[Pg i]

BY

ROBERT GORDON LATHAM,
M.A., M.D., F.R.S., ETC.
LATE FELLOW OF KINGS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, LATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH
IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON, LATE ASSISTANT PHYSICIAN
AT THE MIDDLESEX HOSPITAL.

WILLIAMS & NORGATE,
14 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON
AND
20 SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.

LEIPZIG, R. HARTMANN.
1860.

[Pg ii]

LEIPZIG PRINTED BY B. G. TEUBNER.

[Pg iii]

The essays in the present volume are chiefly upon philological and ethnographical subjects: though not exclusively. The earliest was published in 1840, the latest in 1856. In some cases they have formed separate treatises and in some Appendices to larger works. The greater part, however, consists of papers read before the Philological Society of London; a society which has materially promoted the growth of Comparative Philology in Great Britain, and which, if it had merely given to the world the valuable researches of the late Mr. Garnett, would have done more than enough to justify its existence and to prove its usefulness.

As a general rule these papers address themselves to some definite and special question, which commanded the attention of the author either because it was obscure, or because there was something in the current opinions concerning it which, in his eyes, required correction. Researches conducted on this principle can scarcely be invested with any very general interest. Those who take them up are supposed to have their general knowledge beforehand. A wide field and a clear view, they have already taken. At the same time there are, in the distant horizon, imperfect outlines, and in the parts nearer to the eye dim spots where the light is uncertain, dark spots where it is wholly wanting, and, oftener still, spots illumined by a false and artificial light. Some of the details of the following investigations may be uninteresting from their minuteness; some from their obscurity; the minuteness however, and the obscurity which deprive them of general interest make it all the more incumbent on some one to take them up: and it is needless to add that for a full and complete system of ethnographical or philological knowledge all the details that are discoverable should be discovered. This is my excuse (if excuse be needed) for having spent some valuable time upon obscure points of minute interest. Upon the whole, they have not been superfluous. This means that I have[Pg iv] rarely, or never, found from any subsequent reading that they had been anticipated. Where this has been the case, the article has been omitted—being treated as a non scriptum. An elaborate train of reasoning submitted to the Ethnographical Society has on this principle been ignored. It was upon the line of migration by which the Polynesian portion of the Pacific islands was peopled. It deduced Polynesia from the Navigator's Islands; the Navigator's Islands, or Samoan Archipelago, from the Ralik and Radak chains; the Ralik and Radak chains from Micronesia; Micronesia from the Philippines, viâ Sonsoral and the Pelews. Some time after the paper was read I found that Forster has promulgated the same doctrine. I ought to have known it before. Hence the paper is omitted: indeed it was (though read) never published.

In respect to the others the chief writers who have worked in the same field are Dr. Scouler, Professor Turner, and Professor Buschmann,—not to mention the bibliographical labours of Dr. Ludwig, and the second paper of Gallatin. I have no hesitation in expressing my belief that where they agree with me they do so as independent investigators; claiming for myself, where I agree with them, the same consideration.

Of Hodgson and Logan, Windsor Earle, and other investigators I should have much to say in the way of both acknowledgement and criticism, had India and the Indian Archipelago taken as large a portion of the present volume as is taken by North America. As it is, it is only in a few points that I touch their domain.

The hypothesis that the Asteks (so-called) reached Mexico by sea I retract. Again—the fundamental affinity of the Australian language was a doctrine to which both Teichelmann and Sir G. Grey had committed themselves when the paper on the Negrito languages was written. The papers, however, stand as they stood: partly because they are worth something in the way of independent evidence, and partly because they illustrate allied subjects.

[Pg 1]

DELIVERED AT
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON,
OCTOBER 14, 1839.

Instead of detaining you with a dissertation upon the claims and the merits of our Language, it may perhaps be better to plunge at once into the middle of my subject, and to lay before you, as succinctly as I am able, the plan and substance of such Lectures as, within these walls, I promise myself the honour of delivering. For I consider that the vast importance of thoroughly understanding, of comprehending, in its whole length, and breadth, and height, and depth, the language which we all speak, we all read, and we all (in different degrees, but still each in our degree) have occasion to write—the importance also of justly and upon true grounds, valuing the magnificent literature of which we are the inheritors—I consider, I say, that the vast importance of all this is sufficiently implied by the simple single fact, that, in this Institution, the English Language, with the English Literature, is recognized as part and parcel of a liberal education. It may also be assumed, without further preface, that every educated man is, at once, ambitious of writing his own Language well; of criticizing those who write it badly; and of taking up his admiration of our National Literature, not upon Trust but upon Knowledge.

Thus having premised, I now proceed to the divisions and the subdivisions of my subject. For certain practical purposes it is found expedient to draw, between the consideration of the English Language, and the consideration of[Pg 2] the English Literature, a broad line of demarcation. The knowledge of books is one thing; the knowledge of the rules of good composition is another thing. It is one thing to know what other men have written; it is another thing to know how you should yourself write. The one is a point of Literary History, or of Literary Biography; the other is a point of Rhetoric, or a point of Grammar. I do not say that the two studies do not mutually assist each other. All studies do so: these in a great degree. Familiarity with the works of a Shakspeare or a Milton, is an accomplishment—an accomplishment that depends upon our taste, and one which depends also upon our leisure—an accomplishment which cannot be too highly valued, but still an accomplishment. Familiarity, however, with the rules of good writing is not a mere accomplishment. It is a necessary qualification which comes home to us all. Now if I am convinced of one thing more than of another, I am convinced of the truth of this assertion; viz.: that a good style comes not of itself; it comes not uncalled for; and it comes neither by instinct nor by accident. It is the result of art, and the result of practise. The Rules of good Composition are the rules of Rhetoric; and it is very necessary that they be neither neglected nor undervalued. Two classes of men, and two classes only, can pretend to dispense with them—those that can write well, and those that cannot write at all.

The English Language is pre-eminently a mixed Language. Its basis indeed is Saxon, but upon this basis lies a very varied superstructure, of Danish and of Norman-French, of Modern French and of Greek, of Classical Latin and of the Latin of the Middle Ages imported at different periods and upon different occasions. Words from these languages are comprehended by the writer just in the proportion that he comprehends their origin and their derivation. Hence it is that the knowledge of isolated words is subordinate to the formation of a style; and hence it is that the rules for their investigation are (their aim and object being alone considered) akin to the rules of Rhetoric.

This however is but a small part of what may be our studies. It is well to know how Time affects Languages, and in what way it modifies them. It is well to know how one dialect grows out of another, and how its older stages differ from its newer ones. It is well if we can perceive that these variations are in no wise arbitrary; but it is better still if we can discover the laws that regulate them. Yet all this is but a knowledge of the changes that words undergo, a knowledge of the changes in their form, and a[Pg 3] knowledge of the changes in their meaning. Now these points are points of Etymology, the word being used in its very laxest and its largest sense; and points of Etymology must, in no wise, be neglected or undervalued.

Lectures upon these questions will form the Etymological part of a course; and Lectures upon Prose Composition the Rhetorical part of one; whilst the two, taken together, will give a course upon the English Language, in contradistinction to one upon the English Literature.

In respect to the latter, I shall, at regular intervals, fix upon some new period, or some new subject, and, to the best of my power, illustrate it.

Thus much for the divisions and subdivisions of the subject-matter.

The considerations that come next in order are the considerations of the manner of exhibiting it, the considerations of the knowledge that can be detailed, and the considerations of the trains of thought that can be inculcated.

There are those who believe that a good style is not to be taught. Many think that the habit of writing good Prose, is like the power of creating good Poetry; a privilege that we are born to, and not a possession that we can earn; and a wit once said that, in order to write clearly, it was only necessary to understand what you would write about. If this be true, then is composition an easy matter indeed; or, to say the very least, a perspicuous style is as common as a clear understanding. The experience of the world has, however, set aside the decision of the wit, and the practice of inexperienced writers has belied his dogma. To write well you must understand not only the matter but the medium. Thus then it is, that, with respect to the use of books, and with respect to the use of rules, in our attempts at the formation of a good style, some persons neglect them as unavailing, and some despise them as superfluous.

Towards accurate writing Habit of some sort is indispensably essential. Yet this indispensable habit is not necessarily a habit of writing. A person who writes no more frequently than the common occasions of life demand, shall eventually, provided that he will habitually write his best, write accurately. Now the habit of criticism, and the habit of attention essential to habits of writing our best, a second person is, I think, able to inculcate. Such a second person should be familiar with bad as well as with good writing; even, as the physician shall grow conversant, not with health only, but with disease also. He should know what are the more egregious errors in composition; he should[Pg 4] know also what are the more usual ones. He should be learned in the inaccuracies of good authors, and deeply erudite in the absurdities of bad ones; recognizing false taste under all its disguises, and holding up, as a beacon to avoid, the pitiful ambition of mannerism and of writing finely. The principles by which he tries these things, he can lay before his hearers; and he can illustrate them with a prodigality of commentary. And those who hearken shall thus grow critical. And, mark—the reader that continually and habitually criticizes others, soon comes to, continually and habitually, criticize himself. He grows fastidious, as it were, perforce.

In this way two things may be done: our criticism may be sharpened, and its edge may be turned upon ourselves. At this I aim, and not at teaching Rhetoric systematically.

The father of Horace, as we learn from the testimony of his son, was peculiar in his notions of education. In his eyes it was easier to eschew Vice than to imitate Virtue. Too wise a man not to know that an unapproachable model was no model at all, he let (for instance) the modesty of Virgil (as modest virtues generally contrive to do) speak for itself. But he counselled his son against the prodigality of Barrus, and held up, with parental prudence, the detected peccadilloes of Trebonius.

Now the system, that produces a negative excellence in morals, may produce also a negative excellence in literature. More than this (for the truth must be told) Art can not do. For Wit, and Vigour, and Imagination we must be indebted to Nature.

I know that the system of picking out, and holding up, either a neighbour's foibles, or an author's inelegancies, is not a gracious occupation; the question, however, is, not whether it be gracious or ungracious but whether it be efficient or inefficient.

Whosoever is conversant with the writings of etymologists must be well aware, that there are few subjects wherein men run wild to the degree that they run wild in Etymology. A little learning, dangerous everywhere, is preeminently dangerous in Etymology. There has been in the world an excess of bad etymology for two reasons.

The discovery of remote analogies is not only mental exercise, but, worse luck, it is a mental amusement as well. The imagination is gratified, and Criticism thinks it harsh to interpose.

Again, there is no language that a man so willingly illustrates as he illustrates his own. He knows it best, and he[Pg 5] studies it with the greatest ease. He loves it not wisely but too well. He finds in its structure new and peculiar beauties; he overvalues its excellence, and he exaggerates its antiquity. Such are the men who talk—in Wales, of the ubiquity of the Celts; in Germany, of the Teutonic Origin of the Romans; and in Ireland of the Phœnician extraction of the Milesians.

Thus then, two out of the Thousand and One causes of bad Etymology are the reason psychological, and the reason patriotic. Nemini credendum de Patria sua.

I think that at the entrance upon an unsettled subject, a man should boldly say, and say at the very onset of his career, upon whose opinions he relies, and whose opinions he distrusts. He should profess himself, not indeed the implicit follower of any School, but he should name the School that he preferred. He should declare whose books he could recommend, and whose he would eschew. Thus, if I were lecturing upon Geology, I should say, at once, whether I were what is called a Scriptural Geologist or a Latitudinarian one: And thus, in the department in point, I name the writers I put faith in. In the works of Grimm and Rask I place much trust; in those of Horne Tooke some; and in those of Whiter and Vallancey (to name small men along with great) none whatsoever.

In the study of the Languages that have ceased to be spoken we find, in an Etymological view, one thing, and one thing only; words as they have been affected by previous processes of change; in other terms, the results of these processes. But in the Language that we hear spoken around us, and, still more, in the Language that we ourselves speak, we find something more than results; we find the processes that give occasion to them; in other terms, we see the change as it takes place. Within the lifetime of an individual, within even a very few years, those that look may find, not only that certain words are modified in respect to their meaning, and certain letters modified, in respect to their pronunciation, but they may also see how these modifications are brought about, ascertaining—of words the intermediate meanings, and of letters the intermediate sounds. We may trace the gradations throughout. We can, of our own Language, and in our own Times, see, with a certainty, what change our Language more especially affects; we can observe its tendencies. And we can do this because we can find towards what particular laxities (be they of meaning or be they of pronunciation) ourselves and our neighbours more especially have a bias. We can, as it were, prophesy. We[Pg 6] cannot do this with the Latin of Augustus; we cannot do it with the Greek of Pericles.

