupations de 
 VAcad. § 3. (These are quoted at length by Charma, p. 208.) 
 Smith, Tlieory of the Moral Sentiments, ii. 364. Grimm, 39, 40. 
 Lersch, passim, f Renan, p. 78.
 
 THE OEIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 19 
 
 were briefly as follows: — 1, Inarticulate cries; 
 2, Gestures ; 3, Imitative sounds ; 4, An artificial 
 language, formed by convention, and resulting 
 from the necessities of the race. This language 
 was originally poor and defective, but developed 
 into richness, just as (to quote the simile of Ade- 
 lung) the canoe of the savage has grown into the 
 floating city of modern nations. All other con- 
 jectures are, however, eclipsed by Dr. Murray's 
 derivation of all the languages of Europe from 
 nine onomatopoeic syllables. These wondrous 
 vocables* were: — 1, Ag ; 2, Bag; 3, Dwag; 
 4, Cwag; 5, Lag; 6, Mag; 7, Nag; 8, Rag; 
 9, Swag ! ! ! M. Eenan (who believes that all the 
 parts of speech existed implicitly in the primitive 
 language) may well remark that of all theories 
 this is " the most false, or rather the least rich in 
 truth;" and it may be known by its fruits, for the 
 natural inference from it is either " that t thought 
 
 * See Wiseman, p. 54. This theory of the development of 
 human language required the supposition of an indefinite period 
 of human existence ; but even if this be freely admitted, it is 
 impossible to prove the first step by which unarticulated sounds, 
 the merely passive echoes of blind instincts or outward phenomena, 
 could develop into the expression of thought. See Bunsen, ii. 76. 
 It would have been marvellous indeed, if man had by the mere 
 possession of vocal cries, not differing from those of animals, been 
 able to raise himself from the utterances of instinct and appetite to 
 express the emotions of admiration, hope, and love. See Nodieri 
 Notions, p. 14. t Bunsen, ii. 130. 
 
 c 1
 
 20 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 is merely an affection of perishable matter (ma- 
 terialism), or that both are indiscriminately acci- 
 dents of the one divine substance of the universe 
 (pantheism)." It is true that language, though 
 not the result of convention, tends to become* 
 conventional in the process of time, but this very 
 tendency is often a mark of decay and ruin, and 
 a language is a noble and powerful instrument of 
 thought in proportion as it keeps in view the 
 motives and principles which originated the words 
 of which it is composed. - 
 
 3. The third main theory, which has found 
 numberless supporters, is, that language is due to 
 direct revelation. The tenacit} T of this belief was 
 mainly due to the violent reaction of the spiri- 
 tualist school in the nineteenth century against 
 the systematising scepticism of their predecessors. 
 It was warmly adopted by MM. de Bonald, de 
 Maistre, De Lammenais, and others, and was in 
 one sense a step forwards, for it recognised at 
 least that " divine f spark which glows in all 
 
 * Thus words and phrases repeatedly acquire a conventional 
 meaning for a generation, and then recur to their old sense. 
 Almost every sect, every profession, and even every family, have 
 certain words in use to which they attach a peculiar and special 
 meaning, which is sometimes unintelligible to others. M. Cousin 
 has been unable to discover the meaning which the Tort-Royalists 
 attached to the word "machine." See Charma, p. 209. 
 
 t Wilhelm von Humboldt, Lett re a M. A bcl Remusat. Paris, 1827.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 21 
 
 idioms even the most imperfect and uncultivated." 
 But this theory must likewise be rejected. It 
 raises * men to the level of gods, as much as the 
 former theory had degraded them to the rank of 
 beasts. " Spiritualism contradicts nature, as 
 materialism contradicts mind. It has reality and 
 history against it as much as its opposite." 
 
 This view opens considerations of such im- 
 portance that we must subject it to a still more 
 careful discussion. 
 
 We object, in the first place, to the difficulty 
 and obscurity of the phrase. In one sense,f 
 indeed — if we take it metaphorically, — it is 
 perhaps the most exact expression to describe 
 the wonderful apparition of human speech, which 
 it rightly withdraws from the sphere of vulgar 
 inventions. Language, as an immediate product of 
 
 * Grimm, § 23. 
 
 + In the following observations, I quote the thoughts of M. 
 Kenan, pp. SI — S3. I have not used inverted commas, because I 
 have often transposed and abbreviated his actual words. Very 
 similar are the excellent remarks of Nodier, which are too apposite 
 to be omitted. "On ne me soupconnera pas d'etre d'assez 
 mauvais gout pour avoir attendu a substituer mes theories aux 
 faits de revelation. . . Je crois fermement que la parole a ete donnee 
 a, l'homme, comme je le crois de toutes les facultes que la creation a 
 reparti entre les creatures. Le seul point sur lequel j'ose differer 
 des casuistes du son litteral, c'est que ce don ne me paroit pas 
 avoir consiste dans la communication d'un systenie lexicologique 
 t fait, &c." — Notions de Linguisfique, p. 9.
 
 22 AN ESSAY OX 
 
 human powers, might perhaps, with more safety, 
 he attributed to the Universal Cause, than to the 
 particular action of human liberty. If by reve- 
 lation he intended the spontaneous play of the 
 human faculties, in this sense, God, having en- 
 dowed man with all things requisite for the dis- 
 covery of language, may, with near approximation 
 to truth, he called its Author ; hut then, why 
 make use of an expression so indirect and liable 
 to he misunderstood, when others more natural 
 and more philosophical might have been found 
 to indicate the same* fact? 
 
 But, unhappily, M. de Bonald and others who 
 urged this view took the expression literally, and 
 made it not scientific hut theological ; not a dis- 
 interested! and independent conclusion drawn 
 
 * A beautiful illustration of Herder's will help to show our 
 meaning. "Observe," he says, "this tree with its vigorous 
 trunk, its magnificent crown of verdure, its branches, its foliage, 
 its flowers, its fruits, raising itself upon its roots as on a throne. 
 Seized with admiration and astonishment, you exclaim, 'It is divine, 
 divine ! ' Now observe this little seed ; see it hidden in the earth, 
 then pushing out a feeble germ, covering itself with buds, clothing 
 itself with leaves ; you will again exclaim, ' It is divine ! ' but in 
 a manner more worthy and more intelligent." 
 
 t Nothing has been more fatally prejudicial to the progress of 
 science than a theological bias in its votaries ; and nothing more 
 fatal to the peace of true discoverers than its ignorant tyranny. 
 Adelung shows true wisdom iu prefacing his Mithridates with the 
 statement, " Ich babe keine Lieblingsmeinung, keine Hypothese
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 23 
 
 from induction, but a mere dogma of faith to be 
 forced (like so many other false excrescences of 
 theological tradition) upon the conscience of all 
 Christians. In general, those who maintain the 
 literal revelation of language, and reject its 
 human origin, are the direct successors of those 
 theologians who have so long opposed every dis- 
 covery in science, and rejected the plainest de- 
 ductions of geometry and logic. They intrude 
 into a sphere in which they have no knowledge 
 nnd no place ; their arguments are neither 
 scientific nor reasonable ; they are not reasons 
 but assertions ; not conclusions but idle and 
 groundless prejudices. It has been well said 
 that they pertain to an order of ideas and inte- 
 rests which science repudiates, and with which 
 she has nothing to do. Ignorance has no claim 
 to a hearing even when she speaks ex cathedra. 
 
 Now what is meant by such an expression as 
 the revelation of language rigorously understood? 
 If, for instance, we take it materially, if we 
 understand it to mean that a voice from heaven 
 dictated to men the names of things — such a 
 conception is so grossly * anthropomorphic, it is 
 
 zurn Grunde zu legen. Noah's Arche ist mir erne Verschlossene 
 
 Burg, und Babylon's Schutt bleibt vor mir vollig in seiner rtuhe." 
 
 * It seems to me, however, that Grimm's special arguments on 
 
 this subject are weak (p. 2G) ; he is clearly right in pointing out
 
 24 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 so utterly at variance with all scientific explana- 
 tion, it is so irreconcileably opposed to all our 
 ideas of the laws of nature, that it needs no 
 refutation for one who is in the least degree 
 initiated into the methods of modern criticism- 
 Besides, as M. Cousin* has remarked, "it only 
 removes the difficulty a step backwards without 
 resolving it. For signs divinely invented would 
 for us not be signs but things, which we should 
 have been subsequently obliged to elevate into 
 signs by attaching to them certain significations." 
 The revealed "term" would be a useless encum- 
 brance unless it corresponded with some well 
 understood conception; and therefore if words 
 were revealed, conceptions must also have been 
 implanted ; and we are thus driven to the 
 absurdity of supposing that anterior to all expe- 
 rience, we knew that which experience (£. e. ant 
 actual relation of intelligence with that which is 
 the object of intelligence) alone could teach us. 
 
 We have alread}' said that these modern 
 spiritualists considered the revelation of lan- 
 guage to be a truth involved by the narrative of 
 
 the futility of such conjectures as those of Lessing, that language 
 was made known to man by intercourse with intermediate spirits. 
 (Lessing, Sammtl. Schrtften, 13d. 10.) 
 
 * Preface aux CEuvres Philos. de Maine de Biran, iv. p. xv. 
 
 + Charina, Essai sw Ic Langage, p. 129.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 2o 
 
 Genesis. In this they were the slaves of a false 
 and narrow exegesis, which had not even the 
 poor excuse of being literal. What is the true 
 meaning of the sacred writer we shall endeavour 
 to show further on ; but we cannot here abstain 
 from again uttering a strong protest against the 
 barrier placed in the way of all honest scientific 
 inquiry by the timid prejudices of that class which 
 tyrannises over public opinion- "When shall we 
 learn to acquiesce practically in the belief which 
 theoretically the most orthodox have long ex- 
 pressed, that it is a needless incongruity to look 
 in the Bible for scientific truths which it does 
 not profess to reveal ? " Such * an attempt," it 
 has been well said, " has been a perversion of 
 the purpose of a divine revelation, and cannot 
 lead to any physical truth" 
 
 Honesty all the more imperiously demands 
 this remark, because here, as in a thousand other 
 places, perverted by system and ignorance, we 
 believe that the Bible rightly understood contains 
 (not precise dogmas, but) the general indications 
 of a sublime truth ; and because it may be shown 
 
 * Dr. "Whewell, Hist, of Ind. Science, iii. 504. A host of 
 eminent authorities, from Bacon down to Sir John Herschel, have 
 said the same thing ; — hitherto, alas, in vain ! See Herschel's 
 Letter to Dr. Pye Smith. Mill's Dissert, i. 435 — 461. Renan, 
 Hist. F.eL xxvii. Charma, p. 248.
 
 26 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 that in this particular instance its records accu- 
 rately agree with the results of careful and 
 laborious inquiry. Here, as often, the Bible 
 does not clash, with the conclusions of science, 
 if taken to imply no more than what it categori- 
 cally asserts. But the Bible is not the only 
 source of information open to us, and if we are 
 ever in any way to fill up " the vast lacunas 
 which characterise that gigantic and mysterious 
 epitaph of humanity engraved in the first chap- 
 ters of Genesis," we must do so not b} r ignorant 
 and dogmatic assertions, but by humble sincerity 
 and patient research. 
 
 If, then, language were revealed, the Bible is 
 not only silent on such a revelation, but dis- 
 tinctly implies the reverse. We shall examine 
 the narrative of Genesis (ii. 19, 20) farther on; 
 but we must here stop to observe that where the 
 Deity is represented as talking to Adam and 
 other patriarchs, such passages must not be sup- 
 posed to have am r bearing on the question, as it 
 is quite clear that they are only intended for an 
 expressive anthropomorphism.* Even Luther, 
 
 * St. Gregory of Nyssa has expressed himself on this subject 
 with startling freedom of thought. He alludes with ironic pity 
 to those who speak of the Deity as the fabricator of Adam's 
 language, an opinion which he expressly calls a sottish and 
 ridiculous vanity, quite worthy of the extravagant presumption
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 2/ 
 
 in his Commentary on Genesis, goes out of his 
 way to prove that nothing material is intended 
 in such phrases as God's " speaking to " Adam, 
 and that it would be as strange to suppose that 
 they imply any* revelation of language, as it 
 would be to infer the revelation of writing from 
 the mention of the stone tables " written by the 
 finger of God." Writing also has been attributed 
 directly to God's external gift, although, as in 
 the case of language, there is the clearest proof 
 of its human origin and gradual perfectionment. 
 
 But we must not omit one or two positive 
 arguments against this theory. 
 
 1. Had language been revealed, mankind at 
 first would have been better situated than any of 
 their posterny ; and such a disposition is unlike 
 the ordinary course of God's just dealings. 
 
 of the Jews. And on the subject of Babel, he says, "The con- 
 fusion of tongues must be necessarily attributed to the will of 
 God according to the theologic point of view, but according to the 
 truth of history it is the work of man." — Contra Eunomium, 
 Or. xii. p. 732. Nodier, p. 56. St. Augustin distinctly implies 
 the same thing. — Be Ord. ii. 12. 
 
 * Since writing the above, I have met with another Biblical 
 argument in favour of the Revelation of Language, drawn from 
 Gen. i. 5. Kal to fxev (puis eKciXeaev 6 Oebs 7]fj.epav, to 5e ctkStos 
 vvina' iirel rot 76 &v8panros ovic av ?j5<=t KaKzlv to <pus ■iifj.epav fj 
 to o~k6to5 vvkto.. a\\' oiiSe pXv to. honta, ei yu>j t)]v ovo/xacriav 
 ei\r,(pei &7ro tov ■kolv i <to.vtos olvto. Qeov. — Theophil. ad A uiolyc. ii.
 
 28 AN T ESSAY ON 
 
 2. So far from being " a pale image and feeble 
 echo of splendours which have passed away from 
 the scene of earth," each human language bears 
 in itself the most distinct traces of growth and 
 progress — the marks of a regular development 
 in accordance with definite laws — the successive 
 traces of infancy, youth, maturity, and manhood. 
 Though many existing languages, and even those 
 of some savage nations are but " degraded and 
 decaying fragments of nobler formations," yet 
 there are proofs as decisive that they rose to 
 gradual perfection, as that they subsequently fell 
 from perfection to decay. 
 
 3. If the spiritualist theory were true, it would 
 be a most natural inference that the spiritual 
 and abstract signification of roots is also the 
 original one. But such an assumption (although 
 it is made by Frederic Schlegel), "is contra- 
 dicted by the history of every language of the 
 world." 
 
 4. It is equally improbable that God who 
 revealed the primitive language, or man who 
 received it, should have suffered it (divine, as on 
 this supposition it must have been) to degenerate 
 into barbarous and feeble jargons. 
 
 18. ed. Wolf. p. 140. I present this argument v/ithout reply to 
 any one who is convinced by it.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. £9 
 
 5. "The human faculties are competent to the 
 formation of * language." It is therefore totally 
 unlike God's methods, as observed in His works, 
 to give directly what can be evolved mediately. 
 For there is clearly no waste in the economy of 
 Nature, no prodigality in the display of miracles. 
 In the words of Grimm, " it seems contrary to 
 the wisdom of God to impose the restraint of a 
 created form on that which was destined to a 
 free historic development." At any rate, as a 
 fact we can historically trace the development of 
 language from a very small nucleus, and this 
 being the case the supposition of any previous 
 revealed language is a groundless and improbable 
 hypothesis.! 
 
 Further arguments will appear as we proceed ; 
 but we must now point out the true meaning of 
 the statement in Genesis, that " God brought all 
 living creatures to Adam to see what he tcould 
 call them ; and whatsoever Adam called every 
 
 * Stewart, Phil, of the Mind, iii. 1. 
 
 + "This method of referring words immediately to God as their 
 framer, is a short cut to escape inquiry and explanation. It 
 saves the philosopher much trouble, hut leaves mankind in great 
 ignorance, and leads to great error. Non, dignus vindice nodus. 
 God having furnished man with senses, and with organs of articu- 
 lation, as he has also with water, lime, and sand, it shoull seem 
 no more necessary to form the words for man, than to temper the 
 mortar." — Divers, of Purhy, Pt. i. ch. 2.
 
 30 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 living creature that was the name thereof."* 
 Now, merely remarking (by way of limitation) 
 that the writer clearly supposed his own language 
 to be that of Paradise, and that there is here no 
 attempt to account for all t language, because he 
 is speaking of a certain class of words only — we 
 find in this narrative a profound verity clothed in 
 a most beautiful and appropriate symbol : ' We 
 see man as the true nomenclator — man acting by 
 his own peculiar faculties under the guide of the 
 Deity. Philosophy J could find no more, perfect 
 figure to express her conclusions than this — God 
 teaching man to speak as a father would a son.' 
 But to give this simple narrative a material 
 explanation is to falsify at once both its letter 
 and its spirit. On the other hand, " to say with 
 the theologians that God had created language § 
 
 * Gen. ii. 19, 20. 
 
 + e. g. There is no Lint of grammar, the very blood of language. 
 " Une Langue n'est pas une seule collection des mots." — Cousin, 
 Cours de 1829, iii. 212. 
 
 X Renan, p. 85. See an eloquent passage of Schlegel's to the 
 same effect, quoted in Wiseman's Lect. i. 108. Pythagoras pro- 
 bably had some vague sentiment of the kind when he said that 
 " the namegiver" was both the most ancient and the most rational 
 of men. The Egyptians worshipped Theuth as the Regulator of 
 Language ; and the Chinese referred its origin to their great mys- 
 terious King Fohi. See Cic. Tusc. Disp. i. 28. Lersch, die 
 Sprachphilos. der Alten. Bonn, 1838, i. 23—29. 
 
 § Bunsen, i. 49.
 
 THE 0EIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 31 
 
 as he bad created man, and that language is not 
 the act and work of man," is to contradict not 
 only reason but the Bible too. For be it ob- 
 served, that the Bible distinctly confirms our 
 arguments by saying, not that God named the 
 animals, but that Adam named them, and that 
 whatsoever he named every living creature that 
 was the name thereof. 
 
 In short, language is " only divine in propor- 
 tion to the divinity of our nature and our soul;" 
 it is only a gift of God because the faculty 
 naturally resulted from the physical and spiritual 
 organism which God had created. This seems a 
 more natural and philosophic supposition than 
 the belief that even the embryonic germ of lan- 
 guage was revealed. The exercise of the faculty 
 in the original utterance of primitive words has 
 ceased to be called into play because it has 
 ceased to be required. We cannot now invent 
 original words because there is no longer any 
 necessity for doing so. In the same way — as is 
 well known — a deaf mute when once instructed 
 in an artificial language loses the quick instinc- 
 tive power of creating intelligible natural signs. 
 
 We conclude, then, that language is neither 
 innate and organic ; nor a mechanical invention ; 
 nor an external gift of revelation ; — but a natural
 
 32 AX ESSAY OX 
 
 faculty swiftly developed by a powerful instinct, 
 the result of intelligence * and human freedom 
 which have no place in purely organic t functions. 
 It was " the living product of the whole t inner 
 man." It was "not§ a gift bestowed ready 
 formed to man, but something coming from him- 
 self.''' It is " essentially || human ; it owes to our 
 full liberty both its origin and its progress ; it is 
 our history, our heritage." Objectively con- 
 sidered, it was the result of organism: subjec- 
 tively, the product of intelligence. It was " a 
 primitive intuition, impersonal and yet influenced 
 by individual genius;" in a word, its character 
 is "at once IT objective and subjective, at once 
 individual and general, at once free and neces- 
 sary, at once human and divine." 
 
 That such a conclusion,** however much it may 
 
 * The fact that man is a social animal (£a>ov iroXiTtichv) which 
 has been so strangely urged by the advocates of a revealed 
 language, from Lactantius down to M. de Bonald and the Abbe 
 Combalot, in no way militates against this conclusion. 
 
 + Heyse, System der Sprachwissenschaft, § 50. 
 
 J Schlegel. 
 
 § Wil. von Humboldt. 
 
 II Grimm. 
 
 H Renan. 
 
 ** The Revelation of Language is supported in a book by J. S. 
 FLissmilch, Berlin, 1766. An excellent review of the main 
 opinions is given by It. W. Zobel, Gedanken iiber die vcrschiedenen
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 33 
 
 seem to savour of a weak eclecticism by combin- 
 ing all former theories, is yet in profound accord- 
 ance with all the ascertained facts of language 
 we shall hope to prove in the following chapter. 
 
 Meinungen der Gelehrnten von Ursprunge der Sprachen. Magdeb. 
 1733.
 
 34 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE EOEA 
 OF SPEECH. 
 
 " Speech is morning to the mind ; 
 It spreads the beauteous images abroad, 
 Which else lie dark and buried in the soul." 
 
 From abstract and a priori considerations, we 
 have arrived at the conclusion that language was 
 achieved or created by the human race, by the 
 unconscious or spontaneous exercise of divinely 
 implanted powers; that it was a faculty analo- 
 gous to and closely implicated with that of 
 thought, and, like thought, developing itself 
 with * the aid of time. The idea of speech was 
 innate, and the evolution of that idea may be 
 traced in the growth and history of language. 
 It is most important to have a clear conception 
 of the fact that this development did not result 
 
 * See Franck's Dictionnaire des Sciences PhiiosopMques, Art. 
 Signes. I must here again caution the reader that the view here 
 supported is not the conventional theory of language condemned in 
 the last chapter, although it might easily become so in the hands 
 of a person inclined to look at the physiological rather than the 
 psychological aspects of the question.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 35 
 
 from an atomistic* reunion of parts, but from 
 the vitality derived from an inward principle 
 Language was formed by a process not of crystal- 
 line accretion but of germinal development. 
 Every essential part of language existed as com- 
 pletely (although only implicitly) in the primitive 
 germ, as the petals of a flower exist in the bud 
 before the mingled influences of the sun and the 
 air have caused it to unfold. 
 
 Our belief thus arrived at — viz., that language 
 was an achievement of the human genius which 
 God implanted in the primeval man, a develop- 
 ment of the faculty with which he endowed our 
 race — does not at all necessitate the belief in a 
 period when man was unable to communicate 
 with man. The exercise of the faculty may have 
 been rapid in that young and noble nature to a 
 degree which now we cannot even conceive. A 
 few imitative roots, uttered under the guidance 
 of a divine instinct, and aided by the play of 
 intelligence in movement and feature, would with 
 wonderful ease grow into a language sufficient 
 for the needs of a nascent humanity, and the 
 living germ would soon bud and bourgeon by 
 the very law of its production. Even if we were 
 
 * This is an expression of F. Sclilegel's (Phihts. Yorlesungen, p. 
 78 — 80). Itenan also quotes the authority of Humboldt ami Goethe. 
 
 d 2
 
 r,o AN ESSAY ON 
 
 compelled to believe that this language was at 
 first of the scantiest character, we see in this 
 supposition nothing more absurd than in the 
 certainty that knowledge and science, philosophy 
 and art, are the slow, gradual, and toilsome con- 
 quests of an ever progressive race. It is now 
 well understood that even the use of the senses 
 has to be learnt, — that it is only by practice that 
 we are able to discriminate distances in the 
 variously-coloured surface which is all that we 
 really see. Why should it then be unnatural to 
 suppose that speech also was at first only impli- 
 citly bestowed on us, and that it required time 
 and experience to develop fully the implanted 
 capacity ? 
 
 How far the growth of language was affected 
 by external circumstances, — as, for instance, by 
 the impress of individual minds, by the aristo- 
 cracy or even autocracy of philosophic bodies, by 
 the influence of sex, by the variations of climate, 
 by the convulsions of history, by the slow change 
 of religious or political convictions, and even by 
 the laws of euphony and organisation, we may 
 consider hereafter ; but we must first of all enter 
 on two veiy interesting preliminary inquiries, viz., 
 1, How did words first come to be accepted as 
 signs at all ? and, 2, By what processes did men
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 37 
 
 hit upon the words themselves ? Or, to put the 
 questions differently : 1, How did various modu- 
 lations of the human voice acquire any signifi- 
 cance by being connected with outward or inward 
 phenomena ? and, 2, What special causes led in 
 special cases to the choice of some particular 
 modulations rather than of any other ? 
 
 I am well aware that these questions may 
 appear ridiculous to any one who is entirely 
 unaccustomed to these branches of inquiry ; and 
 they may possibly be inclined to set the whole 
 matter at rest by a dogmatism or a jeer. They 
 will say perhaps : 
 
 " Here babbling Insight shouts in Nature's ears 
 His last conundrum of the orbs and spheres ; 
 There Self-inspection sucks his little thumb, 
 With ' Whence am I ?' and ' Wherefore did I come ?' " * 
 
 With readers of such a temperament it is idle to 
 reason, nor do we expect that, while the world 
 lasts, ignorance will cease to take itself for know- 
 ledge, and denounce what it cannot understand. 
 To others we will merely say that these inquiries 
 have occupied, and are still occupying in an 
 
 * "Seht, es ist schwer zu denken auf welche Art man denkt. 
 . . . Ich denke, und mit dein Zeuge, womit ich denke, soil ich 
 denken wie dieses Zeug beschaffen sei," kc. — Tieck, Blaubart, 
 act. ii. sc. 1.
 
 38 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 increasing degree, some of the most profound and 
 sober intellects in Europe, and that (in the words 
 of Plato) ' wise men do not usually talk non- 
 sense.' 
 
 With this remark, let us proceed to our first 
 question : How came sounds — mere vibrations of 
 the atmosphere — to be accepted as signs, i. e. to 
 be used as words ? 
 
 But (as one inquiry leads us back, perpetually, 
 to another, even until " all things end in a 
 mystery "), we must here again pause for a 
 moment to ask what is a word ? So vast an 
 amount has been written in answer to this 
 inquiry, that it is obviously impossible to do 
 more than state the conclusion* we adopt, with a 
 mere hint as to the ground on which we adopt it. 
 
 Home Tooke maintained that words are " the 
 names of things," a definition most obviously in- 
 adequate ; others have called them " the pictures 
 of ideas," t and although this definition is not 
 without its value, yet the systematic perversion of 
 the word " idea," renders it insufficient. Harris 
 
 * We are, for instance, obliged entirely to pass over the question 
 as to the Pritnuni Cognitum, on which see Sir W. Hamilton's 
 Lectures, ii. 319—331. 
 
 + " One might be tempted to call Language a kind of Picture of 
 the Universe, -where the words are as the figures and images of all 
 particulars." — Harris's Hermes, p. 330. This is something like
 
 THE OKIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 39 
 
 devotes a chapter to establishing the definition 
 that "Words are the symbols of ideas, both 
 general and particular; yet, of the general, 
 primarily, essentially, and immediately ; of the 
 particular only secondly, accidentally, and me- 
 diately." But this is very questionable and 
 cumbrous ; and, on the whole, we believe that no 
 better definition can be given than that of the 
 late Mr. Garnett,* that words represent " concep- 
 tions founded on perceptions," or " that words 
 express the relations of things." They do not 
 and cannot express " an intrinsic meaning, con- 
 stituting them the counterparts and equivalents 
 of thought. They are nothing more, and can be 
 nothing more, than signs of relations, and it is a 
 contradiction in terms to affirm that a relation 
 can be inherent." " Our knowledge of beings," 
 says M. Peisse, t " is purely indirect, limited, rela- 
 tive ; it does not reach to the beings themselves 
 in their absolute reality and essences, but only to 
 their accidents, their modes, their relations, their 
 limitations, their differences, their qualities; all 
 
 Plato's curious notion that words are a fiifititrts of external things. 
 — Heyse, System, s. 24. ioinevai yap to ovS/xara .... 'hk6(tl twv 
 dparuv. — Heraclitus, ap. Ammonium ad Arist. de Interp. p. 24. 
 Democritus called them ayaKixaTa (puvqevTa. 
 
 * Garnett's Essays, p. 281—341. 
 
 t Quoted by Mr. Garnett, p. 2S3.
 
 40 AN ESSAY OX 
 
 which are manners of conceiving and knowing, 
 which not only do not impart to knowledge the 
 absolute character which some persons attribute 
 to it, but even positively exclude it. Matter (or 
 existence, the object of sensible perception), only 
 falls within the sphere* of our knowledge through 
 its qualities ; mind only by its modifications ; 
 and these qualities and modifications are all that 
 can be comprehended and expressed in the object. 
 The object itself, considered absolutely, remains 
 out of the reach of all perception." It is an 
 obvious inference that, as Ave can only talk of 
 what we know, and as we can only know the rela- 
 tions of things, words are the medium of express- 
 ing (not the nature of things, which is incog- 
 nisable), but the observed relations between things. 
 They are revelations not of the outward, but of the 
 inward, — not of the universe, but of the thoughts 
 of man. 
 
 Leaving to metaph} r sicians all further discus- 
 sion of this question, we again recur to our 
 inquiry, How came words to be accepted as signi- 
 ficant of these relations ? Thought* and speech 
 
 * Grimm, 29—31. Compare Heyse, System, s. 28. " Nnr 
 was gedacht ist, kaun gesprochen werden ; und das klar gedachte 
 ist nothwendig auch ansprechbar." What St. Paul saw in his 
 rapture was only unutterable because it recalled no human 
 analogon. (2 Cor. xii. 4.)
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 41 
 
 are inseparably connected ; the very root of the 
 word Man* implies, in Sanskrit, " a thinking- 
 being," and it is well known that there is a close 
 connection between " ratio " and " oratio," and 
 that aXoya £i£a means animals, not only " without 
 speech," but "without reason." Eloquence, in 
 fact, is genius, and the greatest poet or orator is 
 he who has most command over his native tongue. 
 It has even been a question with some philo- 
 sophers whether thought is possible without 
 speech, — whether, for instance, blind-deaf-mutes 
 (like the American girl, Laura Bridgman), are 
 capable! of exercising the faculty of reason until 
 they have been taught an artificial method of 
 expression ? 
 
 * Manudscha, Goth. Manniska, Germ. Mensch ; from the root 
 man, "to think." Compare <ppa.£<=iv, "to speak," and (ppd£ea9ai, 
 "to think." — Heyse, s. 40. Turner ad Herod, ii. 7. 
 
 *|* " Speech, "says Humboldt, "is the necessary condition of the 
 thought of the individual." The statement should at least be 
 qualified by the word "now." For some allusions to this interest- 
 ing discussion, see Archbishop Whately's Logic, ch. ii. M. de 
 Bonald assumed the reverse : " L'homme pense sa parole avant de 
 parler sa pensee." See, too, Mill's Logic, ii. 201. Charma, p. 134. 
 Of course the short-hand of human intelligence is too infinitely 
 rapid and abbreviated for us to be always able to read it off with 
 facility ; or, as Mr. Tennyson expresses it, 
 
 x " Thought leapt out to wed with thought, 
 
 Ere thought could wed itself to speech ; " 
 but we are inclined to believe that without some signs (not 
 necessarily words — see Charma, Essai sui' le Langage, p. 50)
 
 42 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 Certain it is that the child begins to speak 
 when it begins to think, and that its first intelli- 
 gent perception of relations is followed by its first 
 articulate utterances. We may illustrate this 
 remark in an interesting manner. We find it 
 stated in the Jadschurveda, that the first words 
 uttered by the first man were, " I am myself," 
 and that, when called, he answered, " I am he." 
 With all due deference to the ancient philo- 
 sopher who held this belief, we may safely assert 
 that such a thing was impossible without some 
 special interposition ; for the growth of a sense 
 of individuality is extremely slow, and comes to 
 children long after their main perceptions. A poet 
 — in whom nothing is more remarkable than his 
 profound learning and metaphysical accuracy — 
 truly says : 
 
 " The baby new to earth and sky, 
 
 What time his tender palm is prest 
 Against the circle of the breast, 
 Hath never thought that ' This is I :' 
 
 thought could not exist. When we cannot express what we mean, the 
 reason probably is that we have no clear meaning. "Die Sprache 
 ist nichts anderes als der in die Erscheinung tretende Gedanke, 
 und beide sind innerlich nur eins und das selbe." — Becker, 
 Organism, der Sprache, p. 2. "Sans signes nous ne penserions 
 presque pas." — Destutt de Tracy, Ideologic, pt. xvii. Hotinus 
 distinctly asserts the contrary. Tb 5?; \oyi£6fxei>oi> ttjs ^vxvs 
 ovSewos irpbs -rb \oyi£to-0cu SeS/xivov aco/xaTiKov bpyavov. — Ennead, 
 v. 1, eh. 10
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 43 
 
 But as he gi-ows lie gathers much, 
 And learns the use of ' I ' and ' me,' 
 And finds ' I am not what I see, 
 
 And other than the things I touch.' " * 
 
 And this gives us at once the true explanation 
 of the fact, that it is some time before a child 
 learns to regard itself as a subject, and therefore, 
 that itf objectises itself in all its language. It 
 would say, not " I want an apple," but " Charlie 
 wants an apple ; " not even " give me,''' — so fre- 
 quently as " give Charlie." When Hamlet signs 
 himself as ' The machine that is to me Hamlet,' 
 he only shows, by an extreme instance, the 
 remarkable difficulty that a man always has in 
 mastering this very conception of individuality, 
 which the Hindoo philosophy would seem to 
 regard as a primitive intuition. 
 
 By these remarks we have greatly cleared the 
 way for our explanation of the manner in which 
 words originated; — an explanation! which is 
 
 * In Memoriam. 
 
 + See Harper, on the Force of the Greek Tenses. 
 
 $ Der Ursprung der Sprache. Berlin, 1851. We closely follow 
 M. Kenan's exposition as given in his preface, pp. 31, sq. Heyse 
 sums it up in one sentence, "Man kann mithin in dem Worte 
 ein dreifaches Moment unterscheiden : 1. die Lautform ; 2. das 
 dadurch bezeichnete in Sprachbewusstsein liegende Merkmal der 
 Vorstellung ; 3. den reinen Begriff, welchen der denkende Geist 
 in seiner Erhebung iiber die Individuelle Vorstellungsweise bildet,
 
 41 AN ESSAY OX 
 
 purely psychological, and which was first promul- 
 gated in this shape by M. Steinthal. 
 
 Man has the faculty of interpretation, or of using 
 words for signs, as completely as he has the 
 faculties of sight and hearing ; and words are the 
 means he employs for the exercise of the former 
 faculty, just as the eye and the ear are employed 
 as the organs of the latter. 
 
 The power of speech depends on the power of 
 abstraction, i. c, of transforming intuitions into 
 ideas. Let us explain. At the sight of a horse 
 galloping, or of a plain white with snow, the 
 primitive man formed, at first, one undivided 
 image ; the motion and the horse, the field and 
 the snow, were unseparated. But, by language, the 
 act of running was distinguished from the crea- 
 ture that ran, and the colour separated from the 
 thing coloured. Each of these two elements 
 became fixed in an isolated word, and so the 
 word dismembered the complete perception. But, 
 from another point of view, the word is more 
 extended than the presentation ; e.g., the word 
 " white " expresses not only an attribute of snow, 
 but of all white objects; its meaning, then, 
 
 und als dessen Zeichen ihm gleiclifalls das Wort dienen muss." — 
 Heyse, System, s. 160. 
 
 * Gamier, Tvaiti des facullt's de TAme. Kenan, p. 90.
 
 THE OEIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 45 
 
 is more abstract and indeterminate than that of 
 " white snow." Instead of only embracing an 
 existence, or an object in an accidental state, a word 
 represents the thing without its accidental cha- 
 racters, which are removed by abstraction, and 
 indicates it under all the circumstances in which 
 it may be placed. 
 
 The transformation, then, of intuitions into 
 ideas, by the freedom and activity of the human 
 intelligence, constitutes the essence of a word, 
 although the speaker may be as unconscious of 
 the process as he is of the organic mechanisms 
 which give utterance to his thoughts. 
 
 I. 'As for the conditions under which articulate 
 language first appeared, M. Steinthal represents 
 them as follows. At the origin of humanity the 
 soul and the body were in such mutual depend- 
 ence that all the emotions* of the soul had their 
 echo in the body, principally in the organs of the 
 respiration and the voice. This sympathy of 
 soul and body, still found in the infant and the 
 savage, was intimate and fruitful in the primitive 
 man ; each intuition awoke in him an accent or 
 
 * Afotus animi. In the origin of language, the spontaneous 
 awakening of a sense of the possibility of expressing thought by 
 speech, was in point of fact simultaneous with the production of 
 an objective Language as the material iu which the awakened 
 intelligence could find expression. Eevse, s. 47.
 
 46 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 a sound.' This was the first step ; and in this fact 
 lies the germ of truth contained in the doctrines 
 of the analogists ; * since there must have been 
 some reason in the nature of things, why certain 
 impressions or feelings were connected with cer- 
 tain sounds rather than with certain others. We 
 may be totally unable to point out this con- 
 nection in many cases, and even while recognising 
 a natural relation between certain sounds of the 
 human voice and certain material phenomena, we 
 may deny the very possibility of such a rela- 
 tion between a spiritual phenomenon and its 
 physical sign. And yet we feel a strong repug- 
 nance at allowing caprice or chance to have any 
 considerable share in the origin of language. 
 It can, at least, be fairly argued that there is 
 nothing purely arbitrary in the work of the divine 
 Demiurgus. 
 
 II. 'Another law, which played a no less 
 essential part in the creation of language, was 
 the association t of ideas. In virtue of this law, 
 the sound which accompanied an intuition, asso- 
 ciated itself in the soul with the intuition itself, so 
 closely that the sound and the intuition presented 
 
 * See ante. 
 
 t On this law of association, see Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures, 
 i. 3C6.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 47 
 
 themselves to the consciousness as inseparable, 
 and were equally inseparable in the recollection.' 
 This was the second step. 
 
 III. Finally, the word became a middle term 
 of reminiscence, a tach between the external 
 object and the inward impression. " The sound* 
 became a word, by forming a bond between the 
 image obtained by the vision, and the image 
 preserved in the memory ; in other words, it 
 acquired significance, and became an element of 
 language. Thejmage of the remembrance, and 
 the image of the vision, are not wholly identical ; 
 e.g., I see a horse ; no other horse that I have 
 ever seen resembles it absolutely in colour, size, 
 &c. : the general conception recalled by the word 
 ' horse ' involves only the abstracted f attributes 
 common to all the animals of the same genus. 
 It is this collection of common attributes that 
 constitutes the significance of the sound." 
 
 Thus M. Steinthal attributes the appearance 
 of language to the unconscious action of psycho- 
 
 * Exclamations, natural interjections would probably be the first 
 to acquire significance. 
 
 t In some savage languages abstraction is at tbe lowest ebb. 
 Thus, in Iroquois, there is no word for "good" in the abstract, 
 but only words for "a good man," &c. ; and in Mohican there is 
 no verb for "I love," independent of the forms which involve 
 the object of the affection, as "I love him," "I love you." —
 
 43 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 logical laws ; and as these laws acted sponta- 
 neously in the first human beings, it is quite 
 clear that these speculations involve no approval 
 of the untenable Epicurean belief in a long period 
 of mutism and savageness. We cannot but 
 think that the beauty, ingenuity, and simplicity 
 of these views will commend them to general 
 acceptance. 
 
 ~\Xe may here give one or two passing hints of 
 the way in which these laws were influenced by 
 organism. 
 
 One very simple fact is, that of course the 
 impressions, &c, which come earliest would natu- 
 rally be connected with the sounds that come 
 earliest. For instance, the words for father and 
 mother, which are alike half the world over, are, 
 as we should have expected, formed of easy and 
 simple* syllables ; being indeed the first labial 
 sounds of the infant lisping : had we found in 
 
 Adelung's Mithrid. iii. b. p. 307. So again the Chinese in many 
 cases cannot express the simple conception without a periphrasis, 
 and have words for " elder brother" and " younger brother," but 
 not for "brother." — Humboldt. 
 
 * See Gesenius, Lehrgebdude, p. 479. Ewald's Hebrew Gram- 
 mar, § 201. " The Mandschou is most like the Semitic here ; in 
 it the origin is still plainer, since ama means father, erne mother, 
 according to the uniform distinction of a as the stronger, and e as 
 the weaker vowel." — Kenan, Hist, dcs Langucs S6mitiqn.es, p. 
 il'2. Rawlinson's Herodotus, i. 4S1.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 49 
 
 any of them the letters which represent late- 
 coming and difficult sounds,* we should have 
 been justly surprised. 
 
 Again, Grimmt has remarked that the more 
 ancient a language is, the more clearly do we 
 find in it the distinction between masculine and 
 feminine inflections. "Nothing," adds M. Kenan, 
 " proves it more strongly than the to-us-inexpli- 
 cable tendency which led the primitive nations to 
 suppose a sex in all beings, even inanimate ones. 
 A language, formed in our days, would suppress 
 the gender* in all cases, except perhaps, those 
 where men and women are concerned." This 
 peculiarity is doubtless due to the influence v of 
 women. In ancient times, the life of woman was 
 far more widely separated than now from that of 
 men; and even in later days, when they were 
 dwarfed in the isolation of the gynseceum, we can 
 easily understand how the peculiarities of their 
 life would have influenced the language they 
 
 * Similarly it has been observed by M. Nodier that the most 
 ancient names of God are composed only of the softest and simplest 
 vowels (Notions, p. 15). This reminds us of the famous oracle, 
 <ppd£eo rbv wdvrwv vira-rov dfbv tyu^ey' lda>. 
 
 f Uber den Ursprung, &c, p. 35. 
 
 + It is strange that the French language should not have 
 adopted the same course as the English, in discarding this useless 
 rag of antiquity. The influences which led to the decision of 
 genders in any particular case were purely fanciful.
 
 50 AN ESSAY OX 
 
 employed. The difference between their idioms 
 and those of men is still very incisive in some 
 African dialects; and the fact that men in speak- 
 ing to women are obliged, to employ particular 
 inflections, proves that those inflections must have 
 been used by the women themselves. It is this 
 which causes the strange difference between Sans- 
 krit and Prakrit; in the Hindoo dramas, Sanskrit 
 is used by the men, Prakrit by the women. 
 
 But the difference is due to the difference of 
 organisation. If "a" and "i" are in all languages 
 the vowels characteristic of the feminine, it is 
 without doubt because those vowels are better 
 suited to the feminine organ than the masculine 
 sounds "o" and "ou." A Hindoo commen- 
 tator, explaining the 10th verse of the Third 
 book of Manou,* where it is commanded to 
 give to women sweet and agreeable names, 
 recommends that in these names the letter "a" 
 should predominate." 
 
 It is observable, too, that the influence of cli- 
 mate on language is in point of fact another 
 result of the influence of organism. The idiom 
 of Sybaris is not that of Sparta. The languages of 
 the South are limpid, euphonic, and harmonious, 
 as though they had received an impress from the 
 
 * Kenan, p. 28.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 51 
 
 transparency of their heaven, and the soft, sweet 
 sounds of the winds that sigh among their woods. 
 On the other hand, in the hirrients and gutturals, 
 the burr and roughness of the Northern tongues, 
 we catch an echo of the breaker bursting on their 
 crags, and the crashing of the pine-branch over 
 the cataract. Eousseau* has pointed to the fact 
 that the languages of the rich and prodigal 
 South, being the daughters of passion, are poetic 
 and musical, while those of the North, the 
 gloomy daughters of necessity, bear a trace of 
 their hard origin, and express by rude sounds 
 rude sensations. It is an additional argument 
 against the existence of a language primitive, 
 revealed, or innate, that every known language 
 bears on itself the deep traces of predominant 
 local influences. " It is for this reason that the 
 confusion of tongues and the dispersion of nations 
 are represented by Scripture as synchronous events 
 in the magnificent history of Babel, which, per- 
 haps, we may be permitted to regard as one of 
 those sublime parables so frequent in the sacred 
 books. This was the opinion of the great 
 Leibnitz." 
 
 These are but easy illustrations of a wide and 
 difficult subject ; but the influence of organism 
 
 * Rousseau, Essal sur V Origine des Langues. 
 
 e 2
 
 52 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 on language lias not yet been very fully analysed, 
 and many of the laws which philologists have 
 advanced remain to some degree uncertain. Those 
 who desire to follow the subject may find some 
 very amusing illustrations in the pages of M. 
 Nodier, one of which we have* relegated into the 
 note. 
 
 * Notions, p. 24 sqq. The remarks on the labials are too 
 amusing to be omitted. "Le bambin, le poupon, le marmot a 
 trouve les trois labiales ; il bee, il baye, il balbutie, il begaye, il 
 babille, il blatere, il bele, il bavarde, il braille, il boude, il bouque, 
 il bougonne sur une babiole, sur une bagatelle, sur une billevese'e, 
 sur une betise, sur un \>&o&, sur un bonbon, sur un bobo, sur le 
 bilboquet pendu a l'etalage du bimbelotier. II nomme sa mere et 
 son pere avec des mimologismes caressants, et quoiqu'il n'ait encore 
 decouvert que la simple touche des levres, Fame se meut de"ja dans 
 les mots qu'il module au hasard. Ce Cadmus au maillot vient 
 d'entrevoir un mystere aussi grand a lui seul que tout le reste de la 
 creation. II parle sa pensee." Want of space alone compels us to 
 refrain from transcribing the remarks on the progress of infants 
 and of society to the dentals. We must say, however, that such 
 speculations must be very sparingly indulged by sober philologists. 
 Many of them, at first sight plausible, were refuted by Plato long 
 ago in the Cratylus, and they lead to a grammatical mysticism 
 which has been well exposed by M. Charma, Essai, p. 213.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 53 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE LAWS OF SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE, OR THE 
 CREATION OF ROOTS. 
 
 " Nommer par la mimologie, s'enrichir par la comparaison, les 
 langues n'ont pas d'autre moyen : dies ne sortent pas de la." — 
 Nodier, p. 39. 
 
 From the general question as to the manner in 
 •which sounds acquired significance as words, we 
 proceed to the longer and wider inquiry as to 
 the causes which led to the choice of special 
 sounds in special significations ; or, in other 
 words, we shall consider the origin of roots.* 
 
 When in the first chapter we proved that lan- 
 guage was neither innate nor revealed, we proved 
 implicitly that no words could be purely arbi- 
 
 * By roots we do not mean words \ised in the primitive 
 language, but rather "skeletons of articulate sound." "They are 
 merely the fictions of grammarians to indicate the core of a group 
 of related ■words." — Hensleigh Wedgwood's Etymolog. Diet. p. iii. 
 For some remarks on the nature of roots, see Donaldson's New 
 Cratyl. bk. iii. ch. 1. Ewald's Hebrew Gram. § 202. This naked 
 kernel of a family of words is often best found in the youngest 
 dialects, e.g. kind (child) from yiyvoftai, genitum, &c. Grimm, 
 Deutsche Gramm. ii. 5. 3. Bopp. Vgl. Gramm. s. 131.
 
