it, and there does not seem to exist a doubt as to the paramount excellence of the Greek and Latin writers. To those who still argue the old question about the comparative merits of modern and ancient literature, it is sufficient to answer, that, if the old classical literature were swept away, the moderns whom they so admire would in many cases become unintelligible and in all lose most of their characteristic charms*. And, independently of the influence which Greek literature has produced, both directly and through the Latin, on that of Modern Europe, and of those special causes, which have made it, as a whole, the inalienable heir-loom of the highest civilization, the greatest inheritance of genius and wisdom, and the most effective instrument of liberal culture that the world has ever produced, we must recollect that all ancient records have a value, which no modern efforts can replace, in linking the thoughts of the present to the recollections of the past, and in laying a firm foundation for the hopes of the future. Literature, as we have elsewhere said, does not admit of perpetual recommencements and repetitions, and when perfection has been once attained in any department of intellectual productiveness, subsequent generations and other races of men, who have access to the treasures of recorded wisdom, feel themselves constrained to abandon a fruitless rivalry, and to work out the expression of their own thoughts according to the established model and exemplar†.

9 Lastly, the introduction of that branch of philology which we call comparative grammar offers a great recommendation to the careful study of these two languages. Notwithstanding the beneficial contrast which they present, they are aged sisters of our own mother-tongue, and studied according to the true philological method in combination with the Asiatic members of the family, they open the way to an easy and speedy acquirement of every one of the Indo-Germanic languages, and are thus a key to the greatest treasure which the mind of man has collected, the recorded wisdom of the Caucasian race.

* See Sedgwick, Discourse on the Studies of the University, 4th edit. p. 36; and Whewell, On the Principles of University Education, p. 35.

See the article Philology in the Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. xvii. ed. 8, and Literature of Greece, Vol. 1. p. 409.

10 From what we have said it appears that for the mental training of the individual some philology is necessary; that grammar is best studied through the classical languages; that the study of these languages is also recommended by their contrast to our own, by the value of the literature to which they are the key, and by their place in the family of languages to which our own tongue belongs. These are reasons why the individual who is to be liberally educated, should study Greek and Latin. But the advantages of philological studies are not confined to the individual. They may be cultivated to a higher degree than is necessary for the mere purposes of education, and be made to contribute to some of the most valuable and interesting applications of human knowledge. The claims of ethnological philology to rank as a principal branch of general science have been sufficiently vindicated of late years. The British Association for the Advancement of Science, at its meeting in 1847, was thus addressed by Bunsen*: "If man is the apex of the creation, it seems right, on the one side, that a historical inquiry into his origin and development should never be allowed to sever itself from the general body of natural science, and in particular from physiology. But, on the other hand, if man is the apex of the creation, if he is the end to which all organic formations tend from the very beginning; if man is at once the mystery and the key of natural science; if that is the only view of natural science worthy of our age-then ethnological science, once established on principles as clear as the physiological are, is the highest branch of that science for the advancement of which this Association is instituted. It is not an appendix to physiology or to any thing else; but its object is, on the contrary, capable of becoming the end and goal of the labours and transactions of a scientific institution." Those who are jealous for the dignity of man will not fail to echo these sentiments. Ethnology, which treats of the different races into which the human family is subdivided, and indicates the bonds which bind them all together, has not only appropriated to itself all the functions of the anthropology, which discussed the natural and moral, the physical and metaphysical history of man, but has exacted contributions from

* Report, p. 257.

other sciences which were once independent of it. Anatomy, chemistry, geography, history, grammar, and criticism have each brought a stone to this great fabric; and it is reasonable that this should be the case. For when the very Kosmos finds in man the most beautiful exemplifications of its own perfect harmony and order, universal science should recognise in the science which treats of man, its object, its aim, and its end.

11 There is in fact no sure way of tracing the history and migrations of the early inhabitants of the world except by means of their languages; any other mode of inquiry must rest on the merest conjecture and hypothesis. It may seem strange that any thing so vague and arbitrary as language should survive all other testimonies, and speak with more definiteness, even in its changed and modern state, than all other monuments however grand and durable. Yet so it is; we have the proof before us every hour. Though we had lost all other history of our country, we should be able to tell from our language, composed as it is of a substratum of Low German with deposits of Norman-French and Latin —the terms of war and government pertaining to the former of the superinduced elements,the terms of ecclesiastical and legal use to both of them-that the bulk of our population was Saxon, and that they were overcome and permanently subjected by a body · of Norman invaders; while the Latin element would show us how much that language had been used by the lawyers and churchmen. We know too that the inhabitants of Wales, of the Highlands of Scotland, and of the Isle of Man, speak a Celtic dialect; and from the position of these people we should infer that they were the earliest inhabitants of the island, and were driven into the mountains by the Saxon invaders. Even the names of places would tell us as much. When we hear a stream called Wans-beck-water, and know that the three words of which the compound is made up all signify "water," the first being Celtic (as in Wan's-ford, A-von), the second German (beck-bach), the last English, we at once recognise three changes of inhabitants to whom the older name successively lost its significance*. It has been the same with other countries also. Persia, for

* See Varronianus, p. 45.