Hence it is that what we will know, to a certainty, of Etymological processes, must be collected from Cotemporary Languages. Those who look for them elsewhere seek for the Living among the Dead; arguing from things unknown (at least unknown to a certainty), and so speculating laxly, and dogmatizing unphilosophically. Hence it is, that in Cotemporary Languages, and of those Cotemporary Languages, in our own most especially, we may lay deep and strong, and as the only true substratum of accurate criticism, the foundations of our knowledge of Etymological Processes. And, observe, we can find them in a sufficient abundance provided that we sufficiently look out for them. For Processes, the same in kind, though not the same in degree, are found in all languages alike. No process is found in any one language that is not also found (in some degree or other) in our own; and no process can be found in our own language which does not (in some degree or other) exist in all others beside. There are no such things as Peculiar Processes: since Languages differ from each other, not in the nature of their Processes, but in the degrees of their development. These are bold, perhaps novel, assertions, but they are not hasty ones.[1]

Simply considered as an Instrument of Etymology I imagine that the study of Cotemporary Languages is, in its importance, of the very first degree; while next in value to this (considered also, as an Instrument of Etymology,) is the study of Languages during what may be called their breakings-up, or their transitions.

There are two stages in Language. Through these two stages all Languages, sooner or later, make their way; some sooner than others, but all sooner or later. Of this the Latin language may serve as an illustration. In the time of Augustus it expressed the relations of Time and Place, in other words, its Cases and Tenses, by Declension and Conjugation, or, broadly speaking, by Inflexion. In the time of Dante there was little or no Inflexion, but there was an abundance of Auxiliary Verbs, and an abundance of Prepositions in its stead. The expression of Time and Place by independent words superseded the expression by Inflections. Now in all Languages the inflectional stage comes first. This is a Law. There are Languages that stay for ever (at least for an indefinite time) in their earlier stage. Others there are again, that we never come in contact with before they have proceeded to their later one. Languages[Pg 7] of this latter kind are of subordinate value to the Etymologist. Those that he values most are such as he sees in the two stages: so being enabled to watch the breaking-up of one, the constitution of the other, and the transition intermediate to the two.

Now our own language (the Anglo Saxon being borne in mind) comes under the conditions that constitute a good and sufficient language as a disciplinal foundation in Etymology. It can be studied in two stages. When we come to the Times of the Conquest we must gird up our loins for the acquisition of a new Language.

The Breaking-up of the Latin (I speak for the sake of illustration and comparison) is a study in itself. It is a study complete and sufficient; not, however, more so than is the study of the Breaking-up of the Gothic. For in this stock of Tongues, not only did the Saxon pass into the English, but the Mœso-Gothic, the Scandinavian, and the Frisian, each gave origin to some new Tongue; the first to the High German, the second to the Languages of Scandinavia, and the third to the Modern Dutch. The study then of the Languages of the Gothic stock is something more than a sufficient disciplinal foundation in Etymology.[2]

In matters of pronunciation, living Languages have an exclusive advantage. For dead Languages speak but to the eye; and it is not through the eye that the ear is to be instructed.

It is well for the Geologist to classify rocks, and to arrange strata, to distinguish minerals, and to determine fossils; but it is far better if, anterior to this, he will study the Powers of Nature, and the Processes that are their operations: and these he can only study as he sees them in the times wherein he lives, or as he finds them recorded in authentic and undisputed histories. With this knowledge he can criticize, and construct; without it he may invent and imagine. Novel and ingenious he may, perchance, become; but he can never be philosophical, and he can never be Scientific. So it is with the Etymologist. Whenever, in a dead Language, he presumes a Process, which he has looked for in vain in a living one, he outruns his data. The basis of Etymology is the study of existing Processes.

Our Language has had its share; I must hasten to the consideration of our Literature.

The Early Literature of most modern Nations consists of the same elements; of Legends concerning their Saints, of Chronicles, and of Hymns and Romances. Too much of this fell into the hands of the Monks; and these were, too[Pg 8] often, the prosaic writers of barbarous Latinity; for Prose (if not in language at least in idea) was, with them, the rule; and Poetry the exception. Such is the general character of the Early Modern Literature; in which, however, our Saxon ancestors were, somewhat (indeed much) more fortunate than their neighbours. Monkish writing was with them an important element; but it was not the only one. They had an originality besides. And the Scandinavians were more fortunate still. The worshippers of Odin and Thor had a Mythology; and Mythologies are the Creators and Creations of Poetry. The Norse Mythology is as poetical as the Grecian. I speak this advisedly. Now this Mythology was common to all the Gothic Tribes. The Saxon and the Norse Literatures dealt (each in their degree) with the same materials; they breathed the same spirit; and they clothed it in an allied Language. But the Saxon Mythology is fragmentary; while the Norse Mythology is a whole. For this reason Scandinavian (or Norse) Literature is not extraneous to my subject.

These, the primeval and Pagan times of our ancestors, must claim and arrest our attention; since it is from these that our characteristic modes of Thought (call them Gothic, or call them Romantic) are derived. In the regions of Paganism lie the dark fountains of our Nationality.

Beside this, I consider that, even in the matter of Language, the direct Scandinavian element of the English is much underrated;[3] and still more underrated is the indirect Scandinavian element of the Norman-French. And here, again, when we come to the Conquest, we must grapple with new dialects, irregular imaginations, and mystical and mysterious Mythologies; for the things that have a value in Language, have a value in History also.

Now come, in due order, and in lineal succession, the formation of our Early English Literature, and the days of Chaucer; and then those of Spenser: periods necessary to be illustrated, but which may be illustrated at a future time. And after these the Æra of Elizabeth, fertile in great men, and fertile in great poets; so much so, that (the full view being too extensive) it must be contemplated by instalments and in sections.

There are many reasons for choosing as a subject for illustration the Dramatic Poets of this Period. They stood as great men amid a race of great men; so doing, they have a claim on our attention on the simple solitary grounds of their own supereminent excellence. But, besides this, they are, with the exception of their one great representative,[Pg 9] known but imperfectly. Too many of us consider the Age of Elizabeth as the Age of Shakspeare exclusively. Too many of us have been misled by the one-sided partiality of the Shakspearian commentators. These men, in the monomania of their idolatry, not only elevate their author into a Giant, but dwarve down his cotemporaries into pigmies. And who knows not how (on the moral side of the question) their writings are filled even to nauseousness, with the imputed malignity of Ben Jonson? Themselves being most malignant.

This, however, has been, by the labor of a late editor, either wholly done away with, or considerably diluted. Be it with us a duty, and be it with us a labour of love, to seek those commentators who have rescued great men from the neglect of Posterity; and be our sympathies with the diligent antiquarian, who shows that obloquy has originated unjustly; and be our approbation with those who have corrected the errors of Fame, loosely adopted, and but lately laid aside.

Yet here we must guard against a reaction. Malone, and his compeers, valued, or seemed to value, the Elizabethan Drama, just for the light that it threw upon the text of their idol. Gifford, goaded into scorn by injustice, fought the fight on the other side, with strength and with spirit; but he fought it like a partizan; reserving (too much, but as Editors are wont to do,) his admiration and his eulogy for those whom he himself edited. Next came Hazlitt and Charles Lamb; who found undiscovered beauties in poets still more neglected. I think, however, that they discovered these beauties, or at any rate that they exaggerated them, in a great degree on account of their being neglected.

Be there here a more Catholic criticism! be there here eulogies more discriminate! be there here tastes less exclusive!

The Elizabethan Drama is pre-eminently independent, it is pre-eminently characteristic, it is also pre-eminently English. It is deeply, very deeply, imbued, with the colours and complexion of the age that gave it origin. It has much Wisdom, and much Imagination. The last of our Early Dramatists is Shirley. With him terminates the School of Shakspeare. The transition hence is sudden and abrupt. Imagination decays; Wit predominates. Amatory poets write as though they wore their hearts in their heads. Wit is perfected. It had grown out of a degeneracy of Imagination; it will soon be sobered into Sense; Sense the predominant characteristic of the writers under Queen Anne. The school of Dryden passes into that of Pope, Prior being, as it were, intermediate. The Æra of the Charleses comprises two Schools; the School of Cowley, falsely called Metaphysical, with an ex[Pg 10]cess of Fancy, and a deficiency of Taste, and the School of Dryden, whose masculine and fiery intellectuality simulates, aye! and is, genius. Tragedy has run retrograde; but Comedy is evolving itself towards a separate existence, and towards its full perfection. The Spirit of Milton stands apart from his cotemporaries; reflecting nothing of its age but its self-relying energy, moral and intellectual.

Now, although, the Schools of Cowley and the Schools of Dryden, differ essentially from that particular section of the Elizabethan Æra, which we have just contemplated, they do not differ, essentially, from another section of that same æra. Be this borne in mind. There are in Literature, no precipitate transitions. The greatest men, the most original thinkers, the most creative spirits stand less alone than the world is inclined to imagine. Styles of composition, that in one generation are rife and common, always exist in the age that went before. They were not indeed its leading characteristics, but still they were existent within it. The metrical Metaphysics of Cowley were the metrical metaphysics of Donne: the versified Dialectics of Dryden may be found, with equal condensation but less harmony, in the Elizabethan writings of Sir John Davies. The section of one age is the characteristic of the next. This line of criticism is a fair reason (one out of many) for never overlooking and never underrating obscure composers and obsolete literature.

The School of Pope, and the School of our own days, are too far in the prospective to claim any immediate attention.

And here I feel myself obliged to take leave of a subject, that continually tempts me to grow excursive.

There are two sorts of lecturers; those that absolutely teach, and those that stimulate to learn; those that exhaust their subject, and those that indicate its bearings; those that infuse into their hearers their own ideas, and those that set them a-thinking for themselves. For my own part, it is, I confess, my aim and ambition to succeed in the latter rather than in the former object. To carry such as hear me through a series of Authors, or through a course of Languages, in full detail, is evidently, even if it were desirable, an impossibility; but it is no impossibility to direct their attention to the prominent features of a particular subject, and to instil into them the imperious necessity of putting forth their own natural powers in an independent manner, so as to read for themselves, and to judge for themselves. Now as I would rather see a man's mind active than capacious; and, as I love Self-reliance better than Learning, I have no more[Pg 11] sanguine expectation, than, that instead of exhausting my subject I may move you to exhaust it for yourselves, may sharpen criticism, may indicate original sources, and, above all, suggest trains of honest, earnest, patient and persevering reflection.

To be heard with confidence we must prove that we have anticipated objections. There are those who shew reason for believing that the inflectional elements were once independent roots: in other words (or rather in a formal expression) that a given case=the root+a preposition, and that a given tense=the root+the substantive verb. Now believing that, although two forms may be thus accounted for, the third may have a very different origin, in other words, drawing a difference between a method of accounting for a given part of speech, and the method of so doing, I find that the bearings of the objection are as follows:—

The independent words, anterior to their amalgamation with the root, and anterior to their power as elements in inflection were either, like the present prepositions and the verb substantive, exponents of the relations of Time and Place, or they were, like the present nouns and verbs, names expressive of ideas: and presuming the former to have been the case, the old inflected Languages may have grown out of Languages like our own; and, vice versa, Languages uninflected (or at least comparatively so), like our own, may give rise to inflected ones like the Latin: in which case, a Cycle is established, and the assertion concerning the sequence falls to the ground.

Now the assertion concerning the two stages professes to be true only as far as it goes. The fact that certain nations are even now evolving a rudimentary inflection out of a vocabulary of independent roots, gives us, as an etymological phenomenon, a third, and an earlier stage of Language; a stage, however, of which cognizance, out of a work on Etymology, would have been superfluous. The independent roots, however, in these Languages coincide, not with the prepositions and the verbs substantive of (comparatively) uninflected Languages, but with their Nouns and Verbs.

To an objector of another sort who should inquire (for instance) where was the Passive Voice in English, or the Definite Article in Latin, the answer would be that the question shewed a misapprehension of the statement in the text, which is virtually this: not that there is either in English or Latin, respectively, Passive Voices, or Definite Articles, but that there are in the two Languages the processes that evolve them. It may also be added, that (an apparent truism) the quantity of Processes depends upon the capacity of the Language. A dialect consisting (as some do) of about ten-score words can bear but a proportionate number of Processes. The truth, however, of the state[Pg 12]ments in question depends upon this: viz. that all the processes there existing are the processes that exist elsewhere, and that all processes which, with a given increase of Language may at any future time be developed, shall coincide, in kind, with the processes of other Languages.

It may be satisfactory to the Author of the Principles of Geology to discover that his criticism affects other sciences besides his own. Notwithstanding the industry, and acumen of continental critics, it may be doubted whether the Principles of Etymology (as a Science) have not yet to be exhibited. I use the word exhibited intentionally. That many Etymologists apply them I am most certain; where, however, do we find them detailed in system, or recognised as tests?