 5-1 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 trary.* The historic character of language, — the 
 fact that in innumerable cases we can distinctly 
 trace the laws which presided at the genesis of any 
 particular word, — strongly confirms our a priori 
 conclusion. The inference to be deduced from the 
 labours of all the best philologists, is that of Hire, 
 " Xon ut fungi nascuntur Yocabula." We have 
 no reason to believe that any elements of lan- 
 guage were deduced from roots which of them- 
 selves had no significance; and the more rigorous 
 and extensive the analysis to which even inflec- 
 tions are subjected, the more clear is the proof 
 that they arise from the agglutination of separate 
 and significant words. " "We believe," says one 
 of the ablest of modern! inquirers, " that in 
 language ex nihilo nihil fit; and we are at a loss 
 to conceive how elements originally destitute of 
 
 * One or two philosophers (e.g. Kircher, Becher, Dalgarno, 
 Bp. Wilkins, Descartes, Leibnitz) have amused themselves •with 
 the inTention of languages quite arbitrary, in which every word 
 was to be accurately determined ; but no artificial language 
 actually used has ever thus arisen. The German rothucUch, the 
 Italian gergo, the French narquois, the English "thieves' 1 lan- 
 guage,''' the lingua franca which serves for commercial purposes 
 on the shores of the Mediterranean, the strange jargon spoken by 
 the Chinese and English at Hong Kong, &c, have all arisen from 
 a corruption of existing languages by metaphors, new words, new 
 meanings, derivation, composition, &c. See Leibnitz, Nouv. E&sai 
 svr l' Entendanent JIumain, iii. i. 2. 
 
 t Mr. Garnett, Essays, p. 105. Latham, Zed. on Language.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 33 
 
 signification can determine the sense of anything 
 with precision. To assume that they have no 
 meaning, because we cannot always satisfactorily 
 explain it, is only an argnmentum ad ignoran- 
 tiam." 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten, that in endeavouring to 
 prove that in language nothing is arbitrary, we are 
 under a great disadvantage, because no existing 
 language has come to us in its primitive form. 
 Every language, even those which are most 
 ancient, and have long since ceased to be spoken, 
 bears in its records the traces of a more primitive 
 condition. Words, of which the composition was 
 originally clear, are worn and rubbed by the use 
 of ages, like the pebbles which are fretted and 
 rounded into shape and smoothness by the sea 
 waves on a shingly beach ; or to use the more 
 appropriate image suggested by Goethe, their 
 meaning is often worn away like the image and 
 superscription of a coin. This process is so con- 
 tinuous, that it is quite hopeless to recover the 
 original form of many words, or even to make a 
 probable* guess at their origin. 
 
 Language always tends to become mechanical 
 
 * What, for instance, is the origin of the initial a- in such -words 
 as (TfiiKpbs, cr<pdw<i>, or of the initial vowels in uvopa, oSovs, 
 afieXyai, kc. ? — Garnett, p. 107.
 
 £$ AN ESSAY ON 
 
 (I.e. unmeaning of itself J by corruption ;* and to 
 such an extent is this the case, that it is rather a 
 matter of astonishment when, after the lapse of 
 centuries, a word still retains the obvious traces 
 of its original form. And yet in spite of this we 
 can by induction discover from words themselves 
 the main laws which influenced the formation of 
 primitive speech. 
 
 The violent dislike which we instinctively feel 
 to the use of a word entirely new to us, and of 
 which we do not understand the source, is a 
 matter of daily experience ; and the tendency to 
 give a meaning to adopted words by so changing 
 them as to remove their seemingly arbitrary 
 character has exercised a permanent and appre- 
 ciable influence on every language. An instance 
 or two will perhaps pave the way for a more 
 ready acceptance of our subsequent remarks. 
 
 When we go into a ship or factory, and inquire the 
 technical name of various parts of the machinery, 
 we are either unable to use the names from not 
 
 * When a boy answers a lady in the words " Te3, 'm," he is 
 not aware that his '"m" is a fragment of the five syllables 
 mea domina (madonna, madame, madam, ma'am, 'm.) "Letters, 
 like soldiers, being very apt tod desert an drop off in a long 
 march." — Divers, of Purley, pt. i. ch. vi. "Les noms des saints 
 et les Doms des baptemes les plus communs en sont un exemple." — 
 De Brosses.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 57 
 
 catching the pronunciation, or, in attempting 
 to pronounce them we substitute for them 
 other words of similar sound and more signi- 
 ficance. 
 
 It often happens that gardeners become ac- 
 quainted with new plants, or new species of old 
 plants, that are brought to them under a foreign 
 name ; not understanding this name, they cor- 
 rupt it into some word which sounds like it, and 
 with which they are already familiar. To this 
 source of corruption we owe such words as 
 dandylion* (dent de lion), rosemary (ros ■marhius), 
 gilly-flower (giroflc), quarter sessions rose (dcs 
 quatre saisons), Jerusalem artichoke (giresol) 
 &c. For the same reason (the dislike of terms 
 with which they are unacquainted) sailors corrupt 
 Bellerophon into Billy Ruffian : and we have 
 heard of a groom, who, having the charge of two 
 horses called Othello and Desdemona, christened 
 them respectively Old Fellow and Thursday 
 Morning. Lamprocles, the name of a horse of 
 Lord Eglintoun's, was converted by the ring into 
 "Lamb and Pickles." The same principle may 
 be seen at work among servants ; we have heard 
 a servant systematically use the word " cravat" 
 for " carafe," and astonish a gentleman by calmly 
 
 * See Philological Transactions, v. 133 sq.
 
 58 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 asking hiin at luncheon, " If she should fill his 
 cravat with water?" 
 
 The working of this tendency is all the more 
 curious from the fact that very often the cor- 
 rupted form of the word is wholly inappropriate, 
 although significant. There is no doubt that, in 
 most cases, we prefer a corruption, which is 
 appropriate as well as significant, and we find 
 instances* of this in such words as worm- 
 woocl (icermuth), cr&y-Jish (ecrevisse), lant/tor» 
 (late ma), belfry (beffroi), vakehell (racaille), beef- 
 eater (buffeticr), verdigrease (verd de gris), spar- 
 rcrw-grass (asparagus), &c. Where, however, this 
 is unattainable, we are well content with some 
 significant corruption, for which we can invent or 
 imagine a meaning even if we are unaware of the 
 real explanation ; as, for instance, in Charter 
 House (Chartreuse), "to a cow's thumb" = exactly 
 (a la coutume), wiseacre (iveissager), saltpetre 
 (salpetra), &c. It is curious to find that in 
 the desire to understand, at any rate in some 
 degree, the words we use, the corrupted form 
 
 * Phil. Trans, v. 133 sq. "The facility with which unusual 
 
 or difficult words are corrupted is being at this moment strikingly 
 
 illustrated in the numerous Spanish words introduced into our 
 
 language through the American conquests in Mexico ; canon, 
 
 stancia, stampedo, &c, are already altered in form." — E.G.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 59 
 
 often gives birth to a totally false explanation- 
 Tlius Dr. Latham mentions* that the corruption of 
 Chateau Vert into Shotover has led to the legend 
 that Little John shot over the hill of that name 
 near Oxford. Similar instances are supplied by 
 the legends of Veronica, and of St. Ursula with 
 her eleven thousand virgins. 
 
 It may seem that we have, in the course of this 
 chapter, made statements somewhat contradic- 
 tory ; viz., that it is the tendency of language to be- 
 come mechanical (i. e., arbitrary and conventional) 
 by corruption, and yet that there is an instinc- 
 tive dislike to the use of new words which convey 
 no intrinsic meaning to the mind of the speaker. 
 If we argued from the instances adduced in the 
 last pages, we might infer that language was 
 
 * Engl. Lang. i. p. 356, 4th ed. St. Aldhelin's Head, in Dorset- 
 shire, is always pronounced and generally written St. Alban's Head, 
 although St. Alban had no connection with it. Penny-conie-quick 
 was a very natural corruption of Pen, Coombe, and Ick, the former 
 name for Falmouth. These words form a curious chapter in the 
 history of language. There is no doubt that tbe mythological 
 legends of a later period are largely suggested by the corruption of 
 names, as in the case of Aphrodite, Dionysus, &c. The fiction of 
 an Oriental nation provided with a two-fold tongue (Diod. Sic. ii.) 
 might easily spring from the word SiyXaxrcros. See many such 
 instances in Lersch. iii. 6 fg. The Greek 'Upua6\vfxa presents a 
 double instance of this, being corrupted from &**&fT., which is 
 itself probably a corruption of the old Canaanite name for 
 Jerusalem. Diet, of Dili. Ant. s. v.
 
 CO AN ESSAY ON 
 
 originally arbitrary, and had been twisted into 
 meaning by subsequent use. We must, however, 
 draw attention to the fact that this latter phe- 
 nomenon is only observable on the naturalisation 
 of a word. A new word, however bright and 
 perfect in itself, is like a strange coin upon which 
 we look with suspicion, because we are un- 
 accustomed to its appearance. But when a word 
 is accepted and generally understood, when, in 
 fact, it has become current, we are then indifferent 
 to the amount of wear on the surface or even to 
 the complete obliteration of its original signifi- 
 cance ; just in the same way as we do not trouble 
 ourselves to observe a coin which is in common 
 use, and pay no regard to the fact that its image 
 is confused, and its superscription undecipher- 
 able. We might, for instance, find words which 
 have passed through both processes. Let us 
 suppose* that, in course of time, the word sherbet 
 had become corrupted first into syrup, then into 
 shrub ; in this case we should have an exemplifica- 
 tion of a word first appropriately corrupted into 
 a familiar form in the course of naturalisation, 
 and then re-corrupted into a purely mechanical t 
 
 The instance is a pure supposition, for sherbet, syrup, and 
 shrub are from the same Arabic root, coming to us from three 
 different sources. — Latham. 
 
 + We know of very few words invented on simply arbitrary
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 61 
 
 word, by the ordinary progress of language. We 
 are therefore fairly entitled to infer from the dis- 
 like to the introduction of any sound as a word, 
 when the sound is to the speaker an arbitrary 
 one, that the same feeling must have operated 
 at the dawning exercise of the faculty of speech ; 
 while from the indifference which we exhibit to the 
 corruption of a word when it has once been 
 currently received, we may give a reason for our 
 inability to explain the origin of all primitive 
 roots, even while we assume with confidence that 
 every root was originally significative. 
 
 grounds. "Sepals" was devised by Neckar to express each 
 division of the calyx (Whewell, Hist. Ind. Sc. ii. 535), and yet we 
 see at once that it is only a very slight alteration of the word 
 "petals," and this no doubt was the reason, not only for the 
 choice of it, but also for the ready currency which it obtained. 
 The term " Od force" is another instance. Chemistry at one 
 period affected to give to simple bodies only such names as were 
 destitute of all significance ; but it abandoned this practice in con* 
 sequence of the absurdities and impossibilities which it involved, 
 (v. Renan, p. 148.) Thus, '''sulfite" and "sulfate" are due to Guyton 
 de Morveau. (Charma, p. 66.) " Ellar/ic" acid is the name given by 
 M. Braconnot to the substance left in the process of making pyro- 
 gallic acid, and it is derived from Galle read backwards (Mist. Ind. 
 Sc. ii. 547) ; but such terms are justly reprobated by men of 
 science. Even proper names, which some have supposed to be 
 often arbitrary, are in almost every case found capable of a real 
 etymology. " lis n'ont pas, plus que Its autres mots, et^ imposes 
 sans cause, ni fabriquc's cue hasavd, seulement pour produire une 
 bruit vague." — De Drosses. This was noticed very early ; see 
 Schol. ad Horn. Od. xix. 406.
 
 62 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 Language may be regarded as the union of 
 words and grammar, of which words are analo- 
 gous to matter, and grammar to form ;* regarded 
 in its form it was the expression of pure reason ; 
 in its matter it was only the reflex of sensuous 
 life. The absence of any definite grammar con- 
 stitutes an inorganic language like the Chinese. 
 Those who have derived language exclusively from 
 sensation are as much mistaken as those who 
 have assigned to ideas a purely material origin. 
 Sensation furnished the variable and accidental 
 element, which might have been quite other than 
 it is, (i. e., the words) ; but the grammar of a 
 language, (the rational form, without which words 
 could not have been a language), is its pure and 
 transcendental element which gives to the result 
 its truly human character. Words can no more 
 form a language than sensations can produce a 
 man. That which originates language, like that 
 which originates thought, is the logical relation 
 which the soul establishes between external 
 things. 
 
 We may now state our belief that almost all 
 primitive roots were obtained by Onomatopoeia, 
 i. e., by an imitation with the human voice of 
 the sounds of inanimate nature. Onomatopoeia 
 
 * Renan, p. 122.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 63 
 
 sufficed to represent the vast majority of physical 
 facts and external phenomena ; and nearly all the 
 words requisite for the expression of metaplrysical 
 and moral convictions were derived from these* 
 onomatopoeic roots by analogy and metaphor. 
 
 We have purposely modified our statement of 
 these conclusions, because there is too great a 
 tendency to general assertions, against which, as 
 W. von Humboldt well remarked, science should 
 be always on its guard. It is a saying of 
 Schlegel's, that, so great is the variety of pro- 
 cedure in different languages, that there is 
 scarcely one language which might not be chosen 
 to illustrate some particular hypothesis. For 
 instance, the sole similarity between Chinese and 
 Sanskrit rests in the fact that both aim at the 
 same end, viz., the expression of thought. Thus 
 onomatopoeia is far from being found in all lan- 
 guages in the same degree, and it is much more 
 observable in the Semitic than in the Indo- 
 European family, in which, however ancient the 
 word may be proved to be, it constantly bears 
 witness to those poetic and philosophic instincts 
 of our race which clearly prove that reason was 
 not a slow and painful growth. 
 
 " Caprice has no influence in the formation of 
 
 * Nodier, p. 39. See, too, Garnett's Essays, p. 89.
 
 G4 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 language." Without believing in any universal, 
 necessary, intrinsic connection between word 
 and thing, we are forced to believe that there was, 
 in every case, a subjective connection. The appro- 
 priateness of the word resided, not in the object 
 named, for in this case there would have been a 
 striking similarity in all the languages of the 
 human race, but in the mind of the name -giver, 
 who, of necessity, stamped the word with the 
 impress of his own individuality. In direct 
 proportion to the delicacy of his perceptions, was 
 the fitness of the words he used ; for those words 
 expressed relations capable of being viewed in 
 widely different aspects, so that the finer and 
 more keen was the man's power of perceiving 
 analogies, the greater was his capacity for the 
 expression of facts. The true formula is that 
 " the connection between a word and its mean- 
 ing is never necessary, and never arbitrary, but 
 always results from a reasonable motive." 
 
 But what the motives were, which in many 
 cases led to' the choice of particular sounds, it is 
 beyond our power to conjecture or ascertain. 
 The richness and delicacy of the appellative 
 faculty in the savage and the infant must neces- 
 sarily have existed in the primitive man, and, as 
 it decayed with the decay of all necessity for its
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 65 
 
 exercise, we are unable to point out, with any 
 certainty, the tendencies by which it was actuated. 
 There is no waste in the economy of nature ; a 
 faculty ceases when it is no longer required, just 
 as the outer leaves which ensheathe the nascent 
 germ wither and drop off when the germ has 
 acquired sufficient vitality for its own preserva- 
 tion. 
 
 " Tecum habita " was not the motto of the 
 early inhabitants of the earth. They lived with 
 the external world. The cataract " haunted them 
 like a passion," and they heard voices in the 
 dawning of the sun and the murmur of the 
 wind. The heavens declared the glory of God, 
 and the firmament showed his handiwork ; day 
 unto day uttered speech, and night showed know- 
 ledge unto night. The soul of the first man, to 
 use the beautiful expression of Leibnitz, was a 
 concentric mirror of nature, in the midst of 
 whose works he lived. Language was the echo 
 of nature in his individual consciousness. The 
 action of the mind produced language by a 
 spontaneous repercussion of the perceptions 
 received.* It is the mind which creates and forms ; 
 but this power of the mind is one reacting only 
 upon impressions received from the world with- 
 
 * Bunsen, Outlines, s. ii. 84. 78. 
 
 P
 
 66 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 out. The imitative power of language consists 
 in an artistic imitation, not of things, but of the 
 rational impression which an object produces by 
 its qualities. 
 
 The fact, therefore, that the imitation is artistic, 
 and is influenced by subjective considerations, 
 would prevent us from being surprised or disap- 
 pointed, if Ave do not always see the working of 
 this principle, in cases where we should have 
 expected it. In such words as the Hebrew 
 Khdtzatz (V?©, and Schephifoun (WPtf) we 
 seem to hear the shearing off of the cut material, 
 and the lithe rustle of the horned snake through 
 the withered leaves. But words so remarkably 
 suggestive are comparatively rare, and in most 
 cases the imitation is more concealed. Nothing, 
 however, more powerfully proves the tendency of 
 language, in this respect, than the fact that words 
 of a harsh meaning usually assume a rough, harsh 
 form, and words that imply something sweet and 
 tender seem to breathe the sensation they 
 describe. The German word (entsetzen) "terror," 
 means, etymologically, a mere " displacement," 
 yet who does not see that it has caught an in- 
 stinctive echo from the thing which it describes, 
 which, in no degree, depends on association ; — 
 that, independently of imagination it betrays
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 67 
 
 something harsh by its mere form. That there is 
 a consonance between external sounds and the 
 processes of the mind, is decisively shown by the 
 fact that whole languages have thus caught the 
 impress of the associations by which they have 
 been evolved. In the soft and vowelled undersong 
 of modern Italian, who does not recognise the 
 result of climate and natural character ? The 
 Doric seems to recall to us the sound of martial 
 flutes, while the Hebrew, in its stern and solemn 
 pomp, tells like one vast onomatopoeia, of the 
 mighty mission which it was destined to ac- 
 complish ; every single word of it seems to shine 
 with that mysterious light which lent strange 
 lustre to the letters of it on the gems of the 
 sacerdotal robe. "When," saj's M. Vinet, "you 
 hear the vast word haschamaim, which names 
 the heavens, unfold itself like a vast pavilion, 
 your intelligence — before knowing what the word 
 signifies — expects something magnificent ; no 
 mean object could have been named thus; it is 
 better than an onomatopoeia, although it is not 
 one." * 
 
 The exuberance and uncontrolled variety 
 
 * Essais de PL!!. Morale, p. 344. (The word D'JOtS comes from 
 a root signifying height.) Several of the instances in this paragraph 
 are from M. Vinet. 
 
 F 2
 
 68 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 which characterises the primitive languages is a 
 proof of the extraordinarily developed resources 
 of the power of interpretation, or the faculty of 
 converting sounds into signs, so long as the 
 exercise of that faculty continued to be necessary. 
 The richest idioms are always the most spon- 
 taneous and unconscious. It is obviously im- 
 possible for us, with our intellectual refinements 
 and blunted senses, to rediscover the ancient 
 harmony which existed between thought and 
 sensation, between nature and man. As we are 
 no longer obliged to create language, we have 
 entirely lost a crowd of processes which tended 
 to its elaboration. But among the early races 
 there was a delicate tact, enabling them to seize 
 on those attributes which were capable of supply- 
 ing them with appellatives, the exquisite subtlety 
 of which we are unable any longer to conceive.* 
 They saw a thousand things at once, and indeed 
 their language-creating faculty mainly consisted 
 in a power of seizing upon relations. Our'very 
 civilisation has robbed us of this happy and 
 audacious power. Nature spoke more to them 
 than to us, or rather they found in themselves a 
 
 * "Augustus himself, in the possession of that power which 
 ruled the world, acknowledged that he could not make a new Latin 
 word." — Locke, iii. 2. S.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 69 
 
 secret echo which answered to all external voices, 
 and returned them in articulations — in words. 
 Hence those swift interchanges of meaning 
 which we, with our less flashing intelligence, are 
 almost unable to follow.* ' Who can seize again 
 those fugitive impressions of the naifs creators of 
 language in words which have undergone so 
 many changes, and which are so far from their 
 original acceptation ? Who can rediscover the 
 capricious paths which the imagination followed, 
 and the associations of ideas which guided it, in 
 that spontaneous work, wherein sometimes man, 
 sometimes nature, reunited the broken thread of 
 analogies, and wove their reciprocal actions into 
 an indissoluble unity ? ' 
 
 Wherever the faculty of creating appellations 
 is still required, we still find a capacity for its 
 exercise. For instance, it has been asserted that 
 " the day after an army has encamped in an 
 unknown country all the important or charac- 
 
 * Renan, p. 143. " Though the origin of most of our words is 
 forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained 
 currency, because for the moment it symbolised the world to the 
 speaker and the hearer. ... As the limestone of the Continent con- 
 sists of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules, so language is 
 made up of images and tropes, which now in their secondary use 
 have long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin." — Emerson, 
 E*s. on the Poet.
 
 70 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 teristic places have their names without any con- 
 vention having intervened." We find an analogous 
 case in the fact that the French and English, hy 
 common consent, called the Turks Bono Johnny ; 
 the exact reasons for such a nomenclature would 
 be perhaps difficult to determine, and who shall 
 say who first used or invented the term ? yet it 
 became current in a day or two. It is equally 
 difficult to trace the history and origin of various 
 popular phrases which every now and then have a 
 brief run in ordinary phraseology. 
 
 A still more remarkable exemplification that 
 the faculty of the original name-giver is not 
 wholly lost to mankind may be seen in the secret, 
 subtle, almost imperceptible, and sometimes 
 quite unconscious analogies which give currencj^ 
 to a common nickname. At schools I have often 
 known boys whose sobriquet was a vocable, in 
 itself apparently meaningless and incapable of 
 any circumstantial explanation, which was yet 
 universally adopted, and was adopted because it 
 presented some unintelligible appropriateness.* 
 
 * Take, for instance, the word "fal-lals," borrowed from the 
 burden of a song, and often used to describe female vanities. Does 
 not this word afford a curious analogy to the word "falbala," the 
 origin of which (to express similar articles) has occupied the 
 attention of distinguished philosophers ? It has been explained as 
 follows. It is said that a witty prince of the eighteenth century
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 71 
 
 A modern prince is called Plomb-plomb, and 
 known quite commonly by tbat designation : yet 
 there is no such word as Plomb-plomb in the 
 French language, and the very origin of the term 
 is unknown to the majority of the Prince's con- 
 temporaries. We may be quite sure, however, 
 thatthe name involves either a lively onomatopoeia 
 or a striking allusion.* 
 
 once entered an elegant shop, and determined to try to the utmost 
 the assurance of the (probably pretty) milliner. He therefore 
 asked for a falbala, inventing the oddest vocable he could think 
 of. With admirable but unconscious insight into the principle 
 of language, the undisturbed female at once brought him the 
 garniture de robe called volant, which ended in light floating 
 points. She instinctively caught the notion involved in flabella, 
 flammula, &c. — Nodier, p. 211. The story is told differently by 
 De Brosses, Form, Mich. ch. xvi. § 14. The word has excited 
 much discussion. Leibnitz connects it with f aid-plat, and 
 Hoffman with furbelow. Charma, p. 306. The murderer, Pierre 
 Riviere, invented the word ennepharer for the torture to which he 
 used, when a boy, to subject frogs ; and the word callbene for the 
 instrument which he constructed to kill birds. Charma, p. 66. 
 Du Merit notices the purely musical names which children 
 instinctively give to those who inspire them with strongly marked 
 feelings of love. " Rumpelstiltskin," the name of the imp in the 
 fairy tale, is a good instance of the reverse. 
 
 * It is mainly among the people, rather than with philosophers, 
 that the power of inventing names has lingered. Some write the 
 name Plonplon, and make it a familiar abbreviation of Napoleon ; 
 but accomplished Frenchmen give differing accounts of the word.
 
 72 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ONOMATOPOEIA.*' 
 "The sound must seem an echo to the sense." — Pope. 
 
 Since the human voice is at once a sound and 
 a sign, it was of course natural to take the sound 
 of the voice as. a sign of the sounds of nature.t 
 In short, to recall a sound by its echo in the voice 
 is as obviously natural a proceeding as to recall 
 an object to the memory by drawing the picture 
 of its form. In both cases we act upon the senses 
 by means of imitation ; and if the human race 
 had not been endued with the organs of hearing 
 doubtless a language for the eye would have been 
 invented, just as Philomela, when deprived of 
 her tongue, made known, by embroidery, her 
 
 * 'Ovo/xa Troieai. "OvofiaToirdia est dictio ad imitandum sonum 
 vocis conficta, ut cum dicimus hinnire equos, balare oves, stridere 
 valvas." Charis. iv. p. 245. Lersch, i. 129—232. The Latins 
 call it " fictio nominis." 
 
 + Renan, p. 136. We have already endeavoured to guard 
 against the misconception that language is in any sense a result of 
 imitation : a mere power of imitating the sounds of nature belongs 
 to animals as well as to man. — Heyse, s. 91, and supra ch. i.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 73 
 
 miserable tale. A word formed on the principle of 
 imitation, is said to be formed by onomatopoeia, 
 and although the traces of such an origin are 
 rapidly lost, yet amid the almost infinite modifi- 
 cations of which a few roots are capable, it is 
 astonishing how vast a number of words may be 
 ultimately deduced from a single onomatopoeic 
 sound. 
 
 How universal and instinctive the procedure 
 is, may be observed among infants and savages. 
 
 In the nursery the onomatopcean sounds moo, 
 baa, bow-wow, &c, are the steps by which the 
 child passes gradually to the conception of cow, 
 lamb, and dog. So in Swiss* baagen is to 
 bleat, and baageli (in nursery language), a sheep. 
 The very name cow, Germ, huh, Sansks. gao, has 
 a similar origin, as (3ovs, bos, ox, Sansks. uxan, 
 probably has also. There is little doubt that the 
 word, cat (Germ, katze), is an imitation of the 
 sound made by a cat spitting, which is one of the 
 most peculiar characteristics of the feline race. 
 It must, however, be admitted that there is no 
 sibilant in " kater." We have all heard the story 
 
 * Wedgwood's Ehjm. Diet. p. v. It is necessary to be cautious, 
 of course, in deducing the processes of language from the observa- 
 tion of children. See Heyse, s. 47. The word moo-cow is a 
 mixture of pure onomatopoeia, and onomatopoeia after it has 
 become conventional.
 
 74 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 of the Englishman in China, who, wishing to 
 know the contents of a dish which was lying 
 before him, said inquiringly, " Quack, quack ? " 
 and received in answer, the word, " bow-wow ! " 
 These two imitations served all the purposes of a 
 more lengthened conversation. It was probably, 
 by a strictly analogous process, that an immense 
 multitude of such roots was primitively formed. 
 
 Again, it is impossible to look over any list of 
 words collected from the language of a savage 
 community without recognising the extensive use 
 of the same method.* The repetition of syllables 
 is an almost certain sign of its working. Thus, 
 Ai-ai is an imitation of the cry of the sloth, and 
 tuco-tuco is the name of a small rodent in Buenos 
 Ayres. Mr. Longfellow has supplied us with 
 many such words from the languages of North 
 America, in his poem of " Hiawatha," — as Kah- 
 gahgee, the raven ; Minnehaha laughing-water, 
 &c. " In uncivilised languages,* the conscious- 
 ness of the imitative character of certain words is 
 sometimes demonstrated by their composition 
 with verbs,t like say or do, to signify making a 
 noise like that represented by the word in ques- 
 tion. Thus, in Galla, from djeda, to say, or goda, 
 
 * See the lists of such vocabularies in the Transactions of the 
 Philol. Soc. t Wedgwood, p. v.
 
 THE OEIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 75 
 
 to make or do, are formed cacak-djeda, to crack ; 
 trrr-djeda, to chirp ; dadada-djeda, to beat; djam- 
 djam-goda, to champ." 
 
 We do not think that the extent to which ono- 
 matopoeia may be proved to be an instrument of 
 language has been sufficiently admitted. It was the 
 most natural starting-point for the intelligence on 
 its path towards expression. A nascent language 
 enriches itself by ceaseless imitations of ele- 
 mentary sounds, animal cries, and the noises 
 produced by mechanical contrivances, and we 
 shall trace hereafter the innumerable applications 
 in which such terms can be at once employed. 
 Some writers even go so far as to assert that 
 this is the only original principle of language, 
 and that we even learned our first consonant from 
 the bleating of the sheep, for which reason, 
 according to Pierius Valerianus, a lamb was the 
 hieroglyphical emblem of the verb ! We have 
 already rejected this extension of the theory; but, 
 at the same time, we' can readily believe the 
 assertion, that the peculiarities of articulation in 
 certain countries may be not only modified, but 
 even originated by the existence of remarkable 
 natural sounds in the countries where these pecu- 
 liarities occur. It has been said, for instance, 
 " that in some of the American languages, there
 
 76 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 are strident consonants evidently formed from 
 the hiss of certain serpents unknown in our 
 temperate regions, and that the click of the 
 Hottentot dialects recalls a species of cry peculiar 
 to the tigers which ran que." The latter word is 
 an onomatopoeian, probahly borrowed by Buffon 
 from the Philomela of Albus Ovidius Juventinus, 
 in which occurs the line : — 
 
 "Tigrides indomitse rancant* rughintque leones." 
 
 What this peculiar sound may be, we do not 
 know, but can hardly reconcile this suggestion of 
 Nodier with the statement, that the name,! Hott- 
 en-tot is itself onoinatopoeian, having been given 
 by the first Dutch settlers, because this click 
 would sound to a stranger like a perpetual 
 repetition of the S3 r llables Itot and tot. It is a 
 curious fact that Palamedes is said to have learnt, 
 from the noise of cranes, the four letters which 
 he added to the Greek alphabet ; and it is certainly 
 a confirmation of these remarks, that although no 
 language possesses in its alphabet a power of 
 expressing every possible articulation, yet no 
 nation's language is quite deficient in the power 
 
 * L. 45. " Propriuin tigridis, a sono. Alii leg. raucant." — 
 Forcellini, Lex. 
 
 t Wedgwood, p. vi. The name is not native probably, for the 
 native tribe-names mostly end in qua j as Griqua, Namaqua, &c.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 77 
 
 of expressing, by imitation, the cries of its indi- 
 genous animals. 
 
 It is wonderful that the knowledge and obser- 
 vation of facts like these did not lead the philo- 
 logists of antiquity to a solution of their disputes 
 about the natural or conventional origin of 
 languages. The age of Psammetichus evinced 
 its interest in the question, and if it had been 
 content to observe its own experiment, instead of 
 making it the prop to a " foregone conclusion," 
 philosophers might have agreed, long ago, in 
 believing, that man was assisted by nature in the 
 development of his implanted powers, and that, 
 like every infant of his race, he framed into living 
 speech the sounds by which his senses were first 
 impressed.* When the first man gave names to 
 the animals, which, as we have already seen, he 
 was enabled to do by the reasonable use of his 
 own faculties, and not at the dictation of a voice 
 from heaven, he could not have been guided by 
 any principle so obvious, so easy, or so appro- 
 priate as an artistic reproduction of the sounds 
 which they uttered. 
 
 But how, it may be asked, is the voice capable 
 
 * Nodier, p. 79 seq. Dr. Pickering quotes an account of the 
 original people of Malay, in which it is said that "their language is 
 not understood by any one : they lisp their words, the sound of 
 tchich is like the noise of birds." {Races of Man. Bohn ed. p. 305.)
 
 78 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 of rendering even the feeblest echo of all the 
 myriad utterances of the earth and air, the voices 
 of the desert and mountain, — 
 
 " The echoes of illimitable forests, 
 The murmur of unfathomable seas" ? 
 
 We answer that the imitation is not, and does 
 not profess to be a dull, dead, passive echo of 
 the sound, but of the impression produced by it 
 upon the sentient being; it is not a mere sponta- 
 neous repercussion of the perception received ; 
 but a repercussion modified organically by the 
 configurations of the mouth, and ideally by the 
 nature of the analogy perceived between the 
 sound and the object it expressed. " The organs 
 of that wonderful musical instrument, the mouth, 
 are the throat, the palate, the tongue, the teeth, 
 the lips.* This then is the subjective organon of 
 language, the physiological vehicle for that proto- 
 plastic art, speech, which combines architecture 
 and music, the plastic and the picturesque. 
 Johannes Miiller has developed this physiologi- 
 
 * Bunsen-, Outlines, ii. 82. The poet Shelley implied the same 
 thought in A lastor : 
 
 " I wait breath, Great Parent, that my song 
 May modulate with motions of the air, 
 And murmurs of the forest and the sea, 
 And voice of living beings, and woven hymns 
 Of night and day, and the deep heart of man."
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 79 
 
 cally, Sir John Herscbell acousticall}\" The 
 mere power of imitation would not have helped 
 mankind a single step towards language any more 
 than it has helped the parrot or the jay,* had it 
 not been for the infinitely nobler faculty which 
 enabled us to perceive the meaning of the sounds 
 we uttered, and to use them as the signs of our 
 inward conceptions, — a faculty which has im- 
 planted in language its principle of development, 
 and which constitutes the distinction between the 
 chatterings of a jackdaw and the eloquence of 
 a man. 
 
 This alone is a clear proof, if proof were wanted, 
 that language is the result of intelligence, as well 
 as of instinct ; and that the human reason was not 
 a gradual acquisition of a once brutish race. 
 
 But though the power of imitation by the voice 
 of the sounds of the unintelligent creation be 
 small in comparison with those other powers 
 which constitute our pre-eminence, yet how per- 
 fect is that gift in itself, — how wondrous the 
 organism by which it is effected ! The mouth is 
 admirably framed for intelligent and harmonious 
 utterance ; it is at once an organ, and a flute, — a 
 trumpet and a harp. Its sublime construction 
 will make it the eternal despair of mechanicians, 
 * Locke on the Human Understanding, iii. i. § 1, 2.
 
 80 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 and the songs which it can modulate, are superior 
 to all the melodies of artificial music. The intel- 
 ligence of man enables him alone to use this 
 glorious instrument, as God intended it to be 
 used. " II avait," says M. Nodier, " dans ses 
 poumons un souniet intelligent et sensible, dans 
 ses levres un limbe epanoui, mobile, extensible, 
 retractile, qui jette le son, qui le modifie, qui le 
 renforce, qui l'assouplit, qui le contraint, qui le 
 voile, qui l'eteint ; dans sa langue un marteau 
 souple, flexible, onduleux, qui se replit, qui 
 s'accourcit, qui s'etend ; qui se meut, et qui s'en- 
 terpose entre ses valves, selon qu'il convient 
 retenir ou d'epancher la voix, qui attache ses 
 touches avec aprete ou qui les effleure avec mol- 
 lesse ; dans ses dents un clavier ferme, aigu, stri- 
 dent; a son palais un t}onpan grave et sonore : 
 luxe inutile pourtant, s'il n'avait pas eu la pensee ; 
 et celui qui a fait ce qui est n'a jamais rien fait 
 d'inutile. — L'homme parla parce qu'il pensait." 
 
 The plain elementary sounds of which the 
 human voice is capable are about twenty; and 
 yet it has been calculated by the mathematician 
 Tacquet, that one thousand million writers, in 
 one thousand million years, could not write out 
 all the combinations of the twenty-four letters of 
 the alphabet, if each of them were daily to write
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 81 
 
 out forty pages of them, of which each page 
 should contain different orders of the twenty - 
 four letters. Of course, a very small number only 
 of these permutations are at all required for every 
 purpose of life. " And thus it is," says the inge- 
 nious author of * Hermes, "that to principles 
 apparently so trivial as about twenty plain 
 elementary sounds, we owe that variety of articu- 
 late voices, which have been sufficient to explain 
 the sentiments of so innumerable a multitude, as 
 all the present and past generations of men." 
 
 But it may be objected that if we admit such 
 latitude to the use of onomatopoeia in the forma- 
 tion of language, we should find among all lan- 
 guages a much greater identity than actually 
 exists in the terms expressive of physical facts. 
 This by no means follows. We have already 
 seen that words express the relations of things, 
 and the relations of things are almost infinite, 
 and especially must they have been so to the 
 delicate senses of the youthful world. Let us 
 take the instance of the thunder : the impression 
 produced by it is by no means single and distinct. 
 To one man it ma}' appear like a dull rumble, to 
 another like a sudden crackling explosion, and to 
 a third as a breaking forth of flashing light. 
 
 * Harris's Hermes, bk. ii. cb. 2, 3rd ed. p. 325. 
 
 G
 
 S2 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 Hence come a multitude of names. Adelung 
 professed to have collected 353 imitative appel- 
 lations from the European languages alone ; and 
 it is not difficult to see that a similar* principle 
 was at Avork in the Chinese ley (pronounced ?*ey), 
 the Greenland kallak, and the Mexican tlatlatnitzel. 
 Similarly, " the explosion of a gun which an Eng- 
 lish hoy imitates by the exclamation Bang-fire, is 
 represented in French by Pouf! The neighing 
 of a horse is expressed by the French hennir ; 
 Italian, nitrire ; Spanish, rinchar, relinchar ; 
 German, wiehern ; Swedish, wrena, ivrenska ; 
 Dutch, runniken, ginniken, brieschen, words in 
 which it is difficult to see a glimpse of resem- 
 blance, although we can hardly doubt that they 
 all take their rise in the attempt at direct! repre- 
 
 * Kenan, p. 139, quoting Adelung, Mithrid. i. p. xiv. Grimm, 
 Tiber die Namen des Donners. (Berlin, 1855.) If the words 
 "tonitru," "donner," &c, be not originally onornatopceian, as some 
 assert (who derive them from tan, Gr. relveiv), they became so 
 from a feeling of the need that they should be. — Heyse, s. 93. 
 
 + Wedgwood, p. 5. The word "pouf" is also used of falling 
 bodies, as in the Macaronic verse, "De brancha in brancham 
 degringolat atque facit 'jpow/.' " It would be interesting to trace 
 the causes for the divergencies in sound of obvious onornatopceian 
 words in various languages : e.g. it is clear that "ding-dong" 
 could only be used to denote the sound of a bell in a country 
 possessing large heavy bells, and therefore churches. The sound Ml 
 or bell (Cf. tiret(Hnabwlum), expressive of a clear sharp tinkle, would 
 naturally be used by a people, like the Galla, only accustomed
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 83 
 
 sentation of the same sound." In the same way. 
 no one will deny that " ding-dong," and the word 
 " bilbil," to ring, in the Galla language, are 
 onomatopceians to represent the sound of a bell, 
 and yet the two have hardly an element in 
 common. 
 
 It has been noticed that birds are often named 
 on this principle ; as night-jar, whip-poor-will, 
 cock, cuckoo, crow, crane, crake, quail, curlew, 
 jay, chough, owl, turtle, &c. ; and where the bird 
 has one very marked cry we find a great similarity 
 in the names by which it is known. Take for 
 instance the peewit* Scandinavian pee-weip, tee- 
 iclioap ; French, dishuit ; Dutch, kieicit; Ger- 
 man, kiebitz ; Swedish, kowipa. But we should 
 not expect this to be the case when a bird has a 
 great variety of different sounds. The nightin- 
 gale, according to Bechstein, has twenty distinct 
 articulations, and it is therefore not surprising 
 that even in the European languages it is known 
 under widely different names. And besides 
 names which are derived from its song {e.g. 
 bulbul), it might be called from some other attri- 
 
 to the small bells sold as trinkets by foreign traders. Among 
 the Suaheli languages (out of five words given in Krapf's vocabu- 
 lary), no word for a bell at all resembles the sound. I am indebted 
 to my friend, Mr. Garnett, for these remarks, as well as for other 
 • ingenious suggestions. * Wedgwood, Etymol. Diet. 
 
 g 2
 
 84 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 bute entirely distinct from this, as perhaps in 
 the Latin name luscinia ; although, if this be the 
 case, it is interesting to see how imitation asserts 
 its prerogative in the modern names* usig- 
 nuolo (Italian), rvysefwl (Spanish), rossignol 
 (French), rousinol (Portuguese), which are pro- 
 bably corruptions of the diminutive lusciniola, 
 used by Plautus. 
 
 In some cases an onomatopceian root is so na- 
 tural as to run through all families of languages ; 
 e. g. the root lh or Ik to imitate the sound and 
 action of licking, as Hebrew ^0^ ; Arabic, laliika ; 
 Syriac, lah ; Aei'xw, lingo, ligurio, lingua, leccare, 
 lechen, lecher; it is the same with the roots grf 
 to express gripping, kr to express crying, and 
 many others. The practice is, however (as 
 
 * Nodier, p. 41. Even when the sound is no guide, different 
 characteristics are chosen by different nations to furnish a name. 
 The names "fledermaus," "flittermouse" are suggested like 
 " chauve souris," by the structure of the bat; vvKreph and 
 vespertilio by its habits ; if the differentia of the animal be very 
 marked, its name will probably be derived from it in all languages, 
 as noctiluca, glow-vfovm, lucciolato, ver luisant, &c. ; yet even 
 then not in all, as Johannis-wurm. Compare again <reitwrvy]s, 
 motacilla, cutretta, wagtail, with Bachstelze, hoche-queue, &c. If 
 the bird be rare, it is much more likely to have numerous names, 
 because the observation of each casual observer as to its chief 
 attribute is not liable to so much revision. Take as an instance 
 the night-jar, which is also called fern-owl, churn-owl, goat-sucker, 
 •n heel-bird, dorhawk, &c. See, too, Garnett's Essays, pp. 88, 89.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. S3 
 
 we have already remarked), far more prominent 
 in the Semitic than in the Indo-European family, 
 and this is the cause of the extraordinaiy richness 
 of synonyms in Hebrew and Arabic for the ex- 
 pression of natural objects. It is said that in 
 Arabic there are 500 names for the lion, 200 for 
 the serpent, more than eight}' for honey, 400 for 
 sorrow, and (what is quite incredible unless 
 every periphrasis be counted a name) no less 
 than 1,000 for a sword. M. de Hammer, an un- 
 impeachable authority, has, in a little treatise on 
 the subject, counted also 5,744 words relating to 
 the camel. The ancient Saxon is said to have 
 had fifteen words for the sea ; and if we allowed 
 merely poetical expressions like " the blue," we 
 might say the same of modern English. 
 
 Wide dialectic variety naturally results from a 
 nomadic life ; and it is easy to see how this 
 extraordinary exuberance of primitive language, 
 and the uncontrolled rapidity with which it exer- 
 cised its powers of nomenclature, would tend, 
 while writing and literature were as yet un- 
 known, to make mutually unintelligible the lan- 
 guage of different tribes.* This confusion of 
 
 * "The physiognomy, however, of a group of languages remains 
 unaffected by the divergency of their vocabularies ; e.g. almost 
 every word in the Ethiopic family of languages contains a liquid
 
 86 AX ESSAY ON 
 
 speech would, of course, be the most powerful 
 impediment in the course of ambition, and 
 would tend to defeat the attempts to construct 
 and perpetuate a universal empire. It may have 
 been the providential agent to assert for the 
 human race, " a nobler destiny than to become 
 the footstool of a few families." This is strik- 
 ingly shadowed forth in the Scripture narrative 
 of the builders of Babel, which many competent 
 authorities have considered as applicable to only 
 a single family of nations, and have regarded in 
 the light rather of " a sublime emblem, than of a 
 material verity." 
 
 The confusion of tongues is not represented 
 in Scripture as a punishment,* but as the provi- 
 dential prevention of an arrogant attempt to 
 establish among mankind a spurious centre of 
 unity. It seems to have frustrated the lawless 
 thirst for power which actuated the tribe of Nim- 
 rod.f But even if regarded as a punishment, 
 
 generally in connection 'with a mute as its most prominent and 
 essential feature."— R. G. 
 
 * It is represented as a punishment in some legends, as in the 
 fragment of Abydenus, &c, quoted by Euseb. Prop. Ev. ix. 14. 
 Joseph. Antt. i. iv. 3. Plat. Polit. p. 2/2. Plin. vii. 1. xi. 112. 
 But see Abbt's Dissertation, " Confusionem Unguarum non fuisse 
 j'icenam humano generi vijtictam." Hal. 1758. 
 
 T Kal TrepiiffTa Se /car' v\tyov (Is TvpavviSa ra irpayuara. — 
 Joseph. Antt. i. iv. 2,
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. S, 
 
 God's punishments are but blessings in disguise. 
 The dispersion of nations has acted as a stimu- 
 lant to the powers of humanity, and has been 
 the direct cause of a beneficial variety in thought 
 and action ; and in the same way the diversity of 
 languages has proved to be (as we shall see here- 
 after) an indisputable advantage, by adding fresh 
 lustre continually to those conceptions which by 
 long habit become pale and dim. Yet this dis- 
 persion and diversity is but the accident of a 
 fallen state, and in the renovated earth — (though 
 it can never be while nations are in their present 
 condition) — all men will perhaps speak the same 
 perfect* universal speech. 
 
 There are two totally distinct points from 
 which an imitative root can take its origin. The 
 first is from an artistic reproduction of the sounds 
 of the outer world ; the second is from the ex- 
 pressions of fear or anger, of disgust or joy, 
 which the impression of any event or spectacle 
 may call forth in the human being. The first of 
 these elements is the onomatopoeic ; the second, 
 the interjectional. These two sources have not 
 been kept sufficiently clear and distinct, and the 
 latter especially has been by many philologists 
 entirely overlooked. We will proceed to make 
 
 * 1 Cor. xiii. 8 ; Rev. vii. 9 ; Zach. viii. 23 ; Zeph. 9, &c.
 
 88 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 some remarks on both. The instances which we 
 shall select might be almost indefinitely extended, 
 and even were they less numerous we might 
 perhaps be allowed to use the words of President 
 de Brosses, " La preuve connue d'un grand 
 nombre de mots d'une espece doit etablir une 
 precepte generale sur les autres mots de meme 
 espece, a, l'origine desquels on ne peut plus 
 remonter." 
 
 As instances of the words which have arisen 
 from the interjectional element, i. e. from the 
 sounds whereby we express natural emotions, we 
 may mention the large group of words that spring 
 from the root "ach," ah! oh! as utterances of 
 pain, as a^os, dxeco, achen, ache; or from the 
 sound of groaning, as ves, ivelie, woe, wail ; or 
 from an expression of disgust, as ymtcrc (Fr. 
 puer), foul, fulsome ; or from smacking the lips 
 with pleasure, as yXvKvs, didcis, geschmack, &c. 
 This latter class is very widely extended, even 
 in the Semitic languages, as we have already 
 shown in the case of the root Ik (see p. 84). 
 From the expression of disgust and fear, we get 
 awe, ugly, aydofxai, ayaCo\xai and their cognates ; 
 from shuddering, the roots of <£piWa>, bristle, 
 herisser, &c. ; from the first sounds of infancj-, we 
 get babe, bambino, babble, and many more ; from
 
 THE ORIGIN' OF LANGUAGE. 89 
 
 sounds of anger, " huff," and others ; lastly, from 
 " prut," a sound of arrogance, we get the word 
 "proud," "pride," as in German, " trotzig" 
 haughty, from " trotz,"* an interjection of defiance 
 and contenrpt. 
 