C

instance, has been under the dominion of Mohammedan conquerors for twelve hundred years, and we find an immense number of Arabic words naturalized in the country; but the language which forms the basis of the whole, and the general organization and grammar, are as entirely Indo-Germanic as if the country had never had any intermixture of an Arabian population. But above and beyond these results, to which historical records directly contribute, the comparative philologer is enabled, by an examination of the common elements of language, to ascertain the nature of the civilization which men enjoyed, and of the religious belief and worship which represented their spiritual aspirations, at the time, otherwise beyond the reach of human research, when the undivided family of a race was still collected round its hearth and home, and had not yet sent forth its colonies to people distant lands. These two applications of philological research, the former of which we have proposed to call "the linguistic records of civilization," and the latter of which is known as "comparative mythology," are the most recent results of philological ethnography, and they promise, if pursued with sobriety and caution, to lead to discoveries at once certain and important*.

12 The study of language, therefore, in its wider range may be used as a sure means of ascertaining the stock to which any given nation belonged, and of tracing the changes of population and government which it has undergone. It is indeed perfectly analogous to Geology; they both present us with a set of deposits in a present state of amalgamation which may however be easily discriminated, and we may, by an allowable chain of reasoning, in either case deduce from the present the

* See Encycl. Brit. ed. 8, Vol. xvii. pp. 537, 538. The subject of Comparative Mythology is very ably treated by Prof. Max Müller in the Oxford Essays for 1856. The linguistic records of civilization are illustrated in the introduction to Theodore Mommsen's History of Rome, which has been translated into English (The Earliest Inhabitants of Italy, translated from Mommsen's History of Rome, by G. Robertson, Lond. 1858, pp. 9 sqq.), and in A. Kuhn's essay on die Sprachvergleichung und die Urgeschichte der indogermanischen Völker (Zeitschrift f. d. Vergleich. Sprachf. Iv. pp. 81 sqq.).

former condition, and determine by what causes and in what manner the superposition or amalgamation has taken place. The excellent historian of the Inductive Sciences* would group these and other speculations together in a separate class, considering them all "as connected by this bond, that they endeavour to ascend to a past state of things, by the aid of the evidence of the present." He would term them palætiological sciences, and the sanction of his distinguished name will perhaps give currency to this coinage of his private mint. In that case, the classical scholar will wish that he had been induced to select some designation more strictly in accordance with analogy and more plainly expressive of his meaning. As the word archæology is already appropriated to the discussion of those subjects of which the antiquity is only comparative, it would be consistent with the usual distinction between ἀρχαῖος and παλαιός to give the name of palæology to those sciences which aim at reproducing an absolutely primeval state or condition; or if we were anxious to express that the objects of our science are not only absolutely old, but, in the particular cases, constitute the originals and beginnings of their class, we might indulge in the combination palæ-archæo-logy. But whatever denomination we may agree to employ, it is clear that linguistic ethnology is entitled to the most prominent place among its sister sciences.

13 But the application of philology to the case of ethnography is by no means its only use. Language is the oldest of historical monuments; indeed, it enables us to go back to a period long antecedent to the first beginnings of history, and to

Vol. I. p. 481.

The distinction between xalalós and άgzałos is well given by Reiske, ad Lys. p. 107, 41: "ralaιóv et antiquum est solummodo rationem habet temporis: dozaïov autem est quod ab initio rerum aut reipublicæ cujusdam semper ita fuit actitatum, ut semel antiquo ritu fuit institutum." This distinetion is well marked in the compounds ralaιónlovτos, applied to a place, Thucyd. VIII. 28, § 3, and άgyαiónλovtos, applied to a person, Esch. Agam. 1013. The ancients constantly used these synonyms in juxta-position, and a very slight parody of Sophocles would aptly describe a bone of the Dinotherium as ὀστοῦν παλαιὸν ἀρχαίου ποτὲ θηρός (Trachin. 555).