We draw too much upon the Philologists of Germany; and where men draw indefinitely they trust implicitly. I believe that the foundations of Etymology are to be laid upon the study of existing processes; and I grow sanguine when I remember that by no one so well as by an Englishman can these processes be collected. With the exception of the Russian (a doubtful exception) we come in contact with more Languages than any nation under the Sun. Here then we have an advantage in externals. The details of Etymology I can willingly give up to the scholars of the Continent; in these they have already reaped a harvest: but for the Principles of Etymology, I own to the hope that it may be the English School that shall be the first to be referred to and the last to be distrusted. In sketching the outline of a system of Scientific Etymology, I again borrow my analogies from Geology. Its primary divisions would be two: 1stly, The processes that change the form of words, or the formal processes. 2ndly, The processes that change their meanings, or the Logical processes. The first of these would be based upon the affinities and interchanges of sounds, the second upon the affinities and interchanges of ideas: the sciences (amongst others) which they were erected on being, respectively, those of Acoustics and Metaphysics; and the degrees of Etymological probability would then coincide with the correspondence of the two sorts of processes.

Few Etymologists have any conception of the enormous influence of small and common processes, provided that the extent of Language that they affect be considerable. In the very generalizing classification of Languages into Monosyllabic, Triliteral, and Polysynthetic, I put no trust; for I can refer (to my own satisfaction at least) the differences that are generally attributed to an original diversity of composition, to a diversity in the development of processes: in other words, I know of processes which with a given degree of development render the three classes convertible each in the other. With these notions I, of course, take exceptions to the Principle of the classification; for I deny that the Form of a Language is, in any degree, an essential characteristic. The axiom is not Propter formam Lingua est id quod est, but Propter elementa Lingua est id quod est. The question concerning the Classification in point is analogous to the question concerning the Chemical and the Natural-History Classification in Mineralogy.

Were it not for the admixture of other questions, the present Lecture might have been entitled The Sufficiency of the English Language as a Disciplinal Study in Grammar and Etymology, irrespective of the fact of its being the native Language of Englishmen. The appended qualification[Pg 13] is in no wise a superfluity. Our native Language is the best instrument in Disciplinal Study simply because it is our native one; and a Pole, a Spaniard, or Hungarian can best lay in their ideas of General Grammar from the special study of the Polish, Spanish, and Hungarian Languages respectively. The very palpable reason for this is that, before we can advantageously study the System of a Language, we must have acquired a certain quantity of the detail of it. Now, in the attempt to collect ideas of General Grammar from the study of a Foreign Language, we shall find that the Theory will be swamped by the Practice; in other words, that, by attempting to do two things at once, we shall do one of them badly. Merely, then, to have predicated in England, of the English Language, that it was a good and sufficient Disciplinal Instrument would have been to have remained silent as to its abstract merits as such.

Of these abstract merits the degree depends upon the chronological extent of Language that we make use of. To get them at their maximum the Two Stages must be taken in: and the Two Stages being taken in, it is more on a par with the Languages of Classical Antiquity, than it has generally been considered to be. Still (considered thus far only) it is inferior to them. For the Greek and Latin, exceeding it in the quantity of original Inflection, have run through an equal quantity of change. Considering, however, not the English only, but the whole range of allied Languages forming the Gothic Stock, the question takes a different shape. As a Magazine of Processes and Principles, the Gothic Stock not only equals the Classical, but exceeds, by far, the Greek Branch of it. The Hebrew from its quasi-symbolic form has Disciplinal merits of its own.

Let the Languages of Greece and Italy be learned for their own sake; and by those who have the privilege to appreciate them. One might think that the works of Homer and Demosthenes, of Lucretius and Cæsar, were a sufficient reason for turning with diurnal and nocturnal hands the copies that exhibit them. But let us not (as we often are) be told that it is necessary to study the Latin or the Greek Accidence for the sake of learning grammar in general. The self-deception that in taking up Latin and Greek we are studying a Grammar, instead of beginning a Literature, is too often the excuse for concluding our studies just where they might advantageously begin, and for looking with complacency upon limited acquirements just where limited acquirements are pre-eminently of little use.

I feel that the assertion here made requires modifying and explaining. I should be sorry to be supposed to have made it, under the old notion that in any written records of the Saxon Literature there is any ostensible admixture of Danish (i. e. Scandinavian); still less do I participate in the belief of the early Gothic Scholars in the existence of their so-called Dano-Saxon Dialect. I recognize, moreover, the criticism that refers the apparent Danish (Scandinavian) element of the East-Anglian, and Northumbrian Glossaries to the original affinity between the extreme Low German and the extreme Scandinavian Dialects: thus making it indirect. It was once my opinion (one which I have since modified but not given up) that in the present English, and consequently in the Low Germanic Branch of the Gothic Stock, obscure traces of the great Scandinavian characteristics (viz. the existence of a Passive Middle or Reflective Voice, and the peculiar expression of the[Pg 14] sense of the Definite Article) could be discovered: but it was not upon this idea that I founded the assertion in the text.

The question has its peculiar difficulties. Words that have long passed for Scandinavian, are continually being detected in the Saxon; so that the Philologist who should say this word is Scandinavian and not Saxon has the difficult task of proving a negative. Again, the point is one upon which no single person's assertion should be received. Hastiness of Induction, in favour of particular Languages, when we know these Languages (as every Language, indeed as every kind of Knowledge, must be known) at the expense of some other, comes upon us unconsciously. The Languages of the Gothic Stock that I know best are those of Scandinavia; the Provincial Dialect of England which I have most studied is that of Lincolnshire, and the neighbouring maritime Counties. Here the preeminence of the Danish (Scandinavian) element being acknowledged, the question is whether it be Direct or Indirect. I am free to confess that this circumstance sharpens my sight for the perception (true or false) of direct Danish elements. As a counterbalance, however, the consciousness of it engenders a proportionate self-distrust.

Upon the whole, I would rather that the sentence had run thus: the Direct Scandinavian element in the English is still to be determined, and here (as in many other places) there is open ground for the original investigator.

[Pg 15]

DELIVERED
AT THE MIDDLESEX HOSPITAL,
OCTOBER 1, 1847.

There are certain facts of such paramount importance, that they not only bear, but require, repetition. The common duties of every-day life, and the common rules of social policy, are matters which no moralist states once for all: on the contrary, they are reiterated as often as occasion requires—and occasion requires them very often.

Now it is from the fact of certain medical duties, both on the part of those who teach and those who learn, being of this nature, that, with the great schools of this metropolis, every year brings along with it the necessity of an address similar to the one which I have, on this day, the honour of laying before you.

You that come here to learn, come under the pressure of a cogent responsibility—in some cases of a material, in others of a moral nature—in all, however, most urgent and most imperative.

To the public at large—to the vast mass of your fellow-creatures around you—to the multitudinous body of human beings that sink under illness, or suffer from pain—to the whole of that infinite family which has bodily, not unmixed with mental affliction, for its heritage upon earth—to all who live, and breathe, and feel, and share with yourselves the common lot of suffering—here, in their whole height and depth, and length and breadth, are your responsibilities of one kind. You promise the palliation of human ailment: but you break that high promise if you act unskilfully. You call to you all those that are oppressed; but you may aggravate the misery that you should comfort and relieve. You bear with you the outward and visible signs, if not of the high wisdom that heals, at least of the sagacious care that[Pg 16] alleviates. Less than this is a stone in the place of bread; and less than this is poison in the fountain-springs of hope.

Not at present, indeed, but within a few brief years it will be so. Short as is human life, the period for the learning of your profession is but a fraction of the time that must be spent in the practice of it. A little while, and you may teach where you now learn. Within a less period still, you will practise what you are now taught.

And practice must not be begun before you have the fitness that is sufficient for it. Guard against some of the current commonplaces of carelessness, and procrastination. Lawyers sometimes say "that no man knows his profession when he begins it." And what lawyers say of law, medical men repeat about physic. Men of that sort of standing in medicine which, like the respectability of an old error, is measured by time alone, are fondest of talking thus; and men of no standing of any sort are fondest of being their echoes. It is the current paradox of your practical men, i. e. of men who can be taught by practice alone. Clear your heads of this nonsense. It will make you egotists, and it will make you empirics: it will make you men of one idea: it will make you, even when you fancy it would do you just the contrary, the wildest of speculators. The practice of practical men, in the way I now use the words, is a capital plan for making anything in the world, save and except practitioners.

Well! this has seemed excursive, but it is not so: it is a reason against the putting off of your learning-time. When your first case comes, you must be as fit for it as you are ready for it.

A difference between old practitioners and beginners there always will be—so long at least as there is value in experience, and a difference between age and youth; but this difference, which is necessary, must be limited as much as possible, must be cut down to its proper dimensions, and must by no means whatever be permitted to exaggerate itself into an artificial magnitude. If it do so, it is worse than a simple speculative error,—it is a mischievous delusion: it engenders a pernicious procrastination, justifies supineness, and creates an excuse for the neglect of opportunities: it wastes time, which is bad, and encourages self-deception, which is worse.

A difference between old practitioners and beginners there always will be: but it should consist not so much in the quality of their work as in the ease with which it is done. It should be the gain of the practitioner, not the loss of the patient.

[Pg 17]

Now, if I did those whom I have the honour to address the injustice of supposing that the moral reasons for disciplinal preparation, during the course of study now about to be entered into, were thrown away upon their minds and consciences, I should be at liberty to make short work of this part of my argument, and to dispose of much of it in a most brief and summary manner. I should be at liberty to say, in language more plain and complimentary, and more cogent than persuasive, that you must be up to your work when you begin it. If you stumble at the threshold, you have broken down for after-life. A blunder at the commencement is failure for the time to come. Furthermore; mala praxis is a misdemeanor in the eyes of the law, for which you may first be mulcted by a jury, and afterwards be gibbeted by the press. This fact, which there is no denying, ought to be conclusive against the preposterous doctrine which I have exposed: conclusive, however, as it is, it is one which I have not chosen to put prominent. Let a better feeling stand instead of it. Honesty is the best policy; but he is not honest who acts upon that policy only.

All this may be true; yet it may be said that the responsibility is prospective. "'Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.' We'll think about this when we have got through the Halls and Colleges. You must give us better reasons for sacrificing our inclinations to our duty than those of a paulo-post-futurum responsibility." Be it so: you have still a duty, urgent and absolute—not prospective, but immediate—not in the distance, with contingent patients, but close at hand, with the realities of friend and family—not abroad with the public, but at home with your private circle of parents, relatives, and guardians. By them you are entrusted here with the special, definite, unequivocal, undoubted object—an object which no ingenuity can refine away, and no subtlety can demur to—of instruction, discipline, preparation. You not only come up here to learn, but you are sent up to do so: and anxious wishes and reasonable hopes accompany you. You are commissioned to avail yourself of a time which experience has shewn to be sufficient, and of opportunities which are considered necessary: and there is no excuse for neglect.

Great as are the opportunities, they are not numerous enough to be wasted; and limited as is the time in the eyes of those who only know it in its misapplication, it is the period that a considerable amount of experience has sanctioned as a fair and average time for fair and average abilities, and for fair and average industry:—not a minimum period made[Pg 18] for iron assiduity on the one hand, or for fiery talent on the other, but a period adapted to the common capacities of the common mass of mankind—a common-sense time,—a time too long or too short only for the extremes of intellect—too short for the slowness of confirmed dulness, too long for the rapid progress of extraordinary and rarely-occurring genius.

Of this time you are bound to make the most. It is your interest to do so for your own sakes; it is your duty to do so for the sake of your friends.

You come to the hospital to learn—you come to the hospital to learn in the strictest sense of the word. You come to learn medicine, as you would go—if instead of physic your profession were the law—to the chambers of a special pleader, a common lawyer, or an equity draughtsman. In this strict sense does your presence here imply study—study exclusive, and study without any loss of time, and without any division of attention. You do not come here as a clergyman goes to the University; but as artists go to Rome—not to keep terms, but to do work.

I must here guard against the misinterpretation of an expression used a few sentences back. I wish to let nothing drop that may encourage the germs of an undue presumption. I expressed an opinion—which I meant to be a decided one—that the time allowed for your medical studies was full, fair, and sufficient,—so much so that if it prove insufficient the fault must lie in the neglect of it. Sufficient, however, as it is, it gives no opportunity for any superfluous leisure. It must not be presumed on. You have no odd months, or weeks, or days, or even hours, to play with. It is a sufficient space for you to lay in that knowledge of your profession which the experience and opinion of your examining boards have thought proper to require. I believe the amount thus required, to be, like the time granted for the acquisition of it, a fair amount. But it is not a high one, and it is not right that it should be so. Standards of fitness that are set up for the measure of a body of students so numerous as those in medicine, rarely err on the side of severity. They favour mediocrity; and they ought to favour it. It is safe: and that is all they have a right to look to. What they profess is never very formidable; and what they require is generally less than what is professed. But the time that is sufficient for this modicum (or minimum) of professional learning is not the time sufficient for the formation of a practitioner of that degree of excellence which the competition of an open profession, like that of medicine, requires as the guarantee of success. An examining board has but one point[Pg 19] to look to—it must see that you can practise with safety to the public. It never ensures, or professes to ensure, that you shall practise with success to yourself, or even that you shall practise at all. In the eyes of an Examiner, as in those of a commissioner of lunacy, there are but two sorts of individuals; those that can be let loose upon the public, and those that cannot. In the eyes of the public there is every degree of excellence, and every variety of comparative merit or demerit.