 The other class of onomatopoeias is far more 
 extensive, and embraces the widest possible range 
 of inanimate sounds. They may be ranged 
 under the following heads ; and although the 
 examples are all taken from the tEnglish lan- 
 guage, they might be paralleled in almost any 
 other. 
 
 1. Animal sounds, as quack, cackle, roar, 
 neigh, whinny, bellow, mew, pur, croak, caw, 
 chatter, bark, j'elp, &c. 
 
 2. Inarticulate human sounds, as laugh, cough, 
 sob, sigh, moan, shriek, yawn, whoop, weep, &c. 
 
 3. Collision of hard bodies, represented by p, 
 t, k ; as clap, rap, tap, flap, slap, rat-tat, &c. 
 
 4. Collision of softer bodies, represented by b, 
 d, g; as dab, dub, bob, thud, dub-a-dub, &c. 
 
 * " Trotz alle dem," is Freiligrath's rendering of Burns' "for 
 a' that." I may remark here, that many of these instances are 
 borrowed from Jlr. Wedgwood's Etymol. Dictionary, of which the 
 first part only is yet printed. This work, although not free from 
 errors, has the merit of having put forward some very clear and 
 original views on this subject. 
 
 t Abridged from Mr. Wedgwood in the Phil. Transac. ii. US.
 
 90 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 5. Motion through the air, represented by z, 
 &c. ; as whizz, buzz, sough, &c. 
 
 6. Kesonance, represented by m, n, Sec. ; as 
 clang, knell, ring, twang, clang, din, &e. 
 
 7. Motion of liquids, &c, represented by sibi- 
 lants, as clash, splash, plash, dash, swash, &c. 
 
 These are but specimens of the wide extent of 
 these words in a language by no means the most 
 remarkable for its adoption of onomatopoeia. 
 There are even broad general laws by which the 
 various degrees of intensity in sound are ex- 
 pressed by the modification of vowels. Thus, 
 high notes are represented by i, low broad sounds 
 by a, and the change of a or o to i has the effect 
 of diminution, as we see by comparing the words 
 clap, clip, clank, clink, pock, peck, cat, kitten, 
 foal, filly, tramp, trip, nob, nipple, &e. Another 
 way of diminishing intensity is to soften a final 
 letter, as in tug, tow, drag, draw, swagger, sway, 
 stagger, stay, &c. Reduplication of syllables is a 
 mode of expressing continuance, as in murmur, 
 &c, and this effect is also produced by the addi- 
 tion of r and 1, as in grab, grapple, wrest, wrestle, 
 crack, crackle, dab, dabble, &c. 
 
 It is easy to see from the above examples that 
 the onomatopoeia and the interjection are the 
 points from which language has developed itself.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 91 
 
 and from which "two separate lines of concurrent 
 and* simultaneous evolution have proceeded." 
 The manner in which the various parts of speech 
 grew out of these elements, and which of them 
 may be supposed to be logically or actually an- 
 terior to the rest, is a wide and difficult subject 
 of inquiry on which much uncertainty must 
 necessarily prevail, and with which we are here 
 unconcerned. 
 
 There is no doubt that, for some reason or 
 other, many of our English onomatopceians are 
 regarded as in some degree beneath the dignity 
 of words, and are supposed to partake of the 
 nature of vulgarity.! Yet with great inconsis- 
 tency the places in which poets have been most 
 successful in producing " an echo of the sound to 
 the sense" are generally regarded with especial 
 favour. The classic poets used this ornament 
 with the most fastidious good taste. Even the 
 ancients had learned to admire the rhyming 
 
 * Latham on the Engl. Lang. 4th ed. p. xlix. Heyse, System, 
 s. 73 fg. 
 
 t Traces of this feeling are found in Quinctilian (Tnstt. Orr. i. 5). 
 " Sed minime nobis concessa est bvofxaro-rroda. . . . Jamne hinnire 
 et b:ilare fortiter diceremus, nisi judicio vetustatis niterentur?" 
 See, too, viii. 6. Other passages quoted by Lersch (Sprachphilo- 
 sophie, i. s. 130), are Varro (L. L. v. p. 69) ; Dioined. iii. p. 453, 
 &c. Plato calls it airciicacrixa, and the Grammarians anb tfx ovs -
 
 92 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 termination by which Homer faintly recalls the 
 humming of the summer swarms, in the lines — 
 
 'Hi;t6 tOvea iroAAa p.(Atffffda)V aBtvdwv 
 •niTprjs he y\a(pvpr)s ael veov (pxofJ.fvd.ciii/ : 
 
 and yet they do not surpass the exquisite verses 
 of a living poet : — 
 
 Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn ; 
 The moan of doves in immemorial elms, 
 And murmur of innumerable bees. 
 
 Again, what can be more vivid than the marvel- 
 lous way in which Homer recalls the snapping of 
 a shattered sword, in — 
 
 TpixBl re Kal rerpaxdl b~iaTpv<t>ev : 
 
 which is incomparably superior to the much- 
 admired hemistich of Racine, " L'essieu crie et 
 se rompt." Both Homer and Virgil have imi- 
 tated the rapid clatter of horses' hoofs with equal 
 felicity : — 
 
 TloWd 5' dvavra, Karavra, irdpavrd T€ SSxfud r 1)\Qov : 
 Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum : 
 
 and the verse* in which Dubartas endeavours to 
 
 * ' ' La gentile alouette avec son tire lire, 
 Tire Tire aux fachez, et tire-lirant tire 
 Vers la route du ciel : puis son vol vers ce lieu 
 Tire, et desire dire a dieu Dieu, a dieu Dieu." 
 The verse seems to me too laboured and unnatural.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 93 
 
 recal the manner in which the lark " shoots up 
 and shrills in nickering gyres," has met with 
 numberless admirers. 
 
 The greatest of our modern poets, Mr. Tenny- 
 son, has perhaps been more unsparing and more 
 successful in his use of this figure than any of 
 his predecessors, and a few passages will show 
 that onomatopoeia judiciously used is capable of 
 the noblest application. Take, for instance, the 
 leap of a cataract, in — 
 
 Where the river sloped 
 To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks 
 Its breadth of thunder ; 
 
 or the shock of a melee, in — 
 
 The storm 
 Of galloping hoofs bare on the ridge of spears 
 And riders front to front, until they closed 
 In conflict with the crash of shivering points 
 And thunder. . . . 
 
 And all the plain — brand, mace, and shaft, and shield 
 Shock'd, like an iron-clanging anvil banged 
 With hammers ; 
 
 or the booming of the sea, in — 
 
 Koar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves ; 
 
 or, finally, what can be more perfect than the 
 graphic power in which the picture of a fleet of 
 glass wrecked on a reef of gold is called before
 
 94 AX ESSAY OX 
 
 us by the perfect adaptation of sound to sense, 
 in the lines — 
 
 For the fleet drew near, 
 Touched, clinked, and clashed, and vanished. 
 
 Yet in all these cases we believe that it is to the 
 language and not to the poet that the main credit 
 is due. The language is the perfect instrument, 
 and in the poet's hands it is used with perfect 
 power ; but were it not for the original perfection 
 of his instrument he would be unable to produce 
 such rich and varied results ; he would be unable 
 to place the picture before the eye by bringing 
 into play that swift and subtle law of association 
 whereby a reproduction of the sounds at once 
 recalls to the inner eye the images or circum- 
 stances with which they are connected. In every 
 case the consummate art and skill of the writer 
 consists simply in choosing the proper words for 
 the thought which he wishes to express, which 
 words are always the simplest. Appropriate* 
 language is and always must be the most effec- 
 tive, and when a writer clearly goes out of his 
 
 * ' ' Many at least of the celebrated passages that are cited as 
 imitative in sound, were, on the one hand, not the result of 
 accident, nor yet on tbe other hand of study ; but the idea (?) in 
 the author's mind spontaneously suggested appropriate sounds." — 
 Archbp. Whately's Rhetoric, iii. s. 2.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 95 
 
 icay to produce an effect lie generally loses his 
 effectiveness by abandoning simplicity. How 
 much onomatopoeia degenerates in a less skilful 
 and artistic hand we might see in many instances, 
 were not the selection of them an invidious task. 
 In short, an exquisite and instinctive taste can 
 only decide on the extent to which this figure 
 may be consciously used. We feel that Yirgil 
 was right in rejecting Ennius's 
 
 At tuba terribili sonitu taratantara dicit, 
 
 as the imitation of a trumpet-blast ; and none but 
 a comic poet (like Swift) would use rub-a-dub, 
 dub-a-dub in English to express the beating of a 
 drum : and yet who was ever otherwise than 
 delighted with the word TijveWa, in which Archi- 
 lochus imitated the twang of a harp-string, and 
 which the Greeks used ever afterwards as an 
 expression of joyous triumph ? Again, none but 
 a comedian could have ventured on so direct an 
 imitation of sounds as /3peKeKeKe'£ ko&£ koo.£, and yet 
 no one could object to the pretty line in which 
 Ovid tries to produce the same impression : — 
 
 Quamquam sunt sub aqud, sub aqud maledicere tentant. 
 
 The misuse of language fails to produce the 
 echo which its simple and natural use would not
 
 D6 an essay on 
 
 have failed to awake. In short, it is in many 
 cases impossible to use language which shall be 
 at once specific and appropriate without being 
 forced to adopt imitative words. There is no 
 st} T le required in order to speak of the booming 
 of the cannon, the twang of the bowstring, the 
 hurtling of the arrow, the tolling or pealing of 
 the bell, the rolling or throbbing of the drum, 
 the sough or whisper of the breeze, because in 
 each case the proper word is ready for us at 
 once in the language which we speak, and if 
 we are to speak naturally we can use no other. 
 The harmonies of language arise mainly from 
 this power of imitation, and a sensuous language 
 is always energetic, poetic, passionate.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 97 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF ROOTS. 
 
 Language is like the minim immortal among the infusoria, 
 which keeps splitting itself into halves. — Coleridge. 
 
 The most brilliant of modern philosophers, M. 
 Victor Cousin, in endeavouring to refute the 
 conclusion of Locke that all words draw their 
 first origin from sensible ideas, adduces the pro- 
 noun " I " and the verb " to be " as words which 
 are primitive, indecomposible, and irreducible in 
 every language with which he is acquainted — as 
 words which are pure signs, representing nothing 
 whatever except the meaning conventionally at- 
 tached to them, and having no connection with 
 sensible ideas. 
 
 Whatever may become of M. Cousin's general 
 proposition, the instances which he has chosen 
 to support it are very unfortunate, for it may be 
 clearly proved that these words, abstract as they 
 may appear, are yet derived from sensible images. 
 An examination of them will therefore help us to 
 gain a little insight into the origin of language,
 
 98 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 and perhaps strengthen our suspicion that even 
 the most subjective words, which merely intimate 
 intellectual relations, even the words which ex- 
 press the essential categories, may be ultimately 
 proved to have a metaphorical and not a psycho- 
 logical origin. Such a conviction will by no 
 means impair the dignity of language, or cast a 
 slur on the majesty of thought; for if the entire 
 lexicon of every language be capable of being 
 reduced to a number of sensational roots, the no 
 less important element of Grammar always re- 
 mains as the indisputable result of the pure 
 reason. And not only so, but even the possi- 
 bility of accepting imitative roots as signs of the 
 thing imitated, supposes (as M. Maine * de Biran 
 acutely observes) the pre-existence of an activity 
 superior to sensation, whereby the thinking 
 being places himself outside the circle of im- 
 pressions and images in order to signify and note 
 them. 
 
 It might be supposed that the word by which 
 a man characterises himself in relation to his 
 own consciousness would be of a very mysterious 
 
 * Essai sur las fondements de psychologie. The same psycho- 
 logist in his Essay on the Origin of Language says of those who 
 maintain a revealed language, that they give us " comme article 
 de foi une hypothese arbitraire et amphibologique." — (Euvres 
 Ined.de Maine de Biran, iii. pp. 229 — 278.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 99 
 
 and abstract character, because it must express 
 the notion of individuality, which might be re- 
 garded as a very primary intuition. This, how- 
 ever, is far from being the case. Man regarded 
 himself as an object before he learnt to regard 
 himself as a subject, and hence " the objective 
 cases of the personal as well as of the other pro- 
 nouns are always older than the subjective," and 
 the Sanskrit mam, ma (Greek fie, Latin me) is 
 earlier than aham (eyojy, and ego). We might 
 have conjectured this from the fact already 
 noticed, that children learn to speak of them- 
 selves in the third person, i. e. regard themselves 
 as objects long before they acquire the power of 
 representing their material selves as the instru- 
 ment of an abstract entity. A child* does not 
 attain to the free use of the pronoun " I " until 
 the acquisition of formal grammar outstrips the 
 psychological growth. And the same takes place 
 with other personal pronouns. Man's primary 
 consciousness of his own existence is nearly 
 simultaneous with the belief that he is some- 
 thing separate from the not-me, the external 
 world. But at first he would only regard this 
 external world as an immense inseparable phe- 
 
 * See some admirable remarks to this effect in Mr. F. Whalley 
 Harper's excellent book on the Power of Greek Tenses. 
 
 n 2
 
 100 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 nomenon, and it would be some time before be 
 could " invest tbe * not-me with tbe powers of 
 agency and will whicb we experience in our- 
 selves." 
 
 But wbetber tbe conception of individuality be 
 regarded as coming early or late, so far is tbe 
 pronoun " I " from involving any sublime intrinsic 
 meaning, tbat it was originally a demonstrative 
 monos3 T llable, indicative of a particular position. 
 "In fact," says Dr. Donaldson, "tbe primitive 
 pronouns must bave been very simple words, for 
 tbe first and easiest articulations would naturally 
 be adopted to express tbe primary intuition of 
 space. Tbese little vocables denote only tbe 
 immediate relations of locality. It is reasonable 
 to suppose tbat tbe primitive pronouns would be 
 designations of here and there, of tbe subject and 
 object as contrasted and opposed to one anotber. 
 As soon as language becomes a medium of com- 
 munication between two speaking persons, a 
 threefold distinction at once arises between the 
 here or subject, tbe there or object, and the per- 
 son spoken to or considered as a subject in him- 
 self, though an object in regard to tbe speaker." 
 In other words, there are " three t primitive rela- 
 
 * Donaldson's New Cratyhis, p. 220, 4th ed. 
 t Donaldson's Greek Grammar, s. 67—79.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 101 
 
 tions of position : here, near to here, and there, 
 or juxtaposition, proximity, and distance. The 
 three primitive articulations which are used (in 
 Greek) to express these three relations of posi- 
 tion, are the three primitive tenues, IT, 9, T, 
 pronounced pa, qua, ta, which we shall call the 
 first, second, and third pronominal elements. 
 The first pronominal element denoting juxta- 
 position, or here, is used to express (a) the first 
 personal pronoun ; (b) the first numeral ; (c) the 
 point of departure in motion. The second pro- 
 nominal element denoting proximity, or near to 
 the here, is used to express (a) the second per- 
 sonal pronoun ; (b) the relative pronoun ; (c) the 
 reflexive pronoun. The third pronominal ele- 
 ment, denoting distance, is used to express (a) the 
 third personal pronoun ; (b) negation ; (c) separa- 
 tion." * Thus, then, we find that even so meta- 
 physical a conception as that of individuality is 
 only expressed by an elementary word implying 
 locality. 
 
 "We see, therefore, that M. Cousin is mistaken 
 in supposing that the pronouns at any rate 
 were non-sensational in their origin, arising as 
 they do from the very earliest and simplest of all 
 
 * For the development and more clear enunciation of these 
 views, we must refer to the works quoted.
 
 102 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 sensations. And it is, perhaps, still more surpris- 
 ing to find that a similar origin can be traced even 
 in the numerals, which involved the very triumph 
 of abstraction ; for, in using a numeral, " we strip 
 things of all their sensible properties,* and con- 
 sider them as merely relations of number, as 
 members of a series, as perfectly general rela- 
 tions of place." And yet abstract as they are, 
 and, absolutely as we might suppose them to be 
 removed from concrete objects of sense, it is a 
 matter of certainty that their genesis can be traced. 
 About the general result few philologists have 
 any doubt, however much they may differ in their 
 details. "I do f not think," says M. Bopp, 
 " that any language whatever has produced special 
 original ivords for the particular designation of 
 such compacted and peculiar ideas as three, four, 
 five, &c." Accordingly it has been proved that 
 the three first numerals in Sanskrit and Greek 
 are connected with the three personal pronouns, 
 and originally implied here,\ near to the here, and 
 
 * Donaldson's New Crat. ch. ii. Plato (Crat. p. 435) thought 
 the numerals offered a proof that at least some part of language 
 must be the result of convention and custom (awQi\KTi Kal edos). 
 
 + Bopp's Comparative Grammar, § 311. 
 
 J Dr. Donaldson aptly compares (Neiv Crat. § 154) the vulgarism 
 '' number one" as a synonym for the first person, and "proximus 
 sum egomet niihi."
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 103 
 
 there; that the fourth* implies 1 + 3; that the 
 fifth, as might have been expected, is connected 
 with the same root as the word " hand ; " that 
 the tenth numeral means two hands, and so 
 forth. 
 
 Still it might be supposed that the verb 
 " to be," predicating as it does the quality of 
 existence, a conception so abstract that the pro- 
 foundest metaphysicians and physiologists have 
 been as yet wholly unable to find for it any 
 tolerable definition, would resist all attempts at 
 a reduction to any sensational root. If we are to 
 look to a definition of "life" as being either un- 
 discoverable, or else a discovery which can only be 
 expected from the ultimate triumphs of science, 
 surely we might suppose that here at least it is 
 impossible to find a sensible idea as the root of 
 the sublime verbs which are the means of repre- 
 
 * Bopp's Comparative Grammar, §§ 309, 323. Donaldson's 
 New Grot. ch. ii. ; Greek Gram. § 246. For the Hebrew numerals 
 see Maskil-le Sophir. pp. 41 sq. . by the same author. Other 
 works are Pott, Die quinare und vigesimale Z'dhlmethode. 
 Halle, 1847. Mommsen, in Hofer's Zeitschr. fur die Wiss. der 
 Spr. Heft. 2, 1846. In Greenland the word for 20 is "a man," 
 (i.e. fingers + toes = 20) ; and for 100 the word is five men, &c. ! 
 It might have been thought that particles were eminently (what 
 Aristotle calls them) tyaivcu. aarjfjLoi, and yet even their pedigree 
 may be traced ; and in fact no clear line of distinction can be 
 drawn between them and the <pocva\ arj^at/TiKai. — Heyse, s. 10S ff.
 
 104 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 senting life as an attribute. But we are all liable 
 to tbe error of forming far too * high an estimate 
 of the intrinsic vitality (the supposed occulta vis) 
 of verbs in general. They contain no inherent 
 powers which separate them from nouns, and 
 their supposed distinctive character arises en- 
 tirely out of their combination with a subject. 
 The fancy (for instance) that "the root can 'sing' 
 differs from can ' song' in the same degree that 
 a magnetised steel bar differs from an ordinary 
 one, or a charged Leyden jar from a discharged 
 one," is proved by minute analysis to be totally 
 groundless. And the importance of the verb 
 " to be " in particular has been greatly exagge- 
 rated, as though it were a necessary ingredient 
 of every logical proposition. For in many lan- 
 guages the verb is wanting altogether, and its 
 mere implication is quite sufficient for all logical 
 purposes. " The verb-substantive," observes 
 Mr. Garnett (from whose most valuable Essay on 
 the nature and analysis of the verb we have 
 
 * For instance, we find M. A. Vinet (Essais de Philos. Morale, 
 p. 323) speaking of the verb as the word which founds, or, so 
 to speak, creates an ideal world side by side with the real world, 
 and of which the real world is either the expression or the type. 
 The word "verb" has often been dwelt on as showing the im- 
 portance attached to this part of speech; the German "eeitWQrt" 
 ^ more to the purpose. The Chinese call it ho-tseu, or the living 
 word (Silvestre de Sacy, Principes de Gram. Gen. i. ch. 1.)
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 105 
 
 borrowed these suggestions), " if considered as 
 necessary to vivify all connected speech and bind 
 together the terms of every logical proposition, 
 is much upon a footing with the phlogiston of 
 the chemists of the last generation, regarded as a 
 necessary pabulum of combustion — that is to say, 
 Vox et praterea nihil." 
 
 Whatever our a priori estimate of the power 
 of the verb-substantive may be, its origin is 
 traced by philology to very humble and material 
 sources. The Hebrew verbs n l*7 (houa), or 
 n ^ (liaia), may very probably be derived from 
 an onomatopoeia of respiration. The verb kama, 
 which has the same sense, means primitively " to 
 stand out," and the verb koum* to stand, passes 
 into the sense of " being." In Sanskrit, as-mi 
 (from which all the verbs-substantive in the Indo- 
 European languages are derived, as dpi, sum, 
 am ; Zend, ahmi ; Lithuanic, csmi ; Icelandic, 
 em, &c), is, properly speaking, no verbal root, 
 but " a formation on the demonstrative pronoun 
 sa, the idea meant to be conveyed being simply 
 that of local presence." And of the two other 
 
 * Compare the Italian stare, Spanish estar. Frof. Key (Trans, 
 of Phil. Soc. vol. iv.) quotes an anecdote of a lady who had to 
 tell her African servant, ' ' Go and fetch big teacup, he live in 
 pantry." "We cannot, however, accept his derivations of "esse" 
 from "edo," and "vivo" from "bibo."
 
 106 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 roots used for the same purpose, viz. bhu (d)vu), 
 fui, &c), and stlia (stare, &c.),* the first is pro- 
 bably an imitation of breathing, and the second 
 notoriously a physical verb, meaning " to stand 
 up." May we not, then, ask with Bunsen, " What 
 is 'to be' in all languages but the spiritualisation 
 of ivallting or standing or eating ? " 
 
 Perhaps if we were to try to think of any 
 positive word which it would be impossible to 
 derive from a root imitative of sound, it would be 
 the word silence. And yet we believe that the 
 root of even this word is a simple onomatopoeia, 
 and that it is connected with the sibilants (hush ! 
 whish ! &c), by which we endeavour to call 
 attention to the fact that we desire to listen 
 intently. It may help us to accept this etymology 
 
 * See Itenan, p. 129. Becker, Organism der Sprache, p. 58. 
 In point of fact, the conception of existence in untaught minds is 
 generally concrete, and often grossly material. Vico mentions the 
 fact, that peasants often say of a sick person "he still eats," for 
 "he still lives." "In the Lingua Franca the more abstract verbs 
 have disappeared altogether ; ' to be' is always expressed by ' to 
 stand,' and 'to have' by 'to hold.' 
 
 ' Non tener honta 
 Questo star la ultima affronta.' 
 This shows the tendency of language to degradation when not 
 upheld by literary culture and elevated thought. Barbarism 
 proved as efficacious in materialising the conception of the Latin 
 races, as in sweeping away the niceties of their grammar. To this 
 day the Spaniards say, tengo hambre, for esurio." — II. G.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 107 
 
 if we observe that the colloquialism "to be 
 mum" undoubtedly arises* from an imitation of 
 the sound by which we express the closing of the 
 lips. 
 
 If we fully allow that a considerable number of 
 roots have (and must have) sprung from the in- 
 stinctive principle which we have been endea- 
 vouring to illustrate, we have gone very far to 
 show what was the origin of language. For the 
 permutations and combinations of which a very 
 few rootst are capable, and the rich variety of 
 applications of which each separate root admits, 
 are almost inconceivable to any who have not, 
 by a study of the subject, rendered themselves 
 familiar with the processes of the human mind. 
 Indeed, a superfluity of roots argues a feebleness 
 of conception, and a superabundant vocabulary is 
 an impediment to thought. In the Society Isles 
 they have one word for the tail of a dog, another 
 for the tail of a bird, and a third for the tail of a 
 sheep, and yet for "tail" itself,! — "tail" in the 
 
 * See Wedgwood, p. xvii. 
 
 + Who would have thought a priori that the word " stranger" 
 has its root in the single vowel e, the Latin preposition for 
 "from" ? Yet we see it to be so, "the moment that the inter- 
 mediate links of the chain are submitted to our examination, — 
 e, ex, extra, extraneus, etranger, stranger." — Dugald Stewart, 
 Philos. Es. p. 217, 4th ed. 
 
 + Adelung, Mithridates, iii. 6, p. 325.
 
 103 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 abstract, they have no word whatever. Again, 
 the Mohicans have words for wood-cutting, cut- 
 ting the head, the arm, &c, and yet no verb 
 meaning simply to cut. But all the specific words 
 are comparatively of very little use ; in point of 
 fact they are encumbrances, rather than treasures. 
 It is the sign of an advancing language to modify 
 or throw away these superfluities of special 
 terms. Thus the number of roots decreases con- 
 tinually ; in Sanskrit, there are* 2,000 ; in Gothic, 
 not more than 600 ; while 250 are said to be 
 sufficient to supply the modern German with its 
 80,000 words. 
 
 The processes by which this retrenchment is 
 carried on are the derivation, and composition of 
 necessary and existing uses to supersede the con- 
 tinual invention of new ones. The laws by which 
 these processes are effected are for the most part 
 regular and universal, and the discovery of them 
 constitutes the great reward of modern philology. 
 But as our present inquiries are only of the most 
 general and preliminary nature, we must confine 
 ourselves here to giving one or two short and com- 
 paratively easy specimens of what we may term 
 the elasticity or diffusiveness of roots. 
 
 We have already alluded to the root " ach," as 
 
 * Beuloew, De la Science Comp. des Langues, p. 22.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 109 
 
 having been in all probability an onomatopoeian 
 which gives rise to a large number of cognate 
 words in the Indo-European languages. It is at 
 any rate interesting to observe how this root, 
 however originated, suffices to express alike ma- 
 terial sharpness, bodily sensations, and mental 
 emotions. M. Garnett* gives the following brief 
 list of examples : — ""A/coo, aKavOa, ayls, alyjM], acuo, 
 acus, acies ; Teutonic, ekke (edge), aches (axe) ; 
 Icelandic, egg'ia, to sharpen, to exhort, to egg on; 
 German, ecke, a corner; Bavarian, igeln, prurire 
 (German, jucken ; Scotch, yeuk ; English, itch) 
 — acken (to ache), ax°s (grief); Anglo-Saxon, 
 ege, fear — egeslich, horrible ; Icelandic, ecki, sor- 
 row; German, ekel, disgust; with very many 
 more. It is possible that Anglo-Saxon ege, an 
 eye, may be of the same family. Compare the 
 Latin phrase, acies ocidorum." 
 
 Or, again, let us take the Sanskrit root dim, to 
 move about, to agitate. A list of the derivatives 
 from this root in various Indo-European lan- 
 guages would fill several pages, but we will only 
 supply one or two. First, then, we get the verbs 
 6voi and dvva>, to rush, or move violently, with 
 their derivatives, as OveWa, a storm ; Ovvvos, a 
 thunny-fish (from its rapid, darting motion) ; 
 
 * Essay on English Dialects, p. 64.
 
 110 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 Qvaavos, a waving, fluttering tassel ; Ovias, a bac- 
 chanal ; Bvpcros, the shaken thyrsus, or ivy- 
 wreathed wand, the symbol of Bacchic frenzy ; 
 Ooptiv, to leap ; Oovpos, impetuous ; a$vpu>, to play ', 
 and among many others, Ovpibs, the mind, from 
 the same property which struck the poet, in 
 saying- 
 How swift is the glance of the mind ! 
 
 Compared with the speed of its flight 
 E'en the tempest itself lags behind, 
 
 And the swift- speeding arrows of light ! 
 
 From the same root we get 6vu>, to sacrifice, 
 from the striking aspect of the rising and curling 
 fumes, when the victim lay burning on the altar ; 
 6vp.os, thyme, from the use made of that herb in 
 fumigations; fumus, smoke ; OvixiXr], the altar in the 
 centre of the orchestra; and many more. Lastly, 
 we may mention the curious word Oo&Cjeiv, which 
 is used in the apparently contradictory senses of 
 "to move hastily," and " to sit." 
 
 The curious phenomenon presented by the 
 latter word, of the same root serving for two di- 
 rectly opposite meanings, is one worthy of the 
 greatest attention ; and we believe that it has 
 
 * Still more strange are the variations presented by the root &u>. 
 See Leibnitz, Nouv. Ess. sur V Entendement Humain, iii. 2. 2 ; 
 and Donaldson's New Crat. p. 476.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. Ill 
 
 first been definitely noticed by modern philologists. 
 " Contrast," says Archdeacon Hare, " is a kind 
 of relation;" and the suggestion of contrarieties 
 may even be regarded as a primary law of the 
 association of ideas. It is this principle which 
 accounts for the apparently strange fact that 
 opposite conditions are expressed by the same 
 root slightly modified. Thus, to select some of 
 the instances collected by Dr. Donaldson,* our 
 own word " dear" has the two meanings of 
 " prized," because you have it, and " expensive," 
 because you want it ; and " fast" has the opposite 
 senses of " fixed " and " rapid." Similarly, xP eta 
 in Greek means both " use" and " need" ; 
 and Aao) means both "to wish" and "to take;" 
 while aio, avham, and KaAoo, " I speak," or 
 " call," are singularly like dtco, audio, and k\vw, 
 " I hear."t 
 
 * New Crat. p. 80. 
 
 + The "lucus a non lucendo" principle, which explained various 
 positive words as though they were derived from the absence of the 
 quality they attributed, has long teen given up by all sound 
 scholars. Of course such names as Euxinus, Beneventum, 
 EtyieviSes, "good folk," "cretin," "natural," &c, arise in a 
 totally different manner, as well as the name Parcse, absurdly 
 derived "a non parceudo." The supposed instances of "Anti- 
 plirasis," as the grammarians called it, are eminently absurd, e.g. 
 Varro, L. L. iv. 8: "Coelum, contrario nomine celatum, quod 
 apertuin est." Donat. dc Trop. p. 1778 : "Bellum, hoc est minime
 
 ||2 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 Another instance of the same peculiarity arises 
 from the different objective or subjective rela- 
 tions which any phenomenon may present, some 
 of which relations may be strongly contrasted ; 
 e. g., a " key " might derive its name either from 
 opening or shutting. Thus, to adopt some of 
 the cases mentioned by Mr. Garnett,* the numeral 
 one gives rise to compounds of apparently oppo- 
 site signification. From the Irish aon, " one," 
 we have aonach, " a waste," and also " an assem- 
 bly;" aontugadh, celibacy, and aontumadh, mar- 
 riage. The Latin uniens implies singularity, 
 but unitas implies association. " The concord 
 of this discord is easily found, if we consider that 
 the term one may either refer to one as an indi- 
 vidual, or in the sense of an aggregate." Simi- 
 larly, it is not difficult to explain the apparent 
 anomaly that (t^oAtj means both " school " and 
 " leisure," and that " lee " has very different 
 acceptations in \ee-side and lee-shore. Other 
 examples might easil} r be found, all tending to 
 prove that " as rays of light may be reflected 
 and refracted in all possible ways from their 
 primary direction, so the meaning of a word may 
 
 bellum." They confused it with irony and euphemism. See 
 Lersch, i. s. 132, 133. 
 * Essays, p. 284 sq.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 1 1 3 
 
 be deflected from its original bearing in a variety 
 of manners ; and consequently we cannot well 
 reach the primitive force of the term unless we 
 know the precise gradations through which it 
 has gone." 
 
 It has been proved, then, in this chapter, that 
 a few onomatopoeic roots would give a sufficient 
 basis on which to rear the largest superstructure 
 of language, and we have shown how in some 
 cases an imitative origin may be discovered even 
 in words which might have been expected to 
 defy analysis. Into the methods adopted in this 
 rich variety of applications we must inquire more 
 closely in the following chapter, but we must 
 here remark that, as it was b} r the association of 
 ideas that even the most heterogeneous and con- 
 trary relations were expressed by the same root, 
 so the words themselves tend powerfully to esta- 
 blish new points of association, and to facilitate 
 the astonishing rapidity of thought. By the aid 
 of verbal signs we exercise an enormous power 
 over all our faculties, for in repeating the sign 
 we are enabled by the personal activity of our 
 will to recall the image which it represents, and 
 submit that image to our control.* Our sensa- 
 
 * Diet, des Sciences Philosoph. p. 646. Locke on tic Under. 
 tu. ii. 6. 
 
 I
 
 114 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 tions, transformed into thought, come and go at 
 our bidding, and we extend and multiply them 
 without limit. 
 
 Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise ! 
 
 By virtue of an active imagination the fathers 
 of the human race produced the mighty heritage 
 of speech, and made the utterance of their lips 
 a means of recalling their sensations and ex- 
 pressing their thoughts ; in consequence of the 
 activity of the imagination, our words become 
 the t} T rants of our convictions, and our phrases 
 " often repeated, ossify the very organs of intel- 
 ligence." 
 
 Hence the blood of nations has often ere now 
 been shed from an inability to see the synthesis 
 of various truths in some single threadbare 
 shibboleth of party ; and a mistaken theory 
 embalmed in a * widely-received word has re- 
 
 * Thus the long opposition to the Newtonian theory in France 
 rose mainly from the influence of the word "attraction." See 
 «\. CoMte's Pos. Philos. (Martineau's ed.) i. p. 182. For the 
 tremendous consequences of the introduction of the term "landed 
 proprietor' 1 '' into Bengal, see Mill's Logic, ii. 232. It caused "a 
 disorganisation of society which had not been introduced into 
 that country by the most ruthless of its barbarian invaders." 
 "Fetish," as adopted by the negroes from the Portuguese, 
 "feiticao" (sorcery), is an instance of a word changing meaning 
 with the feeling of the speakers.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 115 
 
 tarded for centuries the progress of knowledge. 
 For, as Bacon wisely says, " Men believe that 
 their reason is lord over their words, but it 
 happens, too, that words exercise a reciprocal 
 and reactionary power over the intellect," and 
 that " words, as a Tartar's bow, do shoot back 
 upon the understanding of the wisest, and 
 mightily entangle and pervert the judgment." 
 
 There is one moral application of the truths 
 we have been considering, which we should do 
 well not to omit ; it is the far-reaching danger 
 of idle * or careless words ; it is the solemn 
 admonition — 
 
 Guard well thy thoughts, for thoughts are Iveard in Heaven I 
 
 * rfOovs x a P aKT 'iP € ' <rT{ T ' avOpiirov \6yos. — Stob. The language 
 of a people expresses its genius and its character. — Bacon, De 
 Augm. Scient. vi. i. Cf. Diog. Laert. p. 58. Quinct. xi. p. 675. 
 Cic. Tusc. Disp. v. 16. 
 
 i 2
 
 116 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 METAPHOR. 
 
 " Die Sinnlichkeit erzeugt, auf der ersten stufe der Wortschop- 
 f uug, ein A bbihl ; die Einbildungskraft, auf der zweiten, ein Symbol; 
 der Verstand, endlich, auf der dritten, ein Zeichen fur das object." 
 — Heyse, System der Spracluvissenschaft, s. 95. 
 
 " Every language is a dictionary of faded metaphors." — Richter. 
 
 If it be impossible for us to know any single 
 particle of matter in itself; if we are unable to 
 do more than express the relations of any single 
 external phenomenon ; how can we hope to give 
 an accurate nomenclature to the noumena, the 
 inward emotions, the immaterial conceptions, the 
 abstract entities which we cannot touch or handle, 
 and which have an existence only for the intel- 
 lect and the heart ? How can we make the 
 modulations of the voice the symbols * for the 
 passions of the soul ? 
 
 In mathematics there is a line, known as the 
 asymptote, which continually approaches to a 
 curve, but, being produced for ever, does not cut 
 
 "Ear: /x\v ovv Ta eV rj? fyaivfj tuv iv rfj tyvxii iraBTj/j-drccv 
 (jvfj./3o\a. — Arist. De Interp. I. i.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 117 
 
 it, though the distance between the asymptote 
 and the curve becomes, in the course of this 
 approach, less than any assignable quantity. 
 Language, in relation to thought, must ever be 
 regarded as an asymptote. They can no more 
 perfectly coincide than any two particles of matter 
 can be made absolutely to touch each other. 
 No power of language enables man to reveal the 
 features of the mystic Isis, on whose statue was 
 inscribed : " I am all which hath been, which is, 
 and shall be, and no mortal hath ever lifted my 
 veil." Now, as ever, a curtain of shadow must 
 hang between — 
 
 That hidden life, and what we see and hear. 
 
 No single virtue, no single faculty, no single 
 spiritual truth, no single metaphysical concep- 
 tion, can be expressed without the aid of analogy 
 or metaphor. Metaphor — the transference of a 
 word from its usual meaning to an analogous 
 one — is the intellectual agent of language, just 
 as onomatopoeia is the mechanical agent. Me- 
 taphor and catachresis (i. e., the use of the same 
 word to express two different things which are 
 supposed to present some analogy to each other, 
 as when "sweet" is applied to sounds) have 
 been called the two channels of expression
 
 118 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 which irrigate the wide field of human intelli- 
 gence. By their means language, though poor 
 in vocables, was rich in thought, and resembled 
 in its power the one coin* of the Wandering 
 Jew, which always sufficed for all his needs, 
 and always took the impress of the sovereign 
 regnant in the countries through which he 
 passed. 
 
 We might have easily conjectured that such 
 would be the case. " Man, by the action of all his 
 faculties, is carried out of himself and towards 
 the. exterior world; the phenomena of the ex- 
 terior world are those which strike him first, and 
 those, therefore, are the ones which receive the 
 first names, which names are, so to speak, tinted 
 with the colours of the objects they express. But, 
 afterwards, when man turns his attention inwards, 
 he sees distinctly those intellectual phenomena, 
 of which he had previously had only a confused 
 perception, and when he wishes to express those 
 new phenomena of the soul and of thought, 
 analogy leads him to apply the signs which he is 
 looking for to the signs which he already pos- 
 sesses ; for analogy is the law of every nascent 
 or developed language ; hence come the me- 
 taphors into which analysis resolves the ma- 
 * Nodier, p. 65.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 119 
 
 jority of the signs for the most abstract moral 
 ideas."* 
 
 To call things which we have never seen be- 
 fore by the name of that which appears to ns 
 most nearly to resemble them, is a practice of 
 every-day life. That children at first call all 
 men "father," and all women "mother," is an 
 observation as old as Aristotle.t The Romans 
 gave the name of Lucanian ox to the elephant, 
 and camelopardus to the giraffe, just as the New 
 Zealanders are stated to have called " horses " 
 large dogs. The astonished Caffirs gave the 
 name of cloud to the first parasol which they had 
 seen ; and similar instances might be adduced 
 almost indefinitely. They prove that it is an 
 instinct, if it be not a necessity to borrow for the 
 unknown the names already used for things 
 known. 
 
 But although we can absolutely trace this pro- 
 cess in so many cases, that we are entitled to 
 infer, with Locke, that every word expressing 
 facts which do not fall under the senses, is yet 
 ultimately derived from sensible ideas, we cannot 
 
 * Victor Cousin, Cours de Phil. iii. Le9on Vingtieme. 
 
 t *u<ri/ca, i. 1. The name alligator (Spanish, el lagarto, the 
 lizard) is another instance of the same kind of thing, as indeed is 
 the Greek Kpoi<68€i\os.
 
 120 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 expect to prove this in every particular instance. 
 When a standard of value is once introduced 
 among nations, it is almost always a coinage of 
 the precious metals ; but when public credit is 
 firmly established, a paper currency is allowed 
 freely to circulate. And so in language many 
 terms have become purely arbitrary, and in 
 themselves valueless, which now pass unques- 
 tioned in their conventional meaning, but have 
 lost all traces of the process to which they owed 
 their origin, and retain no longer the impress of 
 the thought which they originally conveyed. 
 
 Illustrations are not far to seek ; indeed, we 
 can hardty utter a sentence which will not supply 
 them, of which the very word " illustration " is 
 itself an instance. Thus, in Hebrew, the words 
 for " anger " and " the nose " are identical,* and 
 even in Greek, Trpqos ri]v piva, " gentle in nose," 
 is used for " of gentle disposition." Every 
 reader of the Bible will recognise that " a melt- 
 ing of the heart " is the metaphor for despair ; 
 a " loosening of the reins " for fear ; a " high 
 carriage of the head " for pride ; " stiffness of 
 
 * See Kenan, 120 sqq. Theocrit. ii. 18. The French word 
 colt-re is from x<$A.os, bile; our word anger, from the root "ang" 
 (ayXh o.yx oy h) angle, angina, angustus, &c.) implying com- 
 pression. The Greek orifytaxoy explains itself.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 121 
 
 neck " for obstinacy ; " thirst " or " pallor " for 
 fear; a "turning of the face" for favour. It is 
 this word-painting, this eagerness* for graphic 
 touches, that gives to Hebrew its vivid, pic- 
 turesque, impetuous character. It is interesting 
 to observe how necessary to them it became. 
 Even when they have by long usage learnt to 
 accept a special word as the sign of some moral 
 sentiment or mental emotion, they love to add to 
 it also a picture of the physical circumstance. 
 This is the explanation of such apparent pleo- 
 nasms, as " he opened his mouth and said," 
 " he answered and said," " he was angry and his 
 visage fell," " he was angry and his visage was 
 enflamed." It is the result of that vital energy 
 which enkindled the soul of prophets and poets ; 
 which exalted the intellect of a nation, fully 
 conscious that it had a mighty mission to per- 
 form. Spontaneous imagery is the characteristic 
 of all passionate thought. 
 
 The Hebrews were not the only nation which 
 sought for open and confessed metaphors in their 
 style, when the bright colours of the original 
 picture-word had grown too dim to recall the 
 
 * irpb ifxixaruiv voiuv. For abundant instances of Hebrew 
 metaphors see GlassiL Philologia Sacra, where there is a long 
 chapter on the subject.
 
 122 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 image which they once presented. We feel in- 
 stinctively that certain states of mind can only 
 be described by a comparison with the natural 
 appearance which offers the nearest analogy to 
 them. " A lamb is innocence ; a snake is subtle 
 spite. Flowers express to us the delicate affec- 
 tions. Light and darkness are our familiar ex- 
 pressions for knowledge and ignorance. Visible 
 distance behind and before us is respectively our 
 image of memory and of hope." * 
 
 Again, to take the first group of English words 
 which present themselves, what is " imagination" 
 or "reflection" but the summoning up of a picture 
 before the inward eye ? "What is " comprehen- 
 sion " but a grasping ; " disgust " but an unplea- 
 sant taste ; " insinuation " but a getting into the 
 bosom of anything? Courage is " good heart; " 
 "rectitude" a perpendicular position; "austerity" 
 is dryness ; " superciliousness " a raising of the 
 eyebrow ; " humility " is something cognate to 
 the ground ; " fortune " is the falling of a lot ; 
 " virtue " is that which becomes a man ; " hu- 
 manity " is the proper characteristic of our race ; 
 "courtesy" is borrowed from palaces ; " calamity" 
 is the hurrying of the wind among the reeds. 
 What are " aversion " t and " inclination " but a 
 
 * Emerson's Nature. t Compare 4<}>ufj.at, opeyofiai.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 123 
 
 turning away from, and a bending towards ? 
 " Error " is a wandering out of the way ; " envy" 
 is looking upon another with an evil eye; an 
 "emotion" is a movement of the soul; "in- 
 fluence" recalls the ripple circling on the surface 
 of a stream ; " heaven " is the canopy heaved over 
 our heads ; " hell " is the hollow space beneath our 
 feet ; " religion " is a solemn study, or a binding, 
 or a new* choice ; an " angel " is a messenger ; 
 the " spirit " is but a breath of air. 
 
 The last etymology reminds us that we can 
 carry our proofs of what we assert into still 
 higher regions, even the transcendental regions 
 of human faith and worship. " Mystery " is 
 derived from " mu," the imitation of closing the 
 lips ; " priest" from " presbuteros," elder ; " sacra- 
 ment " is deduced from the meaning "oath;" 
 " baptism " is dipping ; " propitiation " is bring- 
 ing near; " wisdom " is that which we have seen; 
 even the word for God himself, in Sanskrit as 
 in Chinese, means but the bright ether t or 
 starry sky. 
 
 * Three derivations have been proposed : re-lego, Cic. de Nat. 
 Deor. ii. 28 ; re-ligo, Lact. Div. Inst. 4 ; re-eligo, Augustin, 
 de Civ. Dei, x. 3. See Fleming's Vocabulary of Philosophy. 
 
 "r See Bunsen's Outlines, ii. 142 seqq. Dyaus, debs, deus, &c, 
 from the root diw, to shine. The derivation of our English word 
 "God" is doubtful; but I fear the beautiful belief that it is
 
 124 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 To illustrate this necessity of metaphor any 
 farther would be superfluous, since the materials 
 for doing so are sufficiently abundant for any 
 student who wishes to pursue the subject. The 
 philosophical examination of the thoughts which 
 are thus involved in concrete images is a most 
 valuable inquiry, and one which opens a field of 
 inexhaustible interest. The metaphors which we 
 are thus forced to adopt are a living memorial* 
 of the quick perceptions, the poetic intuitions, 
 the deep insight of our ancestors : or are else a 
 perpetuation of their unaccountable caprices of 
 feeling or fancy, their vulgar errors and ground- 
 less suppositions. It sometimes happens that 
 
 deduced from "good" must be abandoned. Grimm (Deutsch 
 Myth. p. 12) shows that there is a grammatical difference between 
 the words in the Teutonic language signifying "God" and "good;" 
 if the Persian "Khoda" can be derived from the Zend "qvadata," 
 Sanskrit "svadata," & se datus, increatus, a very appropriate 
 etymology would be given. 
 
 * See Dugald Stewart's Philosoph. Essays, p. 217, 4th ed. 
 Compare the widely different conceptions of happiness involved in 
 the derivations of two such words as "beatus" and "selig." Or 
 take the word "poet;" if in these days of wider knowledge and 
 shallower thought, we find it nearly impossible to frame a satis- 
 factory definition of poetry, how should we have been able to invent 
 the word itself, which goes to the very root of the matter, by at 
 once attributing to "the maker" that divine creative faculty 
 whereby he is enabled ' ' to give airy nothing a local habitation 
 and a name ?"
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 125 
 
 in all languages, the same analogy has been 
 thus seized upon for a transitive " application," 
 as in the words t^ -1 , irvevfia, anima, spirit, which 
 all mean ' wind ;' hut, more frequently, different 
 aspects of the same phenomenon have led to a 
 different nomenclature ; thus, " to think" is in 
 Hebrew " to speak ; " and among the savages of the 
 Pacific it is "to speak in the stomach;" while 
 in French it means "to weigh," and in Greek it is 
 often described by a word borrowed from the 
 deep purpling* of an agitated sea. 
 