Now as to the way of attaining these higher degrees of merit, and the rewards, moral or material, which they ensure—which follow them as truly as satisfaction follows right actions, and as penalties follow wrong ones. The opportunity we have spoken of. It consists in the whole range of means and appliances by which we here, and others elsewhere, avail ourselves of those diseases that humanity has suffered, and is suffering, for the sake of alleviating the misery that they seem to ensure for the future. Disease with us is not only an object of direct and immediate relief to the patient who endures it, but it is an indirect means of relief to sufferers yet untouched. Out of evil comes good. We make the sick helpful to the sound; the dead available to the living. Out of pestilence comes healing, and out of the corruption of death the laws and rule of life. Suffering we have, and teaching we have, and neither must be lost upon you. It is too late to find that these objects, and objects like them, are repugnant and revolting. These things should have been thought of before. Your choice is now taken, and it must be held to. The discovery that learning is unpleasant is the discovery of a mistake in the choice of your profession; and the sooner you remedy such a mistake the better—the better for yourselves, the better for your friends, the better for the public, and the better for the profession itself.

Steady work, with fair opportunities—this is what makes practitioners. The one without the other is insufficient. There is an expenditure of exertion where your industry outruns your materials, and there is a loss of useful facts when occasions for observation are neglected.

See all you can, and hear all you can. It is not likely that cases will multiply themselves for your special observations, and it is neither the policy nor the practice of those who are commissioned with your instruction to open their mouths at random.

See all you can. If the case be a common one, you get so much familiarity with a phenomenon that it will be conti[Pg 20]nually presenting itself. If a rare one, you have seen what you may seldom see again. There is every reason for taking the practice of the hospital exactly as you find it. It represents the diseases of the largest class of mankind—the poor; and, although in some of the details there may be a difference, upon the whole the forms of disease that are the commonest in hospitals are the commonest in the world at large; and vice versâ. Hence, what you see here is the rule rather than the exception for what you will see hereafter. The diseases are not only essentially the same, but the proportion which they bear to one another is nearly so. I mention this, because there is often a tendency to run after rare cases to the neglect of common ones; whilst, on the other hand, remarkable and instructive forms of disease are overlooked, simply because they are thought the curiosities rather than the elements of practice. You may carry your neglect of common cases, on the strength of their being common, too far. You may know all about catalepsy and hydrophobia, and nothing about itch or measles. You may find that, of the two parties concerned, the patient and yourself, it is the former that knows the most about his complaint. You may live to have your diagnosis corrected by the porter, your prognosis criticised by the nurse. On the other hand, by missing single instances of rare disease, you may miss the opportunity of being able to refer to your memory rather than to your library.

I have given you reasons against being afraid of over-observation, and against the pernicious habit of neglecting this case because it is common, and that because it is rare—a common excuse for neglecting all diseases, and a popular reason for doing so. Medicus sum, nihil in re medicâ a me alienum puto, &c. Some minds, indeed, are so constituted that they can make much, very much, out of single cases, out of solitary specimens of diseases. The power of minute analysis is the characteristic of this sort of observation. It is just possible so to seize upon the true conditions of a disease, as to satisfy yourself, once for all, of its real permanent attribute—of its essence, if I may so express myself. And this being seen, you may, for certain purposes, have seen enough; seen it at one glance; seen it at a single view as well as others see it at a hundred. I say that certain minds are thus constituted; but they are rarely the minds of many men in a single generation, and never the minds of beginners. Before this power is attained your observation must be disciplined into the accuracy and the rapidity of an instinct; and to this power of observation—attainable only[Pg 21] by long practice, and after long practice—a high power of reflection must be superadded.

No such power must be presumed on. If the student delude himself, the disease will undeceive him. The best practitioners, in the long run, are those whose memory is stored with the greatest number of individual cases—individual cases well observed, and decently classified. It is currently stated that the peculiar power of the late Sir Astley Cooper was a power of memory of this sort, and I presume that no better instance of its value need be adduced. Now the memory for cases implies the existence of cases to remember; and before you arrange them in the storehouse of your thoughts you must have seen and considered; must have used both your senses and your understanding; must have seen, touched, and handled with the one, and must have understood and reflected with the other.

I am talking of these things as they exist in disciplined intellects, and in retentive memories; and, perhaps, it may be objected that I am talking of things that form the exception rather than the rule; that I am measuring the power of common men by those of extraordinary instances. I weigh my words, when I deliberately assert, that such, although partially the case, is not so altogether; and that it is far less the case than is commonly imagined. In most of those instances where we lose the advantage of prior experience, by omitting the application of our knowledge of a previous similar case, the fault is less in the laxity of memory than in the original incompleteness of the observation. Observe closely, and ponder well, and the memory may take care of itself. Like a well-applied nick-name, a well-made observation will stick to you—whether you look after it or neglect it. The best way to learn to swim is to try to sink, and it is so because floatation, like memory, is natural if you set about it rightly. Let those who distrust their remembrance once observe closely, and then forget if they can.

There are good reasons for cultivating this habit at all times, but there are especial reasons why those who are on the threshold of their profession should more particularly cultivate it. Not because you have much to learn—we have all that—nor yet because you have the privilege of great opportunities—we have all that also—must you watch, and reflect, and arrange, and remember. Your time of life gives you an advantage. The age of the generality of you is an age when fresh facts are best seized: and best seized because they are fresh. Whether you are prepared to understand their whole import, as you may do at some future[Pg 22] period, is doubtful. It is certain that the effect of their novelty is to impress them more cogently on your recollection.

And this is practice—practice in the good sense of the term, and in a sense which induces me to guard against the misconstruction of a previous application of it. A few sentences back I used the phrases practical men, adding that those so called were men who could be taught by practice only. I confess that this mode of expression was disparaging. For the purpose to which it was applied it was meant to be so. It is a term you must be on your guard against. Practice is so good a thing of itself that its name and appellation are applied to many bad things. Slovenliness is practice; if it suits the purpose of any one to call it so; contempt for reading is practice; and bleeding on all occasions when you omit to purge is practice;—and bad practice too. Be on your guard against this: but do not be on your guard against another sort of practice: the practice of men who first observe, and then reflect, and then generalise, and then reduce to a habit their results. This is the true light for you to follow, and in this sense practice is not only a safe guide but the safe guide. It is experience, or, if you choose a more philosophic term, induction. Theoretical men can be taught by this, and the wisest theories are taught by it. When I said that practical men were taught by practice only, I never implied that they were the only men that practice could teach. Experience makes fools wise; but fools are not the only persons who can profit by experience.

See and hear—the senses must administer to the understanding. Eye, and ear, and finger—exercise these that they may bring in learning.

See and hear—the senses must administer to their own improvement. Eye, and ear, and finger—exercise these, that they may better themselves as instruments. The knowledge is much, but the discipline is more. The knowledge is the fruit that is stored, but the discipline is the tree that yields. The one is the care that keeps, the other the cultivation that supplies.

The habit of accurate observation is by no means so difficult as is darkly signified by logicians, nor yet so easy as is vainly fancied by empirics. It is the duty of those who teach you to indicate the medium.

The tenor of some of my observations runs a risk of misrepresentation. It has been limited. It has spoken of cases, as if there was nothing in the whole range of medical study but cases; and of observation, as if the faculties of a medical man were to take a monomaniac form, and to run upon[Pg 23] observation only; of hospitals, as if they consisted of beds and patients alone; and of clinical medicine and of clinical surgery, as if there was no such a paramount subject as physiology, and no such important subsidiary studies as chemistry and botany. It is all hospital and no school—all wards and no museum—all sickness and no health. This has been the line that I have run on; and I feel that it may be imputed to me that I have run on it too long and too exclusively. Whether I undervalue the acquisition of those branches of knowledge which are collateral and subordinate to medicine, rather than the elements of medicine itself—which are the approaches to the temple rather than the innermost shrine—will be seen in the sequel. At present I only vindicate the prominence which has been given to clinical observation, by insisting upon the subordinate character of everything that is taught away from the bed, and beyond the sensible limits of disease. No single subject thus taught is the direct and primary object of your learning. The art of healing is so. You learn other things that you may understand this; and in hospitals at least you learn them with that view exclusively. If you wish to be a physiologist, chemist, or botanist, irrespectively of the medical application of the sciences of physiology, chemistry, and botany, there are better schools than the Middlesex Hospital, or, indeed, than any hospital whatever. There they may be studied as mathematics are studied at Cambridge, or as classics at Eton—simply for their own great and inherent values. But here you study them differently, that is, as mathematics are taught at a military college, or as classics are taught at the College of Preceptors, for a specific purpose, and with a limited view—with a view limited to the illustration of disease, and with the specific purpose of rendering them indirect agents in therapeutics. If you could contrive the cure of disease without a knowledge of morbid processes, it would be a waste of time to trouble yourself with pathology; or if you could bottom the phenomena of diseased action without a knowledge of the actions of health, physiology would be but a noble science for philosophers; or if you could build up a system of physiology, determining the functions of organs and the susceptibilities of tissues, independent of the anatomy of those organs and those tissues, scalpels would be as irrelevant to you as telescopes; and if these three sciences received no elucidation from chemistry, and botany, and physics, then would chemistry, and botany and physics, have the value—neither more nor less—of the art of criticism or of the binomial theorem. What you are taught in the schools is taught to you, not because it[Pg 24] is worth knowing—for Latin, and Greek, and Mathematics are worth knowing—but because, before patients can be cured, they are necessary to be learned.

And, in order to be taught at all, they must be taught systematically. It is an easy matter to ask for a certain amount of these two collateral sciences—to pick and choose just the parts wanted for use, to require just that modicum of botany which illustrates the Pharmacopœia, and just those fragments of chemistry that make prescriptions safe, and urine intelligible. It is easy, I say, to ask for all this; but the art of thus teaching per saltum has yet to be discovered. The whole is more manageable than the half. What it may be with others is more than I can tell; but, for my own particular teaching, I would sooner take the dullest boy from the worst school, and start him in a subject at the right end, than begin at the wrong end with the cleverest prizeman that ever flattered parent or gratified instructor. Bits of botany and crumbs of chemistry are less digestible than whole courses.

Thus much for those studies that make your therapeutics rational. Some few have spoken slightly of them—as Sydenham, in the fulness of his knowledge of symptoms, spoke slightingly of anatomy, or as a Greek sculptor, familiar with the naked figure, might dispense with dissection. They are necessary, nevertheless, for the groundwork of your practice. They must serve to underpin your observations.

And now we may ask, whether, when a medical education has been gone through, you have collected from it, over and above your professional sufficiency, any secondary advantages of that kind which are attributed to education itself taken in the abstract? Whether your knowledge is of the sort that elevates, and whether your training is of the kind that strengthens?

Upon the whole, you may be satisfied with the reflex action of your professional on your general education—that is, if you take a practical and not an ideal standard. It will do for you, in this way, as much as legal studies do for the barrister, and as much as theological reading does for the clergyman; and perhaps in those points not common to the three professions medicine has the advantage. Its chemistry, which I would willingly see more mixed with physics, carries you to the threshold of the exact sciences. Its botany is pre-eminently disciplinal to the faculty of classification; indeed, for the natural-history sciences altogether, a medical education is almost necessary. Clear ideas in physiology are got at only through an exercised power of abstraction[Pg 25] and generalization. The phenomena of insanity can be appreciated only when the general phenomena of healthy mental function are understood, and when the normal actions of the mind are logically analyzed. Such is medical education as an instrument of self-culture: and as education stands at present, a man who has made the most of them may walk among the learned men of the world with a bold and confiding front.

I insist upon thus much justice being done to the intellectual character of my profession—viz. that it be measured by a practical, and not an ideal, standard. Too much of the spirit of exaggeration is abroad—of that sort of exaggeration which makes men see in the requisites for their own profession the requisites for half-a-dozen others—of that sort of exaggeration which made Vitruvius, himself an architect, prove elaborately that before a man could take a trowel in his hand he must have a knowledge of all the sciences and a habit of all the virtues. Undoubtedly it would elevate medicine for every member in the profession to know much more than is required of him—yet this is no reason for our requiring much more than we do. Such a notion can be entertained only through a confusion of duty on the part of those who direct medicine. Their business is the public safety; and the position of their profession is their business only so far as it affects this. Trusts are intended for the benefit of any one rather than the trustee.

Two objections lie against the recommendation of extraneous branches of learning in medicine: in the first place, by insisting upon them as elements of a special course of instruction, they are, by implication, excluded from a general one; in the second place, they are no part of a three years' training.

Concentrate your attention on the essentials. I am quite satisfied that as far as the merits or demerits of an education contribute to the position of a profession, we may take ours as we find it, and yet hold our own. Nevertheless, lest the position given to medicine by its pre-eminent prominence, in conjunction with the church and bar, as one of the so-called learned professions, should encourage the idea that a multiplicity of accomplishments should be the character of a full and perfect medical practitioner, one or two important realities in respect to our position should be indicated. We are at a disadvantage as compared with both the church and the bar. We have nothing to set against such great political prizes as chancellorships and archbishoprics. We are at this disadvantage; and, in a country like England, it is[Pg 26] a great one: so that what we gain by the connection, in the eyes of the public, is more than what we give; and the connection is itself artificial, and, as such, dissoluble. It is best to look the truth in the face—we must stand or fall by our own utility.

Proud to be useful—scorning to be more

—must be the motto of him whose integrity should be on a level with his skill, who should win a double confidence, and who, if he do his duty well, is as sure of his proper influence in society, and on society—and that influence a noble one—as if he were the member of a profession ensured to respectability by all the favours that influence can extort, and all the prerogatives that time can accumulate. As compared with that of the church and bar, our hold upon the public is by a thread—but it is the thread of life.

Such are the responsibilities, the opportunities, and the prospects, of those who are now about to prepare themselves for their future career. We who teach have our responsibilities also; we know them; we are teaching where Bell taught before us; we are teaching where ground has been lost; yet we are also teaching with good hopes, founded upon improved auguries.

[Pg 27]

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN.

MAY 13, 1854.

The subject I have the honour of illustrating is The Importance of the Study of Language as a means of Education for all Classes.

I open it by drawing a distinction.

A little consideration will show that that difference between the study of a given subject in its general and abstract, and the study of one in its applied or concrete, form, which finds place in so many departments of human knowledge, finds place in respect to Language and Languages. It finds place in the subject before us as truly as it does in that science, which one of my able successors will have the honour of illustrating,—the science of the laws of Life—Physiology or Biology. Just as there is, therein, a certain series of laws relating to life and organization, which would command our attention, if the whole animal and vegetable world consisted of but a single species, so the study of Speech would find place in a well-devised system of education, even if the tongues of the whole wide world were reduced to a single language, and that language to a single dialect. This is because the science of life is one thing, the science of the forms under which the phenomena of life are manifested, another. And just as Physiology, or Biology, is, more or less, anterior to and independent of such departments of study as Botany and Zoology, so, in the subject under notice, there is the double division of the study of Language in respect to structure and development, and the study of Languages as instances of the variety of form in which the phenomenon of human speech exhibits, or has exhibited, itself. Thus—

When (as I believe once to have been the case) there was[Pg 28] but a single language on the face of the earth, the former of these divisions had its subject-matter. And—

When (as is by no means improbable) one paramount and exclusive tongue, developed, at first, rapidly and at the expense of the smaller languages of the world, and, subsequently, slowly and at that of the more widely-diffused ones, shall have replaced the still numerous tongues of the nineteenth century; and when all the dialects of the world shall be merged into one Universal Language, the same subject-matter for the study of the structure of Language, its growth and changes, will still exist.

So that the study of Language is one thing, the study of Languages, another.

They are different; and the intellectual powers that they require and exercise are different also. The greatest comparative philologists have, generally, been but moderate linguists.

A certain familiarity with different languages they have, of course, had; and as compared with that of the special scholar—the Classic or the Orientalist, for instance—their range of language (so to say) has been a wide one; but it has rarely been of that vast compass which is found in men after the fashion of Mezzofanti, &c.—men who have spoken languages by the dozen, or the score;—but who have left comparative philology as little advanced as if their learning had been bounded by the limits of their own mother tongue.

Now this difference, always of more or less importance in itself, increases when we consider Language as an object of education; and it is for the sake of illustrating it that the foregoing preliminaries have been introduced. No opinion is given as to the comparative rank or dignity of the two studies; no decision upon the nobility or ignobility of the faculties involved in the attainment of excellence in either. The illustration of a difference is all that has been aimed at. There is a difference between the two classes of subjects, and a difference between the two kinds of mental faculties. Let us make this difference clear. Let us also give it prominence and importance.

One main distinction between the study of Language and the study of Languages lies in the fact of the value of the former being constant, that of the latter, fluctuating. The relative importance of any two languages, as objects of special attention, scarcely ever remains steady. The value, for instance, of the German—to look amongst the cotemporary forms of speech—has notably risen within the present century. And why? Because the literature in which it is em[Pg 29]bodied has improved. Because the scientific knowledge which, to all who want the key, is (so to say) locked up in it, has increased some hundred per cent.

But it may go down again. Suppose, for instance, that new writers of pre-eminent merit, ennoble some of the minor languages of Europe—the Danish, Swedish, Dutch, &c. Such a fact would divide the attention of savans—attention which can only be bestowed upon some second, at the expense of some first, object. In such a case, the extent to which the German language got studied would be affected much in the same way as that of the French has been by the development of the literature of Germany.

Or the area over which a language is spoken may increase; as it may, also, diminish.

Or the number of individuals that speak it may multiply—the area being the same.

Or the special application of the language, whether for the purposes of commerce, literature, science, or politics, may become changed. In this way, as well as in others, the English is becoming, day by day, more important.

There are other influences.

High as is the value of the great classical languages of Greece and Rome, we can easily conceive how that value might be enhanced. Let a manuscript containing the works of some of the lost, or imperfectly preserved, writers of antiquity be discovered. Let, for instance, Gibbon's desiderata—the lost Decads of Livy, the Orations of Hyperides, or the Dramas of Menander—be made good. The per-centage of classical scholars would increase; little or much.

Some years back it was announced that the Armenian language contained translations, made during the earlier centuries of our era, of certain classical writings, of which the originals had been lost—lost in the interval. This did not exactly make the Armenian, with its alphabet of six-and-thirty letters, a popular tongue; but it made it, by a fraction, more popular than it was in the days of Whiston and La Croze, when those two alone, of all the learned men of Europe, could read it.

Translations tell in another way. Whatever is worth reading in the Danish and Swedish is forthwith translated into German. E. g. Professor Retzius of Stockholm wrote a good Manual of Anatomy. He had the satisfaction of seeing it translated into German. He had the further satisfaction of hearing that the translation ran through five editions in less time than the original did through one.

Now, if the Germans were to leave off translating the[Pg 30] value of the language in which Professor Retzius wrote his Anatomy would rise.

Upon the whole, the French is, perhaps, the most important language of the nineteenth century; yet it is only where we take into consideration the whole of its elements of value. To certain special savans, the German is worth more; to the artist, the Italian; to the American, the Spanish. It fell, too, in value when nations like our own insisted upon the use of their native tongues in diplomacy. It fell in value because it became less indispensable; and another cause, now in operation, affects the same element of indispensability. The French are beginning to learn the languages of other nations. Their own literature will certainly be none the worse for their so doing. But it by no means follows that that literature will be any the more studied. On the contrary, Frenchmen will learn English more, and, pro tanto, Englishmen learn French less.

If all this have illustrated a difference, it may also have done something more. It may have given a rough sketch, in the way of classification, of the kind of facts that regulate the value of special languages as special objects of study. At any rate (and this is the main point), the subject-matter of the present Address is narrowed. It is narrowed (in the first instance at least) to the consideration of that branch of study whereof the value is constant; for assuredly it is this which will command more than a moiety of our consideration.

This may be said to imply a preference to the study of Language as opposed to that of Languages—a singular preference, as a grammarian may, perhaps, be allowed to call it. It cannot be denied that, to a certain extent, such is the case; but it is only so to a certain extent. The one is not magnified at the expense of the other. When all has been said that logic or mental philosophy can say about the high value of comparative philology, general grammar, and the like, the lowest value of the least important language will still stand high, and pre-eminently high that of what may be called the noble Languages. No variations in the philological barometer, no fluctuations in the Exchange of Language, will ever bring down the advantage of studying one, two, or even more foreign languages to so low a level as to expel such tongues as the Latin, the Greek, the French, or the German, one and all, from an English curriculum—and vice versâ, English from a foreign one.

Now, if this be the case, one of the elements in the value of the study of Language in general will be the extent to which it facilitates the acquirement of any one language[Pg 31] in particular, and this element of value will be an important—though not the most important—one.

The structure of the human body is worth knowing, even if the investigator of it be neither a practitioner in medicine nor a teacher of anatomy; and, in like manner, the structure of the human language is an important study irrespective of the particular forms of speech whereof it may facilitate the acquirement.

The words on the diagram-board will now be explained. They are meant to illustrate the class of facts that comparative philology supplies.

The first runs—

Klein : Clean :: Petit : Petitus.

It shows the extent to which certain ideas are associated. It shows, too, something more; it shows that such an association is capable of being demonstrated from the phenomena of language instead of being a mere à priori speculation on the part of the mental philosopher.

Klein is the German for little; clean is our own English adjective, the English of the Latin word mundus. In German the word is rein.

Now, notwithstanding the difference of meaning in the two tongues, clean and klein are one and the same word. Yet, how are the ideas of cleanliness and littleness connected? The Greek language has the word hypocorisma, meaning a term of endearment, and the adjective hypocoristic. Now, clean-ness, or neat-ness, is one of the elements that make hypocoristic terms (or terms of endearment) applicable. And so is smallness. We talk of pretty little dears, a thousand times, where we talk of pretty big dears once. This, then, explains the connexion; this tells us that clean in English is klein in German, word for word.

You doubt it, perhaps. You shake your head, and say, that the connexion seems somewhat indefinite; that it is just one of those points which can neither be proved nor disproved. Be it so. The evidence can be amended. Observe the words petit and petitus. Petit (in French) is exactly what klein is in German, i. e., little. Petitus (in Latin) is very nearly what clean is in English, i. e., desired, or desirable. That petit comes from petitus is undeniable.

Hence, where the German mode of thought connects the ideas of smallness and cleanness, the Latin connects those of smallness and desirability; so that as petit is to petitus, so is klein to clean. In the diagram this is given in the formula of a sum in the Rule of Three.

[Pg 32]

The words just noticed explain the connexion of ideas in the case of separate words. The forthcoming help us in a much more difficult investigation. What is the import of such sounds as that of the letter s in the word father-s? It is the sign of the plural number.

Such is the question—such the answer; question and answer connected in the word fathers solely for the sake of illustration. Any other word, and any other sign of case, number, person, or tense, would have done as well.

But is the answer a real one? Is it an answer at all? How come such things as plural numbers, and signs of plural numbers, into language? How the particular plural before us came into being, I cannot say; but I can show how some plurals have. Let us explain the following—

The da (or de) in the second column, is the sign of the plural number in a language which shall at present be nameless. It is also the preposition with. Now with denotes association, association plurality. Hence

This is just as if the Latins, instead of nos and vos, said me-cum and te-cum.

Such is the history of one mode of expressing the idea of plurality; we can scarcely say of a plural number. The words plural number suggest the idea of a single word, like fathers, where the s is inseparably connected with the root; at least so far inseparably connected as to have no independent existence of its own. Ngi-n-de, however, is no single word at all, but a pair of words in juxta-position, each with a separate existence of its own. But what if this juxta-position grow into amalgamation; What if the form in da change? What if it become t or z, or th, or s? What if, meanwhile, the separate preposition da change in form also; in form or meaning, or, perhaps, in both? In such a case a true plural form is evolved, the history of its evolution being a mystery.

So much for one of the inflections of a noun. The remaining words illustrate one of a verb.

[Pg 33]

Hundreds of grammarians have suggested that the signs of the persons in the verb might be neither more nor less than the personal pronouns appended; in the first instance, to the verb, but, afterwards amalgamated or incorporated with it. If so, the -m in inqua-m, is the m in me, &c. The late Mr. Garnett, a comparative philologist whose reputation is far below his merits, saw that this was not exactly the case. He observed that the appended pronoun was not so much the Personal as the Possessive one: that the analysis of a word like inqua-m was not so much, say+I, as saying+my; in short, that the verb was a noun, and the pronoun either an adjective (like meus) or an oblique case (like mei), agreeing with, or governed by, it.

It is certainly so in the words before you. In a language, which, at present, shall be nameless, instead of saying my apple, thy apple, they say what is equivalent to apple-m, apple-th, &c.; i. e., they append the possessive pronoun to the substantive, and by modifying its form, partially incorporate or amalgamate it. They do more than this. They do (as the diagram shows us) precisely the same with the verbs in their personal, as they do with the nouns in their possessive, relations. Hence, olvas-om, &c., is less I read than my-reading; less read+I, than reading+my.

1.

2.

I submit, that facts of this kind are of some value, great or small. But the facts themselves are not all. How were they got at? They were got at by dealing with the phenomena of language as we found them, by an induction of no ordinary width and compass; for many forms of speech had to be investigated before the facts came out in their best and most satisfactory form.