 We call an expression metaphoric when it is 
 applied in such a. way that we glide lightly over 
 its primary and obvious meaning to attach to it 
 one which is secondary and more indirect. We 
 call an expression a catachresis- when it is used 
 inappropriately, although custom may have 
 sanctioned the use of it in the inappropriate 
 sense ; e. g., when we speak of " an arm of the 
 sea," the word "arm" is a catachresis ; and when 
 Shakspeare uses the phrase " To take up arms 
 against a sea of troubles," it is only the use of 
 this figure twice in the same line that forces on 
 us a sense of incongruity. 
 
 Catachresis, as well as metaphor, has given rise 
 to a large set of terms, phrases, and expressions ;
 
 126 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 and it is in one sense bolder than metaphor, be- 
 cause it takes words without any modification to 
 apply them to fresh emergencies. Thus, very 
 often words applicable to one sense are adopted 
 to express the sensations of another. That there 
 is* an analogy between the manners in which 
 they are affected no one will deny. The plant 
 " heliotrope " recalls by its smell the taste which 
 has given it its vulgar name ; the king of 
 Hanover knew from the overture to a piece of 
 music, that the scene of it was supposed to be 
 a wood ; Saunderson, who was born blind, com- 
 pared the colour red to the blowing of a trumpet, 
 or the crowing of a cock. There is, therefore, 
 no inherent absurdity, though there is much 
 affectation, in such lines as Ford's — 
 What's that I saw ? a sound ? 
 
 and Donne's — 
 
 A loud perfume ; 
 
 and Herbert's — 
 
 His beams shall help my song, and both so twine, 
 Till e'en his beams sing and my music shine. 
 
 It is against catachresis rather than against 
 metaphor that philosophers should have in- 
 
 * "Une lumiere eclate, des couleurs crient, des ide"es se 
 heurtent, la memoire bronche, le cceur murmure, l'obstination se 
 cadre contre les difficulte's." — Nodier, p. 45.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 127 
 
 veiglied. " There is," says Seneca, " avast num- 
 ber of things without names, which we call, not " 
 by proper designations, but by borrowed and 
 adapted ones. We apply the word ' foot,' both 
 to our own foot and that of a couch, and of a sail, 
 and of a page, though these things are naturally 
 distinct. But this results from the poverty of 
 language." " It is a ridiculous sterility," says 
 Voltaire, " to have been ignorant how to express 
 otherwise an arm of the sea, an arm of a balance, 
 an arm of a chair ; it is a poverty of intellect 
 which leads us to speak equally of the head of a 
 nail, and the head of an army." It is this very 
 frequent use of homonyms which leads to such 
 great uncertaint}' about the meaning of many 
 Hebrew words. Catachresis ought to be sparingly 
 applied, and it possesses none of the advantages 
 which arise from metaphor. 
 
 When the Megarians wanted assistance from 
 the Spartans, they threw down an empty meal-bag 
 before the assembly, and declared that "it lacked 
 meal." The Laconic criticism " that the mention 
 of the sack was superfluous," cannot be con- 
 sidered a fair one, because the action gave far 
 more point to the request. When the Scythian 
 ambassadors wished to prove to Darius the hope- 
 lessness of invading their country, instead of
 
 123 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 making a long harangue, they argued with infi- 
 nitely more force by merely bringing him a bird, 
 a mouse, a frog, and two arrows, to imply, that 
 unless he could soar like a bird, burrow like a 
 mouse, and hide in the marshes like a frog, he 
 would never be able to escape their shafts. The 
 tall poppyheads that Tarquinius lopped off with 
 his stick in the presence of the messenger of 
 Sextus, conveyed more vividly the intended lesson 
 than any amount of diabolical advice ; and 
 turning* to Jewish history, we shall find that 
 the prophets found it necessary to illustrate 
 even their language (metaphorical as it was) by 
 living pictures — the rending of a garment, the 
 hiding of a girdle, the pushing with iron horns 
 — in order to bring home a vivid sense of con- 
 viction to the gross hearts of the people whom 
 they taught. 
 
 But when such outward illustrations are impos- 
 sible, we adopt a shadow of them by painting with 
 words. When we speak of the cornfields stand- 
 ing so thick with corn, that they laugh and sing ; 
 when we speak of the harvests thirsting, or of the 
 green fields sleeping in the quiet sunshine ; when 
 we speak of the thunderbolts of eloquence, or the 
 
 * For the facts alluded to in tills passage, see Herod, iii. 46, 
 iv. 132. Liv. i. 54. Jerem. xix. 10, &c.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 129 
 
 dewy close of tender music, our language is 
 understood perhaps with more rapidity, and 
 our meaning expressed with greater clearness, 
 than if we were to translate the same phrases 
 into more prosaic and less imaginative ex- 
 pression. 
 
 Even the unimaginative *Aristotle observed 
 the fact. Mere names, he says, carry to the 
 mind of the hearer their specific meaning, and 
 there they end ; but metaphors do more than 
 this, for they awaken new thoughts. Let us take 
 Aristotle's own example of the word " age," and 
 instead of Solomon's fine expression, " when the 
 almond-tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper 
 be a burden," substitute " when the hair is 
 white, and the body decrepit;" who does not 
 see that the force and poetry of the passage is 
 evaporated at once ? 
 
 And, in point of fact, we do not go at all nearer 
 to truth by a substitution of terms that imply no 
 direct figure. Eloquence, for instance, has in 
 all ages been compared to thunderf and lightning, 
 because the effect of it upon the mind is closely 
 analogous to that produced by the bursting of a 
 
 * Arist. FJict. iii. 10. 
 
 + fjcrrpaiTT, ef5p6vra, KaveKVKa Tfjv'EWdSa. — Aristoph. "Proinde 
 tona eloquio." — Yirg. JBn. xi. 
 
 K
 
 130 AX ESSAY ON 
 
 storm ; and when, out of dislike to such expres- 
 sions, we talk of eloquence as having been pas- 
 sionate, or forcible, or effective, the impres- 
 sions we convey are not nearly so powerful, or 
 nearly so descriptive. And in many cases we 
 must rest content to leave our emotions unex- 
 pressed, if we will not condescend to use the 
 assistance of figurative terms. " Language," 
 says Mr. Carryle, "is the flesh-garment of 
 Thought. I said that Imagination wove this flesh- 
 garment; and does she not? Metaphors are her 
 stuff. Examine Language. What, if you except 
 some few primitive elements (of natural sound), 
 what is it all but metaphors recognised as such, 
 or no longer recognised ; still fluid and florid, 
 or now solid-grown and colourless ? If those 
 same primitive elements are the osseous fixtures 
 in the flesh-garment, Language — then are meta- 
 phors its muscles, and tissues, and living integu- 
 ments. An unmetaphorical style } r ou shall in 
 vain seek for : is not your very attention* a 
 stretching -to ? " 
 
 * Sartor Resartus, ch. x. Compare Heyse, s. 97. " Die gauze 
 Spracbe ist durch und durch bildlich. Wir sprechen in lauter 
 Bildern ohne uns dessen bewusst zu sein." He gives abundant 
 instances, classified with German accuracy. See, too, Grimm, 
 Gesch. d. d. Sprache, s. 56 ff. Pott, Metaphern vom Leben, &c. 
 Zeitschr. fiirVergleich. Sprachf. Jahrg. ii. Heft. 2.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 131 
 
 Our minds are simply not adapted to deal 
 familiarly with the abstract ; we yearn for the 
 concrete, and the successful adoption of it often 
 constitutes the power and beauty of rhetoric and 
 poetry. For the attributes of poetry cannot 
 better be summed up than by saying with Milton, 
 that it is " simple, sensuous, passionate." It has 
 been said, that " good writing and brilliant dis- 
 course are perpetual allegories." The Bible 
 more than any other book abounds in this energy 
 of style, this matchless vivacity of description ; 
 and hence of all books it is the most fresh and 
 living, the one which speaks most musically to 
 the ear, most thrillingky to the heart, — the one 
 whose rich bloom of eloquence is least dimmed 
 by being transfused into other tongues, and the 
 rapid wings of its words the least broken and 
 injured by the process of many hundred years. 
 The idioms of all language approach each other 
 most nearly in passages of the greatest eloquence 
 and power : here the syllogism of emotion tran- 
 scends the syllogism of logic, and grammatical 
 formulae are fused and calcined in the name of 
 passion. 
 
 This concreteness of st}-le, and liberal use of 
 simple metaphor, is nowhere so beautifully con- 
 spicuous as in the teaching of our Lord, and he 
 
 K 2
 
 132 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 doubtless adopted it for the express purpose 
 that — 
 
 They might learn who bind the sheaf, 
 Or crush the grape, or dig the grave, 
 And those wild eyes that watch the wave 
 
 In roarings round the coral reef. 
 
 "Consider the *lilies how they grow; they toil 
 not, they spin not ; and yet I say unto you that 
 Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like 
 one of these. If, then, God so clothe the grass, 
 which to-day is in the field, and to-morrow is 
 cast into the oven, how much more will he clothe 
 you, oh ye of little faith !" 
 
 "Let us here adopt," says Dr. Campbell, " a 
 little of the tasteless manner of modern para- 
 phrasts, by the substitution of more general 
 terms, one of their many processes of infrigi- 
 dating, and let us observe the effect produced by 
 this change. ' Consider the Cowers how they 
 gradually increase in their size ; they do no manner 
 of work, and yet I declare unto you, that no king 
 whatever, in his most splendid habit, is dressed 
 up like them. If, then, God in his providence 
 doth so adorn the vegetable productions which 
 continue but a little time on the land, and are 
 afterwards devoted to the meanest uses, how 
 
 * Luke, xii. 27.
 
 THE ORIGIN" OF LANGUAGE. 133 
 
 much more will lie provide clothing for you ! ' 
 How spiritless* is the same sentiment rendered by 
 these small variations ! The very particularising 
 of to-day and to-morrow is infinitely more ex- 
 pressive of transitoriness than any description 
 wherein the terms are general, that can be sub- 
 stituted in its room." 
 
 Philosophers, then, have been mistaken in com- 
 plaining of metaphors as a proof t of poverty. 
 Tropes, it has been said, would disappear, if we 
 had in every case a direct and independent ex- 
 pression, and metaphor is a coin struck only for 
 the earth. How this may be we know not; 
 although, if there be mysteries even for the 
 angels, then for them also will the gracious ana- 
 logies of a sublime sjmibolism be no less neces- 
 sary. For us at any rate, since it is impossible 
 to find a direct word for every phenomenon, 
 
 * Mr. Kingsley has compared the ancient ballad, 
 " Could harp a fish out of the water, 
 Or music out of the stane, 
 Or the milk out of a maiden's breast 
 That bairns had never nane," 
 with the modern adaptation, 
 
 " there was magic in his voice, 
 And witchcraft in his string ! " 
 The expression of Herodotus about the Libyan wild asses, atroroi, 
 oil yap 5}j irivovai, contrasts forcibly the two styles. — R. G. 
 
 f " Verborum translatio instituta est inopia3 causa." — Dc 
 Orator, iii. 39.
 
 134 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 metaphor is our only resource ; the figure is 
 necessitated by the non-existence of the proper 
 term. Because poetry abounds in figures, it does 
 not follow that it is " the dark murmur of a lie, 
 instead of the clear cry of truth," but that it deals 
 for the most part with thoughts which transcend 
 the exigencies of ordinary expression. We must 
 not complain of the lunar beam of genius, be- 
 cause it has not the brightness of the sun. Our 
 choice lies between an enchanting and beautiful 
 twilight, or a darkness which may be felt. 
 
 If any one wishes to compare the difference 
 between metaphorical language and the phraseo- 
 logy which studiously avoids the use of metaphor, 
 and clings as far as possible to bare fact, let 
 him contrast the nomenclature of science with 
 the parallel nomenclature of the people. 
 
 The terminology of science is of necessity 
 " conventional,* precise, constant; copious in 
 words and minute in distinctions, according to 
 the needs of the science ; " but this very neces- 
 sity kills the imagination, and leaves an unin- 
 viting argot in the place of warm and glowing 
 human speech. It is absurd to quarrel with and 
 ridicule the language of science, since in its 
 
 * Dr. Whewell's Philos. of the Inductive Sciences, ii. 460. 
 Mill's Lorjic, ii. ch. iv. p. 205.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 135 
 
 researches an inaccurate or ill-defined name — 
 a name that connotes man} 7 other things, or in 
 itself involves an unproven theoiy — may be pro- 
 ductive of the most disastrous consequences. 
 But, at the same time, the mere nomenclature, 
 in becoming steady and determinate, is too often 
 uncouth and inharmonious,* and we see that if 
 the language of common life were equally in- 
 variable, and unelastic, imagination would be 
 cancelled, and genius crushed. Metaphor is no 
 longer possible in a language which has the 
 power of expressing everything. Such " lexical 
 superfetations " as " chrysanthemum leukanthe- 
 mum," and " platykeros," may be necessary to 
 science, but who would exchange them for the 
 popular names of " Heine Marguerite," and 
 " Stagbeetle " (cerf volant) ? And. is there not 
 something almost repulsive in such a term as 
 
 * Take, for instance, the botanical description of the ITymeno- 
 phyllum Wilsoni; "fronds rigid, pinnate, pinnoe recurved subuni- 
 lateral, pinnatifid ; the segments linear undivided, or bifid spinu- 
 lososerrate." — Philosophy of Jnd. Sci. i. 1G5. This is the per- 
 fection of scientific terminology, but how would it answer tbe 
 purposes of common life ? And how would poetry be possible with 
 such clumsy terms as these ? At the same time, in Science, dry 
 precision of nomenclature is better than poetical terms like the 
 mediaeval "flowers of sulphur." Fancy would only mislead in 
 terminology which requires accuracy ; e. g. 5'nrovs, the Greek name 
 for jerboa might easily have led to mistakes.
 
 136 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 " Myosotis scorpioeides " (scorpion-shaped mouse's 
 ear !) when compared with the sweet vulgar names 
 " Forget-me-not," " Yeux de la Sainte Vierge," 
 and "Plus je vous vois, plus je vous aime?" The 
 language of science is only picturesque, when, as 
 in the case of astronomy, it borrows from shep- 
 herd philosophers such names as the " chariot," 
 "the serpent/' "the bear," and "the milky way." 
 Language, then, is a plummet* which can never 
 fathom the abysses of existence ; and yet by its 
 means we can learn more of the world of spirit 
 than the senses can ever tell us about the visible 
 and the material. When we speak of any sen- 
 sible object, we only adopt a convenient name 
 for a certain synthesis of properties, and we do 
 not thereby advance a single step towards the 
 knowledge of the thing in its abstract essence. 
 The very existence of substance as an absolute 
 entity, an ens per se existens, the postulated 
 residuum after the abstraction of allt separate 
 qualities which are cognisable by the senses, is 
 entirely denied by idealists, who would reduce 
 all outward things to a mere relation, or a 
 modification of the sentient subject. Nature 
 itself is with them nothing more than " an 
 
 * Sir Thos. Browne, Christian Morals, ii. 
 
 + Berkeley, Principles of Hum. Knowledge, xxxv.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 13T 
 
 apocalypse of the mind." We speak of " gold," 
 and we mean thereby an object of which 
 perhaps our first and main conceptions are that 
 it is heav}', yellow, and valuable as a medium 
 of exchange ; yet the property which we call 
 " heavy " is one which we can easily conceive 
 capable of modification ; the property of yellow- 
 ness ceases when light no longer falls upon 
 the metal ; and the property of value is one 
 purely conventional and continually varying. 
 What, then, have we left except a philosophical 
 figment — a something with the properties of 
 nothing ? We cannot assert the existence of 
 any substance corresponding to the name " gold " 
 apart from these and other properties, which, as 
 we have seen, are mere relations. What, then, 
 do we really learn from language even about the 
 external world, the world of phenomena and of 
 fact ? When, on the other hand, we speak of 
 " imagination," we name one of the noblest 
 faculties of the intellect, from the analogy 
 afforded by the property of the glassy wave, 
 which " refreshes and reflects " the flowers upon 
 its banks ; yet who shall say that our metaphor 
 (" imagination ") gives us a less clear* and 
 
 * "It is remarked by a great metaphysician, that abstract ideas 
 are, in one point of view, the highest and most philosophical of all
 
 138 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 definable conception than is conveyed by our 
 general term (" gold ") ? 
 
 Nothing can be known of itself, but sensible 
 things can only be named from the manner in 
 which they affect the senses, and things invisible 
 can only be pictured forth analogically, from the 
 manner in which they affect the soul. And God 
 has given us an intellect capable of observing the 
 analogies of which the world is full, and not only 
 of observing them, but of applying to them with 
 perfect comprehension the words by which we 
 describe our physical sensations. In the wise 
 and noble language of the son * of Sirach : " All 
 
 THINGS ARE DOUBLE ONE AGAINST ANOTHER, AND 
 HE HATH MADE NOTHING IMPERFECT." There is 
 
 a close, though mysterious, analogy between 
 physical and intellectual phenomena. The con- 
 tinual metaphors by which we compare our 
 thoughts and emotions to the changes of the 
 
 our ideas, while in another they are the shallowest and most 
 meagre. They have the advantage of clearness and definiteness ; 
 they enable us to conceive and, as it were, to span the infinity of 
 things ; they arrange, as it might be in the divisions of a glass, 
 the many-coloured world of phenomena. And yet they are ' mere' 
 abstractions, removed from sense, removed from experience, and 
 detached from the mind in which they arose. Their perfection 
 consists, as their very name implies, in their idealism ; that is, in 
 their negative nature."— Jowett on Romans, &c, ii. S8. 
 * Ecclus. xlii. 23.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 139 
 
 outer world — sadness to a cloudy sky, calm 
 to the silvery rays of the moonlight, anger to 
 waves agitated by the wind — are not, as Schel- 
 ling observed, a mere play of the imagination, 
 but are an expression in two different languages 
 of the same thought of the Creator, and the one 
 serves to interpret the other. " Nature is visible 
 spirit, spirit invisible nature." It could have 
 been no result of accident, no working of blind 
 chance, that made the mind of man a mirror of 
 the things whereby he is surrounded, and that 
 created the world of matter under the guidance 
 of laws which are an exact analogon of the laws 
 of mind. Thus the Universe itself, with all that 
 it contains, is a mighty emblem, and man is the 
 analogist who, by the Word that lighteth him, is 
 enabled to decipher it. 
 
 Two worlds are ours : 'tis only sin 
 
 Forbids us to descry 
 The mystic heaven and earth within 
 
 Plain as the sea and sky. 
 
 The stars and the mountains, the oceans and 
 winds, may exist for nobler and sublimer pur- 
 poses than " to furnish man with the dictionary 
 and grammar of his municipal speech," but for tis 
 at least it should be our first and chief cause of 
 thankfulness to God when we commemorate the
 
 HO AN ESSAY ON 
 
 glories of the world in which he has placed us, 
 that it is "by the reflection of those glories that 
 we grow -conscious of ourselves, exactly as it is 
 by the reverberation of a luminous ray that 
 we become aware of the presence of holy 
 Light. 
 
 But, in those primeval ages which saw the 
 birth of language, the instinctive perception of 
 this harmony, and the application of the per- 
 ceived analogy to the purposes of language, was 
 far more quick and vivid than it can be now, 
 when our minds are obscured by discussion, 
 dried up by logic, and too often choked by the 
 unnecessary gold of a vocabulary inexhaustible 
 and ready made. " As we go back in history," 
 says Mr. Emerson, " language becomes more 
 picturesque, until its infancy, when it is all 
 poetry ; or all spiritual facts are represented by 
 natural symbols." To the primal man his words 
 were like the fragments of coloured glass in the 
 kaleidoscope, readily admitting of a thousand 
 new uses, " changing their place and their effect 
 with every emotion which agitated his language, 
 and lending themselves with a lustre ever-new 
 to all the new combinations of his thought." 
 
 The dawn of language took place in the bright 
 infancy, in the joyous boyhood of the world ; the
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 141 
 
 glory- clouds still lingered among the valleys, 
 upon the hills, and those splendors of creative 
 power which had smitten asunder the mists that 
 swathed the primeval chaos had not yet ceased 
 to quiver in the fresh and radiant air. Every- 
 thing was new ; the soil was clad in the vernal 
 luxuriance of green and untrodden herbage, and 
 a blissful innocence gave to the new child of 
 Heaven a life of " happy yesterdays and confident 
 to-morrows." He looked at all things with the 
 large open eyes of childish wonderment, and the * 
 simplest facts of the eternal Order were to him 
 miraculous events. To him "the warmth, the 
 west wind, the ornaments of springtide returned 
 unforeseen, and the sunrise, was but a long 
 phenomenon which might in the morning fail the 
 longings of night. If an arch of resplendent 
 colours unfolded itself from heaven to earth, and 
 there broke into a shower of brilliant atoms, 
 sowing the soil with a dust of precious stones, it 
 announced a message and a promise of God. 
 If the moon disappeared in an eclipse, it was 
 devoured by a black dragon ; the thunder was the 
 wrath of the Almighty, and the manna was his 
 bread. The adolescent race had all the delicacy 
 of tact, and all the freshness of sentiment, which 
 
 * Nodier, p. 58 sqq.
 
 142 AX ESSAY OX 
 
 in youthful souls identifies itself with the poetry 
 of things. In fact, life was itself a poesy full of 
 mystery and full of grace." 
 
 And this delicacy of tact, this youthfulness of 
 sensation, this ever-fresh capacity for that wonder 
 which is the parent of all knowledge and all 
 thought, was allied most closely to religion and to 
 poetic insight. " They seem to me," says Plato,* 
 "to frame a right genealogy, who make Iris the 
 daughter of Thaumas." 
 
 Upon the breast of new-created earth 
 
 Man -walked ; and when and wheresoe'er he moved, 
 
 Alone or mated, — solitude was not. 
 
 He heard, borne on the wind, the articulate voice 
 
 Of God. and Angels to his sight appeared 
 
 Crowning the glorious hills of Paradise ; 
 
 Or through the groves gliding like morning mists 
 
 Enkindled by the sun. He sate and talked 
 
 With winged messengers who daily brought 
 
 To his small island in the ethereal deep 
 
 Tidings of joy and love. From those pure heights 
 
 (Whether of actual vision, sensible 
 
 To thought and feeling, or that in this sort 
 
 Have condescendingly been shadoioed forth 
 
 * "EoiKev 6 rrjv "Ipiv Qavfiavros Znyovov ty-qvas ov KaKws yevea- 
 \oyftv.~ Plato, Thecet. p. 155. 
 
 " La maraviglia 
 Dell ignoranza e la figlia 
 E del sapere 
 
 La madre."
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 143 
 
 Communications spiritually maintained, 
 And intuitions moral and divine) 
 Fell human kind — to banishment condemned 
 That flowing years repealed not. 
 
 For what is religion but reverence, and love, and 
 worship ? And what is poetry but the delicate 
 perception of new truths, and new relations — the 
 eloquent * soliloquy of wonder and of thought ? 
 " In wonder f all philosophy began ; in wonder it 
 ends ; and admiration fills up the interspace. 
 But the first wonder is the offspring of ignorance ; 
 the last is the parent of adoration. The first is 
 the birth-throe of our knowledge ; the last is its 
 euthanasy and apotheosis." 
 
 To the early language nothing was common or 
 unclean, as to the youthful nations nothing was 
 vulgar. With them it was no degradation for a 
 king to labour in his vineyard and tend his flocks, 
 or for a princess to join her maidens in washing 
 the palace-clothes. Homer describes the cooking 
 of a dish or the cleansing of a chamber with the 
 same minute circumstantiality, with the same 
 lively yet dignified delight, with the same sense 
 that everything human has its own divine side, 
 as he describes the falling of a hero, or the 
 
 * Mr. Jlill -was the first to point out the soliloquising character 
 of poetry. — Essays and Dissertations. 
 t Coleridge, Aids to Reflection.
 
 144 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 armour of a god. And the feeling which inspired 
 him with this catholicity of admiration for every 
 human action was a right and noble one ; it was 
 the same feeling which actuated the Christian 
 poet in the quaint lines — 
 
 A servant in this cause 
 
 Makes service half divine ; 
 "Who sweeps a room as for thy laws 
 
 Makes that, and the action, fine. 
 
 It is only in the fastidious conventionality of later 
 ages that a false shame quenches enthusiasm, and 
 " the quotidian ague of frigid impertinences " 
 infects the healthy veins of our mental constitu- 
 tion. Then it is that reverence perishes, and 
 simple acts must be veiled in metaphysical eu- 
 phuisms, and simple thoughts overlaid with 
 galimatias, with tortured acceptations, with un- 
 couth archaisms. 'It* must always be the same. 
 After the beautiful period of Spanish literature 
 come Gongora and his cultorists ; after Tasso 
 and Ariosto, the Chevalier Marin and his pale 
 cortege of mannered seicentisti, armed with points 
 and conceits,; after Shakspeare, euphuism; after 
 the admirable French of the sixteenth century, 
 after the language of Rabelais, of Des Periers, 
 of Marot, of Henri Estienne, of Amyot, of 
 
 * Nodier.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 145 
 
 Montaigne, comes " preciosite," * so vain, so 
 affected, so puerile, so pretentious, so unreal, 
 so false.' 
 
 Thus the language of nations is the type of 
 their moral as well as of their intellectual cha- 
 racter. As long as men are noble and simple, 
 their language will be rich in power and truth ; 
 when they fall into corruption and sensuality, 
 their words will degenerate into the dingy and 
 miserable counters, which have no intrinsic value, 
 and only serve as a worthless and conventional 
 medium of exchange. In the pedantry of Statius, 
 in the puerility of Martial, in the conceits of 
 Seneca, in the poets who could go into emulous 
 raptures on the beauty of a lap-dog, and the 
 apotheosis of a eunuch's hair, we read the hand- 
 writing of an empire's condemnation. Even a 
 past t literature is full of power to save a people 
 from utter degeneracy. It is the true poet after 
 all who, more than the financier, more than the 
 merchant, more than the statesman, more than 
 
 * See Priciev.se and Precieuses par Ch. L. Livet. 12°, 1860. 
 Masson's Introduction to French Literature, ch. iv. 
 
 +■ "And the regeneration of a people is always accompanied by 
 a rekindled interest in its early literature." We can hardly over- 
 rate the effect produced by the publication of Bishop Percy's 
 Iidiques, and much may be hoped from the reproduction of the 
 old romancers, &c. , in Spanish, cf late years. 
 
 L
 
 146 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 the soldier, saves liis countrymen from ruin, 
 elevates their conduct by purifying their thoughts, 
 keeps their feet upon the mountain, and turns 
 their eyes towards the sun. 
 
 We must be free or die, who speak the tongue 
 That Skakspeare spoke, the faith and morals hold 
 That Milton held ! 

 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 147 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 WORDS NOTHING IN THEMSELVES. 
 
 " Credibilius est, quia prassens est eis, quantum id capere 
 possunt, LuiiEN Ratioxis .eter>j.£, ubi luec lmmutabilia vera con- 
 spiciunt." — S. Augusiin, Ret. i. 4. 
 
 "It may lead us a little," says Locke, "to- 
 wards the original of all our notions and know- 
 ledge, if we remark how great a dependence our 
 words have on common sensible ideas ; and how 
 those which are made use of to stand for actions 
 and notions quite removed from sense, have then- 
 rise from thence, and from obvious sensible ideas 
 are transferred to more abstruse significations, 
 and made to stand for ideas that come not under 
 the cognizance of our senses." 
 
 So far we may seem to have been adducing 
 a crowd of illustrations in support of this state- 
 ment : for we have traced the germinal develop- 
 ment of language from the seed and root of 
 onomatopoeia to the various ramifications of 
 metaphor, and have seen convincing reason to 
 
 * Essay on Human Understanding, in. i. 5. 
 
 l 2
 
 148 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 infer the primary origin of all words from 
 sensible ideas. 
 
 Are we then obliged to give in our adherence 
 to the sensational philosophy, and to believe 
 that " Nature, even in the naming of things, una- 
 wares suggested to men the originals and princi- 
 ples of all their knowledge ?" Are we forced to 
 accept the dogma that " there is nothing in the 
 intellect, which has not previously existed in the 
 sense ?" 
 
 Such are the questions which must now be 
 considered, because these are the conclusions 
 usually drawn from the premisses, which have 
 been hitherto receiving our support. The discus- 
 sion of them cannot be considered a digression, 
 because it will lead us at least to recognise the 
 existence of problems which are of the pro- 
 foundest importance, the examination of which 
 must always bear reference to the facts of lan- 
 guage, and especially to its origin and history. 
 The space devoted by Locke to the development of 
 his views on the use and abuse of words is a suffi- 
 cient proof that we are not wilfully turning aside 
 from the direct discussion of the subject before 
 us. Indeed, it is the assertion of one of Locke's 
 acutest* and most admiring disciples, that the 
 
 * Home Tooke, Part I. ch. ii.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 149 
 
 whole of the Essay on the Human Understanding 
 is " little more than a philosophical account of 
 the first sort of abbreviations in language." 
 
 Before we reject the conclusion which may 
 seem to have been involved in the facts which we 
 have endeavoured to establish, it may be well to 
 mark the full consequences which the sensation- 
 alists were gradually led to adopt. Locke, in 
 defining the source of our ideas, had distinctly 
 acknowledged an internal sense, which he calls 
 reflection, as being necessary to complement the 
 work of sensation ; in the very passage which we 
 quoted at the commencement of this chapter, he 
 goes on to say that we have " no ideas at all, but 
 what originally came either from sensible objects 
 without, or tvhat we feel within ourselves from the 
 inward workings of our own spirits of which we 
 are conscious to ourselves within." Similarly, 
 Bishop Berkeley, in his Theory of Vision, very 
 clearly lays clown " that there are properly no 
 ideas or passive objects in the mind but what are 
 derived from sense, but there are, besides these, her 
 own acts and operations ; — such are notions." 
 
 But of that element <ff our thoughts which he 
 called reflexion, Locke, although he barely as- 
 serted its existence, made so little use that it 
 hardly counteracted the general tendency of his
 
 150 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 philosophy. " When* a term so wide and vague, 
 or so complex and multifarious, so thin and 
 shadowy, or so ponderous and unmanageable, 
 as this 'reflexion' is introduced side by side 
 with the clear, bodily, definite realities of the 
 senses (sensation), it can hardly hold its place 
 securely as a philosophical term." Accord- 
 ingly we are not surprised to find that Locke 
 was claimed as the founder t of a sensationalist 
 school, whose ultimate conclusions his calm and 
 pious mind would have indignantly repudiated. 
 
 But it was in France that the Essay on 
 Human Understanding was received with the 
 most enthusiastic applause ; and when the meta- 
 physics of Locke had once " crossed the channel 
 on the light and brilliant wings of Voltaire's imagi- 
 nation," sensationalism reigned for a long period 
 without a rival near the throne. Etienne de 
 Condillac was the philosopher who was mainly 
 instrumental in introducing to his countrymen 
 the speculations of the great English thinker; 
 and it is an interesting fact that in Condillac's 
 first work, " L'Essai sur l'Origine des Connais- 
 
 * Dr. Whewell, Hist, of New Phil, in Eng. p. 72. 
 
 + 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.
 
 THE OKIGIST OF LANGUAGE. 151 
 
 sances Humaines," 1746), he had not yet thought 
 of "simplifying" Locke's system, by discarding 
 reflexion as an element of knowledge. But eight 
 years after, in his " Traite des Sensations," he 
 states, in the broadest possible manner, that the 
 senses are the source not only of our knowledge, 
 but even (monstrous as it may appear) of our 
 intellectual faculties themselves ! And as he 
 makes the faculty of speech the principle of supe- 
 riority of men over animals, he is involved in the 
 vicious* circle of considering language to be, at 
 the same time and in the same sense, a cause and 
 an effect of thought. This system found its most 
 wonderful illustration in the too-famous descrip- 
 tion of the statue-man ; a being, who, so far from 
 being capable of acquiring memory, and judgment 
 and thought, would even be incapable of any- 
 thing, except mere organic impressions,! because 
 it could have had no will whereby to contrast its 
 personality with the action of external causes. 
 
 So far is it from being true, that there is 
 nothing in the intellect which has not previously 
 
 * See V. Cousin, Cours oVUistoire tie la Phil. Morale. 
 
 *t* otfre ttjs ipvxys VSwv rb aladavtcrdai ovre tov cru/xaros. — Arist. 
 tie 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.
 
 152 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 been in the sense, that even our conception of 
 matter* itself is derived from a superior source, 
 and would without the intellect be one at which 
 Ave could not arrive. The senses themselves can 
 tell us nothing except in so far as they are " the 
 scribest of the soul." 
 
 It might have been thought that sensationalism 
 itself could go no farther than Condillac, but it 
 found exponents still more audacious in Helvetius 
 and St. Lambert. According to the former, man 
 is merely an animal superior to other animals 
 because of the greater perfection of the organs 
 with which he has been endowed ; according to 
 the latter, man, when born, is only an organised 
 sensible mass; and the first objects which strike 
 our senses give us ourTfirst ideas, until thus, 
 gradually, Nature has created the soul within us. 
 We are hardly surprised after this to find that 
 Helvetius considers love to be only the feeling of 
 
 * "II n'y a rien dans l'intelligence qui ait passe paries sens; 
 rien, pas nieme l'idee des sens !" — Charma, Essai siu- 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." — EUm. dc 
 Philos. p. 143. 
 
 r H fJ.fTifj.ri reus alo0r)(reo'i avjxTrlirTovca els ravrov. . .rpaivovrai 
 fj-oi crxeSui/ uiov ypd(puv rjfx&v eV reus ^v%cus r6re h6yovs. — Plat. 
 Phihbus, p. 192.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 153 
 
 a need, courage to be the fear of death (!), and 
 " Do -what is useful" to be the moral rule; and 
 that St. Lambert avows openly, that pleasure and 
 pain are the masters of man, so that the object of 
 life will be to seek the one, and avoid the other. 
 
 Are we obliged by our theory respecting the 
 origin of language to accept any of these conclu- 
 sions ? Must we say, with Condillac, that 
 " science is only a well-constructed language ? " 
 or with M. Destutt de Tracy, that " thought * is 
 sensation ? " or (to go back to the cradle of these 
 materialist imaginings), must we believe, with the 
 old sophist, that "manf is the measure of all 
 things ? " that there is no eternal right or truth ? 
 that justice and turpitude are the result not of 
 divine instinct, but of association, habit, custom, 
 convention ? Must all morality be founded, with 
 Occam,t on the result of an arbitrary decree ? and 
 must we believe, with Home Tooke, that truth is 
 simply and purely relative, since its derivation is 
 supposed to imply that it is merely what one 
 " troweth ? " 
 
 * Penser c'est sentir. 
 
 ■f" irdvruv fxirpov uvQpanros. — Protagoras. 
 
 J 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, nav to 7rpax6f" virb rod 
 icparovvTos dinaiov.
 
 154 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 To establish such conclusions was the direct 
 object of Home Tooke in his " Diversions of 
 Purley," * and it is astonishing that he should have 
 met with such complete success. A certain Dutch- 
 man f had preceded him in the same line of 
 argument ; abusing the fact that the terms of 
 theology, morals, and metaphysics, are originally 
 derived from material images, he turned theology 
 and the Christian faith into ridicule in a little 
 Dutch dictionary, in which he gave to words, not 
 such definitions as usage demands, but such as 
 seemed to carry a malignant inference drawn 
 from the original meaning ; and since he had 
 shown marks of impiety elsewhere, they say 
 that he was punished for it in the Itaspel- 
 Huyss. 
 
 Far different was the acceptance given to the 
 "Diversions of Purley," which to this day is 
 praised and quoted, although a recent philologist 
 has not scrupled to affirm that Tooke's " alluring f 
 speculations will not bear the light of advancing 
 
 * On the title of Home Tooke's treatise, "Winged Words, or 
 Language not only the Vehicle of Thought, but the Wheels," see 
 Coleridge, Aids to Jiefl. p. xv. 
 
 t Leibnitz, Nouv. Ess. The passage is quoted by Dr. Donald- 
 son, New Crat. ch. iii., where the reader will find some admirable 
 remarks on the subject of this chapter. 
 
 J Mr. Wedgwood's Etym. Diet. p. ii.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 155 
 
 knowledge, and it is hardly too much to say that 
 there is not a sound etymology in the work." No 
 one lias done more to overthrow his baseless 
 fabric than the late Mr. Garnett,*in an article on 
 English Lexicography, who has shown in parti- 
 cular that the details of his much-vaunted analysis 
 of the particles may be contested more often than 
 admitted, and indeed that his theory contains very 
 little that can be safely relied upon. Tooke seems 
 to have been led to his system by the conjecture 
 that " if " is equivalent to " gif," an imperative of 
 the verb " to give ;" but as the cognate forms in 
 other languages prove that this particle has no 
 connection whatever either with the verb "to give " 
 or with any other verb (a fact which was proved by 
 Dr. Jamieson in his Scottish Dictionary), " any 
 system founded on this basis is a mere castle in 
 the air." "According to Plutarch," says Mr. Gar- 
 nett, " the Delphian EI supported the tripod of 
 truth ; we fear that Tooke's if imperative led him 
 into a labyrinth of error." 
 
 Again, let us take the etymology by which 
 Tooke endeavours to explode the common notion 
 of truth. He assumes that the word 'truth' is 
 merely a contraction of " troweth," and that 
 " trow " simply denotes to think or believe. 
 
 * Essays, p. 13 seqq.
 
 156 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 The inferences are as follows: "Truth* sup- 
 poses mankind; for whom and by whom alone 
 the word is formed, and to whom alone it is 
 applicable. If no man, then no truth. There 
 is no such thing as eternal, immutable, ever- 
 lasting truth, unless mankind, such as they 
 are at present, be also eternal, immutable, and 
 everlasting. Two persons may contradict each 
 other, and yet both speak truth, for the truth 
 of one person may be opposite to the truth of 
 another." Here we are removed at once from 
 the solid basis of certainty and conviction to the 
 shifting deserts and treacherous waves of con- 
 jecture and doubt ; and the etymologist would 
 reduce morality and religion to shadowy super- 
 structures built upon moving and trembling 
 sands. Even if the derivation were admissible 
 we should reject the conclusion, but the etymo- 
 logy is as erroneous as the inference drawn 
 from it is dangerous and false. Mr. Garnett, with 
 infinitely more probability, derives truth " from the 
 Sanskrit dhru, to be established — fixum esse ; 
 whence dhruwa, certain, i.e., established ; German, 
 trauen, to rely, trust; treu, faithful, true ; Anglo- 
 Saxon, trcovj — treowth (fides) ; English, true, 
 truth. To these we may add Gothic, triggons ; 
 
 * Diversions of Purley, Part ij. cli. v.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE . 157 
 
 Icelandic, trygge ; (fidus, securus, tutus) : all from 
 the same root, and all conveying the same idea of 
 stability or security. Truth, therefore, neither 
 means what is thought nor what is said, but that 
 which is permanent, stable, and is and ought to 
 be relied upon, because, upon sufficient data, it is 
 capable of being demonstrated or shown to exist. 
 If we admit this explanation, Tooke's asser- 
 tions .... become Vox et prceierea nihil. In all 
 inquiries after truth, the question is, not what 
 people, who may or may not be competent to 
 form an opinion, think or believe, but what grounds 
 they have for believing it." * 
 
 The question how mind can be affected by 
 matter has in all ages been a problem of philo- 
 sophy. Descartes accounted for it by occasional 
 causes; Leibnitz, by pre-established harmony; 
 Malebranche, by a vision of all things in God ; 
 Kant, by the existence of innate ideas. However 
 the question be resolved, it is closely analogous 
 to the question, 'how can things immaterial f 
 and unsubstantial like thought and conception 
 be represented, and for all practical purposes 
 adequately represented by things physical, i.e., 
 by pulsations and modifications of the ambient 
 air? ' 
 
 * Essays, p. 28. + See Yinet, Essais, p. 349.
 
 158 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 Idealism denies the existence of an external 
 ■world, and obtrudes on us in its stead " a world 
 of spectres and apparitions ; " materialism denies 
 us the possession of any ideas but those which we 
 have derived from sense, and thus deprives us of 
 all belief in an eternal and pre-existing truth ; 
 between the two we lose alike " the starry heaven 
 above, and the moral law within." But neither 
 of these systems can derive any real support from 
 the phenomena of language, which indeed in no 
 way affect the considerations they involve. For if 
 confessedly our words have nothing to tell us, and 
 can tell us nothing about the world of phenomena, 
 and yet the common sense of mankind forces us 
 to believe in the existence of that outer world, 
 then it can be no argument against the existence 
 of noumena, i.e., against the existence of eternal 
 ideas and necessary truths, that the words 
 which we apply to our conceptions of immaterial 
 entities are borrowed from the analogy which 
 those conceptions offer to the objects surround- 
 ing us in the world of sense. " When we 
 impose on a phenomenon of the physical order a 
 moral denomination, we do not thereby spiri- 
 tualise matter ; and because we assign a physical 
 denomination to a moral phenomenon, we do not 
 materialise spirit. Let us not from these appel-
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 159 
 
 lations, more or less inexact, draw conclusions 
 either as to the nature of our ideas or the essence 
 of things." 
 
 Even if it were possible that we could invent 
 names for each separate particle of matter in the 
 material universe, we should know nothing of any 
 one particle except that it causes (or, perhaps, 
 we ought to say no more than that it is) a modi- 
 fication of ourselves; and yet we believe that 
 there is a non-ego entirely and wholly inde- 
 pendent of the ego, though it may in no way 
 resemble our notions respecting it. "Why then 
 may we not equally believe in the independent 
 absolute existence of ideas which correspond to 
 our terms, — truth and justice, goodness and 
 beauty, space and time ? 
 
 A shower falls while the sun is shining, and 
 we are conscious of a sensation which presents to 
 us an arch shining with the divided perfection of 
 seven-fold light to which we have given the name 
 Rainbow. But what does the name teach us 
 of the thing itself ? It is not even a name for the 
 thing itself, but only for the effect it produces 
 upon us ; indeed for us, the very existence of the 
 object is its perception, "its esse is ^erc'ipi." Not 
 
 * Kanfc, quoted by Ghalybaus, Speculative Philosophy, Tr. 
 Tulk. p. 31.
 
 160 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 only is the coloured arch a phenomenon existing 
 merely for us and our visual sense, but the very 
 raindrops are only empirical phenomena, and 
 " their * round shape — nay, even the space in 
 which they are formed, are nothing in themselves 
 but a mere modification or principle of our sen- 
 suous intuition ; with all this, however, the object 
 itself remains to us completely unknown." We 
 cannot even say that our conception of the object 
 is in any way like the object itself: can pain, for 
 instance, resemble the pricking of a pin ? Such 
 language, as Bp. Berkeley showed long ago, is a 
 ' mere contradiction in terms ; for " an idea can 
 be like nothing but an idea ; a colour or figure 
 can be like nothing but another colour or figure. 
 I appeal to any one whether it be sense to 
 assert that a colour is like something which is 
 invisible ; hard or soft, like something which is 
 intangible." 
 
 What, then, is the word (c. g. rainbow) to us ? 
 In itself it is worthless, a mere hieroglyphic, 
 which cannot even teach us one iota about the 
 
 * "There still remains roe question, 'Do things as they are 
 resemble things as they are conceived by us V — 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.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 161 
 
 phenomenal world. We are very far from agree- 
 ing with the " divers philosophers " mentioned 
 by Sir Hugh Evans in the Merry Wives* of 
 Windsor, who " hold that the lips is parcel of the 
 mind." We still believe that objects do exist in 
 the external world, even although it be absurd to 
 say that they resemble our " ideas " of them. 
 Although to us they can only exist as " ideas," 
 and not as objects, we do not therefore deny that 
 they have a real independent existence of their 
 own. And precisely in the same way, whatever 
 may be the derivation of the word truth, and 
 however much our conceptions of that word must 
 be modified by the laws of thought, we yet believe, 
 as firmly as we believe anything, that truth has 
 an independent, eternal, immutable existence ; 
 that it is infinitely more than a mere "flatus 
 vocis ; " that its indestructible idea, its original, 
 its antetype, exists in the Divine! mind, and 
 that if man and the works of man were to sink 
 for ever into annihilation in the flames of a 
 fiery surge, truth and wisdom would still exist, 
 even as they existed when God prepared the 
 
 * Act I. sc. iv. 
 
 t This was the ground taken both by Plato and Aristotle in 
 refuting the Sophists. See Thecetet. p. 176. Arist. Eth. Nic. v. 7. 
 Aristoph. Nub. 902 (quoted by Mr. Mansell, Metaphysics, p. 387).
 
 162 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 heavens, "from the* beginning, or ever the earth 
 was." 
 
 There is then no reason to complain of the 
 materialism of language, or to be afraid of the 
 conclusions which nominalists like Home Tooke 
 and his Dutch predecessor would willingly draw 
 from the origin of words. No system of mate- 
 rialism will account for grammar, that form of 
 language which is due to the pure reason. No 
 treatise on the history of words will be able to 
 point to any external source as sufficient to 
 account for the relation t of words among them- 
 selves. No language is a mere collection of 
 words ; and Locke in all that he has written 
 about words has offered no proof that any system 
 of syntax is ultimately due to sensible ideas. 
 His followers have attempted this, but they have 
 failed. An eminent modern scholar has observed 
 that a " careful \ dissection of the whole body of 
 inflected speech will make it plain, that while 
 words are merely outward symbols, designating 
 certain notions of the mind, those notions do not 
 
 * See Proverbs, ch. viii. 22. Jewish philosophy reaches its most 
 passionate and eloquent strains in the expansion and inculcation of 
 this belief. Ecclus. passim. 
 
 t See Victor Cousin, Cours de VHist. de Phil. Mor. iii. 
 p. 214 seqq. 
 
 J Dr. Donaldson, ubi sup.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 163 
 
 stand related in all cases, just as the words or 
 inflections which express them, and that we 
 cannot by means of mere words convert into 
 physical truth all that is logically and meta- 
 physically true." 
 
 Language is not what it has been called, " la 
 pensee* devenue matiere." The very expression 
 involves a contradiction. "Words can be nothing 
 but symbols, and, at the best, very imperfect 
 ones. To make the symbol in any way a mea- 
 sure of the thought, is to bring down the infinite 
 to the measure of the finite. Our words mean 
 far more than they express, they shadow forth 
 far more than it is in their power to define. 
 When two men converse their words are but an 
 instrument; the speaker is descending fromt 
 thoughts to words, the listener rising from words 
 to thoughts. Onomatopoeia and metaphor are 
 sufficient to provide us with the material part of 
 language, the articulate sounds ; but to translate 
 those sounds into signs or words is the effort of 
 a faculty which transcends the sense. On the 
 one hand we have a spiritual perception,! the 
 thought ; on the other hand a material accident, 
 the combination of articulate utterances ; — but 
 
 * Vinet, p. 349. 
 t See Harris, Hermes, iii. 4. J Charma, p. 64.
 