The illustration of the verb (olvasom, and almám, &c.) is from the Hungarian; that of the plural number (nginde, &c.), from the Tumali—the Tumali being a language no nearer[Pg 34] than the negro districts to the south of Kordovan, between Sennaar and Darfur, and (as such) not exactly in the highway of literature and philology.

Now I ask whether there be, or whether there be not, certain branches of inquiry which are, at one and the same time, recognised to be of the highest importance, and yet not very remarkable for either unanimity of opinion, precision of language, or distinctness of idea on the part of their professors. I ask whether what is called, with average clearness, Mental Philosophy, and, with somewhat less clearness, Metaphysics, be not in this predicament? I ask whether, in this branch of investigation, the subject-matter do not eminently desiderate something definite, palpable, and objective, and whether these same desiderated tangibilities be not found in the wide field of Language to an extent which no other field supplies? Let this field be a training-ground. The facts it gives are of value. The method it requires is of value.

As the languages of the world, as the forms of speech mutually unintelligible, are counted by the hundred, and the dialects by the thousand, the field is a large one—one supplying much exercise, work, and labour. But the applications of the results obtained are wide also; for, as long as any form of mental philosophy remains susceptible of improvement, as long as its improved form remains undiffused, so long will a knowledge of the structure of language in general, a knowledge of comparative philology, a knowledge of general grammar (for we may choose our term), have its use and application. And, assuredly, this will be for some time.

As to its special value in the particular department of the ethnologist, high as it is, I say nothing, or next to nothing, about it; concerning myself only with its more general applications.

Let it be said, then, that the study of language is eminently disciplinal to those faculties that are tasked in the investigation of the phenomena of the human mind; the value of a knowledge of these being a matter foreign to the present dissertation, but being by no means low. High or low, however, it measures that of the studies under notice.

But how is this general philology to be taught? Are youths to seek for roots and processes in such languages as the Hungarian and the Tumali? No. The teaching must be by means of well-selected suggestive examples, whereby the student may rise from particulars to generals, and be taught to infer the uncertain from the certain. I do not say that the s in fathers arose exactly after the fashion of the Tumali plural; but, assuredly, its development was the same in[Pg 35] kind, if not in detail. At all events, language must be dealt with as a growth.

In the first stage of speech, there are no inflections at all, separate words serving instead of them:—just as if, instead of saying fathers, we said father many, or father father; reduplication being one of the make-shifts (so to say) of this period. The languages allied to the Chinese belong to this class.

In the second stage, the separate words coalesce, but not so perfectly as to disfigure their originally separate character. The Hungarian persons have illustrated this. Language now becomes what is called agglutinate. The parts cohere, but the cohesion is imperfect. The majority of languages are agglutinate.

The Latin and Greek tongues illustrate the third stage. The parts originally separate, then agglutinate, now become so modified by contact as to look like secondary parts of a single word; these original separate substantive characters being a matter of inference rather than a patent and transparent fact. The s in fathers (which is also the s in patre-s and πάτερε-ς) is in this predicament.

Lastly, inflections are replaced by prepositions and auxiliary verbs, as is the case in the Italian and French when compared with the Latin.

Truly, then, may we say that the phenomena of speech are the phenomena of growth, evolution, or development; and as such must they be taught. A cell that grows,—not a crystal that is built up,—such is language.

But these well-devised selections of suggestive examples, whereby the student may rise from particulars to generals, &c., are not to be found in the ordinary grammars. Indeed, it is the very reverse of the present system; where there are twenty appeals to the memory in the shape of what is called a rule, for one appeal to the understanding in the shape of an illustrated process. So much the worse for the existing methods.

Moulds applied to growing trees—cookery-book receipts for making a natural juice—these are the parallels to the artificial systems of grammar in their worst forms. The better can be excused, sometimes recommended; even as the Linnæan system of botanical teaching can, in certain cases, be used with safety, provided always that its artificial character be explained beforehand, and insisted on throughout.

To stand on the level of the Linnæan system, an artificial grammar must come under the following condition:—It must leave the student nothing to unlearn when he comes to a natural one.

[Pg 36]

How can this be done? It can be done, if the grammarian will be content to teach forms only, leaving processes alone. Let him say (for instance) that the Latin for—

But do not let him say that active aorists are formed from futures, and passive ones from the third person singular of the perfect. His forms, his paradigms, will be right; his rules, in nine cases out of ten, wrong. I am satisfied that languages can be taught without rules and by paradigms only.

This recognition of what has been called artificial grammar for the teaching of special languages, as opposed to the general grammar of the comparative philologist, should serve to anticipate an objection. 'Would you,' it may be asked, 'leave the details of languages like the Latin, Greek, French, German, &c.—languages of eminent practical utility—untaught until such time as the student shall have dipped into Chinese, touched upon Hungarian, and taken a general idea of the third stage of development from the Latin, and of the fourth from the French? If so, the period of life when the memory for words is strongest will have passed away before any language but his own mother-tongue has been acquired.'

The recognition of such a thing as artificial grammar answers this in the negative. If a special language be wanted, let it be taught by-times: only, if it cannot be taught in the most scientific manner, let it be taught in a manner as little unscientific as possible.

In this lies an argument against the ordinary teaching (I speak as an Englishman) of English. What do we learn by it?

In the ordinary teaching of what is called the grammar of the English language there are two elements. There is something professed to be taught which is not taught, but which, if taught, would be worth learning; and there is something which, from being already learned better than any man can teach it, requires no lessons. The one (the latter) is the use and practice of the English tongue. This the Englishman has already. The other is the principles of grammar. With existing text-books this is an impossibility. What then is taught? Something (I am quoting from what I have written elsewhere) undoubtedly. The facts, that language is more or less regular; that there is such a thing[Pg 37] as grammar; that certain expressions should be avoided, are all matters worth knowing. And they are all taught even by the worst method of teaching. But are these the proper objects of systematic teaching? Is the importance of their acquisition equivalent to the time, the trouble, and the displacement of more valuable subjects, which are involved in their explanation? I think not. Gross vulgarity of language is a fault to be prevented; but the proper prevention is to be got from habit—not rules. The proprieties of the English language are to be learned, like the proprieties of English manners, by conversation and intercourse; and a proper school for both, is the best society in which the learner is placed. If this be good, systematic teaching is superfluous; if bad, insufficient. There are undoubted points where a young person may doubt as to the grammatical propriety of a certain expression. In this case let him ask some one older and more instructed. Grammar, as a art, is, undoubtedly, the art of speaking and writing correctly—but then, as an art, it is only required for foreign languages. For our own we have the necessary practice and familiarity.

The true claim of English grammar to form part and parcel of an English education stands or falls with the value of the philological knowledge to which grammatical studies may serve as an introduction, and with the value of scientific grammar as a disciplinal study. I have no fear of being supposed to undervalue its importance in this respect. Indeed, in assuming that it is very great, I also assume that wherever grammar is studied as grammar, the language which the grammar so studied should represent, must be the mother-tongue of the student; whatever that mother-tongue may be—English for Englishmen, Welsh for Welshmen, French for Frenchmen, German for Germans, &c. The study is the study of a theory; and for this reason it should be complicated as little as possible by points of practice. For this reason a man's mother-tongue is the best medium for the elements of scientific philology, simply because it is the one which he knows best in practice.

Limit, then, the teaching of English, except so far as it is preparatory to the study of language in general; with which view, teach as scientifically as possible.

Go further. Except in special cases, limit the teaching of the classical tongues to one out of the two. One, for all disciplinal purposes, is enough. In this, go far. Dead though the tongue be, and object of ridicule as the occupation is becoming, go to the length of writing verses, though only in a few of the commoner metres. Go far, and go in one[Pg 38] direction only. There are reasons for this singleness of path. I fear that there is almost a necessity. As long as men believed that the ordinary Latin and Greek grammars were good things of themselves, and that, even if they did not carry the student far into the classics, they told him something of value respecting language in general, a little learning in the dead languages was a good thing. But what if the grammars are not good things? What if they are absolutely bad? In such a case, the classical tongues cease to be learnt except for themselves. Now, one of the few things that is more useless than a little Latin is a little Greek.

Am I wrong in saying that, with nine out of ten who learn both Latin and Greek, the knowledge of the two tongues conjointly is not greater than the knowledge of one of them singly ought to be?

Am I wrong in believing that the tendencies of the age are in favour of decreasing rather than increasing the amount of time bestowed upon classical scholarship?

Unless I be so, the necessity for a limitation is apparent.

To curtail English—to eliminate one of the classical tongues—possibly that of Pericles, at any rate, either that of Pericles or of Cicero—to substitute for the ordinary elements of a so-called classical education illustrations from the Chinese, the Hungarian, or the Tumali—this is what I have recommended.

I cannot but feel that in so doing I may seem to some to have been false to my text, which was to eulogize things philological. They may say, Call you this backing your friends? I do. It is not by glorifying one's own more peculiar studies that such studies gain credit. To show the permanent, rather than the accidental, elements of their value, is the best service that can be done for them. It is also good service to show that they can be taught with a less expenditure of time and labour than is usually bestowed on them. But the best service of all is to indicate their disciplinal value; and to show that, instead of displacing other branches of knowledge, they so exercise certain faculties of the mind as to prepare the way to them.

[Pg 39]

READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

DECEMBER THE 18TH 1857.

The present paper is an attempt to reconcile the logical and etymological meanings of the word Distributed.

Speaking roughly, distributed means universal: "a term is said to be distributed when it is taken universally, so as to stand for everything it is capable of being applied to."—Whately, i. § 5.

Speaking more closely, it means universal in one premiss; it being a rule in the ordinary logic that no conclusion is possible unless one premiss be, either negatively or affirmatively, universal.

Assuredly there is no etymological connexion between the two words. Hence De Morgan writes:—"By distributed is here meant universally spoken of. I do not use this term in the present work, because I do not see why, in any deducible meaning of the word distributed, it can be applied to universal as distinguished from particular."—Formal Logic, chap. vii.

Neither can it be so applied. It is nevertheless an accurate term.

Let it mean related to more than one class, and the power of the prefix dis-, at least, becomes intelligible.

For all the purposes of logic this is not enough; inasmuch as the particular character of the relation (all-important in the structure of the syllogism) is not, at present, given. It is enough, however, to give import to the syllable dis-.

[Pg 40]

In affirmative propositions this relation is connective on both sides, i. e. the middle term forms part of both the others. In negative propositions this relation is connective on one side, disjunctive on the other.

In—

the middle term men forms a part of the class called mortal, by being connected with it in the way that certain contents are connected with the case that contains them; whilst it also stands in connexion with the class of heroes in the way that cases are connected with their contents. In—

the same double relation occurs. The class man, however, though part of the class hero, is no part of the class perfect but, on the contrary, expressly excluded from it. Now this expression of exclusion constitutes a relation—disjunctive indeed, but still a relation; and this is all that is wanted to give an import to the prefix dis- in distributed.

Wherever there is distribution there is inference, no matter whether the distributed term be universal or not. If the ordinary rules for the structure of the syllogism tell us the contrary to this, they only tell the truth, so far as certain assumptions on which they rest are legitimate. These limit us to the use of three terms expressive of quantity,—all, none, and some; and it is quite true that, with this limitation, universality and distribution coincide.

Say that

and the question will arise whether the Y that is X is also the Y that is Z. That some Y belongs to both classes is clear; whether, however, it be the same Y is doubtful. Yet unless it be so, no conclusion can be drawn. And it may easily be different. Hence, as long as we use the word some, we have no assurance that there is any distribution of the middle term.

Instead, however, of some write all, and it is obvious that some Y must be both X and Z; and when such is the case—

Universality, then, of the middle term in one premiss is, by no means, the direct condition that gives us an inference, but only a secondary one. The direct condition is the distribution. Of this, the universality of the middle term is only a sign, and it is the only sign we have, because all and some are the only words we have to choose from. If others were[Pg 41] allowed, the appearance which the two words (distributed and universal) have of being synonymous would disappear. And so they do when we abandon the limitations imposed upon us by the words all and some. So they do in the numerically definite syllogism, exemplified in—

So, also, they do when it is assumed that the Y's which are X and the Y's which are Z are identical.

In each of these formulæ there is distribution without universality, i. e. there is distribution with a quality other than that of universality as its criterion. The following extract not only explains this, but gives a fresh proof, if fresh proof be needed, that distributed and universal are used synonymously. The "comparison of each of the two terms must be equally with the whole, or with the same part of the third term; and to secure this, (1) either the middle term must be distributed in one premiss at least, or (2) the two terms must be compared with the same specified part of the middle, or (3), in the two premises taken together, the middle must be distributed, and something more, though not distributed in either singly."—Thompson, Outline of the Laws of Thought, § 39.

Here distributed means universal; Mr. Thompson's being the ordinary terminology. In the eyes of the present writer "distributed in one premiss" is a contradiction in terms.