 164 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 what power can bridge the abysm between the 
 two ? The reason, and the reason only. With- 
 out reason, the use of metaphor would be 
 impossible, and the result of imitation would 
 be a collection of sounds as meaningless as 
 the screams of a parrot or the chatterings of 
 an ape. 
 
 Surely these considerations are sufficient to 
 show that there is no danger to true philosophy 
 in the inferences to which language leads us. 
 But, indeed, the whole of nominalism rests on a 
 vast petitio principii. Because our primitive 
 vocabulary is deduced solely from corporeal or 
 sensible images, it is assumed, per saltum, that 
 our intellect only admits of conceptions directly 
 derived from the agency of the senses, and that 
 therefore thought is nothing but sensation. But 
 the consciousness of the metaphor has vanished 
 for ages from language, and when we use such a 
 word as " spirit," we do not even remember that 
 our word means in itself no more than " a whisper 
 of the wind." Our primitive conceptions ad- 
 mitted only of expression by means of a material 
 analogy : — this is the sole ground of nominalism, 
 and it will not bear the enormous structure of 
 inferences built upon it; 1st, that our conceptions 
 were themselves originally material ; and, 2ndly,
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 165 
 
 that they are and must be so still, because we 
 are incapable of any others. 
 
 Finally, there are in every language " a vast 
 number of words which may be explained by the 
 idea, although the idea cannot be discovered by 
 the word, as is the case with whatever belongs 
 to the mystery of the mind." Such words are 
 sacrifice, sacrament, mystery, eternhVv. The 
 conclusion to which they lead us is a plain one, 
 and it is one which will render us fearless of the 
 arguments which the sensational philosophy has 
 so long paraded with triumph as the main sup- 
 port of its unbeliefs. It is that " Words are at 
 most intellectual symbols, and symbols are, at 
 the best, words. Neither the words of language, 
 nor the symbols of religion, are the basis and 
 reality of thought or of worship ; they have no 
 reality but in reason and conscience, and are of 
 no use but in so far as they express this reality, 
 and are so* understood and applied." 
 
 * Bunsen's Outlines, ii. 146. The whole chapter is well worthy 
 of attentive study, for the profound and noble thoughts which it 
 contains.
 
 166 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE LAWS OF PROGRESS IN LANGUAGE. 
 
 The history of almost every language points 
 to the action of certain general law's of progress, 
 which laws are psychological as well as linguistic, 
 i. e. they correspond and are parallel to the 
 growth and progress of the human mind. They 
 may be briefly summed up by saying that lan- 
 guages advance from exuberance to moderation, 
 from complexity and confusion to grammatical 
 regularity, and from synthesis to analysis. The 
 explanation and illustration of these laws will 
 occupy the present chapter. 
 
 1st. Languages advance from exuberance to 
 moderation, by eliminating superfluities. 
 
 The earliest languages are marked by exube- 
 rance,* indetermination, extreme variety, uncon- 
 trolled liberty. They are melodious, but prolix 
 and measureless. AVords were invented inde- 
 pendently, spontaneously, as they were required 
 by the tribe or the individual, with little or no 
 
 * Renan, p. 10S. Grimm, 37.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 1G7 
 
 reference to already existing forms. The absence 
 of literature, the want of political unity, the 
 habits of a nomadic life, tended to create an 
 immense multitude of terms and idioms. Among 
 semi-barbarous and wandering communities the 
 peculiarities which we call dialects existed simul- 
 taneously and side by side. 
 
 The Caucasus and Abyssinia present us a 
 number of distinct languages in a narrow district- 
 The number and variety of the American dialects 
 is almost as great as that of the several tribes ; 
 and in Oceania it has been asserted that nearly 
 every island or group of islands possesses a 
 speech which barely offers any affinity with that 
 of the neighbouring groups. 
 
 Unity of speech is the result of civilisation, 
 and it is preceded by a diversity of forms which 
 subsequently become the characteristics of par- 
 ticular localities. The steps towards unity are 
 three ; first, we have the confused, simultaneous 
 existence of dialectic varieties ; then the isolated 
 and independent existence of dialects ; and, 
 finally, the fusion of these varieties in a more * 
 extended unity. Thus the earliest Hebrew 
 records contain traces of idioms which were sub- 
 sequently the peculiar property of Aramaic, and 
 
 * Renan, p. 185.
 
 168 AX ESSAY ON 
 
 we find in the Homeric poems a thousand 
 variations of form and structure which were 
 afterwards exclusively iEolic, or Attic, or Doric. 
 The explanation of this fact is to be found in the 
 consideration that these forms were in Homer's 
 time the common property of the old Ionic 
 tongue, and it was not till after ages that they 
 became appropriated and localised. The suppo- 
 sition that the rhapsodists employed a judicious 
 selection of idioms, and made a mosaic out of 
 distinct dialects, has long ago been abandoned 
 as impossible and absurd. 
 
 The process of eliminating superfluities is 
 found in every language. Redundancy seems to 
 have been necessary to an early stage of thought, 
 for we find it not only in words but in expres- 
 sions. The whole of Hebrew poetry depends 
 on a repetition and enforcement of the same 
 fundamental thought, so as to gain emphasis and 
 variety. In children we find a tendency to repeat 
 the same thing twice, once affirmatively and once 
 negatively, as though the double assertion gave 
 them an additional security. " It is not you, 
 but I ;" "This letter is not A, but B ;" are turns 
 of expression well known to those who have 
 observed the language of the nursery. It is 
 surprising to find the same unnecessary tautology
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 169 
 
 existing very widely in the most advanced litera- 
 tures. " We have seen with our eyes and heard 
 with our ears," is a superfluity which has many 
 types in the sacred writers ; " They were in great 
 numbers, not in small," is the translation of a 
 line in the (Edipus Tyrannus, and we find even 
 a poet of our own times writing — 
 
 There saw he where some careless hand 
 O'er a dead * corpse had heaped the sand. 
 
 There is no doubt that such tautologies are often 
 so far from being barren, that they give force 
 and precision to the conception which they 
 convey; but the mischief of them is that they 
 give rise to a thousand errors of reasoning, and 
 to many minds have the effect of an argument. 
 
 or, 
 
 The Spanish fleet you cannot see, because 
 It is not yet in sight, 
 
 Et respondeo 
 Quia sit in eo 
 
 Vis qua? faciat homines dormire. 
 
 might be used as the satirical motto of many a 
 treatise both in science and metaphysics.! 
 
 * 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 Trpb 6fj./j.d.TOjy iroitiv. 
 
 f " L'opium endonuit parce qu'il a une vertu soporifique."
 
 170 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 There are two processes by which nations get 
 rid of words which are mere synonyms of other 
 words, and are therefore burdensome. The one 
 is to drop altogether the superfluous word, or 
 only retain some one form or application of it ; 
 the other is to desynonymise words by using 
 them each with one special shade of signification. 
 Thus, when the Greek language obtained the 
 word x/™°" os to mean " gold," it dropped alto- 
 gether the word avpov, which at one time it must 
 have possessed^ as is clear from a comparison of 
 the word 6ij<ravpo$ with the Latin aurum. What 
 are called anomalous declensions and conjugations 
 are explicable in the same manner, since ancient 
 idioms are always richer than those which have 
 undergone the revision of grammarians. It is, 
 in fact, one of the duties of grammarians to make 
 a choice among the riches of popular language, 
 and to eliminate all words that are unnecessary. 
 Thus a boy would be naturally puzzled by being 
 told that </je'pco, oto-a), TjvzyKa are parts of the same 
 verb, but it will be easy for him to understand 
 and remember that these w r ords are, in fact, the 
 
 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.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 171 
 
 debris of three entirely separate conjugations, 
 parts of which only have been retained, while 
 the remaining forms have been dropped because 
 they were in no way needed. Merely capricious 
 varieties have all been solved into a single 
 verb. 
 
 2ndly. Languages advance from confusion to 
 regularity, from indetermination to grammar. 
 
 "What is true of the vocabulary of a language 
 is no less true of its grammar. Here also sim- 
 plicity is due to reflection, and is posterior to the 
 rich complexity of a faculty spontaneously exer- 
 cised. Scientific grammar is a subsequent inven- 
 tion; at their birth languages are lawless and 
 irregular. The reason why the oldest and least 
 grammatical languages appear to have the longest 
 grammars, is because the anomalies are all cata- 
 logued as though they were so many rules, and 
 what was once permissible because it then violated 
 no law of language is ranked as the recognised 
 exception to a definite order. An Isaiah would 
 have been amazed at reading the innumerable 
 rules of language by which modern grammarians 
 suppose him to have been governed ; and a 
 Thucydides would have been hardly less as- 
 tonished to see his " syllogism of passion " 
 rigidly reduced to a syllogism of grammar.
 
 172 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 At first, until usage had arisen, every body 
 seems to have been at liberty to invent or adopt 
 conjugations and declensions almost at his own 
 caprice. " The more barbarous a language," says 
 Herder, " the greater is the number of its conju- 
 gations." It has been a fatal mistake of philology 
 to suppose that simplicity is anterior to com- 
 plexity : simplicity is the triumph of science, not 
 the spontaneous result of intelligence. The 
 Basque language, which has retained much of 
 the primitive spirit, has eleven moods ; the Caffir 
 language has upwards of twenty. Agglutination 
 or Polysynthetism* is the name which has been 
 invented for the complex condition of early 
 language, when words follow each other in a sort 
 of idyllic and laissez-aller carelessness, and the 
 whole sentence, or even the whole discourse, is 
 conjugated or declined as though it were a single 
 word, every subordinate clause being inserted in 
 the main one by a species of incapsulation. This 
 is the case with the Astec, the languages of the 
 Pacific, and many other languages. The Mongol 
 declines an entire firman, and even in Sanskrit, 
 flexions so far supersede syntax that the whole 
 
 * First used by M. Duponceau in bis Englisb translation of tbe 
 German Grammar of Zeisberger. Charma, p. 266. Scbleicber 
 called tbese languages "Holcpbrastic."
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 1*3 
 
 thought is in some sort declined. In Mexican, 
 the word *Notlazomahiuzteo i pixcatatzin, with which 
 they salute the priests, is easily decomposed into 
 " Venerable priest, whom I honour as my father ; " 
 and in Turkish,t the single word Sev-ish-dir-il- 
 me-mek means " not to be brought to love one 
 another." Yet even these are entirely surpassed 
 by some of the dialects of North America. In the 
 t Iroquois, for instance, one word of twenty-one 
 letters expresses this sentence of eighteen words : 
 " I give some money to those who have arrived, 
 in order to buy them more clothes with it." This 
 one word is an agglomeration of simple words 
 and roots in a violent state of fusion and 
 apocope. 
 
 3r<Uy. Analogous in great measure to the law 
 which we have been mentioning (or perhaps we 
 may say a further development of the same law), 
 is the progress of language from Synthesis to 
 Analysis. 
 
 We have seen that many ancient languages are 
 
 * Humboldt, quoted by Charma, p. 222. 
 
 + Max Mtiller, p. 113. Compare Moliere, Le Bourgeois Gentil- 
 homme, 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." 
 
 J Ampere, Rev. des Deux Mondes. Fevrier, 1S/53, p. 572.
 
 174 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 polysynthetic or* holophrastic, i.e., that they pro- 
 duce the entire thought or sentence under the 
 form of one complex and rich unity, and subordi- 
 nate every word and phrase to the domination of 
 the entire clause. Even in early Greek and 
 Latin we ma) r find traces of this " holophrasis " 
 in the separation of two parts of the same word 
 which was permissible by what is called tmesis. 
 as for instance in such expressions as Kara baicpv 
 X^ovaa, and even Kara ixiova ju?j/3t' 007a. In Latin the 
 same licence is far more rare, although we find 
 it in the lines, " Inque cruentahis," &c, and it 
 was retained in one or two compounds, as " Quo tc 
 cumque ferent." In both languages these extreme 
 cases early disappeared, and the startling audacity 
 of Ennius in the famous 
 
 Cere commirmit brum, 
 
 for " comminuit cerebrum," would probably have 
 made Virgil stare and gasp, as much asf the 
 modern 
 
 Jo qui terras de coelo despicis lmivn.es. 
 
 But although nothing is left in the Indo- 
 European languages but the faint traces of that 
 sylleptical tendency which seems to have marked 
 
 * Also called " incorporan:." + Charma. p. 223.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 175 
 
 the earliest stage of language, they offer the most 
 splendid examples of a perfect synthesis. B} r a 
 facile power of composition, and by attaching to 
 the verb and noun a variety of terminations 
 capable of distinguishing the nicest modifications 
 of meaning, they have produced an instrument of 
 thought almost unrivalled in accuracy and beauty. 
 
 In Greek and Latin one word was enough 
 to express alike the subject, copula, and predi- 
 cate ; in English, two are always requisite, and 
 generally three. The single word tvttto) requires 
 the three words — " I am striking " — to render it; 
 to translate amabor in English or in German we 
 require four words, " I shall be loved — Ich werde 
 geliebt werden ; " and the same is true of many 
 other parts of the verb ; as eren/^efla, periisses, 
 " we had been honoured," " you would have 
 perished." 
 
 At first sight this analysis may seem to be a 
 defect, but, in point of fact, it is a development. 
 It is a bad thing for the human mind to be 
 subjected to the despotism of a rigid grammar, 
 the tyranny of too perfect a form. As it is the 
 danger of advancing civilisation and of too 
 refined a society to reduce men to the deal level 
 of uniformity, and subject every caprice of the 
 individual to the domination of an unwritten
 
 176 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 code, culled the " laws of society," so a language 
 which crystallises every relation in a definite 
 form tends to cramp and restrain the genius of 
 those who use it. In the tragedies of iEschylus 
 and the odes of Pindar, marvellous as is the 
 power which crams every rigid phrase with the 
 fire of a hidden meaning, we yet feel that the 
 form is cracking under the spirit, or at least 
 there is a tension injurious to the general effect. 
 A language which gets rid of its earlier inflec- 
 tions — English, for instance, as compared with 
 Anglo-Saxon — loses far less than might have 
 been supposed. 
 
 The progress of language from synthesis to 
 analysis is that of the human intelligence. Later 
 generations find the language of their ancestors 
 too learned for their own use. For the unity, 
 spontaneous but often obscure, of the primitive 
 tongues, they substitute an idiom clearer and 
 more explicit by giving a separate existence to 
 every subject in the sentence. They break up 
 the conglomerated jewels of old speech to reset 
 them in an order less dazzling but more distinct. 
 They sacrifice the magnificence of mystery to the 
 light of distinct comprehension. Instead of one 
 sentence, out of whose tangled intricacies flashed, 
 all the more brightly from contrast, the rays of
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 177 
 
 enthusiasm and genius, they attain to a logical 
 accuracy which gives to each idea and each rela- 
 tion its isolated expression. AY hat they lose in 
 euphony, force, and poetic concision, they gain 
 in the power of marking the nicest shades of 
 thought; what they lose in* elasticity they 
 gain in strength. If synthetic and agglutina- 
 tive languages are the hest instruments of imagi- 
 nation, analysis hetter serves the purposes of 
 reflection. Splendid efflorescence is followed by 
 ripe fruit. 
 
 It is thus t that Sanskrit, with its eight cases, 
 six moods, and numerous inflections, capable of 
 expressing a crowd of secondary ideas, decom- 
 poses first into the Pali (?), Prakrit, and Kawi, 
 dialects less rich and learned, but more precise, 
 which substitute auxiliaries and prepositions for 
 case and tense ; and even these latter, too 
 complex for ordinary use, are gradually displaced 
 by the more vulgar dialects of Hindostan, — the 
 Hindoo, the Mahrattah, and the Bengali. 
 
 In the same way the Zend, Pehlvi, and Pars-i, 
 are replaced by the modern Persian. The Zend, 
 
 * Grimm, ss. 37—47. 
 
 t 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. 
 
 N
 
 178 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 with its long and complicated words, its want of 
 prepositions, and its method of supplying the 
 want by means of cases, represents a language 
 eminently synthetic. Modern Persian, on the 
 contrary, is poorer in flexions than almost any 
 language which exists ; it may he said, without 
 exaggeration, that its whole grammar might be 
 compressed into a few pages. Modern Greek is 
 the analysis or decomposition of ancient Greek 
 during a long period of barbarism. The Romance 
 languages are Latin submitted to the same 
 process ; Italian, Spanish, French, and "NValla- 
 chian, are merely Latin mutilated, deprived of its 
 flexions, reduced to shortened forms, and supply- 
 ing by numerous monosyllables the learned 
 organisation of the ancient idioms. " The fact 
 then that the people in Italy, in France, in Spain, 
 in Greece, on the banks of the Danube and of the 
 Ganges, have been reduced to the necessity of 
 treating their ancient languages in precisely the 
 same manner to accommodate them to their 
 wants ; and the fact that two languages, so dis- 
 tant in time and space as the Pali and the 
 Italian for instance, occupy positions exactly 
 identical in relation to their mother-tongues, 
 affords the best proof that there is in the pro- 
 gress of languages a necessary law, and that
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 179 
 
 there is an irresistible tendency which leads idioms 
 to despoil themselves of an apparel too learned to 
 clothe a form more simple, more popular, and 
 more convenient." * 
 
 In the Semitic languages we find the progress 
 towards analysis from various! causes less decided, 
 but no less ascertainable. Ancient Hebrew is 
 remarkable for its agglutination. " Like a child," 
 says Herder, " it seeks to say all at once." It 
 uses one word where we require five or six. But 
 as we approach the period of the captivity we find 
 a propensity to replace grammatical mechanisms 
 by periphrasis, a propensity still more marked in 
 modern or Rabbinical Hebrew. The later dialects 
 — Chaldean, Samaritan, Syriac — are longer, 
 clearer, more analytic. These, in their turn, are 
 absorbed into Arabic, which pushes still farther 
 the analysis of grammatical relations. But the 
 delicate and varied flexions of Arabic are still too 
 difficult for the rude soldiers of the early Khalifs ; 
 solecisms multiply, grammatical forms are aban- 
 doned, and for the Arabic of the schools we get the 
 vulgar Arabic, which is simpler and less elegant, 
 but in some respects more accurate and distinct. 
 
 * Precisely the same change takes place in the growth of English 
 from Saxon, ami Danish from Icelandic, 
 t Hist, ties Laivjucs Sim. v. 1, 2, and 3. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 Even the languages of central and eastern 
 Asia are not entirely wanting in analogous phe- 
 nomena. But the facts already adduced are amply 
 sufficient to prove that, in the history of 
 languages, Sjmthesis is primitive, and Analysis, 
 far from being the natural process of the intelli- 
 gence, is only the slow result of its development. 
 And if it be a natural development it must, on 
 the whole, be considered an advance. 
 
 " An instance,"* observes Grimm, " unique but 
 decisive, is alone sufficient to replace all the proofs 
 and arguments which I have accumulated in my 
 reasoning on this subject. Among modern 
 languages there is not one which has gained more 
 force and solidity than the English by neglecting 
 or breaking the ancient rules of sound, and 
 suffering almost all flexions to drop. The abund- 
 ance of medial sounds, the pronunciation of 
 which may be learnt but cannot be taught, gives 
 to this language a power of expression, such as 
 perhaps no human language has ever attained. 
 Its highly spiritual genius and marvellously 
 happy development are due to the astonishing- 
 union of the two most noble languages in modern 
 
 * Tiber den Urspr. d. Sprache, p. 50. Another weighty testi- 
 mony to the splendour of the English language may be found in 
 Adeluug's M'dkridates.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 181 
 
 Europe, German and Romance. We know the 
 part which each of these elements plays in the 
 English language ; one of them is almost entirely 
 devoted to the representation of sensible ideas, 
 the other to the expression of intellectual rela- 
 tions. Yes, the English language, which has 
 produced and nourished with its milk the greatest 
 of modern poets, the only one who can be com- 
 pared to the classical poets of antiquity (who 
 does not see that I am speaking of Shakspeare ?), 
 may of good right be called an universal 
 language, and seems destined, like the English 
 people itself, to extend its empire farther and 
 farther in all quarters of the globe." 
 
 To the laws which we have been considering, 
 many philologists would be inclined to add a 
 fourth — viz., the progress to polysyllabism from 
 a state originally monosyllabic. Many arguments 
 may undoubtedly be adduced, which give a prima 
 facie probability to this supposition." We will 
 proceed briefly to state them. 
 
 It is argued, firstly, that we should have 
 expected a priori a predominance of monosyllabic 
 roots, because it is unlikely that a single powerful 
 impression would have expressed itself by more 
 
 * See Benloew, p. 15 sqq. Humboldt, Uber die Yerschiedcnheit 
 des menschlichen Sprachbaues, ad finem.
 
 182 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 than one sound. Since one sound would have 
 been sufficient, we should not be inclined to look 
 for any superfluity. Impression would provoke 
 expression with the same rapidity that the flash 
 of lightning is kindled by the shock of two 
 electric clouds. It must be remembered that the 
 young senses of the human race were unac- 
 customed to compound articulations, and neither 
 their ears nor their tongues would have led them 
 to signify by two sounds or two syllables an im- 
 pression essentially single. 
 
 Secondly, it is said that existing facts prove 
 the likelihood of this conclusion. Thus, to this 
 day, some nations are unable to pronounce com- 
 pound consonants by one emission of the voice. 
 Such is the case with the Mantschou, and the 
 Chinese can only utter the word Christus by 
 changing it according to the custom of his lan- 
 guage into ki-li-su-ta-su* The Chinese then may 
 be considered as a language petrified in its first 
 stage of flexionless and ungrammatical monosyl- 
 labism. Thus, in order to express the plural, 
 they are obliged to add the words, " another " 
 and " much," or to repeat the noun twice, express- 
 ing " us " by " me another," and trees by " tree,t 
 
 * The Chinese 'J' is pronounced like 'r.' 
 
 t Many readers may recall the story of the late Mr. Albert
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 183 
 
 tree." The prayer, " Our Father -which art in 
 heaven," assumes in Chinese* the form "Being 
 heaven me another (=our) Father who," a style 
 not unlike the natural language of very young 
 children. 
 
 Thirdly, it is asserted that all existing 
 languages are capable of being deduced from 
 monosyllabic roots ; that even the triliteral t 
 Semitic languages afford abundant evidence of 
 the fact that the three consonants are only the 
 result of a growth, since one of the consonants is 
 often weak and unnecessary, and many of the 
 words expressing simple! ideas have only one 
 syllable. 
 
 Whatever weight may attach to these consi- 
 derations, they do not appear to be convincing. 
 The attempt of Fiirst and Delitzch to get over 
 the fact of Semitic triliteralism is not com- 
 pletely successful, and no evidence has ever been 
 
 Smith about the Bishop being described in the mixed jargon of 
 Hong Kong as the " A-one-heaven-business-man." 
 
 * Adelung, Mithridates, i. p. 412. Some deny the monosyllabic 
 character of Chinese. (Prof. Key, Art. Language, Engl. Cycl.) 
 
 t It should be observed that triliteralism is not necessarily 
 incompatible with monosyllabism. See Hist, des Lang ties SSmi- 
 tigues, p. 94, 2ude ed. 
 
 t As 2« father, w mother, n^ brother, in mountain, T hand, 
 cv day, &c.
 
 184 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 adduced to show the causes which could have 
 influenced a language to abandon an essentially 
 monosyllabic character, or the time when so 
 immense a change could have taken place. 
 
 Chinese, as we know, has been monosyllabic 
 rom the earliest period, and continues so to 
 h is day ; and even Thibetian and Burmese,* 
 though they have, under the influence of other 
 languages, made great efforts to attain a grammar, 
 have yet retained the ineffaceable impress of their 
 original condition. We therefore reject this 
 fourth law, as one which, even if possible, is by 
 no means proven. Further discussion of it will, 
 indirectly, be involved in the following chapter. 
 At best, it can only be regarded as an artificial 
 hypothesis, occasionally convenient for the pur- 
 poses of the grammarian, but not corresponding 
 to any real condition of the languages as once 
 spoken. 
 
 * Renan, p. 168. I must content myself here with a general 
 reference to M. Itenan, to whose works I have been very greatly 
 indebted throughout the cbapter, and indeed, as I have repeatedly 
 observed, throughout the book.
 
 THE OEIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 185 
 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE FAMILIES OF LANGUAGES. 
 
 " Facies non omnibus una, 
 Nee diversa tamen, quales decet esse sororum." — Yirg. 
 
 It has been considered by many that language 
 has passed through four * stages. 1. A period in 
 which words succeed each other in the natural 
 order of the thought, with nothing except this 
 order to express their mutual relation, and with 
 few or no inflections, as in Chinese. 2. A period 
 of agglutination in which the smaller words to 
 express relation have assumed an inflectional 
 form, but without losing the trace of their origin- 
 ally distinct existence, as in Mongol and the 
 majority of existing languages. 3. A period of 
 amalgamation, in which the language becomes 
 purely inflectional, as in Latin and Greek. 4. A 
 period of analysis, in which inflections fall off 
 
 * Pott's formula for the morphological classification of languages 
 was that they are "isolating," "agglutinative," and "inflec- 
 tional." Professor Miiller and Baron Bunsen have shown that 
 these divisions nearly correspond with three stages of political 
 development — "Family," "Nomad," and "State."
 
 18fi AN ESSAY ON 
 
 and get displaced by separate words, auxiliaries, 
 prepositions, &c, as in English.* 
 
 That languages exist in each of these condi- 
 tions is undeniable, but that they represent an his- 
 torical sequence is an inference which may well 
 be disputed. The common a priori notion that 
 complexity is a proof of development is, as we 
 have already seen, entirely erroneous ; since the 
 languages of American savages and central 
 Africans are surprising in their grammatical rich- 
 ness, and the bald monosyllabic Chinese is yet 
 an adequate organ for a developed civilisation. 
 The logical order is not the same as the histo- 
 rical. It is the opinion of M. Renan that each 
 branch of languages was, from the first, per- 
 vaded by one dominant idea, which was due to 
 the genius of the race by which it was produced, 
 and that, from this idea, all further changes 
 directly derive their origin. The entire language 
 existed implicitly in its primitive stage, just as a 
 bud contains entire every essential part of the full- 
 grown flower. Languages once monosyllabic, for 
 instance, have, he maintains, always continued 
 so, and although some languages of the trans- 
 Gangetic peninsula have effected a real progress 
 in the direction of grammatical polysyllabism, 
 
 * Encycl. Brit. Art. Language. (Dr. Latham.)
 
 THE OEIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 187 
 
 yet an abyss still separates thein from the 
 languages which are truly grammatical, — an 
 abyss which, he thinks, never has been and 
 never can be bridged over. 
 
 But we shall be better able to enter on these 
 most important considerations when we have 
 glanced at the certain results respecting the 
 classification of languages which have been at 
 present established by modern philology. 
 
 Two families of languages, embracing a large 
 and widely- separated number of the spoken 
 languages of the globe, have now been dis- 
 tinctly recognised and clearly defined. These 
 are the Indo-European, and the Semitic. The 
 remaining languages, which are non- Semitic and 
 non-Arian, have been recently included under 
 the general name Turanian, and the high au- 
 thority of Baron Bunsen and Prof. Max Miiller 
 has secured for this name a wide acceptation. 
 "We shall see hereafter that the semblance of 
 unity in these languages, which is assumed by 
 the adoption of this name, has been disputed 
 by some of the ablest philologists, and at any 
 rate the languages of the so-called Turanian 
 family have far less real claim to the ties of 
 mutual relationship than the members of the 
 Semitic and Indo-European families.
 
 183 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 I. Of these families, the noblest and most 
 widely-spread is the Indo-European, or as it is 
 now more generally called, the Arian family; 
 Neither of these names is entirely* unobjection- 
 able, though either of them is preferable to the 
 term Indo- Germanic, which is now abandoned as 
 wholly inaccurate. The name Indo-European 
 marks the geographical extent of these languages, 
 but it is inconvenient, and not quite wide enough. 
 The name Arian was given them because the 
 ancestors of the people who spoke them are 
 supposed to have called themselves " Arya," t 
 or nobly-born. This name is now generally 
 adopted, and M. Pictet, one of the profoundest of 
 modern comparative philologists, has called his 
 most recent work, " Les Origines Indo-Europeen- 
 nes ou les Aryas Primitifs." But although this 
 term Arya is of frequent occurrence in the later 
 Sanskrit literature, and was also familiar to the 
 Persians, the traces of it among the other 
 
 * On l'a designee par les noms de famille Indo-Germanique ou 
 Indo-Europeenne, lesquels ne sont ni logiques ni harmonieux, car 
 ils n'exprhnent qu'imparfaitement le sens qui leur est attribue, 
 et leur longueur dcrnesuree en rend l'eniploi fort peu commode." 
 — Pictet's Origines Indo- Ear. p. 28. They have, however, the 
 advantage of explaining themselves. 
 
 + Burnouf, Commentuire sur le Yapua, p. xciii. See also 
 Bunsen's Outlines, i. 281.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 189 
 
 branches of the race are few and dubious ; they 
 are but very "faint* echoes," if echoes at all, "of 
 a name which once sounded through the valleys 
 of the Himalaya." Still it is not likely that this 
 name will now be superseded, as Rask's term 
 Japhetic involves an unwarrantable assumption ; 
 and the name Pataric (derived from Patar, 
 the Sanskrit "pitar," a father), which has 
 been recently suggested,! is not likely to gain 
 ground. 
 
 The Arian family comprises eight divisions, 
 the Hindu, the Persian, Greek, Latin, Lithua- 
 nian, Sclavonic, Teutonic, and Celtic ; of these 
 it is uncertain whether the Celtic or the Sanskrit 
 represents the oldest phase, but it is known that 
 all of them are the daughters of a primeval form 
 of language which has now ceased to exist, but 
 which was spoken by a yet-undivided race at a 
 period when Sanskrit and Greek had, as yet, only 
 
 * These traces are most ably pointed out in tbe Edinburgh 
 Review for October, 1851, quoted in an interesting note by Prof. 
 Max Miiller, Survey of Languages, p. 28, 2nd ed. See, too, Pictet, 
 pp. 27 — 31, who connects the rcot cur 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. 
 
 + By a writer in the Saturday Review for Nov. 10, 1S59.
 
 190 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 an implicit existence. " It is," says M. Renan,* 
 " the noblest conquest of comparative philology 
 to have enabled us to cast a bold glance over 
 this primitive Arian period, when the whole 
 germ of the world's civilisation was concentrated 
 in one straight ray. Just as the Romance dialects 
 are all derived from a language which was once 
 spoken by a small tribe on the banks of the 
 Tiber; so the Indo-European languages presup- 
 pose a language spoken in a very narrow district. 
 "What motive, for instance, could have induced all 
 Indo-European nations to derive the name of 
 'father' from the root 'pa' and the suffix 'tri' 
 or ' tar,' if this word, in its complete shape, had 
 not formed part of the vocabulary of the primi- 
 tive Arians ? What motive, above all, could 
 have induced them, after their departure, to 
 derive the name of ' daughter' from a notion so 
 special as that of milking j (Sanskrit duhitri, 
 OvyaTrjp, dochter, &c), if this word had not 
 deduced the reason for its form in the man- 
 ners of an ancient pastoral family ? " It is 
 from considerations such as these that we 
 
 * P. 49. 
 
 + For a graphic sketch of early Arian life as deduced from the 
 records of language, see Weher's Indische Sldzzcn, pp. 9, 10 ; 
 Pictet's Origines Indo-Europcennes ; Miiller's Ess. on Comp. 
 Mythology.
 
 THE OEIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 191 
 
 prove the great fact of the Indo-European 
 unity, — the New World now thrown open to 
 modern scholarship. " That the Sanskrit, the 
 ancient language of India, the very* existence 
 of which was unknown to the Greeks and 
 Romans before Alexander, and the sound of 
 which had never reached a European ear till 
 the close of the last century, that this lan- 
 guage should he a scion of the same stem, 
 whose branches overshadow the civilised world 
 of Europe, no one would have ventured to affirm 
 before the rise of comparative philology. It was 
 the generally received opinion that if Greek, 
 Latin, and German came from the east, they 
 must be derived from the Hebrew, — an opinion 
 for which, at the present da}-, not a single advo- 
 cate could be found,+ while formerly to disbelieve 
 it would have been tantamount to heresy. No 
 authority could have been strong enough to 
 persuade the Grecian army that their gods and 
 their hero-ancestors were the same as those of 
 King Porus, or to convince the Elnglish soldier 
 that the same blood was running in his veins, as 
 in the veins of the dark Bengalese. And } r et 
 there is not an English jury now-a-days, which, 
 
 * Miillcr, p. 28 sqq. 
 
 t Except some popular modern divines.
 
 192 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 after examining the hoary documents of language, 
 would reject the claims of a common descent 
 and a legitimate relationship between Hindu, 
 Greek, and Teuton. Many words still live in 
 India and in England that witnessed the first 
 separation of the northern and southern Arians, 
 and these are witnesses not to be shaken by any 
 cross-examination. Though the historian may 
 shake his head, though the physiologist may 
 doubt, and the poet scorn the idea, all must 
 yield before the facts furnished by language. 
 There was a time when the ancestors of the 
 Celts, the Germans, the Danes, the Greeks, the 
 Italians, the Persians, and Hindus, were living 
 beneath the same roof, separate from the 
 ancestors of the Semitic and Turanian races." 
 
 Comparative philology enables us to form a 
 very probable conjecture respecting the cradle of 
 the Arian race, and even to draw in outline a 
 picture of their primitive civilisation. We know 
 that this race was not indigenous in India. M. 
 Lassen has proved that it entered India from* the 
 north as an aristocratic and conquering nation, 
 
 * Lassen, Indiselie Alterthumskunde. Eenan, 219 seqq. 
 Klaproth builds an argument for the Northern origin of the 
 Arians on the word "birch," which bears an analogous name 
 "not only iu the German and Slavonic tongues, but also in the
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 193 
 
 distinguished by its fair complexion from the 
 swarthier aborigines ; and a crowd of linguistic 
 inferences converge into a proof that it sprang 
 from the mountain-cradle of Imlius, from which 
 neighbourhood it seems likely that the Shemites 
 also derived their origin. 
 
 The traditions of the Arians, as well as the facts 
 of their language, point to Bactriana, as the region 
 in which they first appeared ; central in position, 
 temperate in climate, rich in the metals always 
 found in mountainous countries, resembling 
 Europe in its flora and fauna, and equally 
 removed from tropical luxuriance and northern 
 
 Sanskrit — Vhurjja .... 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, N'onv. 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. oarpeov, Aug. -Sax. 
 oatra, Irish oisridh, Cymr. cestren, Russ. iistersii, French Tiuitre, 
 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 befure the family had 
 reached the shores of the Caspian. A similar fact is observed in 
 the name for flax, (Gr. \ivov, Lat. linum, Goth, lein, Ang.-Sax. 
 tin, Cym. llin, Russ. lend, &c. ), and shows that the Western 
 Arians were the first of tbe family to desert pastoral for agricul- 
 tural pursuits. Id. pp. 320, 516. Few studies are more interest- 
 ing than the "linguistic palaeontology," which thus enables us to 
 •revive the form of an extinct language and civilisation. 
 
 o
 
 194 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 poverty, no other country could be found more 
 perfectly suited for the peaceable development of 
 the noble family which was destined to mould the 
 character of the world. 
 
 The Arians did not appear till late in the 
 world's history. ' The Acheemenid empire, which 
 is the first great conquering Arian empire, is 
 contemporary with a period when the descend- 
 ants of Ham had already lost all excellence, and 
 when China had long arrived at that degree of 
 administrative absorption of which the Tclieou-li 
 affords an astonishing picture, and which has so 
 near a resemblance to absolute decrepitude. 
 Brilliant civilisations, powerful kings, organised 
 empires, already existed in the world at a 
 period when our ancestors were still a race of 
 poor and ignorant peasants. And yet it was 
 these austere patriarchs who, in the midst of 
 their chaste and obedient families, thanks to 
 their pride, their cultivation of right, and their 
 noble self-respect, laid the foundation of the 
 future. Their thoughts, their terms, were des- 
 tined to become the law of the moral and intel- 
 lectual world. They created those eternal words, 
 which, with many changing shades of meaning, 
 were destined to become ' honour,' * ' virtue,' 
 ■ duty.' 
 
 * Renan, p. 235.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 195 
 
 In speaking thus of the apparition of a race 
 or a language, we only mean the time at which 
 man awoke to reflection and consciousness. 
 The origin of language is not necessarily iden- 
 tical (considered scientifically) with the origin 
 of mankind. The circumstances and conditions 
 under which man first appeared on the face of 
 the world is a suhject for the research of the 
 physiologist, rather than the philologist, and it is 
 more than doubtful whether the most earnest in- 
 quiries will ever be able to draw aside the thick 
 veil which hides the dawn of human life. In en- 
 deavouring to derive from the facts of language 
 some conjecture as to the nucleus around which it 
 grew, and the primitive condition of the races with 
 whose distinctive genius it is indelibly stamped, 
 we are not pretending to throw any light on the 
 original appearance of the fathers of mankind. 
 
 II. Second in importance, although earlier 
 in historical development, stands the great 
 SEMITIC family of languages. Formerly they 
 were called by the general name of oriental lan- 
 guages, and Eichhorn was, we believe, the first to 
 give them their present designation. The name is, 
 however, defective, since many people who spoke 
 Semitic languages (as for instance the Phoeni- 
 cians) were descended, according to Gen.x., from 
 
 o 2
 
 196 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 Ham, and several mentioned in that chapter as 
 descendants of Shem (for instance, the Elamites), 
 did not speak a Semitic language. But it is now 
 generally agreed that the sense of this document 
 is geographical, not ethnographical, and that the 
 name of Shem is a general term to describe the 
 central zone of the earth. Were we to name these 
 languages, on the analogy of the word Indo- 
 European, from their extreme terms, we must 
 call them Syro-Arabian. Leibnitz suggested the 
 name Arabic, but this would be to use an 
 objectionable synecdoche, and, on the whole, the 
 term Semitic involves no inconvenient conse- 
 quences if it be considered as purely con- 
 ventional.* 
 
 The Semitic languages have been destined to 
 exercise a stupendous influence over the religious 
 thought of mankind. Almost unconscious of 
 science and philosophy, this theocratic race has 
 devoted itself to the expression of religious 
 instincts and intuitions, — in one word, to the 
 establishment of Monotheism. The three most 
 widely spread and enduring forms of belief 
 originated in the bosom of this family. They were 
 essentially the people of God, and to them belong, 
 par excellence, the psalm, and the proverb, and 
 
 * Histoire des Laiujues SCm. pp. 1, 2.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 197 
 
 the prophecy, — the words of the wise, and their 
 dark saj'ings upon the harp. Clear hut narrow in 
 their conceptions, marked by their subjective 
 character, and capable of understanding unity but 
 not multiplicity ; they lacked alike the lofty 
 spiritualism of India and Germany, the keen 
 sense of perfect beauty which was the legacy of 
 Greece to the new Latin nations, and the pro- 
 found yet delicate sensibility which is the do- 
 minant mark of the Celtic peoples. And yet 
 neither India nor Greece alone could have taught 
 the world the great lesson which was connected 
 by the Semitic race with their most imperious 
 instincts, that there is but one God, and that 
 religion is something more than a relative 
 conception. Destitute of that restless spirit of 
 inquiry which has led the sister-race to explore 
 every nook of the universe and every secret of 
 the mind, the highest attainment of Semitic 
 research is to declare that the increase of know- 
 ledge is the increase of sorrow, and that the 
 praise and service of God is the sole end and aim 
 of life. It was a great lesson which the world 
 could ill have spared, and it more than atoned 
 for the absence of research, of imagination, of 
 art, of military organisation, of public spirit, of 
 political life : it more than atones even for an
 
 198 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 egotistic poetry and a defective conception of 
 morality and duty. 
 
 The Semitic languages partake of the charac- 
 teristics of that race whose thoughts they 
 embodied. They are simple and rigid, metallic 
 rather than fluid ; physical and sensuous in their 
 character, deficient in abstraction, and almost in- 
 capable of metaphysical accuracy. The roots are 
 triliteral in form and so few in number that their 
 meanings are generally vague, being in fact a 
 series of metaphorical applications of some sen- 
 sible perception. They are deficient in style and 
 in perspective ; they are, as Ewald observes, 
 lyric and poetic, rather than oratorical and epic ; 
 they are the best means of showing us the primi- 
 tive tendencies of language ; they may be com- 
 pared to the utterances of a fair and intelligent 
 infancy retained in a manhood which has not 
 fulfilled the brilliant promise of its early days. 
 
 The Semitic family has three main branches 
 — viz., the Aramaic, divided into two dialects, 
 Syriac and Chaldee ; the Hebrew, with which is 
 connected the Carthaginian and Phoenician, and 
 the Arabic. Besides these the Egyptian, the 
 Babylonian, and the Assyrian and the Berber 
 dialects are now considered to have a Semitic 
 character, such at least is the conclusion arrived
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 199 
 
 at by those whose authority is of the highest 
 importance — viz., Champollion and Bunsen in 
 the case of Egyptian, M.M. Lassen and Eugene 
 Bornon, Dr. Hincks and Sir H. Rawlinson in 
 the case of Assyrian, and Prof. F. Newman in the 
 case of the Berber dialects.* It is admitted, how- 
 ever, that the people speaking these languages 
 were the cognate rather than the agnate descend- 
 ants of Shem ; and it must not be overlooked, 
 that the conclusion which would rank these 
 languages as indubitably Semitic is rejected by 
 philologists so celebrated as M.M. Pott, Ewald, 
 Wenrich, and Benan.f 
 
 III. All languages which belong to neither of 
 these two great families have been classed toge- 
 ther under the name of the Turanian, Nomadic, 
 or Allophylian family,! which "comprises all 
 
 * M tiller's Survey, p. 23 seqq. 
 
 + Hist, des Langues Semitiques, pp. 70 — 90. 
 
 + 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.
 
 2C0 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 languages spoken in Asia or Europe, not in- 
 cluded under the Arian and Semitic families, 
 with the exception perhaps of the Chinese and 
 its dialects." 
 
 The chief labourers in the field of Turanian 
 philology were Rask, Klaproth, Schott, and 
 Castren ; ■ but even M. Mliller, one of the 
 main authorities for the classification of the 
 various branches of language which occupy 
 this wide range (e.g., the Tungusic, Mongolic, 
 Turkic, Samoiedic, and Finnic), candidly admits 
 that the characteristic marks of union ascer- 
 tained for this immense variety of languages, 
 " are as yet very vague and general, if compared 
 with the definite ties of relationship which 
 severally unite the Semitic and the Arian." He 
 argues, however, that this is exactly what we 
 should have expected, a priori, in the case of 
 Nomadic languages spoken over an area so vast ; 
 languages which have never been the instruments 
 of political organisation, which have no history in 
 the past and no destiny in the future, and which 
 never had any literature to give fixity to their 
 acknowledged unsettledness. Though the " Tura- 
 nian " languages occupy by far the largest por- 
 tion of the earth (viz., all but India, Arabia, 
 Asia-Minor and Europe), there is not a single
 
 THE OEIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 201 
 
 positive principle, except perhaps agglutination, 
 which can be proved to pervade them all.* 
 
 It is impossible here to examine the arguments 
 on which the unity of this family has been con- 
 sidered to be approximately established, while it 
 is admitted that this unity does not admit of any 
 proof so strong and decisive as in the case of the 
 Indo-European and Semitic families. Those who 
 seek the evidence will find it stated, at full length, 
 and with great eloquence and ability, by Prof. Max 
 Miiller, in his " Survey of Languages," and also in 
 Baron Bunsen's " Outlines." Suffice it here to say, 
 that to many the vast group of Tartaro-Finnic 
 languages still appear to be purely sporadic, and 
 to have no common character except such as is 
 involved in their being neither Arian nor Semitic, 
 i.e., in the purely negative trait of an absence of 
 certain development. Under these circumstances, 
 we think that for the present it would be far better 
 to call these languages by the purely negative 
 
 * ' ' 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. . . Tbe principle of 
 agglutination, as it is called, which is its most marked charac- 
 teristic, 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 con- 
 versation of Noniades." — Kawlinson's Herodotus, i. p. C45.
 
 202 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 name, Allophylian,* — a name which involves no 
 hypothesis, and which has the advantage of being 
 the simple assertion of a fact. 
 
 But even supposing that we unhesitatingly 
 admit a postulate so large as that required of us, 
 by the supposition that the Nomad languages 
 may be united into one family, which has points 
 of affinity with the dialects of Africa and America, 
 and even with Chinese, the further and more 
 important question still remains ; Are there any 
 points of osculation between the languages of 
 these three great distinct families ? Is there any 
 evidence in the present state of philology suffi- 
 ciently strong to induce a scientific belief in the 
 primitive unity of human language, and therefore 
 of the human race ? The answer to that question 
 must be found in the next chapter, and I need 
 only premise, that it is here treated as a question 
 of pure science, and is entirely separated from its 
 theological bearings. The question before us is 
 not " must we believe in the unity of the human 
 race ? " but " does philology furnish any proofs 
 or presumptions of the unity of the human race ? " 
 
 * 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."
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 203 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ARE THERE ANY PROOFS OF A SINGLE PRIMITIVE 
 LANGUAGE ? 
 
 "Innumerse linguse dissimillimse inter se, ita ut nullis macliinis 
 ad communem originem retrahi possint." — F. Schlegel. 
 
 Besides the immense number of languages 
 now spoken over the surface of the globe, we 
 must remember that hundreds have now died 
 away altogether, and left no trace behind them. 
 Even in our own times, languages are dying out ; 
 the last person who could speak Cornish died 
 almost within this generation,* and it is probable 
 that Manx will not long survive, although it may 
 be violently galvanized into a semblance of 
 vitalit}\ Many of the sporadic dialects, spoken 
 by the North American Indians, have disap- 
 peared with the tribes that spoke them ; and 
 Humboldt even mentions that he had seen a 
 parrot which was the only living thing that 
 preserved the articulation of one forgotten 
 
 * Dolly Pentreath, the last person who could speak Cornish, 
 died in 1770.
 
 204 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 tongue. Every extant language has grown out 
 of the death of a preceding one.* " Like a tree, 
 unobserved through the solitude of a thousand 
 years, up grows the mighty stem, and the mighty 
 branches of a magnificent speech. No man saw 
 the seed planted ; no eye noticed the infant 
 sprouts ; no register was kept of the gradual 
 widening of its girth, or of the growing circum- 
 ference of its shade, till the deciduous dialects 
 of surrounding barbarians dying out, the un- 
 expected bole stands forth in all its magni- 
 tude, carrying aloft in its foliage, the poetry, 
 the history, and the philosophy of an heroic 
 people."! 
 
 Thus the Greeks and Romans I displaced by 
 their dominant idioms numerous languages of 
 Southern and Central Europe ; the Arabs 
 effaced the indigenous dialects of a large portion 
 of Western Asia, and Northern and Eastern 
 Africa; the Spanish and Portuguese have ex- 
 pelled a crowd of American languages. Again, the 
 Visigoths and Alani lost in Spain both their 
 name and their language ; the Ostrogoths and 
 Heruli suffered the same fate in Italy; and in 
 
 * Bunsen, Outlines, ii. 92. 
 
 + Ferrier's Institutes of Metaphysics, p. 13. 
 
 $ Adr. Balbi, Atlas ethnographique. Disc, prelim, lxxv — lxxix.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 205 
 
 short, we may fairly suppose that the dead lan- 
 guages of the world are nearly as numerous as 
 those that are still living. 
 
 Passing over the dead languages, is it possible 
 to deduce even all living languages from one 
 primitive speech ? 
 
 Even those who believe in a primitive language 
 admit that the three families of language are 
 irreducible, i.e. incapable of being derived from 
 one another. 
 
 " These three systems of grammar (Arian, 
 Semitic, and Turaniau), are," says Professor 
 Max Miiller, "perfectly distinct, and it is im- 
 possible to derive the grammatical forms of the 
 one from those of the other, though we cannot 
 deny that in their radical elements the three 
 families of human speech may have had a com- 
 mon source." 
 
 Attempts have, indeed, been made to connect 
 Hebrew and Sanskrit, but the adduced points of 
 osculation are so few and dubious, that such 
 attempts must be pronounced to be egregious 
 failures. Dr. Prichard endeavoured to prove a 
 connection between Celtic and Hebrew, but " he 
 succeeds no better than those who had made 
 the same attempt before him. In nearly every 
 case, the identity of the terms compared is
 
 206 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 questionable, and in many it is demonstrably 
 imaginary."* 
 
 It must then be allowed, that the Indo-European 
 and Semitic families are in their grammatical 
 system (which affords the truest, if not the only 
 test of affinity) radically distinct, and can in no 
 way be derived from each other. The motto of 
 the old school, that " all languages are dialects 
 of a single one," must be abandoned for ever. 
 
 But even if it could be shown that there is an 
 affinity between Hebrew and Sanskrit, a far more 
 difficult task would remain for those who endea- 
 vour to prove from philology the original unity of 
 the human race ; for it would be still necessary 
 for them to show further the Turanian unity, and 
 the possibility of a primitive nucleus, not only 
 for Semitic, and Arian, and Turanian languages, 
 (assuming this to comprise even the Malay, 
 
 * Garnett's Pliiloh Essays, p. 85, &c, where the supposed 
 instances are examined. Most of them are, as might have been 
 expected, simple onomatopceias of the most obvious kind. See 
 Renan, Hist, des Langues Sem. p. 450 seqq. Nothing requires 
 more care than an inquiry of this kind ; — often two words 
 which nave 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 
 tvbridere&oA sorex respectively) ; as an instance of the latter, take 
 the word cousin, derived from soror through consobrinus.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 207 
 
 Australian, Papuan, Kaffir, Esquimaux, &c), 
 but also for these languages and the ungrani- 
 niatical, unagglutinative, monos3 r llabic Chinese. 
 Yet, such is the task undertaken, with vast 
 learning and marvellous ingenuity, by Professor 
 Miiller and Baron Bunsen. It will, however, be 
 admitted, that the proved existence of great 
 irreducible families is a strong a priori evidence 
 against them. Let us examine some of their 
 main arguments. 
 
 1. "Though in physical ethnology we cannot 
 derive the Negro from the Malay, or the Malay 
 from the Negro type, we may look upon each 
 as a modification of a common and more general 
 type. The same applies to the types of lan- 
 guage. We cannot derive Sanskrit from Hebrew, 
 or Hebrew from Sanskrit : but we can well 
 understand how both may have proceeded from 
 one common source."* 
 
 Thus it is argued, that although these families 
 of language cannot, in their present state, have 
 been derived from each other, yet it is possible 
 to suppose that they are widely diverging radii 
 from the same original centre ; that they may 
 all have sprung from a primitive language, whose 
 existence we may conjecture, just as we should 
 
 * Outlines, i. 476.
 
 208 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 have conjectured the existence of such a lan- 
 guage as the Latin, to account for the numerous 
 marks of affinity between the Romance dialects. 
 
 But this proposition is hedged in by difficulties. 
 The very unity of the great Arian and Semitic 
 families tells powerfully against it. If the 
 members of these families retain, after the 
 separation of many hundred years, the most 
 striking similarity, in the roots of the words 
 which refer to the relations of life, and to the 
 primitive acts of weaving and the working of 
 metals, how is it possible to believe that the 
 points of resemblance between Sanskrit and 
 Hebrew, or between Chinese and Greek, are so 
 extremely few, and so dubiously vague, that they 
 hardly afford the shadow of a presumption in 
 favour of the hypothesis which they are adduced 
 to support ? Even if we grant the postulated 
 length of time — thousands and thousands of 
 years — which take us back to a period when 
 historical " chronology borders on the geologic 
 eras," which will alone render such a diversity of 
 sister languages possible, we confess that it still 
 appears to us so improbable, that it rather wears 
 the appearance of an arbitrary hypothesis, than 
 an inductive conclusion. 
 
 2. The main affinities supposed to exist be-
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 209 
 
 tween language of the different families, \% ill be 
 found at large in the " Outlines of the Philosophy 
 of Universal History." Great stress is there laid 
 (i.)onthe supposed discovery of certain non-Sans- 
 kritic elements in Celtic, which form the link by 
 which the Indo-European family approaches the 
 Turanian formations ; and (ii.) the establishment 
 of a connection between the Arian and Semitic 
 families, by a reduction of the Hebrew trilateral 
 roots to biliteral ones. 
 
 (i.) While wishing" to allow the fullest weight to 
 everything which has been adduced by Dr. Meyer 
 in proof of this discovery, and not professing to 
 be fully able to weigh the value of the evidence, 
 we cannot think that his researches have at all 
 settled the question. Beyond certain accidental 
 and vague resemblances, a few lexicographical 
 similarities* easily explicable by onomatopoeia, and 
 a few words t adopted in consequence of foreign 
 
 * Outlines, i. 143, 165 seqq. 
 
 + A very curious instance of this is the word "TTO shoes, 
 found in a Syro-Chaklaic Lectionariura 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. Lan- 
 guage. The greatest care is necessary to distinguish between 
 words really cognate, and accidental isolated resemblances. See 
 Pictet, Orig. Ind. p. 13, 17. 
 
 P
 
 210 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 influences, and that general affinity which we 
 should expect from the ascertained fact of the 
 psychological unity of the human race, nothing 
 that we have hitherto met with seems at all 
 adequate to counterbalance the enormous diffi- 
 culty of supposing that families, closely united 
 together, yet radically distinct from each other, 
 could, even during thousands of years, have 
 diverged so widely from a common source. 
 Again, we must ask, if it was possible for one 
 primitive language to pass through stages of 
 development so irreconcileably different as those 
 represented by Hebrew and Sanskrit, what cause 
 can be adduced sufficient to account for the fact 
 that after the lapse of three millenniums, a Lithu- 
 anian peasant could almost understand the com- 
 monest of Sanskrit verbs ?* 
 
 The Chinese must always remain a stumbling- 
 block in the way of all theories respecting a 
 primitive language. Radical as is the dissimi- 
 larity between Arian and Semitic languages, and 
 wide as is the abyss between their grammatical 
 systems, yet they almost appear like sisters when 
 compared with the Chinese, which has nothing 
 like the organic principle of grammar at all. 
 Indeed, so wide is the difference between Chinese 
 
 * Survey of Lang. p. 11.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 211 
 
 and Sanskrit, that the richness of human intelli- 
 gence in the formation of language receives no 
 more striking illustration than the fact that, as 
 we have already observed, these languages have 
 absolutely nothing in common except the end at 
 which they aim. This end is in both cases the 
 expression of thought, and it is attained as well 
 in Chinese as in the grammatical languages, 
 although the means are wholly different. 
 
 (ii.) Very great stress has been laid on the 
 general lexicographical affinity between Hebrew 
 and Sanskrit, produced by the reduction of the 
 Hebrew triliteral roots to biliteral ones. This 
 was suggested by Klaproth, and supported with 
 great learning and industry by Ftirst and 
 Delitzsch. We have already alluded to it, and 
 can only repeat here, that it is not accepted as 
 certain, or even as probable, by some high 
 authorities. We cannot now recount the nume- 
 rous and weighty objections brought against this 
 attempt by the historian of the Semitic languages* 
 — objections derived mainly from the extreme 
 laxity of the process which even involves the ex- 
 traordinary hypothesis, that these triliteral roots 
 were formed by prefixes and suffixes, and that the 
 prefixes have nothing determinate about them, 
 
 * Itenan, p. 216. 
 
 p 2
 
 212 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 but that every letter in the alphabet might be used 
 for the purpose, — an hypothesis contrary to the 
 most essential principles of language. It will be 
 sufficient to repeat his questions. How can we 
 conceive the passage from the monosyllabic to 
 the triliteral stage ? What cause can be assigned 
 for it ? At what epoch did it take place ? Was 
 it due to the multiplication of ideas or the inven- 
 tion of writing ? Was this stage of grammatical 
 innovation the result of chance, or of a common 
 agreement ? To these inquiries, no answer ever 
 has been or can be given. The supposition 
 of an original biliteralism must be considered 
 (as we said before) simply as a convenient hypo- 
 thesis, and must not be taken for an historical 
 fact. 
 
 Languages, of course, develope ; but it is, as 
 we have seen, by the germinal development of a 
 rudimentary idea, and not b} r this process of gross 
 exterior concretion for which no single parallel 
 can be suggested. The only monosyllabic dia- 
 lects which we know, viz., those of Eastern Asia, 
 have continued monosyllabic for unknown ages. 
 Chinese cannot attain to a grammar, and the 
 Semitic languages could never arrive either at 
 regularly written vowels, or at a satisfactory 
 system of moods and tenses. Grammar is to a
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 213 
 
 language its unalterable individuality. The 
 growth and change of language has nothing 
 analogous to grammatical revolution; it is due 
 to a silent, a spontaneous, an unconscious genius, 
 not to deliberate reflexion, or conscious altera- 
 tion. All idioms which have been artificially 
 altered (e.g. Rabbinic Hebrew), betray the fact 
 by their harshness and awkwardness, — their 
 want of harmony and flexibility ; they bear no 
 resemblance to those languages which are the 
 genuine instrument of a nation's thoughts. 
 
 3. Undoubtedly the strongest argument in 
 favour of a Primitive Language arises from the 
 phenomenon of several languages which appear 
 to occupy an anomalous position on the frontier 
 of the great kingdoms of speech, and to present 
 a lexicographical affinity with one family, and a 
 grammatical affinity with another family. Such 
 languages are the Egyptian, the Berber, the 
 Touareg, and generally the languages of 
 Northern and Eastern Africa, which resemble 
 the Semitic tongues, in some parts of their 
 vocabulary, but differ widely from them in all the 
 rest. Similarly, the Tibetian and Burmese stand 
 on the confines of the monosyllabic languages. 
 
 Perhaps the only way to account for these 
 strange appearances is to suppose that language
 
 214 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 had a period of primitive fusibility* during 
 which they were susceptible of great modification 
 from contact with other languages also in an 
 ante-historical and embryonary state. It is 
 impossible, otherwise, to explain the identity, 
 for instance, of the pronouns and numerals in 
 Coptic and the Semitic languages, or to account 
 for the fact that among different races t is the 
 sign of the second person singular, and n, of the 
 first person plural. The analogies which guided 
 the first men in such cases entirely escape our 
 power of perception. Philology in its present 
 state has not sufficient materials to decide how 
 can it be that a few essential elements in a 
 vocabulary should be nearly the same in two 
 languages, while yet they differ totally in so 
 important a particular as the flexions of the 
 noun and verb. We know, however, as an 
 historical fact, that wide as is the difference 
 between the Semitic and Egyptian systems of 
 civilisation, and different as are the physical 
 traits of the two nations, yet that for many ages 
 the Semitic influence was very strongly felt in 
 Egypt, t Egypt, indeed, was only a narrow valley, 
 surrounded by Semitic Nomads, who lived side 
 
 * Hist, des Langues Sim. p. 84 seqq. 
 
 t llenan quutes Movers, Die Plumizien, i. 33.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 215 
 
 by side with the sedentary population ; some- 
 times victorious, sometimes subject, — always 
 detested. The Egyptian language belongs then to 
 a Chamitic family, to which also belong the Ber- 
 ber, and other indigenous languages of Northern 
 Africa ; a family which is spread in Africa from 
 the Bed Sea to Senegal, and from the Mediter- 
 ranean to the Niger. 
 
 Of these languages, the Berber presents nume- 
 rous grammatical affinities with the Hebrew, but 
 is completely distinct in its vocabulary. This, 
 too, may be accounted for by the fact, that it has 
 also been submitted to long ages of Semitic influ- 
 ence, in consequence of its relations with Cartha- 
 ginian and Arabic. The possibility of a state of 
 language so incomplete as to admit of these radical 
 influences from contact with superior idioms, is 
 an important subject for philological inquiry. 
 
 "We are forced then to conclude that whatever 
 may be the other arguments, physiological and 
 historical, for a material unity of the human race, 
 a belief, which understood in a high psychological 
 sense, will meet with universal acceptation, philo- 
 logy alone, so far as it has yet proceeded, adds 
 no contribution to the probability of such a view. 
 Of the primitive men we know little or nothing, 
 nor can we advance beyond the region of con-
 
 216 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 jecture ; but language does reveal to us some- 
 thing about the origin of nations, and the appa- 
 rition of the main races of humanity would 
 appear to have been in the following succession. 
 
 ' 1st. Inferior races which have no history, 
 covering the soil since an epoch which must be 
 determined b} r geology rather than by history.* 
 In general, these races have disappeared in those 
 parts of the world where the great civilised races 
 have advanced. The Arians and the Semites have 
 everywhere found the traces of these half-savage 
 tribes which they exterminate, and which often 
 survive in their legends as gigantic or magical, 
 and autochthonous races. The relics of their 
 primitive humanity are found in those parts of 
 the world where the great races have not estab- 
 lished themselves, and they present a profound 
 diversity, varying from the sweet and simple 
 child of the Antilles to the voluptuous Tahitian, 
 and the wicked population of Borneo and Assam. 
 But wherever found, these primitive tribes betray 
 an absolute incapacity for organisation and pro- 
 gress ; and they wither away before the advance 
 of civilisation, and pine into a sickness and 
 
 * Hist, des Langues Sent. 490, 491. Whenever passages are in 
 semi-inverted commas, it will be understood that they are almost 
 directly translated from the author referred to.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 217 
 
 decay from which, as far as we can see at 
 present, not even the healing influences of 
 Christianity are sufficient to rescue them.* 
 
 * 2ndly. The apparition of the first civilised 
 races ; Chinese in Eastern Asia, the Cushites 
 and Chamites in "Western Asia and Africa. 
 Early civilisations stamped with a materialistic 
 character; religious and poetic instincts slightly 
 developed ; a feeble sentiment of art, but a refined 
 sentiment of elegance ; a great aptitude for 
 manual arts and the applied sciences ; literatures 
 exact, but without an ideal ; a turn for business, 
 but an absence of public spirit and political life ; 
 perfect administrations, but little military apti- 
 tude ; language monosyllabic and flexionless 
 (Egyptian, Chinese) ; hieroglyphic or ideo- 
 graphic systems of writing. These races have a 
 history of three or four thousand years before 
 the Christian era. All the Cushite and Chamite 
 civilisations have disappeared before the advance 
 of the Arians and Shemites ; but in China this 
 type of primitive civilisation has survived even 
 to the present day. 
 
 1 3rdly. Apparition of the great noble races, 
 
 * The accounts of various missionaries among the New 
 Zealanders, American Indians, and aboriginal Australians, give a 
 strange and mournful confirmation of these assertions.
 
 218 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 Arians and Sliemites, coming from the Imi'ius. 
 These races appeared simultaneously in history, 
 the Sliemites in Armenia, the Arians in Bactriana, 
 ahout two thousand years before the Christian 
 era. Inferior to the Chamites and Cushites in 
 external civilisation, material works, and the 
 science of imperial organisation, they infinitely 
 excel them in vigour, courage, poetic and 
 religious genius. The Arians far surpass the 
 Sliemites in political and military arts, and in 
 their intelligence and capacity for rational specu- 
 lation, but the Sliemites long preserved a religious 
 superiority, and ended by drawing almost every 
 Arian nation to their monotheistic conceptions. 
 In this point of view Islamism crowns the essen- 
 tial work of the Sliemites, which has been to 
 simplify the human spirit — to banish polytheism 
 and those enormous complications in which the 
 religious thought of the Arians became entangled. 
 This mission once accomplished, the Shemite race 
 rapidly declines, and leaves the Arian race to 
 march alone at the head of the destinies of 
 mankind.' 
 
 Such are some of the conclusions to which 
 philology would seem to point; but they are 
 only stated with a perfect readiness to abandon 
 all present inferences when we are required to
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 219 
 
 do so by a wider knowledge, and with a profound 
 consciousness that what we know as yet is but 
 a drop compared to the ocean, which is still 
 untraversed and unknown. 
 
 Note. — For some very accurate original observations on the 
 Egyptian language, I refer the reader to a remarkable book, the 
 Genesis of the Earth and Man, 2nd. ed. pp. 255 — 268. To 
 Mr. Keginald Stuart Poole, the Editor of that candid and learned 
 Essay, I take this opportunity of returning my thanks.
 
 220 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE FUTURE OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 " Even as a hawke fleeth not Lie with one wing, even so a man 
 reacheth not to excellency with one tongue." — Roger Ascham. 
 
 "We have seen that philology offers no proof 
 of a universal primitive language. The question 
 now arises, Is there any probability of a universal 
 future language ? Does it seem likely that the 
 day will ever come when all men shall be of one 
 speech ? The noble Indo- Germanic race has 
 carried its power and its conquests over a vast 
 surface of the globe, and our own tongue * — 
 which receives by common consent the meed of 
 the most powerful of existing languages — is pro- 
 bably spoken by at least a hundred millions of 
 the human race. Have we any reason to believe 
 
 * That there is more probability in favour of English becoming 
 prevalent throughout the globe, than in favour of any other lan- 
 guage acquiring a future universality, is admitted by all who 
 have studied the subject. See Benloew, Aperpu General, p. 92. 
 Grimm, Ueber der Ursprung, p. 50. Russian is another language 
 which probably has a great future.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 221 
 
 that English will hereafter prevail over e very- 
 other dialect, and become in some form or other 
 the language of the world ? 
 
 That the Arian race is the destined inheritor 
 of the future world seems clear to the least 
 discriminating glance, because it has proved 
 itself to be the race most capable of perfectibility, 
 and therefore most worthy of power. But that 
 any one language spoken by the various branches 
 of their race will ultimately prevail to the ex- 
 clusion of all others is an event which hardly 
 seems probable ; if probable, it is still in the 
 present state of the world undesirable ; and even 
 were it certain, yet the permanent existence of 
 such a language is incompatible with the present 
 condition of human intelligence. 
 
 1. The development of a future universallan- 
 guage seems improbable. It is true that dialects 
 become merged in languages, and these languages 
 lost in others still more extensive, just as streams 
 flow into rivers, and rivers into the sea. It is 
 true that diversity of idioms is the characteristic 
 of barbarism, and unity the slow result of civi- 
 lisation. But against these considerations we 
 must set the extraordinary tenacity of national 
 associations and national characteristics. How- 
 ever far we may look into the future, we see
 
 222 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 nothing to show us that the distinctions of nations 
 were not intended to be as permanent as the 
 oceans that divide them ; and nothing to make 
 us expect that all humankind will he gathered 
 hereafter (in its present general condition) under 
 one universal empire, and into one school of 
 religion and of thought. 
 
 2. But even were it probable that there would 
 be only one language hereafter, such a consum- 
 mation would not be desirable, because it would 
 greatly hinder the search for truth, and would 
 tend to reduce men to a dead level of uniformity, 
 a Chinese dryness and mediocrity of intelligence. 
 It is, indeed, conceivable that a universal growth 
 of mammon-worship, making merchandise almost 
 the only occupation of mankind, might tend to 
 give to languages that form of practical abbre- 
 viation which we find in telegraphic despatches, 
 and which, to economise phrases and expense, 
 neglects grammar, and puts down the smallest 
 possible number of words, with no desire beyond 
 that of being barely understood * But such 
 abbreviation, useful as it may be for certain 
 purposes, would, if applied to all the forms of 
 language, despoil it for ever of all ornament and 
 all poetic charm, and so far from enabling us to 
 
 * Beuloew, Apeiyu General, p. 91.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 223 
 
 rival the noble languages of antiquity, would 
 reduce us to a condition from which the instincts 
 of our race would inevitably break loose, to begin 
 a fresh career of discovery and thought. 
 
 " Truths," said Coleridge,* " of all others the 
 most awful and interesting are too often con- 
 sidered so true that they lose all the power of 
 truth, and lie bed-ridden in the dormitory of the 
 soul, side by side with the most depised and 
 exploded errors." By frequent use, as by re- 
 peated attrition, the brightness and beauty of a 
 word is worn bare, and it requires a distinct 
 effort of attention to restore the full significance 
 to the forms of expression with which we are 
 most familiar. " Hence it is," saj's Mr. Mill, t 
 " that the traditional maxims of old experience, 
 though seldom questioned, have often so little 
 effect on the conduct of life, because their mean- 
 ing is never, by most persons, really felt, until 
 personal experience has brought it home. And 
 thus, also, it is that so many doctrines of re- 
 ligion, ethics, and even politics, so full of mean- 
 ing and reality to first converts, have manifested 
 a tendency to degenerate rapidly into lifeless 
 dogmas, which tendency all the efforts • of an 
 education expressly and skilfully directed to 
 
 * Aids to Reflection, p. 1. t Mill's Logic, ii. 221.
 
 224 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 keeping the meaning alive are barely found suffi- 
 cient to counteract." The weight and importance 
 of these remarks will best be felt by those who 
 have observed how new and rare meanings are 
 perceived when we read the words, for instance, 
 of Holy Writ in their original language, and 
 lose sight for a moment of those groundless 
 fancies with which long association has confused 
 our perception. To study the Bible in other 
 languages than our own is like looking upon the 
 Urim and Thummim when, for him who rightly 
 consulted it, the fire of the divine messages 
 flashed upon its oracular and graven gems. 
 
 Hence language is most important, is almost 
 indispensable to the human race for the perpetual 
 preservation of truths which would otherwise be 
 banished "to the lumber-room of the memory," 
 rather than be prepared for use " in the work- 
 shop of the mind." For words are constantly 
 acquiring new shades of meaning in consequence 
 of the things which they connote, and to such an 
 extent is this the case, that our quotations of an 
 author's actual words often involve a gross 
 anachronism, because his " pure ideas " * have 
 
 * 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. Entstchen d. grammat.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 225 
 
 often become our "mixed modes." If, for in- 
 stance, we were to use the word " gravitation " 
 in translating various passages of ancient authors, 
 we might be led to assert that the great dis- 
 covery of Newton had been anticipated by hun- 
 dreds of years ; and yet we know that those 
 authors had no conception whatever of the law 
 which that word recalls to our minds. 
 
 Both in the history of the world, and in the 
 growth of individual intellects, the study of 
 language has produced the noblest results. To 
 it more than to any other cause we owe the out- 
 burst of freedom in thought which produced the 
 Reformation, and the mighty advance of humanity 
 which followed that emancipation of the intellect 
 of Europe from the ignorance fostered by a 
 depressing superstition ; and to it in very great 
 measure we owe the matchless power and beauty 
 of our own tongue. " Indeed, the adoption of 
 words from dead languages into English has, 
 above all other causes, tended to increase the 
 number of our simple ideas, because the asso- 
 ciations of such words being lost in the transfer 
 
 Formen und ihren Einjluss auf die Ideencntwickelung, as well 
 as the chapter Ueber die Vcrschiedcnheit dcs Menschlichen 
 Sprachbaues, which forms the introduction to the treatise on the 
 Kawi language. 
 
 Q
 
 226 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 they are at once refined from all alloy of sense 
 and experience." 
 
 The old Roman poet,* proud in the unusual 
 erudition which had made him master of three 
 languages, used to declare, that he had three 
 hearts, and his opinion has been echoed by a 
 modern poet t with emphatic commendation — 
 
 " Mit jeder Spracbe mehr, die Du erlernst, befreist 
 Du einen bis daber in Dir gebundenen Geist, 
 Der jetzo tbiitig wird mit eigner Deukverbindung, 
 Die aufscbliesst unbekannt gewesene Weltempfindung. 
 Ein alter Dicbter, der nur dreier Spracben Gaben 
 BesesseD, riihnite sicb der Seelen drei zu baben, 
 Und wirklicb bcitt' in sicb alle Menscbengeister 
 Der Geist vereint, der recbt war' alle Spracben Meister." 
 
 The Emperor Charles V. went still further, and 
 declared that " in proportion + to the number of 
 languages which a man knew, in that proportion 
 was he more of a man." There may have been 
 exaggeration in this expression, but at any rate 
 it arose from the conviction of an important 
 truth. And we may add with Gothe the un- 
 
 * Q. Unnius tria corda se babere dicebat, quod loqui Grace et 
 Latine et Osce sciret." — A. Gel!. 
 
 t Ruckert. 
 
 + "II disoit ct repetoit souvent, quand il tomboit sur la beaute 
 des langues, .... qu'autant de langues que l'bomme S9ait parler, 
 autant de fois est il bomme." — Brantome.
 
 THE ORIGIN OP LANGUAGE. 227 
 
 doubted certainty, " Wer frenide sprache niclit 
 keunt, weiss niclits von seiner eigenen.'' Perhaps 
 in this sentence we may find the reasons why so 
 few know their own language in half its richness 
 and power. 
 
 3. A universal language could not, in the pre- 
 sent state of human intelligence, last for any 
 long period. New circumstances of life, new 
 discoveries of thought, new conquests of art and 
 science, would require new forms of expression. 
 The influences of climate and history would 
 produce fresh revolutions in the character of 
 nations, and the change of character would 
 necessitate modifications of the prevalent idiom, 
 which in the course of time would diverge so 
 widely from the parent language, as to be unin- 
 telligible unless separately acquired. There is 
 in language, as we have seen repeatedly, an 
 organic life ; it is an incessant act of creation, 
 ever progressing, ever developing. To reduce it 
 to one stereotyped * and universal form would be 
 to contradict the very law of its being, by sub- 
 stituting an eternal immobility for that power of 
 growth and alteration which constitutes its very 
 existence. 
 
 If all men be hereafter of one speech, it can 
 
 * See Destutt de Tracy, Grammaire Or. vi.
 
 228 AN ESSAY ON LANGUAGE. 
 
 only be after they have arrived at a condition 
 when knowledge has superseded the necessity of 
 inquiry, when intuition supplies the place of 
 discovery, and certainty has been substituted for 
 faith. As far as the science of philology can 
 pronounce an opinion, we must infer, that the 
 familiar line will remain true henceforth as 
 heretofore — 
 
 TloXXal fikv &V7)to?s yXuiTTCu, fiia 5' , A6avdroi(ri. 
 Mortals have many languages, the Immortals one alone.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 A LIST OF SOME BOOKS, VALUABLE AS AIDS IN 
 THE GENEBAL STUDY OF PHILOLOGY. 
 
 German. 
 
 Bopp, Yergleichende Grainmatik. 
 
 Bopp, Vokalismus. 
 
 Bopp, Accentuationssystem. 
 
 Grimm, Ueber den Ursprang der Sprache. Berlin, 1S5S. 
 
 Grimm, Geschichte der Deutsch. Sprache. 
 
 Grimm, Ueber die nam en der Donners. 1856. 
 
 Hcysc, System der Sprach.wissenscb.aft. Berlin, 1856. 
 
 Steinihal, Der Ursprang der Sprache. Berlin, 1858. 
 
 W. von Humboldt, Ueber die Yersebiedenheit des Menschlichen 
 
 Sprachbaues. 1836. 
 Steinthal, Grammatik, Logik, imd Psycbologie. Berlin, 1855. 
 Lersch, Die Sprachphilosophie der Alten. Bonn, 1841. 
 
 . Indiscbe Skizzen. Berlin, 1857. 
 Pott, Etymologiscbe Forschungen. 
 Pott, Die Ungleichkeit Menscblicber Bassen. 
 SchUgel, Pbilosopbiscbe Yorlestingen. AVien. 1830. 
 Schleicher, Linguist. Untersucbungen. 
 Zcuss, Grammatica Keltica. 
 
 Frexcti. 
 
 Penan, De l'Origine du Langage. 2me ed. Paris, 1858. 
 Penom, Histoire et Systeme Compaq's dis Langnes Semitiques. 
 
 Paris, 1858. 
 Bcnlocw, Apercu General de la Science Comparative des Lan- 
 
 gnes. Paris, 1858.
 
 230 LIST OF BOOKS, ETC. 
 
 Iknlocw, De 1' Accentuation dans les langucs Indo-Europecnnes. 
 Paris, 1847. 
 
 CJuerma, Essai sur le Langage. Paris, 1846. 
 
 ', Les Origines [ndo-Europdennes. Paris, 1859. 
 r, Notions de Linguistique. 
 
 Victor Cousin, Cmirs dc 1829, et Fragmens Pkilosophiques. 
 
 Degercmdo, !><■ signes ct de Tart de penser. 
 
 Balbi, Introduction a Tatlas ethnographique du globe. 
 
 Fauriel, Dante et les Origines de la Langue ct de la Literature 
 Italicnne. 
 
 TJwmmcrcl, Sur la Fusion de 1' Anglo-Norman avec 1' Anglo- 
 Saxon. 
 
 English. 
 
 Home Tooke, Diversions of Purley. 
 
 Harris, Hermes. 
 
 Hansen, Philosophy of Universal Histoiy. 
 
 Max Mutter, Survey of Languages. 
 
 Max Mutter, Oxford Essay on Comparative Mythology. 
 
 Latham, The English Language. 
 
 Dr. Donaldson, New Cratylus. 
 
 Dr. Donaldson, Varronianus. 
 
 Garnett, Philosophical Essays. 
 
 Hcnsleigh Wedgwood, Etymological Dictionary. 
 
 Transactions of the Philological Society. 
 
 I have here indicated a few only out of a very- 
 large number of books which will be found useful 
 by a Philological student. The list might be very 
 easily and very considerably enlarged, but any 
 one who once takes up the study will find in the 
 books here mentioned ample materials on which 
 to commence. The questions suggested by the
 
 LIST OF BOOKS, ETC. 231 
 
 study of Language are so closely connected with 
 those of Moral Philosophy, that almost every 
 philosophical work contains matter valuable to 
 the Philologist. Prom Plato, Aristotle, and 
 Cicero, down to Locke and Leibnitz, there is no 
 great philosopher who has not in some degree 
 entered on reasonings respecting the nature and 
 origin of Language. Perhaps there is no more 
 important result from the study of Language 
 than the greater clearness which it necessarily 
 gives to our metaphysical conceptions, and the 
 attention which it necessarily turns to the 
 phenomena of the mind. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 BHADBCRY AND EVANS, HUNTERS, Wlir.'EFUIABS.
 
 Albemarle Street, Loxdon. 
 ■January, 1859. 
 
 MR MURRAY'S 
 GENERAL LIST OF WORKS. 
 
 ABBOTT'S (Rev. J.) Philip Musgrare; or, Memoirs of a Church of 
 England Missionary in the North American Colonies. Post Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 ABERCROMBIE'S (John, M.D.) Enquiries concerning the Intel- 
 lectual Powers and the Investigation of Truth. Fifteenth Edition. 
 Fcap. 8vo. 6s. 6<i. 
 
 Philosophy of the Moral Feelings. Tenth. 
 
 Edition. Fcap. Svo. 4s. 
 
 Pathological and Practical Researches on the 
 
 Diseases of the Stomach, &c. Third Edition. Fcap. Svo. 6s. 
 
 ACLAND'S (Rev. Charles) Popular Account of the Manners and 
 
 Customs of India. Post Svo. 2s.6d. 
 ADDISON'S WORKS. A New Edition, with a New Life and 
 
 Notes. By Rev. Whitwell Elwix. 4 Vols. 8vo. In Preparation. 
 
 ADOLPHUS'S (J. L.) Letters from Spain, in 1856 and 1857. 
 Post Svo. 10s. 6c/. 
 
 .ESCHYLU8. (The Agamemnon and Choephoroe.) Edited, with 
 Notes. By Kev. W. Peile, D.D. Second Edition. 2 Vols. Svo. 9s. 
 each. 
 
 JSOFS FABLES. A New Translation. With Historical 
 Preface. By Rev. Thomas James, M.A. With 100 Woodcuts, by Johx 
 Texxiel and J. Wolf. 2Gth Thousand. Post Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 AGRICULTURAL (The) Journal. Of the Royal Agricultural 
 Society of England. Svo. 10s. Published half-yearly. 
 
 AMBER-WITCH (The). The most interesting Trial for Witch- 
 craft ever known. Translated from the German by Lady Dcff 
 Gordon. Post Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 ARABIAN NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT. Translated from the 
 Arabic, with Explanatory Notes. By E. W. Lane. A New Edition. 
 Edited by E. Stanley Poole. With GOO Woodcuts. 3 Vols. Svo. 42s. 
 
 ARTHUR'S (Little) History of England. By Lady Callcott. 
 
 Eighteenth Edition. With 20 Woodcuts. Fcap.8vo. 2s. Bd. 
 
 AUNT IDA'S Walks and Talks ; a Story Book for Children. Bv 
 
 a Lady. Woodcuts. 16rao. 5s. 
 AUSTIN'S (Sarah) Fragments from German Prose Writers. 
 
 With Biographical Notes. Post Svo. 10s. 
 
 Translation of Ranke's History of the Popes of Rome. 
 
 Third Edition. 2 Vols. 8vo. 21s.
 
 LIST OF WORKS 
 
 ADMIRALTY PUBLICATIONS ; Issued by direction of the Lords 
 Commissioners of tie Admiralty: — 
 
 1. A MANUAL OF SCIENTIFIC ENQUIRY, for the Use of Officers in 
 
 H.M.Navy and Travellers in General. By Various Hands. Third 
 Edition, revised. Woodcuts. Post 8vo. 
 
 2. AIRY'S ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS made at Greenwich. 
 
 1836 to 1847. Royal 4to. 50s. each. 
 ASTRONOMICAL RESULTS. 1848 to 1856. 4to. 8*. each. 
 
 3. APPENDICES TO THE ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVA- 
 TIONS. 
 
 A. and N.P.D. Us. 
 tic P.D. ) 
 
 1836.— I. Bessel's Refraction Tahles. 
 
 II. Tahles for converting Errors of R.A. 
 into Errors of Longitude and Ecliptic 
 1S37. — I. Logarithms of Sines and Cosines to every Ten ) 
 
 Seconds of Time. \-8s . 
 
 II. Table for converting Sidereal into Mean Solar Time. ) 
 1842— Catalogue of 1439 Stars. 8s. 
 1845. — Longitude of Valentia, Ss. 
 1847. — Twelve Years' Catalogue of Stars. 14s. 
 1851. — Maskelyne's Ledger of Stars. 6s. 
 1S52.— I. Description of the Transit Circle. 5s. 
 
 II. Regulations of the Royal Observatory. 2s. 
 1853. — Bessel's Refraction Tables. 3s. 
 1S54. — I. Description of the Zenith Tube. 3*. 
 
 II. Six Years' Catalogue of Stars. 10s. 
 
 — MAGNETICAL AND METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVA- 
 TIONS. 1840 to 1847. Royal 4to. 50s. each. 
 
 MAGNETICAL AND METEOROLOGICAL RESULTS. 
 
 1848 to 1855. 4to. 8s. each. 
 5. ASTRONOMICAL, MAGNETICAL, AND METEOROLO- 
 GICAL OBSERVATIONS, 1848 to 1854. Royal 4to. 50s. each. 
 
 6. REDUCTION OF THE OBSERVATIONS OF PLANETS, 
 
 1750 to 1830. Royal 4to. 50s. 
 
 7. — - LUNAR OBSERVATIONS. 1750 
 
 to 1830. 2 Vols. Royal 4to. 50s. each. 
 
 8. BERNOULLI'S SEXCENTENARY TABLE. London, 1779. 4to. 
 
 9. BESSEL'S AUXILIARY TABLES FOR HIS METHOD OF CLEAR- 
 
 ING LUNAR DISTANCES. 8vo. 
 
 10. FUNDAMENTAASTRONOMI^E:^iomon(ii,1818.Folio.60s. 
 
 11. BIRD'S METHOD OF CONSTRUCTING MURAL QUADRANTS. 
 
 London, 1768. 4to. 2s. 6d. 
 
 12. METHOD OF DIVIDING ASTRONOMICAL INSTRU- 
 MENTS. London, 1767. 4to. 2s. 6^. 
 
 13. COOK, KING, and BAYLY'S ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 London, 1782. 4to. 21s. 
 
 14. EIFFE'S ACCOUNT OF IMPROVEMENTS IN CHRONOMETERS. 
 
 4to. 2s. 
 
 15. ENCKE'S BERLINER JAIIRBUCH, for 1830. Berlin, 1828. 8vo. 9s. 
 
 16. GROOMBRIDGE'S CATALOGUE OF CIRCUMPOLAR STARS. 
 
 4to. 10s. 
 
 17. HANSEN'S TABLES DE LA LUNE. 4to. 20s. 
 
 17. HARRISON'S PRINCIPLES OF HIS TIME-KEEPER. Plates. 
 1767. 4to. 5s. 
 
 IS. HUTTON'S TABLES OF THE PRODUCTS AND POWERS OF 
 NUMBERS. 1781. Folio. 7s. 6d. 
 
 19. LAX'S TABLES FOR FINDING THE LATITUDE AND LONGI- 
 TUDE. 1821. 8vo. 10s.
 
 PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 
 
 Admiralty Publications — continued. 
 
 20. LUNAR OBSERVATIONS at GREENWICH. 1783 to 1819. Compared 
 
 with the Tables, 1821. 4to. 7s. 6d. 
 
 22. MASKELYNE'S ACCOUNT OF THE GOING OF HARRISON'S 
 
 WATCH. 1767. 4to. 2s. 6d. 
 
 21. MAYER'S DISTANCES of the MOON'S CENTRE from the 
 
 PLANETS. 1822,3s.; 1823, 4s. 6d. 1824 to 1835, 8vo. 4s. each. 
 
 23. THEORIALUN^E JUXTA SYSTEMA NEWTONIANUM. 
 
 4to. 2s. 6d. 
 
 24. TABULAE MOTUUM SOLIS ET LUNJE. 1770. 4to. 5s. 
 
 25. ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS MADE AT GOT- 
 
 TINGEN, from 1756 to 1761. 1826. Folio. 7s. 6d. 
 
 26. NAUTICAL ALMANACS, from 1767 to 1861. Svo. 2s. 6c?. each. 
 
 27. SELECTIONS FROM THE ADDITIONS 
 
 up to 1812. 8vo. 5s. 1834-54. 8vo. 5s. 
 
 28. SUPPLEMENTS, 1S28 to 1833, 1837 and 1838. 
 
 Svo. 2s. each. 
 
 29. - TABLE requisite to be used with the N.A. 
 
 1781. Svo. 5s. 
 
 30. POND'S ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS. 1S11 to 1835. 4to. 21s. 
 
 each. 
 
 31. RAMSDEN'S ENGINE for Dividing Mathematical Instruments. 
 
 4to. 5s. 
 
 32. — ENGINE for Dividing Straight Lines. 4to. 5s. 
 
 33. SABINE'S PENDULUM EXPERIMENTS to Determine the Figure 
 
 op the Earth. 1825. 4to. 40s. 
 
 34. SHEPHERD'S TABLES for Correcting Lunar Distances. 1772. 
 
 Royal 4to. 21s. 
 
 35. TABLES, GENERAL, of the MOON'S DISTANCE 
 
 from the SUN, and 10 STARS. 1787. Folio. 5s. 6d. 
 
 36. TAYLOR'S SEXAGESIMAL TABLE. 1780. 4to. 15s. 
 
 37. TABLES OF LOGARITHMS. 4to. 31. 
 
 38. TIARK'S ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS for the Longitude 
 
 of Madeira. 1822. 4to. 5s. 
 
 39. - CHRONOMETRICAL OBSERVATIONS for Differences 
 
 of Longitude between Dover, Portsmouth, and Falmouth. 1823. 
 4to. 5s. 
 
 40. VENUS and JUPITER : Observations of, compared with the Tables. 
 
 London, 1822. 4to. 2s. 
 
 41. WALES' AND BAYLY'S ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 1777. 4to. 21s. 
 
 42. WALES' REDUCTION OF ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS 
 
 made in the Southern Hemisphere. 1764 — 1771. 1788. 4to. 
 10s. 6d. 
 
 BABBAGE'S (Charles) Economy of Machinery and Manufactures. 
 
 Fourth Edition. Fcap. Svo. 6s. 
 Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. 8vo. 9s. 6d. 
 
 Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, 
 
 and on some of its Causes. 4to. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Yiews of the Industry, the Science, and the Govern- 
 ment of England, 1851. Second Edition. Svo. 7s. 6<i. 
 
 a S
 
 LIST OF WORKS 
 
 BAIKIE'S (W. B.) Narrative of an Exploring Voyage up the Rivera 
 
 Quorra and Tshadda in 1854. Map. 8vo. 16*. 
 
 BANKES' (George) Story of Corfe Castle, with documents relating 
 to the Time of the Civil Wars, &c. Woodcuts. Post Svo. 10s. Gd. 
 
 BASSOMPIERRF/S Memoirs of his Embassy to the Court of 
 England in 1626. Translated with Notes. Svo. 9s. 6d. 
 
 BARROW'S (Sir John) Autobiographical Memoir, including 
 Reflections, Observations, and Reminiscences at Home and Abroad. 
 From Early Life to Advanced Age. Portrait. Svo. 16s. 
 
 Voyages of Discovery and Research -within the 
 
 Arctic Regions, from 1818 to the present time. Abridged and ar- 
 ranged from the Official Narratives. 8vo. 15s. 
 
 (Sir George) Ceylon; Past and Present. Map. 
 
 Post Svo. 6s. 6d. 
 
 (John) Naval Worthies of Queen Elizabeth's Reign, 
 
 their Gallant Deeds, Daring Adventures, and Services in the infant state 
 of the British Navy. 8vo. 14s. 
 
 Life and Voyages of Sir Francis Drake. With nume- 
 rous Original Letters. Post Svo. 2s. Gd. 
 
 BEES AND FLOWERS. Two Essays. By Rev. Thomas James. 
 Reprinted from the " Quarterly Review." Fcap. 8vo. Is. each. 
 
 BELL'S (Sir Charles) Mechanism and Vital Endowments of the 
 Hand as evincing Design. Sixth Edition, Woodcuts. Post 8vo. 7s. Gd. 
 
 BENEDICT'S (Jules) Sketch of the Life and Works of Felix 
 Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Second Edition. 8vo. 2s. Gd. 
 
 BERTHA'S Journal during a Visit to her Uncle in England. 
 Containing a Variety of Interesting and Instructive Information. Seventh 
 Edition. Woodcuts. 12mo. 7s. Gd. 
 
 BIRCH'S (Samuel) History of Ancient Pottery and Porcelain : 
 Egyptian, Assvrian, Greek, Roman, and Etruscan. With 200 Illustrations. 
 2 Vols. Medium Svo. 42s. 
 
 BLUNT'S (Rev. J. J.) Principles for the proper understanding of 
 the Mosaic Writings, stated and applied, together with an Incidental 
 Argument for the truth of the Resurrection of our Lord. Being the 
 Hulsean Lectures for 1832. Post 8vo. 6s. Gd. 
 
 Undesigned Coincidences in the Writings of the Old 
 and New Testament, an Argument of their Veracity : with an 
 Appendix containing Undesigned Coincidences between the Gospels, 
 Acts, and Josephus. Sixth Edition. Post Svo. 7s. Gd. 
 
 History of the Church in the First Three Centuries. 
 
 Second Edition. Svo. 9s. 6d. 
 
 - Parish Priest; His Duties, Acquirements and Obliga- 
 tions. Third Edition. Post 8vo. 7s. Gd. 
 
 Lectures on the Right Use of the Early Fathers. 
 
 Second Edition. 8vo. 15s. 
 
 Plain Sermons Preached to a Country Congregation. 
 
 Second Edition. 2 Vols. Post Svo. 7s. 6d. each.
 
 PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 
 
 BLACKSTONE'S (Sir William) Commentaries on the Laws of 
 England. A New Edition, adapted to the present state of the law. By 
 R. Malcolm Kerb, LL.D. 4 Vols. Svo. 42s. 
 
 (The Student's Blackstone:) Being those Portions 
 
 of the above work which relate to the British Constitution and the 
 Rights op Persons. By R. Malcolm Kerr, LLD. Post 8vo. 9s. 
 
 BLAIXE (Roberton) on the Laws of Artistic Copyright and their 
 Defects, for Artists, Engravers, Printsellers, &c. Svo. 3s. Gd. 
 
 BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. With 1000 Blustrations of 
 
 Borders, Initials, and Woodcut Vignettes. A New Edition. Medium 
 Svo. 21s. cloth, 31s. 6d. calf, or 42s. morocco. 
 
 BOSWELL'S (James) Life of Dr. Johnson. Including the Tour to 
 the Hebrides. Edited by Mr. Ceoker. Third Edition. Portraits. Royal 
 8vo. 15s. 
 
 BORROWS (George) Lavengro ; The Scholar— The Gipsy— and 
 the Priest. Portrait. 3 Vols. Post Svo. 30s. 
 
 Romany Rye; a Sequel to Lavengro. Second 
 
 Edition. 2 Vols. Post Svo. 21s. 
 
 ■ Bible in Spain; or the Journeys, Adventures, and 
 
 Imprisonments of an Englishman in an Attempt to circulate the 
 Scriptures in the Peninsula. 3 Vols. Post Svo. 27s., or Popular Edition 
 16mo, 6s. 
 
 - Zincali, or the Gipsies of Spain ; their Manners, 
 Customs, Religion, and Language. 2 Vols. Post Svo. 18s., or Popular 
 Edition, 16mo, 6s. 
 
 BRAY'S (Mrs.) Life of Thomas Stothard, R.A. With Personal 
 Reminiscences. Illustrated with Portrait and (i0 Woodcuts of his 
 chief works. 4to. 
 
 BREWSTER'S (Sir David) Martyrs of Science, or tbe Lives of 
 Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler. Second Edition. Fcap. Svo. 4s. Gd. 
 
 More Worlds than One. The Creed of the Philo- 
 
 sopher and the Hope of the Christian. Seventh Thousand. Post 8vo. 
 