Of the two terms, distributed is the more general; yet it is not the usual one. That it has been avoided by De Morgan has been shown. It may be added, that from the Port Royal Logic it is wholly excluded.

The statement that, in negative propositions, the relation is connective on one side, and disjunctive on the other, requires further notice. It is by no means a matter of indifference on which side the connexion or disjunction lies.

(a.) It is the class denoted by the major, of which the middle term of a negative syllogism is expressly stated to form no part, or from which it is disjoined. (b.) It is the class denoted by the minor, of which the same middle term is expressly stated to form part, or with which it is connected.

here the proposition is a major, and the middle term man is expressly separated from the class perfect.

[Pg 42]

here it is a minor, and the middle term man is expressly connected with class hero.

A connective relation to the major, and a disjunctive relation to the minor are impossible in negative syllogisms. The exceptions to this are only apparent. The two most prominent are the formulæ Camestres and Camenes, in both of which it is the minor premiss wherein the relation is disjunctive. But this is an accident; an accident arising out of the fact of the major and minor being convertible.

Bokardo is in a different predicament. Bokardo, along with Baroko, is the only formula containing a particular negative as a premiss. Now the particular negatives are, for so many of the purposes of logic, particular affirmatives, that they may be neglected for the present; the object at present being to ascertain the rules for the structure of truly and unquestionably negative syllogisms. Of these we may predicate that—their minor proposition is always either actually affirmative or capable of becoming so by transposition.

To go further into the relations between the middle term and the minor, would be to travel beyond the field under present notice; the immediate object of the present paper being to explain the import of the word distributed. That it may, both logically and etymologically, mean related to two classes is clear—clear as a matter of fact. Whether, however, related to two classes be the meaning that the history of logic gives us, is a point upon which I abstain from giving an opinion. I only suggest that, in elementary treatises, the terms universal and distributed should be separated more widely than they are; one series of remarks upon—

a. Distribution as a condition of inference, being followed by another on—

b. Universality of the middle term in one premiss as a sign of distribution.

So much for the extent to which the present remarks suggest the purely practical question as to how the teaching of Aristotelian logic may be improved. There is another, however, beyond it; one of a more theoretical, indeed of an eminently theoretical, nature. It raises doubts as to the propriety of the word all itself; doubts as to the propriety of the term universal.

The existence of such a word as all in the premiss, although existing therein merely as a contrivance for reconciling the evidence of the distribution of the middle term with a certain amount of simplicity in the way of terminology, could scarcely fail, in conjunction with some of its other properties, to give it what is here considered an undue amount of im[Pg 43]portance. It made it look like the opposite to none. Yet this is what it is not. The opposite to none is not-none, or some; the opposite to all is one. In one and all we have the highest and lowest numbers of the individuals that constitute a class. In none and some we have the difference between existence and non-existence. That all is a mere mode of some, has been insisted on by many logicians, denied by few or none. Between all and some, there is, at best, but a difference of degree. Between some and none, the difference is a difference of kind. Some may, by strengthening, be converted into all. No strengthening may obliterate the difference between all and not-all. From this it follows that the logic of none and some, the logic of connexion and disjunction (the logic of two signs), is much more widely different from the logic of part and whole (the logic of three signs) than is usually admitted; the former being a logic of pure quality, the latter a logic of quality and quantity as well.

Has the admixture done good? I doubt whether it has. The logic of pure and simple Quality would, undoubtedly, have given but little; nothing but negative conclusions on one side, and possible particulars on the other. Nevertheless it would have given a logic of the Possible and Impossible.

Again, as at present constituted, the Quantitative logic, the logic of all and some, embraces either too much or too little. All is, as aforesaid, only a particular form of more than none. So is most. Now such syllogisms as—

are inadmissible in the Aristotelian paradigms. A claim, however, is set up for their admission. Grant it, and you may say instead of most—

but this is only a particular instance. You may combine any two numbers in any way you like, provided only that the sum be greater than unity. Now this may be arithmetic, and it may be fact; but it is scarcely formal logic; at any rate it is anything but general.

It is the logic of some and its modifications one, all, and anything between one and all, as opposed to the logic of the simple absolute some (some the opposite to none), and a little consideration will show that it is also the logic of the probable, with its modification the proven, (proven is probable, as all is[Pg 44] some,) as opposed to the logic of the possible and impossible. Let, in such a pair of propositions as—

the number expressed by some, as well as the number of the men of the brigade, be known, and the question as to whether

is a problem in the doctrine of chances. One per cent. of each will make it very unlikely that the single brave man was also the single killed one. Forty-nine per cent. of each will make it highly probable that more than one good soldier met his fate. With fifty on one side, and fifty-one on the other, we have one at least. With all (either killed or brave), we have the same; and that without knowing any numbers at all.

[Pg 45]

READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY,
MARCH 22. 1844.

The present paper is upon the reciprocal pronouns, and upon certain forms of the verb used in a reciprocal sense. It is considered that these points of language have not been put forwards with that prominence and care which their value in the solution of certain problems in philology requires. Too often the terms Reciprocal and Reflective have been made synonymous. How far this is true may be determined by the fact that the middle verbs in the Icelandic language have been called by so great a philologist as Rask reciprocal instead of reflective. This is equivalent to treating sentences like we strike ourselves, and we strike each other, as identical. Yet the language with which Rask was dealing (the Icelandic) was the one of all others wherein the difference in question required to be accurately drawn, and fully pointed out. (See Anvisning till Isländskan, pp. 281, 283.)

In all sentences containing the statement of a reciprocal or mutual action there are in reality two assertions, viz. the assertion that A strikes (or loves) B, and the assertion that B strikes (or loves) A; the action forming one, the reaction another. Hence, if the expression exactly coincided with the fact signified, there would always be two propositions. This, however, is not the habit of language. Hence arises a more[Pg 46] compendious form of expression, giving origin to an ellipsis of a peculiar kind. Phrases like Eteocles and Polynices killed each other are elliptical for Eteocles and Polynices killed—each the other. Here the second proposition expands and explains the first, whilst the first supplies the verb to the second. Each, however, is elliptic. The first is without the object, the second without the verb. That the verb must be in the plural (or dual) number, that one of the nouns must be in the nominative case, and that the other must be objective, is self-evident from the structure of the sentence; such being the conditions of the expression of the idea. An aposiopesis takes place after a plural verb, and then there follows a clause wherein the verb is supplied from what went before.

When words equivalent to each other coalesce, and become compound; it is evident that the composition is of a very peculiar kind. Less, however, for these matters than for its value in elucidating the origin of certain deponent verbs does the expression of reciprocal action merit the notice of the philologist. In the latter part of the paper it will appear that for one branch of languages, at least, there is satisfactory evidence of a reflective form having become reciprocal, and of a reciprocal form having become deponent; this latter word being the term for those verbs whereof the meaning is active, and the form passive.

Beginning with those methods of denoting mutual action where the expression is the least explicit and unequivocal, it appears that in certain languages the reciprocal character of the verb is implied rather than expressed. Each man looked at his brother—or some equivalent clause, is the general phraseology of the Semitic languages.

More explicit than this is the use of a single pronoun (personal, possessive, or reflective) and of some adverb equivalent to the words mutually, interchangeably, &c. This is the habit of the Latin language,—Eteocles et Polynices invicem se trucidaverunt: also of the French, although not invariably, e. g. s'entr'aimer, s'entredire, s'entrebattre: also of the Mœso-Gothic—galeikái sind barnam tháim vôpjandam seina missô = ὁόμοιοί ἐισι παιδίοις τοῖς προσφωνοῦσιν ἁλλήλοις = loquentibus ad invicem.—Luc. vii. 32. Deutsche Grammatik, iv. 322, and iii. 13. The Welsh expressions are of this kind; the only difference being that the adverb coalesces with the verb, as an inseparable particle, and so forms a compound. These particles are dym, cym, or cy and ym. The former is compounded of dy, signifying iteration, and ym denoting mutual action; the latter is the Latin cum. Hence the reciprocal power of these particles is secondary: e. g. dymborthi, to aid[Pg 47] mutually; dymddadlu, to dispute; dymgaru, to love one another; dymgoddi, to vex one another; dymgredu, to trust one another, or confide; dymguraw, to strike one another, or fight; çyçwennys, to desire mutually; cydadnabod, to know one another; cydaddawiad, to promise mutually; cydwystlaw, to pledge; cydymadrawn, to converse; cydymdaith, to accompany; ymadroddi, to discourse; ymaddaw, to promise; ymavael, to struggle; ymdaeru, to dispute, &c.

The form, which is at once current, full, and unequivocal, is the one that occurs in our own, and in the generality of languages. Herein there are two nouns (generally pronouns), and the construction is of the kind exhibited above—ἁλλήλους, each other, einander, l'un l'autre, &c.

Sometimes the two nouns remain separate, each preserving its independent form. This is the case in most of the languages derived from the Latin, in several of the Slavonic and Lithuanic dialects, and in (amongst others) the Old Norse, the Swedish, and the Danish,—l'un l'autre, French; uno otro, Span.; geden druheho, Bohemian; ieden drugiego, Polish; wiens wienâ, Lith.; weens ohtru, Lettish; hvert annan (masc.), hvert annat (neut.) Old Norse. See D. G. iii. 84.

Sometimes the two nouns coalesce, and form words to which it would be a mere refinement to deny the name of compounds: this is the case with the Greek—ἁλλήλον, ἁλλήλοις, ἁλλήλους.

Sometimes it is doubtful whether the phrase consist of a compound word or a pair of words. This occurs where, from the want of inflection, the form of the first word is the same in composition as it would have been out of it. Such is the case with our own language: each-other, one-another.

Throughout the mass of languages in general the details of the expression in question coincide; both subject and object are almost always expressed by pronouns, and these pronouns are much the same throughout. One, or some word equivalent, generally denotes the subject. Other, or some word equivalent, generally denotes the object, e. g. they struck one another. The varieties of expression may be collected from the following sketch:—

1. a. The subject is expressed by one, or some word equivalent, in most of the languages derived from the Latin, in several of the Slavonic dialects, in Lithuanic and Lettish, in Armenian, in German, in English, and doubtlessly in many other languages—l'un l'autre, Fr.; uno otro, Sp.; ieden drugiego, Polish; wiens wienâ, Lith.; weens ohtru, Lett.; me mæants, Armenian; einander, Germ.; one another, Engl.

b. By each, or some equivalent term, in English, Dutch,[Pg 48] and the Scandinavian languages—each other, English; elkander, Dutch; hverandre, Icelandic, Danish, Swedish.

c. By this, or some equivalent term, in Swedish and Danish (hinanden); in Lithuanic (kitts kittâ), and in Lettish (zitts zittu).

d. By other, or some equivalent term, in Greek and Armenian; ἁλλήλους, irærats.

e. By man, used in an indefinite sense and compounded with lik in Dutch, malkander (mal-lik manlik).

f. By a term equivalent to mate or fellow in Laplandic—gòim gòimeme.—Rask, 'Lappisk Sproglære,' p. 102. Stockfleth, 'Grammatik,' p. 109.

2. a. In the expression of the object the current term is other or some equivalent word. Of this the use is even more constant than that of one expressive of the subject—l'un l'autre, French; uno otro, Spanish; ἁλλήλους, Greek; geden druheho, Bohemian; ieden drugiego, Polish; weens ohtru, Lettish; irærats, Armenian; einander, German; each other, one another, English.

b. In Lithuanic the term in use is one; as, wiens wienâ. The same is the case for a second form in the Armenian mimœan.

c. In Laplandic it is denoted in the same as the subject; as gòim gòimeme.

Undoubtedly there are other varieties of this general method of expression. Upon those already exhibited a few remarks, however, may be made.

1. In respect to languages like the French, Spanish, &c., where the two nouns, instead of coalescing, remain separate, each retaining its inflection, it is clear that they possess a greater amount of perspicuity; inasmuch as (to say nothing of the distinction of gender) the subject can be used in the singular number when the mutual action of two persons (i. e. of one upon another) is spoken of, and in the plural when we signify that of more than two; e. g. ils (i. e. A and B) se battaient—l'un l'autre: but ils (A, B, C and D,) se battaient—les uns les autres. This degree of perspicuity might be attained in English and other allied languages by reducing to practice the difference between the words each and one; in which case we might say A and B struck one another, but A, B and C struck each other. In the Scandinavian languages this distinction is real; where hinanden is equivalent to l'un l'autre, French; uno otro, Spanish: whilst hverandre expresses les uns les autres, French; unos otros, Spanish. The same is the case in the Laplandic.—See Rask's Lappisk Sproglære, p. 102.

[Pg 49]

2. An analysis of such an expression as they praise one another's (or each other's) conduct, will show the lax character of certain forms in the Swedish. Of the two pronouns it is only the latter that appears in an oblique case, and this necessarily; hence the Swedish form hvarsannars is illogical. It is precisely what one's another's would be in English, or ἄλλων ἄλλων for ἁλλήλων in Greek. The same applies to the M. H. G. einen anderen. D. G. iii. 83.