 Stereoscope : its History, Theory, Construction, 
 
 and Application to the Arts aud to Education. Woodcuts. 12mo. 
 5s. 6d. 
 
 Kaleidoscope: its History, Theory, and Construction, 
 
 with its application to the Fine aud Useful Arts. Second Edition. 
 Woodcuts. Post Svo. 5s. 6rf. 
 
 BRITISH ASSOCIATION REPORTS. 8vo. York and Oxford, 
 1831-32, 13s. 6d. Cambridge, 1833, 12s. Edinburgh, 1834, 15s. Dublin, 
 1S35, 13s. 6d. Bristol, 1836, 12s. Liverpool, 1837, 16s. 6d. Newcastle. 
 1838, 15s. Birmingham, 1839, 13s. 6d. Glasgow, 1S40, 15s. Plymouth, 
 1841, 13s. 6d. Manchester, 1842, 10s. 6d. Cork, 1843, 12s. York, 1S44. 
 20s. Cambridge, 1S45. 12s. Southampton, 1846, 15s. Oxford, 1847, 18s. 
 Swansea, 1848, 9s. Birmingham, 1849, 10s. Edinburgh, 1850, 15s. Ipswich, 
 1851, 16s. 6d. Belfast, 1S52, 15s. Hull, 1853, 10s. 6<i. Liverpool, 1854, 18*. 
 Glasgow, 1855, 15s. ; Cheltenham 1S56, 18s; Dublin, 1S57, 15s.
 
 LIST OF WORKS 
 
 BRITISH CLASSICS. A New Series of Standard English 
 Authors, printed from the most correct text, and edited with elucida- 
 tory notes. Published occasionally in demy 8vo. Volumes. 
 
 Already Published. 
 GOLDSMITH'S WORKS. Edited by Peter Cunningham, F.S.A. 
 
 Vignettes. 4 Vols. 30s. 
 GIBBON'S DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 Edited by William Smith, LL.D. Portrait and Maps. S Vols. 60s. 
 JOHNSON'S LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS. Edited by Petee 
 
 Cunningham, F.S.A. 3 Vols. 22s. Gd. 
 BYRON'S POETICAL WORKS. Edited, with Notes. 6 vols. 45s. 
 
 In Preparation. 
 WORKS OF POPE. Edited, with Notes. 
 WORKS OF DRYDEN. Edited, with Notes. 
 HUME'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Edited, with Notes. 
 LIFE, LETTERS, AND JOURNALS OF SWIFT. Edited, with Notes, 
 
 by John Fokster. 
 WORKS OF SWIFT. Edited, with Notes. By John Forstkr. 
 WORKS OF ADDISON. Edited, with Notes. By Rev. W. Elwin. 
 
 BROUGHTON'S (Lord) Journey through Albania and other 
 Provinces of Turkey in Europe and Asia, to Constantinople, 1809 — 10. 
 Second Edition. Maps and Woodcuts. 2 Vols. 8vo. 30s. 
 
 - ITALY : Remarks made in several Visits from 
 
 the Year 1816 to 1854. 2 vols. Post 8vo. 
 
 BUBBLES FROM THE BRUNNEN OF NASSAU. By an Old 
 
 Man. Sixth Edition. 16mo. 5s. 
 
 BUNBUR Y'S (C. J. F.) Journal of a Residence at the Cape of Good 
 Hope; with Excursions into the Interior, and Notes on the Natural 
 History and Native Tribes of the Country. Woodcuts. Post 8vo. 9s. 
 
 BUNYAN (John) and Oliver Cromwell. Select Biographies. By 
 Rodert Southey. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 BUONAPARTE'S (Napoleon) Confidential Correspondence with his 
 Brother Joseph, sometime King of Spain. Second Edition. 2 vols. 8vo. 
 26s. 
 
 BURGHERSH'S (Lord) Memoir of the Operations of the Allied 
 Armies under Prince Schwarzenberg and Marshal Blucher during the 
 latter end of 1813—14. 8vo. 21s. 
 
 Early Campaigns of the Duke of Wellington in 
 
 Portugal and Spain. Svo. 8s. 6d. 
 
 BUEGON'S (Rev. J. W.) Portrait of a Christian Gentleman : a 
 Memoir of the late Patrick Fraser Tytler, author of " The History of 
 Scotland." Svo. In the Press. 
 
 BURN'S (Lieut-Col.) French and English Dictionary of NavaJ. 
 
 and Military Technical Terms. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 15s. 
 BURNS' (Robert) Life. By John Gibson Lockhart. Fifth 
 
 Edition. Ecap. 8vo. 3s. 
 
 BURR'S (G. D.) Instructions in Practical Surveying, Topogra- 
 phical Plan Drawing, and on sketching ground without Instruments. 
 Third Edition. Woodcuts. Post8vo. 7s. 6d.
 
 PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 
 
 BUXTON'S (Sir Fowell) Memoirs. With Selections from his 
 Correspondence. By his Son. Fifth Edition. 8vo. 16s. ; or, Popular 
 Edition. Post Svo. Ss. 6d. 
 
 BYRON'S (Lord) Life, Letters, and Journals. By Thomas Moore. 
 
 Cabinet Edition. Plates. 6 Vols. Fcap. Svo. ISs. 
 
 Life, Letters, and Journals. By Thomas Moore. Popular 
 
 Edition. Portrait and Vignette. One Volume, royal 8vo. 12s. 
 
 Poetical "Works. Library Edition. Portrait. 6 Vols. 
 
 Demy 8vo. 45s. 
 
 - Poetical Works. " Cabinet Edition. Plates. 10 Vols. 
 Fcap. Svo. 30s. 
 
 Poetical Works. People's Edition. Portrait and Steel 
 
 Engravings. Royal 8vo. 9 s. 
 
 ■ Poetical Works. Travelling Edition. Printed in small 
 
 but beautifully clear type. Portrait. Crown 8vo. 9s. 
 
 Poetical Works. Pocket Edition, Containing Childe 
 
 Harold; Dramas, 2 Vols.; Tales and Poems; Miscellanies, 2 Vols.; 
 Beppo and Don Juan, 2 Vols. S Vols. 24mo. 20s. Or, separately, 
 2s. Qd, Each volume. 
 
 Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. A New and beautifully 
 
 printed Edition. Illustrated, with AVood Engravings, from original 
 Drawings by Peecival Skelton. Fcap.lto. 21s. 
 
 Illustrated with 30 Steel Vignettes. 
 
 Crown Svo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 BYBON Beauties. Poetry and Prose. A Reading Book for Youth. 
 Portrait. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 CALVIN'S (John) Life. With Extracts from his Correspondence. 
 By Thomas H. Dyer. Portrait. 8vo. 15s. 
 
 CALLCOTT'S (Lady) Little Arthur's History of England. 
 
 18th Edition. With 20 Woodcuts. Fcap. Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 CARMICHAEL'S (A. N.) Greek Verbs. Their Formations, 
 Irregularities, and Defects. Second Edition. Post Svo. 8s. 6d. 
 
 CARNARVON'S (Lord) Portugal, Gallicia, and the Basque 
 
 Provinces. From Note3 made during a Journey to those Countries. 
 Third Edition. Post 8vo. 6s. 
 
 CAMPBELL'S (Lord) Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keeper.* 
 of the Great Seal of England. From the Earliest Times to the Death of 
 Lord Eldon in 1838. ith Edition. 10 Vols. Crown 8vo. 6s. each. 
 
 _ Life of Lord Chancellor Bacon. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Lives of the Chief Justices of England. From the 
 
 Norman Conquest to the Death of Lord Tenterden. Second Edition. 
 
 3 Vols. 8vo. 42s. 
 
 (George) Modern India. A Sketch of the System 
 
 of Civil Government. With Rome Account of the Natives and Native 
 Institutions. Second Edition. Svo. 16s. 
 
 India as it may be. An Outline of a proposed 
 
 Government and Policy. 8vo. 12s. 
 
 (Thos.) Short Lives of the British Poets. With an 
 
 Essay on English Poetry. Post 8vo. 6s.
 
 LIST OF WORKS 
 
 CASTLEREAGH (The) DESPATCHES, from the commencemo < 
 of the official career of the late Viscount Castlereagh to the close of his 
 life. Edited by the Marquis of Londonderry. 12 Vols.Svo. 14s.each. 
 
 CATHCART'S (Sir George) Commentaries on the "War in Russia 
 and Germany, 1S12-13. Plans. 8vo. 14*. 
 
 - Military Operations in Kafir-aria, which led to the 
 Termination of the Kaffir War. Second Edition. 8vo. 12s. 
 
 CAVALCASELLE (G. B.) Notices of the Early Flemish Painters • 
 Their Lives and Works. Woodcuts. Post 8vo. 12s. 
 
 CHANTREY (Sir Francis). Winged Words on Chantrey's Wood- 
 cocks. Edited by Jas.P.Muiruead. Etchings. Square 8vo. 10s. 6<2- 
 
 CHARMED ROE (The) ; or, The Story of the Little Brother and 
 Sister. By Otto Speckter. Plates. 16mo. 5s. 
 
 CLARENDON (Lord Chancellor) ; Lives of his Friends and 
 Contemporaries, illustrative of Portraits in his Gallery. By Lady 
 Theresa Lewis. Portraits. 3 Vols. 8vo. 42s. 
 
 CLAUSE WITZ'S (Carl Von) Campaign of 1812, in Russia. 
 Translated from the German by Lord Ellesmere. Map. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 CLIVE'S (Lord) Life. By Rev. G. R. Gleig, M.A. Post 8vo. 6s. 
 
 COLERIDGE (Samuel Taylor). Specimens of his Table-Talk. 
 Fourth Edition. Portrait. Fcap. Svo. 6s. 
 
 (Henrt Nelson) Introductions to the Study of 
 
 the Greek Classic Poets. Third Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 5s. Gd. 
 
 COLONIAL LIBRARY. [See Home and Colonial Library.] 
 
 COOKERY (Domestic). Founded on Principles of Economy and 
 Practical Knowledge, and adapted for Private Families. New Edition. 
 Woodcuts. Fcap. Svo. 5s. 
 
 CORNWALLIS (The) Papers and Correspondence during the 
 
 American War, — Administrations in India, — Union with Ireland, and 
 Peace of Amiens. From Family Papers, &c. Edited by Charles Ross. 
 3 Vols. Svo. 63s. 
 
 CRABBE'S (Rev. George) Life, Letters, and Journals. By his Son. 
 Portrait. Fcap. Svo. 3s. 
 
 and Poetical Works. Cabinet 
 
 Edition. Plates. 8 Vols. Fcap. Svo. 24s. 
 
 — and Poetical Works. Popular 
 Edition. Plates. One Volume. Royal 8vo. 10s. Gd. 
 
 CRAIK'S (G. L.) Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties. 
 New Edition. 2 Vols. Post Svo. 12s. 
 
 CURZON'S (Hon. Robert) Visits to the Monasteries of the Levant. 
 Fourth Edition. Woodcuts. Post Svo. 15s. 
 
 Armenia and Erzeroum. A Year on the Frontier? 
 
 of Russia, Turkey, and Persia. Third Edition. Woodcuts. Post Svo. 
 ~s. 6d. 
 
 CUNNINGHAM'S (Allan) Life of Sir David Wilkie. With his 
 .Journals and Critical Remarks on Works of Art. Portrait. 3 Vols. 
 Svo. 42s.
 
 PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 
 
 CUNNINGHAM'S (Allan) :. Poems and Songs. Now first col- 
 lected and arranged, with Biographical Notice. 24mo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 (Capt. J. D.) History of the Sikhs. From 
 
 the Origin of the Nation to the Battle of the Sutlej. Second Edition. 
 Maps, 8vo. 15s. 
 
 (Peter) London — Past and Present. A Hand- 
 
 book to the Antiquities, Curiosities, Churches, Works of Art, Public. 
 Buildings, and Places connected with interesting and historical asso- 
 ciations. Second Edition. Post 8vo. 16s. 
 
 Modern London. A complete Guide fcr 
 
 Visitors to the Metropolis. Map. 16mo. 5s. 
 
 Westminster Abbey. Its Art, Architecture, 
 
 and Associations. Woodcuts. Fcap. 8vo. Is. 
 
 "Works of Oliver Goldsmith. Edited with 
 
 Notes. Vignettes. 4 vols. 8vo. 30s. (Murray's British Classics.) 
 Lives of Eminent English Poets. By Samuel 
 
 Johnsos, LL.D. Edited with Notes. 3 vols. 8vo. 22s. 6d. (Murray's 
 British Classics.) 
 
 CROKER'S (J. W.) Progressive Geography for Children. 
 J- ifth Edition. 18mo. Is. Gd. 
 
 Stories for Children, Selected from the History of 
 
 England. Fifteenth Edition. Woodcuts. 16mo. 2s. Gd . 
 
 - Boswell's Life of Johnson. Including the Tour to the 
 Hebrides. Ttdrd Edition. Portraits. Royal 8vo. 15s. 
 
 Lord Hervet's Memoirs of the Reign of George the 
 
 Second, from his Accession to the death of Queen Caroline. Edited 
 with Notes. Second Edition. Portrait. 2 Vols. Svo. 21s. 
 
 Essays on the Early Period of the French Revolution. 
 Preprinted from the Quarterly Review. 8vo. 15s. 
 
 - Historical Essay on the Guillotine. Fcap. Svo. Is. 
 
 CROMWELL (Oliver.) and John Bunyan. By Robert Soitthey. 
 
 Post Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 CROWE'S (J. A.) Notices of the Early Flemish Painters; their 
 
 Lives and Works. Woodcuts. Post Svo. 12s. 
 CURETON (Rev. W.) Remains of a very Ancient Recension of 
 
 the Four Gospels in Syriac, hitherto unknown in Europe. Discovered, 
 
 Edited, and Translated. 4to. 24s. 
 
 DARWIN'S (Charles) Journal of Researches into the Natural 
 History and Geology of the Countries visited during a Voyage round the 
 World. Post 8vo. 8s. 6d. 
 
 DAVIS'S (Sir J. F.) -China : A General Description of that Empire 
 
 nml its Inhabitants, down to 1857. Sew Edition. Woodcuts. 2 Vols. 
 Post Svo. lis. 
 
 DAYY'S (Sir Humphry) Consolations in Travel ; or, Last Days 
 of a Philosopher. Fifth Edition. Woodcuts. Fcap. Svo. 6s. 
 
 - Salmonia; or, Days of Fly Fishing. With some Account 
 of the Habits of Fishes belonging to the genus Salmo. Fourth Edition. 
 Woodcuts. Fcap. 8vo. 6s. 
 
 DENNIS' (George) Cities and Cemeteries of Etnrria; or, the 
 extant Local Remains of Etruscan Art. Plates. 2 Vols. Svo. 42s.
 
 10 LIST OF WORKS 
 
 DOG-BREAKING ; the Most Expeditious, Certain, and Easy 
 Method, whether great excellence or only mediocrity be required. By 
 Lieut.-Col. Hutchinson. Third Edition. Kevised and enlarged. 
 Woodcuts. Post 8vo. 9s. 
 
 DOMESTIC MODERN COOKERY. Founded on Principles of 
 
 Economy and Practical Knowledge, and adapted for Private Families. 
 New Edition. "Woodcuts. Fcap. Svo. 5s. 
 
 DOUGLAS'S (General Sir Howard) Treatise on the Theory 
 and Practice of Gunnery. Fourth Edition. Plates. 8vo. 21s. 
 
 Treatise on the Principle and Construction of Military 
 
 Bridges, and the Passage of Rivers in Military Operations. Third 
 Edition. Plates. 8vo. 21s. 
 
 Naval Warfare with Steam. Woodcuts. 8vo. 8s. 6d. 
 
 DRAKE'S (Sir Francis) Life, Voyages, and Exploits, by Sea and 
 Land. By John Barrow. Third Edition. Post8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 DRINKWATER'S (John) History of the Siege of Gibraltar, 
 1779-1783. With a Description and Account of that Garrison from the 
 Earliest Periods. Post Svo. 2s. Gd. 
 
 DRYDEN'S (John) Works. A New Edition, based upon Sir 
 Walter Scott's Edition, entirely revised. 8vo. In Preparation. 
 
 DUDLEY'S (Earl of) Letters to the late Bishop of Llandaff. 
 Second Edition. Portrait. Svo. 10s. 6ctf. 
 
 DtTFFERIN'S (Lord) Letters from High Latitudes, being some 
 Account of a Yacht Voyage to Iceland, &c, in 1S56. Fourth Edition. 
 Woodcuts. Post Svo. 9s. 
 
 DURHAM'S (Admiral Sir Philip) Naval Life and Services. By 
 Capt. Alexander Murray. Svo. 5s. 6d. 
 
 DYER'S (Thomas H.) Life and Letters of John Calvin. Compiled 
 
 from authentic Sources. Portrait. Svo. 15s. 
 
 New History of Modern Europe. From the taking of 
 
 Constantinople by the Turks to the Close of the War in the Crimea. 
 4 Vols. Svo. In Preparation. 
 
 EASTLAKE (Sir Charles) The Schools of Painting in Italy. 
 From the Earliest times. From the German of Kugler. Edited, with 
 Notes. Third Edition. Illustrated from the Old Masters. 2 Vols. 
 Post 8vo. 30s. 
 
 EDWARDS' (W. H.) Voyage up the River Amazon, including a 
 
 Visit to Para. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 EGERTON'S (Hon. Capt. Francis) Journal of a Winter's Tour in 
 India ; with a Visit to Nepaul. Woodcuts. 2 Vols. Post 8vo. 18s. 
 
 ELDON'S (Lord Chancellor) Public and Private Life, with Selec- 
 tions from his Correspondence and Diaries. By Horace Twiss. Third 
 Edition. Portrait. 2 Vols. Post 8vo. 21s. 
 
 ELIOT'S (Hon. W. G. C.) Khans of the Crimea. Being a Nar- 
 rative of an Embassy from Frederick the Great to the Court of Krini 
 Gerai. Translated from the German. Post Svo. 6s. 
 
 ELLIS (Mrs.) On the Education of Character, with Hints on Moral 
 
 Training. Post 8vo. 7s. 6d. 
 (Rev. W.) Three Visits to Madagascar. During 1853,-54, 
 
 anil -56, including a Journey to the Capital, with notices of Natural 
 
 History, and Present Civilisation of the People. Fourth Thousand. Map 
 
 and Woodcuts. Svo. lGs.
 
 PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 11 
 
 ELLESMERE'S (Lord) Two Sieges of Vienna by the Turks. 
 
 Translated from the German. Post Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 . Second Campaign of Eadetzky in Piedmont. 
 
 The Defence of Temeswar and the Camp of the Ban. From the German. 
 
 Post 8vo. 6s. 6d. 
 
 Life and Character of the Duke of Wellington ; 
 
 a Discourse. Fcap. 8vo. 6d. 
 
 Campaign of 1812 in Russia, from the German 
 
 of General Carl Von Clausewitz. Map. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 Pilgrimage, and other Poems. Crown 4to. 24s. 
 
 Essays on History, Biography, Geography, and 
 
 Engineering. Svo. 12s. 
 
 ELPHINSTONE'S (Hon. Mountstuart) History of India— the 
 
 Hindoo and Mahomedan Periods. Fourth Edition. With an Index. 
 Map. 8vo. 18s. 
 
 ELWIN'S (Rev. W.) Lives of Eminent British Poets. From 
 Chaucer to Wordsworth. 4 Vols. Svo. In Preparation. 
 
 ENGLAND (History of) from the Peace of L T trecht to the Peace 
 of Versailles, 1713—83. By Lord Mahon. Library Edition, 7 Vols, 
 8vo, 93s.; or, Popular Edition, 7 Vols. Post 8vo. 35s. 
 
 — From the First Invasion by the Romans, 
 
 down to the 14th year of Queen Victoria's Reign. By Mrs. Mabkham. 
 98th Edition. Woodcuts. 12mo. 6s. 
 
 — As it is : Social, Political, and Industrial, in the 
 19th Century. By W. Johnston. 2 Vol?. Post 8vo. 18s. 
 
 - and France under the House of Lancaster. With an 
 
 Introductory View of the Early Reformation. Second Edition. 8vo. 15s. 
 ENGLISHWOMAN IN AMERICA. Post Svo. 10*. 6d. 
 
 RUSSIA : or, Impressions of Manners 
 and Society during a Ten Years' Residence in that Country. Fifth 
 Thousand. Woodcuts. Post Svo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 ERSKINE'S (Capt., R.N.) Journal of a Cruise among the Islands 
 of the Western Pacific, including the Fejees, and others inhabited by 
 the Polynesian Negro Races. Plates. Svo. 16s. 
 
 ESKIMAUX (The) and English Vocabulary, for the use of Travellers 
 in the Arctic Regions. 16mo. 3s. 6i/. 
 
 ESSAYS FROM "THE TIMES." Being a Selection from the 
 LiTF.r.Ai: ,- PAPBB9 which have appeared in that Journal. 7th Thousand. 
 2 vols. Fcap. Svo. 8s. 
 
 EXETER'S (Bishop of) Letters to the late Charles Butler, on the 
 Theological parts of bis Book of the Roman Catholic Church; with 
 Remarks on certain Works of Dr. Milner and Dr. Lingard, and on some 
 parts of the Evidence of Dr. Doyle. Second Edition. 8vo. 16s. 
 
 FAIRY RING (The), A Collection of Tales and Stories for Young 
 Persons. From the German. By J. E.Taylor. Illustrated by Richard 
 Doyle. Second Edition. Fcap. Svo. 
 
 PALKNER'S (Fred.) Muck Manual for the Use of Farmers. A 
 Treatise on the Nature and Value of Manures. Second Edition, with 
 Glossary of Terms and an Index. Fcap. Svo. 5s. 
 
 FAMILY RECE1 PT-BOOK. A Collection of a Thousand Valuable 
 
 and Useful Receipts. Fcap. Svo. 5s. Gd.
 
 12 LIST OF WORKS 
 
 FANCOURT'S (Col.) History of Yucatan, from its Discovery 
 to the Close of the 17th Century. With Map. 8vo. 10s. Gd. 
 
 FEATHERSTONHAUGH'S (G. W.) Tour through the Slave States 
 of North America, from the River Potomac, to Texas and the Frontiers 
 of Mexico. Plates. 2 Vols. Svo. 26s. 
 
 FELLOWS' (Sir Charles) Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, 
 more particularly in the Province of Lydia. New Edition. Plates. Post 
 8vo. 9s. 
 
 FERGUSSON'S (James) Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis 
 
 Restored: an Essay on Ancient Assyrian and Persian Architecture. 
 With 45 Woodcuts. Svo. 16s. 
 
 Handbook of Architecture. Being a 
 
 Concise and Popular Account of the Different Styles prevailing in all 
 Ages and Countries in the World. With a Description of the most re- 
 markable Buildings. Fourth Thousand. With 850 Illustrations. Svo. 26s. 
 
 FERRIER'S (T. P.) Caravan Journeys in Persia, Afghanistan, 
 
 Herat, Turkistan, and Beloochistan, with Descriptions of Meshed, Balk, 
 and Candabar, and Sketches of the Nomade Tribes of Central Asia. 
 Second Edition. Map. 8vo. 21s. 
 
 History of the Afghans. Map. 8vo. 21s. 
 
 FEUERBACH'S Remarkable German Crimes and Trials. Trans- 
 lated from the German by Lady Duff Gordon. 8vo. 12s. 
 
 FISHER'S (Rev. George) Elements of Geometry, for the Use of 
 Schools. Fifth Edition. ISmo. Is. Gd. 
 
 - First Principles of Algebra, for the Use of Schools. 
 
 Fifth Edition. 18mo. Is. 6d. 
 
 FLOWER GARDEN (The). An Essay. By Rev. Thos. James. 
 Reprinted from the " Quarterly Review." Fcap. Svo. Is. 
 
 FORD'S (Richard) Handbook for Spain, Andalusia, Ronda, Valencia , 
 Catalonia, Granada, Gallicia, Arragon, Navarre, &c. Third Edition. 
 2 Vols. Post8vo. 30s. 
 
 Gatherings from Spain. Post Svo. 6s. 
 
 FORSTER'S (John) Historical & Biographical Essays. Contents :- 
 
 IV. Daniel De Foe. 
 V. Sir Richard Steele. 
 VI. Charles Churchill. 
 VII. Samuel Foote. 
 
 I. The Grand Remonstrance, 1641. 
 II. The Plantagonets and the Tudors. 
 III. The Civil Wars and Oliver Crom- 
 well. 
 
 2 Vols. Post 8vo. 21s. 
 
 FORSYTH'S (William) Hortensius, or the Advocate : an Historical 
 Essay on the Office and Duties of an Advocate. Post Svo. 12s. 
 
 History of Napoleon at St. Helena. From the 
 
 Letters and Journals of Sir Hudson Lowe. Portrait and Maps. 3 Vols. 
 Svo. 45s. 
 
 FORTUNE'S (Robert) Narrative of Two Visits to China, between 
 the vears 1S43-52, with full Descriptions of the Culture of the Tea 
 Plant. Third Edition. Woodcuts. 2 Vols. Post8vo. 18s. 
 
 - Residence among the Chinese : Inland, on the 
 Coast, and at Sea, during 1S53-56. Woodcuts. Svo. 16s.' 
 FRANCE (History of).- From the Conquest by the Gauls to the 
 Death of Louis Philippe. By Mrs. Markham. 56th Thousand. Wood- 
 cuts. 12mo. 6s.
 
 PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 13 
 
 FRENCH (The) in Algiers ; The Soldier of the Foreign Legion — 
 and the Prisoners of Abd-el-Kadir. Translated by Lady Duff Gordon. 
 Post 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 GALTON'S (Francis) Art of Travel ; or, Hints on the Shifts and 
 Contrivances available in "Wild Countries. Second Edition. Wood- 
 cuts. Post 8vo. 6s. 
 
 GEOGRAPHICAL (The) Journal. Published by the Royal Geo- 
 graphical Society of London. 8vo. 
 
 GERMANY (Histort of). From the Invasion by Marius, to the 
 present time. On the plan of Mrs. Markham. Ninth Thousand. Woodcuts. 
 12mo. 6s. 
 
 GIBBON'S (Edward) Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. A 
 Niw Edition. Preceded by his Autobiography. Edited with Notes 
 by Dr. Wu. Smith. Maps. 8 Vols. Svo. 60s. 
 
 The Student 's Gibbon ; Being the History of the 
 
 Decline and Fall, Abridged, incorporating the Researches of Recent 
 Commentators. By Dr. Wm. Smith. Sixth Thousand. Woodcuts. Post 
 8vo. 7s. 6d. 
 
 GIFFARD'S (Edward) Deeds of Naval Daring ; or, Anecdotes of 
 the British Navy. 2 Vols. Fcap. Svo. 
 
 GISBORNE'S (Thomas) Essays on Agriculture. TJard Edition. 
 
 Post Svo. 
 
 GLADSTONE'S (W. E.) Prayers arranged from the Liturgy for 
 
 Family Use. Second Edition. 12mo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 GOLDSMITH'S (Oliver) Works. A New Edition. Printed from 
 the last editions revised by the Author. Edited by Peter Cuxxixg- 
 ham. Vignettes. 4 Vols. Svo. 30s. (Murray's British Classics.) 
 
 GLEIG'S (Rev. G. R.) Campaigns of the British Army at Washing- 
 ton and New Orleans. Post Svo. 2j. 6d. 
 
 Story of the Battle of Waterloo. Compiled from Public 
 
 and Authentic Sources. Post 8vo. 5s. 
 
 Narrative of Sir Robert Sale's Brigade in Afghanistan, 
 
 ■with an Account of the Seizure and Defence of Jellalabad. Fost Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Life of Robert Lord Clive. Post 8vo. 5s. 
 
 Life and Letters of General Sir Thomas Munro. Post 
 
 8vo. 5s. 
 
 GORDON'S (Sir Alex. Dcff) Sketches of German Life, and Scenes 
 from the War of Liberation. From the German. Post Svo. 6s. 
 
 — (Ladv Duff) Amber- Witch : the most interesting 
 
 Trial for Witchcraft ever known. From the German. Post Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 French in Algiers. 1. The Soldier of the Foreign 
 
 Legion. 2. The Prisoners of Abd-el-Kadir. From the French. 
 Post Svo. 2s. 6(i. 
 
 Remarkable German Crimes and Trials. From the 
 
 German of Fuerbach. 8vo. 12s. 
 
 GRANT'S (Asahel) Nestorians, or the Lost Tribes ; containing 
 Evidence of their Identity, their Manners, Customs, andCeremonies ; 
 with Sketches of Travel in Ancient Assyria, Armenia, and Mesopotamia ; 
 and Illustrations of Scripture Prophecy. Third Edition. Fcap 8vo. fc's.
 
 14 LIST OF WORKS 
 
 GRENVILLE (The) PAPERS. Being the Public and Private 
 Correspondence of George Grenville, his Friends and Contemporaries, 
 during a period of 30 years. — Including his Diary op Political 
 Events while First Lord of the Treasury. Edited, with Notes, hy 
 "VV. J. Smith. 4 Vols. 8vo. 16s. each. 
 
 GREEK GRAMMAR FOR SCHOOLS. Abridged from Matthias 
 
 By the Bishop op London. Ninth Edition, revised hy Rev. J. Edwards. 
 
 12mo. 3s. 
 GREY'S (Sir George) Polynesian Mythology, and Ancient 
 
 Traditional History of the New Zealand Race. Woodcuts. Post 
 
 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 GROTE'S (George) History of Greece. From the Earliest Times 
 to the close of the generation contemporary with the death of Alexander 
 the Great. Third Edition. Maps and Index. 12 vols. 8vo. 16s. each. 
 
 GROSVENOR.'S (Lord Robert) Leaves from my Journal during 
 the Summer of 1851. Second Edition. Plates. Post 8vo. 3s. 6<7. 
 
 GUSTA VUS VASA (History of), King of Sweden. With Extracts 
 from his Correspondence. Portrait. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 HALLAM'S (Henry) Constitutional History of England, from the 
 Accession of Henry the Seventh to the Death of George the Second. 
 Seventh Edition. 3 Vols. Svo. 30s. 
 
 History of Europe during the Middle Ages. 
 
 Tenth Edition. 3 Vols. Svo. 30s. 
 
 Introduction to the Literary History of Europe, during 
 
 the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Fourth Edition. 3 Vols. Svo. 36s. 
 
 Literary Essays and Characters. Selected from the 
 
 last work. Fcap. Svo. 2s. 
 
 Historical Works. Containing the History of Eng- 
 land, — The Middle Ages of Europe, — and the Literary History of 
 Europe. Complete Edition. 10 Vols. Post8vo. 6s. each. 
 
 HAMILTON'S (James) Wanderings in Northern Africa, Benghazi, 
 Cyrene, the Oasis of Si wan, &c. Second Edition. Woodcuts. Post Svo. 12s. 
 
 (Walter) Hindostan, Geographically, Statistically, 
 
 and Historically. Map. 2 Vols. 4to. 94s. 6d. 
 
 HAMPDEN'S (Bishop) Essay on the Philosophical Evidence of 
 Christianity, or the Credibility obtained to a Scripture Revelation 
 from its Coincidence with the Facts of Nature. 8vo. 9s. 6d. 
 
 HARCOURT'S (Edward Vernon) Sketch of Madeira ; with Map 
 and Plates. Post 8vo. 8s. 6d. 
 
 HART'S ARMY LIST. (Quarterly and Annually.) 8vo. 
 
 HAY'S (J. H. Drummond) Western Barbary, its wild Tribes and 
 
 savage Animals. Post Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 HEBER ;(Bishop) Parish Sermons ; on the Lessons, the Gospel, 
 
 or the Epistle, for every Sunday in the Year, and for Week-day Festivals. 
 
 Sixth Edition. 2 Vols. Post Svo. 16s. 
 
 Sermons Preached in England. Second Edition. 8vo. 9s. 6d. 
 
 Hymns written and adapted for the weekly Church 
 
 Service of the Year. Twelfth Edition. 16mo. 2s. 
 • Poetical Works. Fifth Edition. Portrait. Fcap. 8vo. 
 
 7s. 6d. 
 
 — Journey through the Upper Provinces of India, From 
 Calcutta to Bombay, with a Journey to Madras and the Southern Pro- 
 vinces. 2 Vols. Post Svo. 12s.
 
 PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 15 
 
 HAND-BOOK OF TRAVEL-TALK; or, Conversations in 
 English, German, French, and Italian. 18mo. 3s. M. 
 
 NORTH GERMANY— Holland, Belgium, and 
 
 the Rhine to Switzerland. Map. Post Svo. 10s. 
 
 SOUTH GERMANY— Bavaria, Austria, Salzberg, 
 
 the Austrian and Bavarian Alps, the Tyrol, and the Danube, from Ulm 
 to the Black Sea. Map. Post 8vo. 10s. 
 
 — — PAINTING— the German, Flemish, and Dutch 
 
 Schools. From the German of Kugler. A New Edition. Edited by 
 Dr. Waagen. Woodcuts. Post Svo. {In the Press.) 
 
 SWITZERLAND— the Alps of Savoy, and Piedmont. 
 
 Maps. Post 8vo. 9s. 
 
 FRANCE— Normandy, Brittany, the French 
 
 Alps, the Rivers Loire, Seine, Rhone, and Garonne, Dauphine, Provence, 
 and the Pyrenees. Maps. Post Svo. 10s. 
 
 SPAIN — Andalusia, Ronda, Granada, Valencia, 
 
 Catalonia, Gallicia, Arragon, and Navarre. Maps. 2 Vols. Post Svo. 30s. 
 
 PORTUGAL, LISBON, &c. Map. Post Svo. 9s. 
 
 PAINTING — Spanish and French Schools. By 
 
 Sib Edme>-d Head, Babt. "Woodcuts. Post Svo. 12s. 
 
 NORTH ITALY— Florence, Sardinia, Genoa, the 
 
 Riviera, Venice, Lombardy, and Tuscany. Map. Post Svo. 2 Vols. 12s. 
 
 CENTRAL ITALY— South Tuscany and the 
 
 Papal States. Map. Post Svo. 
 
 ROME— AND ITS ENVIRONS. Map. Post 
 
 8vo. 9s. 
 
 SOUTH ITALY— Naples, Pompeii, Herculanenm, 
 
 Vesuvius, &c. Map. Post8vo. 10s. 
 
 ^SICILY. Map. Post Svo. {In the Press.) 
 - PAINTING— the Italian Schools. From the Ger- 
 man of Kugler. Edited by Sir Charles Eastlake, R. A. Woodcuts. 
 2 Vols. Post Svo. 30s. 
 
 ITALIAN PAINTERS: (A Short Biographical 
 
 Dictionary of.) With a Chart. Post 8vo. 6s. 6d. 
 
 GREECE— the Ionian Islands, Albania, Thessaly, 
 and Macedonia. Maps. Post 8vo. 15s. 
 
 TURKEY — Malta, Asia Minor, Constantinople. 
 
 Armenia, Mesopotamia, &c. Maps. Post 8vo. 
 
 EGYPT— Thebes, the Kile, Alexandria, Cairo, 
 
 the Pyramids, Mount Sinai, &c. Map. Post Svo. 15s. 
 
 SYRIA AND PALESTINE; the Peninsula of 
 
 Sinai, Edom, and the Syrian Desert. Maps. 2 Vols. Post Svo. 24s. 
 INDIA. — Part 1. Bombay and Madras. Map. 
 
 2 Parts. Post 8vo. 
 
 DENMARK — Norway and Sweden. Maps. Post 
 
 8vo. 15s. 
 
 RUSSIA — The Baltic and Finland. Maps. Post 
 
 Svo. 12s.
 
 LIST OF WORKS 
 
 HANDBOOK OF LONDON, Past and Present. Alphabetically 
 
 - MODERN LONDON. A Guide to all objects 
 
 of interest in the Metropolis. Map. 16mo. 5*. 
 
 ENVIRONS OF LONDON. Including a Circle of 
 
 30 Miles round St. Paul's. Maps. Post8vo. (In preparation.) 
 
 - DEVON AND CORNWALL. Maps. Post 8vo. 
 WILTS, DORSET, AND SOMERSET. Map. Post 
 
 Svo. 
 
 - KENT AND SUSSEX. Map. Post 8vo. 10s. 
 SURREY, HANTS, and the Isle of Wight. 
 
 Maps. Post 8vo. 7*. G?. 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY— its Art, Architecture, 
 
 and Associations. Woodcuts. 16mo. 1*. 
 
 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND. Post 8vo. In 
 
 Preparation. 
 
 - PARIS. Post 8vo. (In Preparation.) 
 FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS. Chiefly from English 
 
 Authors. Third Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 5s. 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. Being a Concise and Popular 
 
 Account of the Different Styles prevailing in all Ages and Countries. 
 By James Fergusson. Fourth Thousand. With 850 Illustrations. 
 8vo. 26s. 
 ARTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES AND RE- 
 
 naissance. By M. Jules Labarte. With 200 Illustrations. 8vo. 18s. 
 
 HEAD'S (Sir Francis) Rough Notes of some Rapid Journeys across 
 the Pampas and over the Andes. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Descriptive Essays : contributed to the " Quarterly 
 
 Review." 2 Vols. Post 8vo. 18s. 
 
 ■ ' Bubbles from the Brunnen of Nassau. By an Old Man. 
 
 Sixth Edition. 16mo. 5s. 
 
 Emigrant. Sixth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 ■ Stokers and Pokers; or, the London and North- Western 
 
 Railway. Post 8vo. 2s. dd. 
 
 ■ Defenceless State of Great Britain. Post Svo. 12s. 
 
 ■ Faggot of French Sticks ; or, Sketches of Paris. 
 
 New Edition. 2 Vols. Post 8vo. 12s. 
 
 Fortnight in Ireland. Second Edition. Map. 8vo. 12s. 
 
 (Sir George) Forest Scenes and Incidents in Canada. 
 
 Second Edition. Post 8vo. 10s. 
 
 Home Tour through the Manufacturing Districts of 
 
 England, Scotland, and Ireland, including the Channel Islands, and the 
 Isle of Man. Third Edition. 2 Vols. Post 8vo. 12s. 
 
 (Sir Edmund) Handbook of Painting — the Spanish 
 
 and French Schools. With Illustrations. Post 8vo. 
 
 — Shall and Will ; or, Two Chapters on Future Auxiliary 
 Verbs. Second Edition, Enlarged. Fcap. 8vo. 4s.
 
 PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 17 
 
 HEIRESS (The) in Her Minority ; or, The Progress of Character. 
 By the Author of "Bertha's Journal." 2 Vols. 12nio. 18s. 
 
 HERODOTUS. A New English Version. Edited with Notes, 
 and Essays. By Rev. G. Rawlinson, assisted by Sir Henry 
 Rawlinson, and Sir J. G. Wilkixson. Maps and Woodcuts. 4 Vols. 
 8vo. 18*. each. 
 
 HERVEY'S (Lord) Memoirs of the Reign of George the Second, 
 from his Accession to the Death of Queen Caroline. Edited, with Notes 
 by Mr. Croker. Second Edition. Portrait. 2 Vols. 8vo. 21s. 
 
 HICKMAN'S (Wm.) Treatise on the Law and Practice of Naval 
 
 Courts Martial. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 HILLARD'S (G. S.) Six Months in Italy. 2 Yols. Post 8vo. 16s. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE under the House 
 of Lancaster. With an Introductory View of the Early Reformation. 
 Second Edition. 8vo. 15s. 
 
 HOLLAND'S (Rev. W. B.) Psalms and Hymns, selected and 
 adapted to the various Solemnities of the Church. Third Edition. 24mo. 
 Is. 3d. 
 
 HOLL WAY'S (J. G.) Month in Norway. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 
 
 HONEY BEE (The). An Essay. By Rev. Thomas James. 
 Reprinted from the " Quarterly Review.'' Fcap. 8vo. Is. 
 
 HOOK'S (Rev. Dr.) Church Dictionary. Eighth Edition. 8vo. 16s. 
 
 Discourses on the Religious Controversies of the Day. 
 
 8vo. 9s. 
 
 (Theodore) Life. By J. G. Lockhart. Reprinted from the 
 
 " Quarterly Review." Fcap. 8vo. Is. 
 
 HOOKER'S (Dr. J. D.) Himalayan Journals ; or, Notes of an Oriental 
 Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia 
 Mountains, &c. Second Edition. Woodcuts. 2 vols. Post 8vo. 18s. 
 
 HOOPER'S (Lieut.) Ten Months among the Tents of the Tuski ; 
 with Incidents of an Arctic Boat Expedition in Search of Sir John 
 Franklin. Plates, 8vo. 14s. 
 
 HORACE ("Works of). Edited by Dean Milman. With 300 
 AVoodcuts. Crown 8vo. 21s. 
 
 (Life of). By Dean Milman. Woodcuts, and coloured 
 
 Borders. 8vo. 9s. 
 
 HOSPITALS AND SISTERHOODS. By a Lady. Fcap.' 8vo. 
 
 3s. 6(i. 
 
 HOUSTOUN'S (Mrs.) Yacht Voyage to Texas and the Gulf of 
 Mexico. Plates. 2 Vols. Post 8vo. 21s. 
 
 c
 
 13 LIST OF WORKS 
 
 HOME AND COLONIAL LIBRARY. Complete in 70 Parts. 
 Post 8vo, 2s. 6J. each, or bound in 31 Volumes, cloth. 
 
 CONTENTS OP TIIE SERIES. 
 
 THE BIBLE IN SPAIN. By George Borrow. 
 
 JOURNALS IN INDIA. By Bishop IIeber. 
 
 TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND. By CAPTAHIS Irby and Mangles. 
 
 THE SIEGE OP GIBRALTAR. By John Drixkwater. 
 
 MOROCCO AND THE MOORS. By J. Drdmmond Hat, 
 
 LETTERS FROM THE BALTIC. By a Lady. 
 
 THE AMBER-WITCH. By Lady Duff Gordon. 
 
 OLIVER CROMWELL & JOHN BCTNYAN. By Robert Southey. 
 
 NEW SOUTH WALES. By Mrs. Meredith. 
 
 LIFE OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. By John Barrow. 
 
 FATHER RIPA'S MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF CHINA. 
 
 A RESIDENCE IN THE WEST INDIES. By M. G. Lewis. 
 
 SKETCHES OF PERSIA. By Sir John Malcolm. 
 
 THE FRENCH IN ALGIERS. By Lady Duff Gordon. 
 
 VOYAGE OF A NATURALIST. By Charles Darwin. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE FALL OF THE JESUITS. 
 
 LIFE OF LOUIS PRINCE OF CONDE. By Lord Mahon. 
 
 GIPSIES OF SPAIN. By George Borrow. 
 
 THE MARQUESAS. By Hermann Melville. 
 
 L1VONIAN TALES. By a Lady. 
 
 MISSIONARY LIFE IN CANADA. By Rev. J. Abbott. 
 
 SALE'S BRIGADE IN AFFGHANISTAN. By Rev. G. R. Oleic... 
 
 LETTERS FROM MADRAS. By a Lady. 
 
 HIGHLAND SPORTS. By Charles St. John. 
 
 JOURNEYS ACROSS THE PAMPAS. By Sir F. B. Head. 
 
 GATHERINGS FROM SPAIN. By Richard Ford. 
 
 SIEGES OF VIENNA BY THE TURKS. By Lord Ellesmep.e. 
 
 SKETCHES OF GERMAN LIFE. By Sir A. Gordon. 
 
 ADVENTURES IN THE SOUTH SEAS. By Hermann Melville. 
 
 STORY OF BATTLE OF WATERLOO. By Rev. G. R. Gleig. 
 
 A VOYAGE UP THE RIVER AMAZON. By W. II. Edwards, 
 
 THE WAYSIDE CROSS. By Capt. Milman. 
 
 MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF INDIA. By Rev. C. Acland. 
 
 CAMPAIGNS AT WASHINGTON. By Rev. G. R. Gleig. 
 
 ADVENTURES IN MEXICO. By G. F. Roxton. 
 
 PORTUGAL AND GALLICIA. By Lord Carnarvon. 
 
 LIFE OF LORD CLIVE. By Rev. G. R. Gleig. 
 
 BUSH LIFE IN AUSTRALIA. By II. W. Haygarth. 
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF HENRY STEFFENS. 
 
 SHORT LIVES OF THE POETS. By Thomas Campbell. 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. By Lord Mahon. 
 
 LONDON & NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY. By Sir F. B. Head. 
 
 ADVENTURES IN THE LIBYAN DESERT. By Bayle St. Jobs, 
 
 A RESIDENCE AT SIERRA LEONE. By a Lady. 
 
 LIFE OF GENERAL MUNRO. By Rev. G. R. Gleig. 
 
 MEMOIRS OF SIR FOWELL BUXTON. By his Son.
 
 PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 19 
 
 HUME (The Student's). A History of England, from the In- 
 vasion of Julius C;esar. By David Hume; abridged and continued to 
 the Present Time. Woodcuts. Post 8vo. 7s. 6d. {Uniform with 
 The Student's Gibbon.) 
 
 HUTCHINSON (Colonel) on Dog-Breaking; the most expe- 
 ditious, certain, and easy Method, whether great Excellence or only 
 Mediocrity be required. Third Edition. Revised and enlarged. "Woodcuts. 
 Post8vo. 9s. 
 
 IRBY AND MANGLES' Travels in Egypt, Nubia, Syria, and 
 the Holy Land, including a Journey round the Dead Sea, and through 
 the Country east of the Jordan. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 JAMES' (Rev. Thomas) Fables of iEsop. A New Translation, with 
 Historical Preface. With 100 Woodcuts by Tenniei, and Wolf. 
 Twenty-sixth Thousand. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 JAMESON'S (Mrs.) Memoirs of the Early Italian Painters, and 
 of the Progress of Italian Painting in Italy. Tenth Edition. With 
 70 Woodcuts. Fcap. Syo. 6s. 
 
 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE. Described from the Accounts 
 of Recent Dutch Travellers. Xera Edition. Post 8vo. 6s. 
 
 JARDINE'S (David) Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot. New 
 Edition. Post Svo. 7s. Gd. 
 
 JERYIS'S (Capt.) Manual of Operations in the Field, for the Use of 
 Officers. Post S70. 9s. 6d. 
 
 JESSE'S (Edward) Favorite Haunts and Rural Studies ; or Visits 
 to Spots of Interest in the Vicinity of Windsor and Eton. Woodcuts. 
 Post8vo. 12s. 
 
 Scenes and Occupations of Country Life. With Recol- 
 lections of Natural History. Third Edition. Woodcuts. Fcap. Svo. 6s. 
 
 Gleanings in Natural History. With Anecdotes of the 
 
 Sagacity and Instinct of Animals. Eighth Edition. Fcap. Svo. 6s. 
 
 JOHNSON'S (Dr. Samuel) Life : By James Boswell. Including 
 the Tour to the Hebrides, with Notes by Sip. W. Scott. Edited by 
 the late Me. Croker. Third Edition. Portraits. Royal Svo. 15s. 
 
 Lives of the most eminent English Poets. A New 
 
 Edition. Edited by Peter Cunningham. 3 vols. Svo. 22s. 6d. 
 (Murray's British Classics.) 
 
 JOHNSTON'S (Wm.) England as it is : Social, Political, and 
 Industrial, in the Middle of the 19th Ceutury. 2 Vols. Post Svo. 18s. 
 
 JOURNAL OF A NATURALIST. Fourth Edition. Woodcuts. 
 
 Post8vo. 9s. Sd. 
 
 JOWETT'S (Rev. B.) Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle3 to the 
 Thessalonians, ftalatians, and Romans. With Notes and Dissertations. 
 Second Edition. 2 Vols. 8vo. 
 
 KEN'S (Bishop) Life. By A Layman. Second Edition. Portrait. 
 2 Vols. 8vo. 18s. 
 
 c 2
 
 20 LIST OF WORKS 
 
 KEN'S (Bishop) Exposition of the Apostles' Creed. Extracted 
 from his "Practice of Divine Love." New Edition. Fcap. Is. 6d. 
 
 Approach to the Holy Altar. Extracted from his " Manual 
 
 of Prayer" and "Practice of Divine Love." New Edition. Fcap.Svo. 
 Is. 6d. 
 
 KING'S (Rev. S. W.) Italian Valleys of the Alps ; a Tour 
 through all the Romantic and less frequented "Vals" of Northern 
 Piedmont, from the Tarentaise to the Gries. With Illustrations. Crown 
 8vo. 18s. 
 
 KING EDWARD VIth's Latin Grammar; or, an Introduction 
 to the Latin Tongue, for the Use of Schools. 12th Edition. 12mo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 First Latin Book ; or, the Accidence, 
 
 Syntax and Prosody, with an English Translation for the Use of Junior 
 Classes. Third Edition. 12mo. 2s. 
 
 KNAPP'S (J. A.) English Roots and Ramifications ; or, the 
 Derivation and Meaning of Divers Words. Fcap. 8vo. 4s. 
 
 KUGLER'S (Dr. Franz) Handbook to the History of Painting 
 (the Italian Schools). Translated from the German. Edited, with 
 Notes, by Sib Charles Eastlake. Third Edition. Woodcuts. 2 Vols. 
 Post 8vo. 30*. 
 
 (the German, Dutch, and 
 
 Flemish Schools). Translated from the German. A New Edition. 
 Edited, with Notes. By Dr. Waagen. Woodcuts. Post8vo. Nearly 
 Ready. 
 
 LABARTE'S (M. Jules) Handbook of the Arts of the Middle Ages 
 
 and Renaissance. With 200 Woodcuts. 8vo. ISs. 
 LABORDE'S (Leon De) Journey through Arabia Petraea, to Mount 
 
 Sinai, and the Excavated City of Petrsea, — the Edom of the Prophecies. 
 
 Second Edition. With Plates. Svo. 18s. 
 
 LANE'S (E. W.) Arabian Nights. Translated from the Arabic, 
 with Explanatory Notes. A New Edition. Edited by E. Stanley 
 Poole. With 600 Woodcuts. 3 Vols. 8vo. 42s. 
 
 LATIN GRAMMAR (King Edward the VIth's.) For the Use 
 
 of Schools. Twelfth Edition. 12mo. Zs . 6d. 
 
 First Book (King Edward VI.) ; or, the Accidence, 
 
 Syntax, and Prosody, with English Translation for Junior Classes. 
 Third Edition. 12mo. 2s. 
 
 LAYARD'S (A. H.) Nineveh and its Remains. Being a Nar- 
 rative of Researches and Discoveries amidst the Ruins of Assyria. 
 With an Account of the Chaldean Christians of Kurdistan ; the Yezedis, 
 or Devil-worshippers; and an Enquiry into the Manners and Arts of 
 the Ancient Assyrians. Sixth Edition. Plates and Woodcuts. 2 Vols. 
 Svo. 36s. 
 
 Nineveh and Babylon ; being the Result 
 
 of a Second Expedition to Assyria. Fourteenth Thousand. Plates. 
 Svo. 21j. Or Fine Paper, 2 Vols. 8vo. 30s. 
 
 Popular Account of Nineveh. 15th Edition. With 
 
 Woodcuts. Post Svo. 5s. 
 
 LESLIE'S (C. R.) Handbook for Young Painters. With Illustra- 
 tions. Post 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds. With an Account 
 
 of his Works, and a Sketch of his Cotemporaries. Fcap. 4to. In the 
 Press.
 
 PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 21 
 
 LEAKE'S (Col. W. Martin) Topography of Athens, with Remarks 
 on its Antiquities; to which is added, the Demi of Attica. Second 
 Edition. Plates. 2 Vols. 8vo. 30s. 
 
 ■ Travels in Northern Greece. Maps. 4 Yols. 8to. 60?. 
 
 ■ Disputed Questions of Ancient Geography. Map. 
 
 8vo. 6s. 6d. 
 Numismata Hellenica. A Catalogue of Greek Coins. 
 
 With Map and Appendix. 4to 63s. 
 
 Peloponnesiaca : A Supplement to Travels in the Morea. 
 
 8vo. 15s. 
 
 Thoughts on the Degradation of Science in England. 
 
 8vo. 3s.6tZ. 
 
 LETTERS FROM THE SHORES OF THE BALTIC. By a 
 
 Lady. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Madras ; or, First Impressions of Life and 
 
 Manners in India. By a Lady. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Sierra Leone, written to Friends at Home. 
 
 By a Lady. Edited by Mrs. Norton. Post Svo. 6s. 
 
 Head Quarters ; or, The Realities of the War 
 
 in the Crimea. By a Staff Officeb. Popular Edition. Plans. 
 Post 8vo. 6s. 
 
 LEXINGTON (The) PAPERS; or, Some Account of the Courts 
 of London and Vienna at the end of the 17th Century. Edited by Hon. 
 H. Manners Sutton. 8vo. 14s. 
 
 LEWIS' (Sir G. C.) Essay on the Government of Dependencies. 
 
 8vo. 12s. 
 
 Glossary of Provincial Words used in Herefordshire and 
 
 some of the adjoining Counties. 12mo. 4s. 6d. 
 
 (Lady Theresa) Friends and Contemporaries of the 
 
 Lord Chancellor Clarendon, illustrative of Portraits in his Gallery. 
 With a Descriptive Account of the Pictures, and Origin of the Collec- 
 tion. Portraits. 3 Vols. 8vo. 42s. 
 
 — (M. G.) Journal of a Residence among the Negroes in the 
 
 West Indies. Post 8vo. 2s. 6rf. 
 
 LIDDELL'S (Dean) History of Rome. From the Earliest Times 
 to the Establishment of the Empire. With the History of Literature 
 and Art. Library Edition. 2 Vols. 8vo. 28s. 
 
 - SCHOOL HISTORY OF ROME. Abridged from 
 
 the Larger Work. Einhth Thousand. With 100 Woodcuts. Post 8vn. 
 7s. 6d. \_Uniform with Dr. Wm. Smith's History of Greece], 
 
 LINDSAY'S (Lord) Lives of the Lindsays ; or, a Memoir of the 
 Houses of Crawford and Balcirres. With Extracts from Official Papers 
 and Personal Narratives. Second Edition. 3 Vols. 8vo. 24s. 
 
 — Report of the Claim of James, Earl of Crawfurd and 
 
 Balcarres, to the Original Dukedom of Montrose, created in 14S8. 
 Folio. 15s. 
 
 LITTLE ARTHUR'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Ladt 
 
 Callcott. Eighteenth Edition. With 20 Woodcuts. Fcap. 8vo. 
 2s. 6ii.
 
 LIST OF WORKS 
 
 LIVINGSTONE'S (Rev. Dr.) Missionary Travels and Researches 
 
 in South Africa ; including a Sketch of Sixteen Years' Residence in 
 the Interior of Africa, and a Journey from the Cape of Good Hope to 
 Loanda on the West Coast; thence across the Continent, down the 
 River Zambesi, to the Eastern Ocean. Thirtieth Thousand. Map, 
 Plates, and Index. 8vo. 21s. 
 
 LIVONIAN TALES.— The Disponent.— The Wolves.— The Jewess 
 
 By the Authorof "Letters from the Baltic." Post 8vo. 2*. 6d. 
 LOCKHART'S (J. G.) Ancient Spanish Ballads. Historical and 
 Romantic. Translated, with Notes. Fdustrated Edition. 4to. 2ls. Or, 
 Popular Edition. Post 8vo. 2*. 6d. 
 
 - Life of Robert Burns. Fifth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 
 
 LOUDON'S (Mrs.) Instructions in Gardening for Ladies. With 
 Directions and Calendar of Operations for Every Month. Eighth 
 Edition. Woodcuts. Fcap. 8vo^ 5s. 
 
 Modern Botany; a Popular Introduction to the 
 
 Natural System of Plants. Second Edition. Woodcuts. Fcap. 8vo. 6s. 
 LOWE'S (Sir Hudson) Letters and Journals, during the Captivity 
 of Napoleon at St. Helena. By William Forsyth. Portrait. 3 Vols. 
 8vo. 45s. 
 
 LUCKNOW : A Lady's Diary of the Siege. Written for Friends 
 at Home. Fourth Thousand. Fcap. Svo. 4s. 6d. 
 
 LYELL'S (Sir Charles) Principles of Geology; or, the Modern 
 Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants considered as illustrative of 
 Geology. Ninth Edition. Woodcuts. 8vo. 18s. 
 
 Manual of Elementary Geology : or, the Ancient Changes 
 
 of the Earth and its Inhabitants illustrated by its Geological Monuments. 
 Fifth Edition. Woodcuts. 8vo. 14s. 
 
 — Visits to the United States, 1841-46. Second Edition. 
 Plates. 4 Vols. Post 8vo. 24s. 
 
 MAHON'S (Lord) History of England, from the Peace of Utrecht 
 to the Peace of Versailles, 1713— S3. Library Edition. 7 Vols. Svo. 93s. 
 Popular Edition. 7 Vols. 
 Post Svo. 35s. 
 
 - " Forty-Five ; " a Narrative of the Rebellion in Scot- 
 land. Post Svo. 3s. 
 
 — The Rise of our Indian Empire. Being the History 
 of British India from its Origin till the Teaceof 17S3. Extracted from 
 his "History of England." Post Svo. 3s. Gd. 
 
 - History of the AYar of the Succession in Spain. Second 
 Edition. Map. Svo. 15s. 
 
 Spain under Charles the Second ; or, Extracts from the 
 
 Correspondence of the Hon. Alexander Stanhope, British Minister at 
 Madrid from 1690 to 1700. Second Edition. Post 8vo. 6s. 6d. 
 
 Life of Louis Prince of Conde, surnamed the Great, 
 
 Post Svo. 6s. 
 
 Life of Belisarius. Second Edition. Post 8vo. 105. 6d. 
 
 Historical and Critical Essays. Post 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Story of Joan of Arc. Fcap. 8vo. Is. 
 
 - Addresses Delivered at Manchester, Leeds, and Bir- 
 mingham. Fcap. Svo. lg.
 
 PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 
 
 M c CULLOCH'S (J. R.) Collected Edition of Ricardo's Political 
 
 Works. With Xotes and Memoir. Second Edition. Svo. 16s. 
 
 MALCOLM'S (Sir John) Sketches of Persia. Third Edition. 
 Post 8vo. 6s. 
 
 MANSEL'S (Ret. H. L.) The Limits of Eeligious Thought 
 Examined. Being the Bampton Lectures for 1S58. Second Edition. 
 8vo. 12*. 
 
 MAXTELL'S (Gideon A.) Thoughts on Animalcules; or, the 
 Invisible World, as revealed by the Microscope. Second Edition. Plates. 
 lGmo. 6*. 
 
 MANUAL OP SCIENTIFIC ENQUIRY, Prepared for the Use of 
 
 Officers and Travellers. By various Writers. Third Edition 
 revised. Maps. Post Svo. (Published hy oi-der of the Lords of the 
 Admiralty.) 
 
 MAEKHAM'S (Mrs.) History of England. Prom the First Inva- 
 sion by the Romans, down to the fourteenth year of Queen Victoria's 
 Keign. 9Sth Edition. Woodcuts. 12mo. 6s. 
 
 History of France. From the Conquest by the Gauls, 
 
 to the Death of Louis Philippe. 58th Edition. Woodcuts. 12ino. 
 
 — ■ History of Germany. From the Invasion by Marius, 
 to the present time. 6th Edition. Woodcuts. 12mo. 6s. 
 
 School History of Greece. From the Earliest 
 
 Times of the Roman Conquest. With the History of Literature and 
 Art. By Dr. Wm. Smith. Sixteenth 'Thousand. Woodcuts. 12mo. 7*. 6rf. 
 (Questions. 12mo. 2s.) • 
 
 School History of Rome, from the Earliest 
 
 Times to the Establishment of the Empire. With the History of 
 Literature and Art. By Dean Liddkll. Eighth Thousand. Woodcuts. 
 12mo. 7s. Gd. 
 
 MARKLAND'S (J. H.) Eevcrence due to Holy Places. Third 
 
 Edition. Fcap. Svo. 2s. 
 
 MARRYAT'S (Joseph) History of Modern and Medieval Pottery 
 and Porcelain. With a Description of the Manufacture, a Glossary, 
 and a List of Monograms. Second Edition. Plates and Woodcuts. 
 8vo. 31s. W. 
 
 MATTni.E'S (Augustus) Greek Grammar for Schools. Abridged 
 from the Larger Grammar, liy Blomfield. Ninth Edition. Revised by 
 Edwabds. 12mo. 3s. 
 
 MAUREL'S (Jules) Essay on the Character, Actions, and Writings 
 of the Duke of Wellington. Second Edition. Ecap. 8vo. Is. 6d. 
 
 M AWE'S (H. L.) Journal of a Passage from the Pacific to the 
 Atlantic, crossing the Andes in the Northern Provinces of Peru, and 
 descending the great River Maranon. 8vo. 12s. 
 
 MAXIMS AND HINTS for an Angler, and the Miseries of 
 Fishing. BySiCHABD Pkhv. Nev Edition. Woodcuts. l2mo. Is. 
 
 MAYO'S (Dr.) Pathology of the Human Mind. Fcap. Svo. 5s. 6d. 
 
 MELVILLE'S (Hermann) Typee and Omoo; or, Adventures 
 amongst the Marquesas and South Sea Islands. 2 Vols. Post Svo.
 
 24 LIST OF WORKS 
 
 MENDELSSOHN'S (Felix Bartholdy) Life. By Jules Benedict. 
 
 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 MEREDITH'S (Mrs. Charles) Notes and Sketches of New South 
 Wales, during a Residence from 1839 to 1844. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Tasmania, during a Residence of Nine Years. With 
 
 Illustrations. 2 Vols. Post 8vo. 18s. 
 MERRIFIELD (Mrs.) on the Arts of Painting in Oil, Miniature, 
 
 Mosaic, and Glass ; Gilding, Dyeing, and the Preparation of Colours 
 and Artificial Gems, described in several old Manuscripts. 2 Vols. Svo. 
 30s. 
 
 MILLS (Arthur) India in 1858; A Summary of the Existing 
 
 Administration — Political, Fiscal, and Judicial; with Laws and Public 
 Documents, from the earliest to the present time. Second Edition. Willi 
 Coloured Revenue Map. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 MITCHELL'S (Thomas) Plays of Aristophanes. With English 
 Notes. 8vo.— 1. CLOUDS, 10s.— 2. WASPS, 10s.— 3. FROGS, 15s. 
 
 MILMAN'S (Dean) History of Christianity, from the Birth of 
 Christ to the Extinction of Paganism in the Roman Empire. 3 Vols. 
 8vo. 36s. 
 
 History of Latin Christianity ; including that of the 
 
 Popes to the Pontificate of Nicholas V. Second Edition. 6 Vols. 8vo. 72s. 
 
 — Character and Conduct of the Apostles considered as 
 an Evidence of Christianity. Svo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 . Life and Works of Horace. With 300 Woodcuts. 
 
 New Edition. 2 Vols. Crown 8vo. 30s. 
 
 - Poetical Works. Plates. 3 Vols. Fcap. 8vo. 18s. 
 — Fall of Jerusalem. Fcap. 8vo. Is. 
 
 (Capt. E. A.) Wayside Cross ; or, the Raid of Gomez. 
 
 A Tale of the Carlist War. Post 8vo. 2s. Gd. 
 
 MODERN DOMESTIC COOKERY. Founded on Principles of 
 Economy and Practical Knowledge, and adapted for Private Families. 
 New Edition. Woodcuts. Fcap. Svo. 5s. 
 
 MOLTKE'S (Baron) Russian Campaigns on the Danube and the 
 Passage of the Balkan, 1828—9. Plans. 8vo. 14s. 
 
 MONASTERY AND THE MOUNTAIN CHURCH. By Author 
 
 of "Sunlight through the Mist." Woodcuts. 16mo. 4s. 
 
 MOORE'S (Thomas) Life and Letters of Lord Byron. Cabinet 
 Edition. 6 Vols. Fcap. Svo. 18s. 
 
 - Life and Letters of Lord Byron. Popular Edition. 
 With Portrait and Vignette. One Volume. Royal Svo. 12s. 
 
 MOZLEY'S (Rev. J. B.) Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of 
 Predestination. Svo. 14s. 
 
 Primitive Doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration. 8vo. 7s. 6d. 
 
 M UCK MANUAL (The)for the Use of Farmers. A Practical Treatise 
 on the Chemical Properties, Management, and Application of Manures. 
 Bv Frederick Falkner. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 5s.
 
 PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 25 
 
 MUNDY'S (Gen.) Pen and Pencil Sketches during a Tour 
 
 in India. Third Edition. Plates. Post Svo. 7*. 6rf. 
 
 M UNRO'S (General Sir Thomas) Life and Letters. By the Kev. 
 G. JR. Gleiq. Post8vo. 6s. 
 
 MURCHISON'S (Sir Roderick) Russia in Europe and the Ural 
 Mountains ; Geologically Illustrated. With Coloured Maps, Plates, 
 Sections, &c. 2 Vols. Royal 4to. 
 
 Siluria ; or, a History of the Oldest Rocks con- 
 taining Organic Remains. Second Edition. Map and Plates. 8vo. 
 
 MURRAY'S (Capt. A.) Naval Life and Services of Admiral Sir 
 Philip Durham. 8vo. 5s. 6d. 
 
 MURRAY'S RAILWAY READING. For all classes of Readers. 
 
 [The following are published :~\ 
 Wellington. By Lord Ellesmere. Gd. I Mahon's Joan of Arc. la. 
 
 NlMRODONTHE CHASE, Is. HEAD'S EMIGRANT. 2«. Grf. 
 
 Essays from "The Times." 2 Vols. Ss. I Nimrod on the Road. Is. 
 
 Music and Dress. 1*. I Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians. 1-5. 
 
 I. a yard's Accountof Nineveh. 5*. i Croeer on the Guillotine. 1*. 
 
 Milman's Fall of Jerusalem. 1*. j Hollway's Norway. 2s. 
 
 Mahon's "Forty-Five." :u. Maurel's Wellington. Is. 6tf. 
 
 Life of Theodore Hook. Is. Campbell's Life of Bacon. 25. Od. 
 
 Deeds of Naval Daring. 2 Vols. 5a. ; The Flower Garden. Is. 
 
 The Honey Bee. Is. j Lockhart's Spanish Ballads. 2*. 6 <L 
 
 James* jEsop's Fables. 2s. Gd. Lucas on History. Gd. 
 
 Nimrod on the Turf. Is. 6d. Beauties op Byron. 3s. 
 
 Oliphant's Nepaul. 2s. Gd. j Taylor's Notes from Life. 2*. 
 
 Art of Dining. Is. 6d. j Rejected Addresses. Is. 
 
 Hallam's Literary Essays. 2s. ' Pknn's Hints on Angling. Is. 
 
 MUSIC AND DRESS. Two Essays, by a Lady. Reprinted from 
 the" Quarterly Review." Fcap. 8vo. Is. 
 
 NAPIER'S (Sir Wm.) English Battles and Sieges of the Peninsular 
 "War. Third Edition. Portrait. Post 8vo. 10*. 6</. 
 
 - Life and Opinions of General Sir Charles Napier ; 
 chiefly derived from his Journals, Letters, and Familiar Correspon- 
 dence. Second Edition. Portraits. 4 Vols. Post 8vo. 48s. 
 
 NAUTICAL ALMANACK (The). Royal Svo. 2s. 6d. (Published 
 
 by Authority.) 
 
 NAVY LIST (The Quarterly). (Published by Authority.) 
 Post Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 NEWBOLD'S (Lieut.) Straits of Malacca, Tenang, and Singapore. 
 2 Vols. 8vo. 26s. 
 
 NEAVDEGATE'S (C. N.) Customs' Tariffs of all Nations; collected 
 and arranged up to the year 1855. 4to. 30s. 
 
 NICHOLLS' (Sir George) History of the British Poor : Being 
 an Historical Account of the English, Scotch, and Irish Poor Law : iu 
 connection with the Condition of the People. 4 Vols. 8vo. 
 
 The work may be had separately :— 
 History of the English Poor. 2 Vols. 8vo. 28s. 
 
 the Irish Poor. 8vo. 14s. 
 
 the Scotch Poor. Svo. 12s. 
 
 - (Rev. H. G.) FOREST OF DEAN. An Historical 
 
 and Descriptive Account, derived from Personal Observation and 
 othtr Sources, Public, Private, Legendary, and Local. Woodcuts &c. 
 Post Svo. 10s. 6d.
 
 LIST OF WORKS 
 
 NICOLAS' (Sir Harris) Historic Peerage of England. Exhi- 
 biting, under Alphabetical Arrangement, the Origin, Descent, and 
 at State of every Title of 1'eerage which has existed iu this 
 Country since the Conquest. Being a Kew Edition of the " Synopsis of 
 the Peerage." Revised, Corrected, and Continued to the Present Time. 
 By William Courthopk, Somerset Herald. 8vo. 30s. 
 
 ;OD On the Chace— The Turf— and The Road. Eeprinted 
 from the " Quarterly Review." Woodcuts. Fcap. Svo. 3s. Gd. 
 
 O'CONNOR'S (R.) Field Sports of France ; or, Hunting, Shooting, 
 aud Fishing on the Continent. Woodcuts. 12mo. 7s. Gd. 
 
 OLIPHANT'S (Laurence) Journey to Katmandu, with Visit to 
 the Camp of the Nepaulese Ambassador. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. Gd. 
 
 OWEN'S (Professor) Manual of Fossil Mammals. Including the 
 substance of the course of Lectures on Osteology and Palseontology of 
 the class Mammalia, delivered at the Metropolitan School of Science, 
 J ermyn Street. Illustrations. 8vo. In the Press. 
 
 OXENHAM'S (Rev. W.) English Notes for Latin Elegiacs ; designed 
 for early Proficients in the Art of Latin Versification, with Prefatory 
 Rules of Composition iu Elegiac Metre. Third Edition. 12mo. is. 
 
 PA GET'S (John) Hungary and Transylvania. With Remarks on 
 their Condition, Social, Political, and Economical. Third Editiott. 
 Woodcuts. 2 Vols. Svo. 18s. 
 
 FARIS' (Dr.) Philosophy in Sport made Science in Ear- 
 nest; or. the First Principles of Natural Philosophy inculcated by aid 
 of tlie Tcys and Sports of Youth. Eighth Edition. Woodcuts. 
 Post Svo. 9s. 
 
 PARISH'S (Sir Woodbine) Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the 
 F.io de la Plata. Their First Discovery and Conquest, Present State, 
 Trade, Debt, &c. Second Edition. Map and Woodcuts. Svo. 15s. 
 
 PARKYNS' (Mansfield) Personal Narrative of Three Years' Resi- 
 dence and Adventures in Abyssinia. W T oodcuts. 2 Vols. Svo. 30s. 
 
 PEEL'S (Sir Robt.) MEMOIRS. Left in MSS. Edited by 
 Earl Staxhopr and the Right Hon. Edward Caudwet.l. 2 Vols. 
 Post Svo. 7s. Gd. each. 
 
 PEILE'S (Rev. Dk.) Agamemnon and Choephorce of iEschylus. 
 A New Edition of the Text, with Notes. Second Edition. 2 Vols. 
 Svo. 9s. each. 
 
 PENN'S (Richard) Maxims and Hints for an Angler, and the 
 
 Miseries of Fishing. To which is added, Maxims and Hints for 
 Chess-player. . A'tio Edition. Woodcuts. Fcap. Svo. Is. 
 
 PENROSE'S (Rev. John) Faith and Practice ; an Exposition of the 
 Principles aud Duties of Natural and Revealed Religion. Post Svo. Ss. 6d. 
 
 - (F. C.) Principles of Athenian Architecture, and the 
 Optical Refinements exhibited in the Construction of the Ancient 
 Buildings at Athens, from a Survey. With 40 Plates. Folio. 52.5s. 
 {Published under the direction of the Dilettanti Society.) 
 
 PERRY'S (Sir Erskine) Bird's-Eye View of India. Willi Extract? 
 from a Journal kept in the Provinces, Nepaul, &c. Fcap. Svo, 5s.
 
 PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 27 
 
 PHILLIPS' (John) Memoirs of William Smith, LL.D. (the Geo- 
 logist). Portrait. , 8vo. Is. Gd. 
 
 Geology of Yorkshire, The Yorkshire Coast, and the 
 
 Mountain-Limestone District. Plates 4to. Part L, 20.9. -Part II., 30s. 
 Rivers, Mountains, and Sea Coast of Yorkshire. 
 
 With Essays on the Climate, Scenery, and Ancient Inhabitants of the 
 Country. Second Edition, with 36 Plates. Svo. 15s. 
 
 PHILPOTT'S (Bishop) Letters to the late Charles Butler, on the 
 Theological parts of his " Book of the Roman Catholic Church : " with 
 Remarks on certain Works of Dr. Milner and Dr. Lingard, and on some 
 parts of the Evidence of Dr. Doyle. Second Edition. 8vo. 10s. 
 
 PHIPPS' (Hon. Edmund) Memoir, Correspondence, Literary and 
 Unpublished Diaries of Robert Plumer Ward. Portrait. 2 Vols. Svo. 28s. 
 
 POPE'S (Alexander) WORKS. An entirely New Edition. Edited, 
 with Notes. 8vo In the Press. 
 
 PORTER'S (Rev. J. L.) Five Years in Damascus. With Travels to 
 Palmyra, Lebanon, and other Scripture Sites. Map and Woodcuts. 
 2 vols. Post Svo. 21s. 
 
 HANDBOOK FOR SYRIA AND PALESTINE : 
 
 including an Account of the Geography, History, Antiquities, and 
 Inhabitants of these Countries, the Peninsula of Sinai, Edoin, and the 
 Syrian Desert. Maps. 2 Vols. Post 8vo. 24s. 
 
 - (Mrs. G. R.) Rational Arithmetic for Schools and for 
 Private Instruction. 12mo. 3s. Gd. 
 
 PRAYER-BOOK (The Illustrated), with 1000 Illustrations of Bor- 
 ders, Initials, Vignettes, &c. Medium Svo. Cloth, 21s.; Calf, 31s. Gd.; 
 Morocco, 42s. 
 
 PRECEPTS FOR THE CONDUCT OF LIFE. Exhortations to 
 a Virtuous Course and Dissuasions from a Vicious Career. Extracted 
 from the Scriptures. Second Edition. Ecap. 8vo. Is. 
 
 PPJNSEP'S (Jas.) Essays on Indian Antiquities, Historic, 
 Numismatic, and Pala?ngraphic, with Tables, illustrative of Indian 
 History, Chronology. Modern Coinages, Weights, Measures, &c. 
 Edited by Edward Thomas. Illustrations. 2 Vols. Svo. 52s. Gd. 
 
 PROGRESS OF RUSSIA IN THE EAST. An Historical Sum- 
 mary, continued to the Present Time. With Map by Aeeowsmith. 
 Third Edition. Svo. 6s. Gd. 
 
 PUSS IN BOOTS. With 12 Illustrations; for Old and Young. 
 By Otto Speckter. A Xevj Edition. 16ino. Is. Gd. 
 
 QUARTERLY REVIEW (The). Svo. 6s. 
 
 ilANKE'S (Leopold) Political and Ecclesiastical History of the 
 Popes of Rome, during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Trans- 
 lated from the German by Mns. Austin. Third Edition. 2 Vols. Svo. 24s. 
 
 RAWLINSON'S (Rev. George) Herodotus. A New English 
 Version. Edited with Notes and Essays. Assisted by Sir Henry 
 Rawlinson and Sik J. G. Wilkinso.v. Maps and Woodcuts. 4 
 8vo. l&s. each. 
 
 REJECTED ADDRESSES (The). By James and Horace Smith. 
 
 With Biographies of the Authors, and additional Notes. Few Edition, 
 with the Author's latest Corrections. Ecap. 8vo. Is., or Fine Paper, with 
 Portrait. Fcap. 8vo. 5s.
 
 28 LIST OF WORKS 
 
 EEXNIE'S (James) Insect Architecture. To which are added 
 Chapters on the Ravages, the Preservation, for Purposes of Study, and 
 the Classification of Insects. New Edition. Woodcuts. Post 8vo. 5s. 
 
 RICARDO'S (David) Political Works. With a Notice of his 
 Life and Writings. By J. R. M'Culloch. Keio Edition. 8vo. 16s. 
 
 RIPA'S (Father) Memoirs during Thirteen Years' Residence at the 
 Court of Peking, in the Service of the Emperor of China. Translated 
 from the Italian. By Fortunato Prandi. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 ROBERTSON'S (Rev. J. C.) History of the Christian Church, From 
 the Apostolic Age to the Pontificate of Gregory the Great, a.d. 590. 
 Second and Revised Edition. Vol. 1. 8vo. 16s. 
 
 Second Period, from a.d. 590 to the Concordat of 
 
 Worms, a.d. 1123. Vol. 2. Svo. 18s. 
 ROBINSON'S (Rev. Dr.) Biblical Researches in the Holy Land. 
 
 Being a Journal of Travels in 1838, and of Later Researches in 1852. 
 
 With New Maps. 3 Vols. 8vo. 36s. 
 *»* The " Later Researches" may be had separately. Svo. 15s. 
 ROMILLY'S (Sir Samuel) Memoirs and Political Diary. By his 
 
 Sons. Third Edition. Portrait. 2 Vols. Fcap. Svo. 12s. 
 ROSS'S (Sir James) Voyage of Discovery and Research in the 
 
 Southern and Antarctic Regions during the years 1839-43. Plates. 
 
 2 Vols. Svo. 36s. 
 
 RUNDELL'S (Mrs.) Domestic Cookery, founded on Principles 
 of Economy and Practice, and adapted for Private Families. New and 
 Revised Edition. Woodcuts. Fcap. 8vo. 5s. 
 
 RUSSIA ; A Memoir of the Remarkable Events which attended 
 the Accession of the Emperor Nicholas. By Baron M. Korff, Secretary 
 of State. 8vo. 10s. 6d. (Published by Imperial Command.) 
 
 RUXTON'S (George F.) Travels in Mexico; with Adventures 
 among the Wild Tribes and Animals of the Prairies and Rocky Moun- 
 tains. Post Svo. 6s. 
 
 SALE'S (Lady) Journal of the Disasters in Afghanistan. Eighth 
 
 Edition. Post 8vo. 12s. 
 
 (Sir Robert) Brigade in Affghanistan. With an Account of 
 
 the Seizure and Defence of Jellalabad. ByREv.G.R.GLEiG. Fost8vo.2s.6d. 
 SANDWITH'S (Humphry) Narrative of the Siege of Ears 
 and of the Six Months' Resistance by the Turkish Garrison unde 
 General Williams. Seventh Thousand. Post 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 SCOTT'S (G. Gilbert) Remarks on Secular and Domestic 
 Architecture, Present and Future. Second Edition. 8vo. 9s. 
 
 SCROPE'S (William) Days of Deer-Stalking in the Forest of Atholl ; 
 with some Account of the Nature and Habits of the Red Deer. Third 
 Edition. Woodcuts. Crown Svo. 20s. 
 
 Days and Nights of Salmon Fishing in the Tweed ; 
 with a short Account of the Natural History and Habits of the Salmon. 
 Second Edition. Woodcuts. Royal 8vo. 31s. 6d. 
 
 — — (G. P.) Memoir of Lord Sydenham, and his Administra- 
 tion in Canada. Second Edition. Portrait. 8vo. 9s. 6d. 
 
 Geology and Extinct Yolcanos of Central France. 
 
 Second Edition, revised and enlarged. Illustrations. Medium Svo. 30s. 
 SHAW'S (Thos. B.) Outlines of English Literature, for the Use of 
 Yeung Students. Post 8vo. 12s.
 
 PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 29 
 
 SIERRA LEONE ; Described in a Series of Letters to Friends at 
 Home. By A Lady. Edited by Mrs. Norton. Post 8vo. 65. 
 
 SMITH'S (Wm., LL.D.) Dictionary of Greek and Roman Anti- 
 quities. Second Edition. With 500 Woodcuts. 8vo. 42s. 
 
 Smaller Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. 
 
 Abridged from the above work. Fourth Edition. With 200 Woodcuts. 
 Crown 8vo. 7 s. 6d. 
 
 Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and My- 
 thology. With 500 Woodcuts. 3 Vols. 8vo. 51. Ids. 6d. 
 
 Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. With 
 
 Woodcuts. 2 Vols. 8vo. 80s. 
 
 Atlas of Ancient Geography. 4 to. [In preparation. 
 
 Classical Dictionary for the Higher Forms in Schools. 
 
 Compiled from the above two works. Fourth Edition. With 750 Wood- 
 cuts. 8vo. 18s. 
 
 Smaller Classical Dictionary. Abridged from the 
 
 above work. Fifth Edition. With 200 Woodcuts. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. 
 
 - Latin - English Dictionary. Based upon the Works 
 of Forcellini and Freund. Fifth Thousand. 8vo. 21s. 
 
 - Smaller Latin-English Dictionary. Abridged from the 
 above work. Twelfth Thousand. Square 12mo. 7s. 6d. 
 
 - English-Latin Dictionary. Assisted by John Robson, 
 
 B.A. 8vo. and 12mo. [In preparation. 
 
 Mediaeval Latin-English Dictionary. Selected from the 
 
 great work of Ducange. Svo. [ Uniform with Dr. Smith's " Latin- 
 English Dictionary."] 
 
 Dictionary of Biblical Antiquities, Biography, Geo- 
 graphy, and Natural History. Woodcuts. Svo. [In the Press. 
 
 - Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the 
 Roman Empire. Edited, with Notes. Portrait and Map. 8 Vols. 8vo. 
 60s. (Murray's British Classics.) 
 
 Student's Gibbon ; being the History of the Decline 
 
 and Fall, Abridged. Incorporating the Researclu-s of Recent Com- 
 mentators. Sixth Thousand. Woodcuts. Post Svo. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Student's Hume. A History of England from the 
 
 Invasion of Julius Cn^sar. Abridged from Hume, and continued to the 
 present time. With woodcuts. Post8vo. ~s.6d. 
 
 - History of Greece ; from the Earliest Times to 
 the Roman Conquest. With the History of Literature and Art. Sixteenth 
 Thousand. Woodcuts. Crown 6vo. 7s. Gd. (Questions. 12mo. 2s.) 
 
 - History of Rome ; from the Earliest Times to the 
 Establishment of the Empire. With the History of Literature and 
 Art. By H. G. Liddell, D.D. Eighth Thousand. " Woodcuts. Crown 
 8vo. 7s. 6d. [Uniform with Smith's " History of Greece."], 
 
 (Wm. Jas.) Grenville Letters and Diaries, including 
 Mr Grenville's Diary of Political Events, while First Lord of 
 the Treasury. Edited, with Notes. 4 Vols. 8vo. 64s. 
 
 (James & Horace) Rejected Addresses. Twenty-third 
 
 Edition. Fcap.8vo. Is., or Fine Paper, with Portrait. Fcap. Svo. 5s.
 
 30 LIST OF WORKS 
 
 SOMERVILLE'S (Mary) Physical Geography. Fourth Edition. 
 
 Portrait. Post Svo. 9s. 
 — Connexion of the Physical Sciences. Ninth 
 
 Edition. Woodcuts. Post Svo. 9s. 
 
 SOUTH'S (John F.) Household Surgery ; or, Hints on Emergen 
 cies. Seventeenth Thousand. "Woodcuts. Fcp. Svo. 45. M. 
 
 SOUTHEY'S (Robert) Book of the Church ; with Notes contain 
 
 ing the Authorities, and an Index. Seventh Edition. Po»t Svo. 7s. Gd. 
 
 Lives ofJohnBunyan& Oliver Cromwell. Post8vo. 2s.6cl 
 
 SPECKTER'S (Otto) Puss in Boots, suited to the Tastes of Old 
 and Young. A Xew Edition. "With 12 Woodcuts. Square 12mo. Is. 6<i 
 
 Charmed Roe ; or, the Story of the Little Brother 
 
 and Sister. Illustrated. 16mo. 
 
 STANLEY'S (Rev. A. P.) Addresses and Charges of the Late 
 
 Bishop Stanley. AVith a Memoir of his Life. Second Edition, Svo. 
 10s. 6d. 
 
 - Sermons preached in Canterbury Cathedral, on the 
 Unity of Evangelical and Apostolical Teaching. Post Svo. 
 
 ■ Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles to the Corin- 
 thians, with Notes and Dissertations. Second, and revised Edition. 
 8vo. 18s. 
 
 Historical Memorials of Canterbury. The Landing of 
 
 Augustine — The Murder of Becket— The Black Prince— The Shrine of 
 Becket. Third Edition. Woodcuts. Post Svo. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Sinai and Palestine, in Connexion with their History. 
 
 Fifth Edition. Map. 8vo. 16s. 
 ST. JOHN'S (Charles) Wild Sports and Natural History of the 
 
 Highlands. Post Svo. 6s. 
 (Batle) Adventures in the Libyan Desert and the 
 
 Oasis of Jupiter Ammon. Woodcuts. Post Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 STEPHENSON'S (George) Life. The Railway Engineer. By 
 Samuel Smiles. Fifth Edition. Portrait. Svo. 16s. 
 
 STOTHARD'S (Thos., R. A.) Life. With Personal Reminiscences. 
 By Mrs. Bray. AVith Portrait and 60 Woodcuts. 4to. 
 
 STREET'S (G. E.) Brick and Marble Architecture of Italy, in the 
 Middle Ages. Plates. Svo. 21s. 
 
 STRIFE FOR THE MASTERY. Two Allegories. With Illus- 
 
 trations. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 SWIFT'S (Jonathan) Life, Letters and Journals. By John 
 
 Forster. Svo. In Preparation. 
 
 — Works. Edited, with Notes. By John Forster. 8vo. 
 
 In Preparation. 
 
 SYDENHAM'S (Lord) Memoirs. With his Administration in 
 Canada. By G.PouletScrope,M.P. Second Edition. Portrait. 8vo. 9s.6d. 
 
 SYME'S (Jas.) Principles of Surgery. Fourth Edition. Svo. 14s. 
 TAYLOR'S (Henry) Notes from Life. Fcap 8vo. 2s. 
 
 (J. E.) Fairy Ring. A Collection of Stories for Young 
 
 Persons. From the German. AVith Illustrations by Richard Doyle 
 
 Second Edition. AVoodcnts. Fcap. Svo. 

 
 PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 31 
 
 TENNENT'S (Sir J. E.) Christianity in Ceylon. Its Introduction 
 and Progress under the Portuguese, Dutch, British, and American Mis- 
 sions. With an Historical Sketch of the Brahmanical and Buddhist 
 Superstitions. Woodcuts. 8vo. 14s. 
 
 THREE-LEAVED MANUAL OP FAMILY PRAYER; arranged 
 so as to save the trouble of turning the Pages backwards and forward*. 
 Royal Svo. 2s. 
 
 TICKNOR'S (George) History of Spanish Literature. With Criti- 
 cisms on particular Works, and Biographical Notices of Prominent 
 Writers. Second Edition. 3 Vols. Svo. 24s. 
 
 TOCQUEVILLE'S (M. de) State of France before the Revolution 
 1789, and on tbe Causes of that Event. Translated by Henbt Rsevs, 
 
 Esq. Svo. 14s. 
 
 TREMENHEERE'S (H. S.) Political Experience of the Ancient?, 
 in its bearing on Modern Times. Fcap. Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 — . Notes on Public Subjects, made during a 
 
 Tour in the United States and Canada. Post 8vo. 10s. 6(2. 
 
 Constitution of the United States compared 
 
 with our own. Post 8vo. 9s. 6d. 
 
 TWISS' (Horace) Public and Private Life of Lord Chancellor Eldon, 
 with Selections from his Correspondence. Portrait. Third Edition, 
 2 Vols. Post Svo. 21s. 
 
 TYTLER (Patrick Frassr), A Memoir of. By his Friend, Rev. 
 J. W. Bcp.gon, M.A. Svo. /// the I'r is. 
 
 UBICINI'S (M. A.) Letters on Turkey and it3 Inhabitants- 
 Moslems, Greeks, Armenians, &c. Translated by Lady Easthope. 
 2 Vols. Post Svo. 21s. 
 
 VAUGHAN'S (Rev. Dr.) Sermons preached in Harrow School. 
 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 - New Sermons. 12mo. 5s. 
 
 VENABLES' (Rev. R, L.) Domestic Scenes in Russia during a 
 Years Residence, chiefly in the Interior. Second Edition. Post Svo. 5s. 
 
 VOYAGE to the Mauritius and back, touching at the Cape of Good 
 Hope, and St. Helena. By Author of " Paddiaxa." Post Svo. 9s. 6d. 
 
 WAAGEN'S (Dr.) Treasures of Art in Great Britain. Being an 
 Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Sculpture, Manuscripts, 
 Miniatures, &c. &c, in this Country. Obtained from Personal Inspec- 
 tion during Visits to England. 3 Vols. 8vo. 36s. 
 
 Galleries and Cabinets of Art in England. Being 
 
 an Account of more than Forty Collections, visited in 1854-56 and 
 never before described. With Index. Svo. 18s. 
 
 WADDINGTON'S (Dean) Condition and Prospects of the 
 Greek Church. Xexo Edition. Fcap. Svo. 3?. 6*/. 
 
 WAKEFIELD'S (E. J.) Adventures in New Zealand. With 
 some Account of the Beginning of the British Colonisation of the 
 Island. Map. 2 Vols. Svo. 28s. 
 
 WALKS AND TALK'S. A Story-book for Young Children. By 
 
 Aunt Ida. With Woodcuts. 16mo. 5s. 
 WARD'S (Pobert Plumer) Memoir, Correspondence, Literary and 
 
 Unpublished Diaries and Remains. Bv the Hon. Edmund Phipps. 
 
 Portrait. 2 Vols. Svo. 2Ss.
 
 n 
 
 32 LIST OF WORKS PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 
 
 "WATT'S (James) Life. Incorporating the most interesting pas- 
 sages from his Private and Public Correspondence. By James P. 
 Muirhead, M.A. Portraits and Woodcuts. Svo. lGs. 
 
 Origin and Progress of his Mechanical Inventions. Illus- 
 trated by his Correspondence with his Friends. Edited by J. P. 
 Muirhead. Plates. 3 vols. Svo. 45s., or Large Paper. 3 Vols. 4to. 
 
 WELLINGTON'S (The Duke of) Despatches during his various 
 Campaigns. Compiled from Official and other Authentic Documents. By 
 Col. Gurwood, C.B. New Enlarged Edition. 8 Vols. 8vo. 21s. each. 
 
 Supplementary Letters, Despatches, and other 
 
 Papers. Edited by his Son. Vols. 1 and 2. Svo. 20s. each. 
 
 Selections from his Despatches and General 
 
 Orders. By Colonel Gurwood. 8vo. 18s. 
 Speeches in Parliament. 2 Vols. Svo. 426 
 
 WILKIE'S (Sir David) Life, Journals, Tours, and Critical Remarks 
 on Works of Art, with a Selection from his Correspondence. By Allan 
 Cunningham. Portrait. 3 Vols. 8vo. 42s. 
 
 WILKINSON'S (Sir J. G.) Popular Account of the Private Life, 
 Manners, and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians. New Edition. 
 Revised and Condensed. . With 500 Woodcuts. 2 Vols. Post8vo. 12s. 
 Dalmatia and Montenegro; with a Journey to 
 Mostar in Hertzegovina, and Remarks on the Slavonic Nations. Plates 
 and Woodcuts. 2Vols.8vo. 42s. 
 
 - Handbook for Egypt. — Thebes, the Nile, Alex- 
 andria, Cairo, the Pyramids, Mount Sinai, &c. Map. Post Svo. 15s. 
 
 On Colour, and on the Necessity for a General 
 
 Diffusion of Taste among all Classes; with Remarks on laying out 
 Dressed or Geometrical Gai-dens. With Coloured Illustrations and 
 Woodcuts. 8vo. 18s. 
 
 (G. B.) Working Man's Handbook to South Aus- 
 
 tralia; with Advice to the Farmer, and Detailed Information for the 
 several Classes of Labourers and Artisans. Map. ISmo. Is. 6d. 
 
 WOOD'S (Lieut.) Voyage up the Indus to the Source of the 
 River Oxus, by Kabul and Badakhshan. Map. 8vo. 14s. 
 
 WORDSWORTH'S (Rev. Dr.) Athens and Attica. Journal of a 
 Tour. Third Edition. Plates. Post Svo. 8s. 6d. 
 
 — Greece: Pictorial, Descriptive, and Historical, 
 with a History of Greek Art, b v G. Scharf, F.S.A. New Edition. With 
 600 Woodcuts. Royal 8vo. 28s. 
 
 King Edward Vlth's Latin Grammar^ for the 
 
 Use of Schools. 12th Edition, revised. 12mo. 3s. Gd. 
 
 - First Latin Book, or the Accidence, Syntax 
 and Prosody, with English Translation for ffunior Classes. Third 
 Edition. 12mo. 2s. '^ * 
 
 WORNUM (Ralph). A Biographical Dictionary of Italian Painters : 
 with a Table of the Contemporary Schools of Italy. By a Lady. 
 Post 8vo. 6s. 6d. 
 
 YOUNG'S (Dr. Thos.) Life and Miscellaneous Works, ' edited 
 by Dean Peacock and John Leitch. Portrait and Plates. 4 Vols. 
 Svo. 15s. each. 
 
 BRADBUR* A.ND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITKFRIARS.
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 TfflS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 fTOTIS OCT * 1 *» 
 
 >N 
 
 
 2/92 Senes 9482
 
 3 1205 00893 5908