3. The term expressive of the object appears in three forms, viz. preceded by the definite article (l'un l'autre), by the indefinite article (one another), and finally, standing alone (each other, einander). Of these three forms the first is best suited for expressing the reciprocal action of two persons (one out of two struck the other); whilst the second or third is fittest for signifying the reciprocal action of more than two (one out of many struck, and was struck by, some other).

The third general method of expressing mutual or reciprocal action is by the use of some particular form of the verb. In two, and probably more, of the African languages (the Woloff and Bechuana) this takes place. In the Turkish there is also a reciprocal form: as sui-mek, to love; baki-mek, to look; sui-sh-mek, to love one another; baki-sh-mek, to look at one another; su-il-mek, to be loved; sui-sh-il-mek, to be loved mutually.—David's Turkish Grammar.

The fourth form of expression gives the fact alluded to at the beginning of the paper: viz. an instrument of criticism in investigating the origin of certain deponent verbs. In all languages there is a certain number of verbs denoting actions, reciprocal or mutual to the agents. Such are the words embrace, converse, strive against, wrestle, fight, rival, meet, and several more. There are also other words where the existence of two parties is essential to the idea conveyed, and where the notion, if not that of reciprocal action, is akin to it; viz. reproach, compromise, approach, &c. Now in certain languages (the Latin and Greek) some of these verbs have a passive form; i. e. they are deponents,—loquor, colloquor, luctor, reluctor, amplector, suavior, osculor, suspicor, Latin; φιλοτιμέομαι, φιλοφρονέομαι, μάχομαι, διαλέγομαι, ἁλέομαι, διαλύομαι, ἁμείβομαι &c., Greek. Hence arises the hypothesis, that it is to their reciprocal power on the one hand, and to the connexion between the passive, reflective and reciprocal forms on the other, that these verbs owe their deponent character. The fact essential to the probability of this hypothesis is the connexion between the reflective forms and the reciprocal ones.

Now for one branch of languages this can be shown most[Pg 50] satisfactorily. In Icelandic the middle voice is formed from the active by the addition of the reflective pronoun, mik, me, sik, him or self. Hence it is known by the terminations mc and sc, and by certain modifications of these affixes, viz. st, s, z, mz, ms. In the oldest stage of the language the reflective power of the middle voice, to the exclusion of a passive sense, is most constant: e. g. hann var nafnadr=he had the name given him; hann nefnist=he gave as his name, or named himself. It was only when the origin of the middle form became indistinct that its sense became either passive or deponent; as it generally is in the modern tongues of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Now in the modern Scandinavian languages we have, on the one hand, certain deponent forms expressive of reciprocal action; whilst on the other we have, even in the very earliest stages of the Old Norse, middle or reflective forms used in a reciprocal sense. Of some of these, examples will be given: but the proof of their sense being reciprocal will not be equally conclusive in all. Some may perhaps be looked on as deponents (ættust, beriast, skiliast, mödast); whilst others may be explained away by the assumption of a passive construction (fundoz=they were found, not they found each other). Whatever may be the case with the words taken from the middle and modern stages of the language, this cannot be entertained in regard to the examples drawn from the oldest Norse composition, the Edda of Sæmund. For this reason the extracts from thence are marked Edd. Sæm., and of these (and these alone) the writer has attempted to make the list exhaustive. The translations in Latin and Danish are those of the different editors.

1. Ættust, fought each other.

2. Beriaz, strike each other.

Voluspa, 41. Edd. Sæm.

This word is used in almost every page of the Sagas as a deponent signifying to fight: also in the Feroic dialect.

3. Bregþaz, interchange.

Helga-Qviþa Hundlingsbana, i. 41. ii. 26. Edd. Sæm.

4. Drepiz, kill one another.

finnuz þeir báder daudir—— en ecki vapn höfþu þeir nema[Pg 51] bitlana af hestinum, ok þat hygia menn at þeir (Alrek and Eirek) hafi drepiz þar med. Sva segir Ðiodolfr.; "Drepaz kvádu."—Heimskringla. Ynglinga-Saga, p. 23.

The brothers were found dead—and no weapons had they except the bits of their horses, and men think they (Alrek and Eirek) had killed each other therewith. So says Thiodolf.: "They said that they killed each other."

5. Um-faþmaz, embrace each other. See Atla-Quiþa hin Grænslenzko, 42.—Edd. Sæm.

6. Földes, fell in with each other.—Om morgonet effter földes wy in Kobenhaffn.—Norwegian Letters in 1531, A. D. See Samlingar til det Norske Folks Sprog og Historie, I. 2. 70. The morning after we fell in with each other in Copenhagen.

7. Funduz, found each other, met. See Vafþrudnis-mal 17.—Sigurd-Quiþ. i. 6. Edd. Sæm.—Fareyingar-Saga, p. 44. Ðeir funduz is rendered de fandt hverandre=they found each other, in Haldorsen's Lexic. Island.

Harbards-l: 24. Edd. Sæm.

8. Gættuz, consult each other. See Voluspa, 6. 9. 21. 23. Edd. Sæm.

9. Glediaz, rejoice each other.

Rigsmal. 41.

The middle form and reciprocal sense of erost is remarkable in this passage.

10. Hauggvaz, hack each other, fight.

Vafþrudnis-Mal. 41. Edd. Sæm.

Sig-Qvið. ii. 1. Edd. Sæm.

11. Hættaz, cease.

Harbardslióð, 51. Edd. Sæm.

Such is the translation of the editors, although the reciprocal power is not unequivocal.

12. Hittaz, hit upon each other, meet. Hittoz, Voluspa, 7. Hittomk, Hadding-skata, 22. Hittaz, Solar-l: 82. Edd. Sæm. Hittust, Ol. Trygv. Sag. p. 90. Hittuz oc beriaz, Heimskringla, Saga Halfd. Svart. p. 4. Hittuz, Yngl. Sag. p. 42. alibi passim þeir hittu is rendered, in Bjorn Haldorsen's Islandic Lexicon, de traf hinanden, they hit upon each other.

13. Kiempis, fight each other,

gaar udi gaarden oc kiempis, oc nelegger hver hinanden, goes out in the house and fight each the other, and each knocks down the other.

Such is the translation by Resenius, in modern Danish, of the following extract from Snorro's Edda, p. 34.—Ganga ut i gardinn og beriast, og fellar huor annar. Here the construction is not, they fell (or knock down) each the other, but each fells the other; since fellar and nelegger are singular forms.

14. Mælast, talk to each other, converse. Talast, ditto.

Mæliz þu. Vafþrudnismal, 9.

melomc i sessi saman=colloquamur sedentes. ib. 19. Edd. Sæm.

mælast þeir vid, ádr þeir skiliast, at þeir mundi þar finnast þa,—Fóstbrædra-Saga, p. 7.

they said to each other before they parted from each other that they should meet each other there.

Yngvi ok Bera satu ok töluduz vidr.—Heimskr. Yngl. S. p. 24.

Griss mælti; hverír ero þessir menn er sva tulast vid bliðliga? Avàldi svarar; þa er Hallfreydr Ottarson ok Kolfinna dóthir min. Ol. Trygyv. Saga, p. 152. Griss said, who are these persons who talk together so blithely? Avaldi answers, they are Halfrid Ottarson and Kolfinna my daughter. Talast is similarly used in Feroic. Kvödust, bespoke each other, occurs in the same sense—þat var einn dag at Brand ok Finbogi fundust ok kvödust blídliga.—Vatnsdæla-Sag. p. 16.

15. Mettæst, meet each other, meet.

[Pg 53]

Kungen aff Ffranchriche, kungen aff England, oc kungen aff Schottland skule motes til Chalis.—Letter from Bergen in 1531, from Samlinger til det Norske Folks Sprog og Historie, i. 2. p. 53. The king of France, the king of England, and the king of Scotland should meet each other at Calais.

Throughout the Danish, Swedish and Feroic, this verb is used as a deponent.

16. Rekaz, vex each other.

Rigsmal. 32. Edd. Sæm.

17. Sakaz, accuse each other, recriminate.

Hamdis-Mal. 28.

Ægis-drecka, 5.

Ibid. 19. Edd. Sæm.

18. Saz, looked at each other.

Rigsmal. 24.

19. Sættaz, settle between each other, reconcile.—Atla-Mal. 45. Edd. Sæm.

Komu vinir þveggia þvi vid, at þeir sættuz, ok lögdu konungar stefnu med sér, ok hittuz ok gérdo frit mellum sin.—Heimsk. Yngling-S. 42.

There came friends of both in order that they should be reconciled, and the kings sent messages between them, and met and made peace between them.—Also Vatnsd. S. p. 16.

20. Seljas, to give to each other.

Sig. Qv. iii. 1. Edd. Sæm.

[Pg 54]

21. Sendaz, send, or let pass between each other.

Atla-Mal. 85.

Here, over and above the use of senduz and henduz, ser is equivalent to hinanden.

22. Skiliaz, part from each other.

Skiliumz.

Solar-Lioð. 82.

Skiliaz.

Sigurd-Qviþ. i. 24.

Skiliomc.

Ibid. 53. Edd. Sæm.

Vit sjiljiast, we two part—

Occurs in the poem Brinilda (st. 109) in the Feroic dialect. In Danish and Swedish the word is deponent.

23. Skiptust, interchange.

Ðeir skiptust mörgum giöfum vid um vetrinn—Vatns-dæla-S. 10. they made interchanges with each other with many gifts for the winter.

Also in the Feroic.

24. Strujast, strike one another, fight. Feroic.

og mötast tair, og strujast avlaji lanji.—Fareying-Sag. 18. Feroic text.

ok mætast þeir, ok berjast mjök leingi.—Icelandish text.

de mödtes og strede meget længe imod hinanden.—Danish text.

they met and fought long against each other.

at e vilde vid gjordust stålbröir, og strujast ikkji longur.—Feroic text, p. 21.

at við gerðimst fèlagar, en berjumst eigi leingr.—Icelandic text.

at vi skulle blive Stalbröde og ikke slaaes længer—Danish text.

that we should become comrades and not fight longer.

The active form occurs in the same dialect:

tajr struija nú langji.

18.

25. Truasc, trust each other.

vel mættern þæir truazc.

För Skirnis. Edd. Sæm.

[Pg 55]

26. Unnaz. See Veittaz.

27. Vegiz, attack each other.

vilcat ec at iþ reiþir vegiz.

Ægisdrecka 18. Edd. Sæm.

I will not that ye two angry attack each other.

28. Veittaz, contract mutually.

þav Helgi ok Svava veittuz varar, ok unnoz forþo mikit=Helgius et Svava pactum sponsalitium inter se contraxerunt, et alter alterum mirifice amarunt.—Haddingia-Sk. between 29 and 30.

29. Verpaz, throw between each other.

urpuz á orþom.

Atl.-M. 39. Edd. Sæm.

verba inter se jaciebant.

Such is a portion of the examples that prove the reciprocal power of the reflective or middle verb in the language of Scandinavia; and that, during all its stages and in each of its derived dialects. It cannot be doubted that to this circumstance certain verbs in Danish and Swedish owe their deponent form: viz. vi slåss, we fight (strike one another); vi brottas, we wrestle; vi omgass, we have intercourse with; vi mötas, we meet, Swedish; vi slaaes, we fight; vi skilles, we part; vi mödes, we meet, Danish. In the latest Swedish grammar, by C. L. Daae, this reciprocal (vekselvirkende) power is recognized and exhibited. See Udsigt over det Svenske Sprogs Grammatik. Christiana, 1837. The same is the Molbech's Danske Ordbog in vv. skilles, slaaes, mödes.

Next to the Norse languages the French affords the best instances of the reciprocal power of the reflective verb; as se battre, s'aimer, s'entendre, se quéreller, se reconcilier, se disputer, and other words of less frequent occurrence.

Ces enfans s'aimaient, s'adoraient, se sont jetés à mes pieds en pleurant.—Les Inséparables, A. 1. S. 1.

Les Républics Italiens acharnés à se détruire.—Pardessus II. 65.

This has been recognized by an old grammarian, Restaut, who insists upon the use of the adverb entre, in order to avoid the ambiguity of such phrases as "vous vous dites des injures;" "nous nous écrivons souvent;" "Pierre et Antoine se louent à tout moment."

By a writer in the Museum Criticum the reciprocal power of the Greek middle has been indicated. For the classical languages the question has not met with the proper investigation. Passages where the sense is at least as reciprocal as in the line

[Pg 56]

Χεῖρος τ' ἁλλήλων λαβήτην καὶ μιστώσαντο.—Il. vi. 233,
must be numerous.

In the Dutch language the use of zich for elkander is a peculiarity of the Guelderland and Overyssel dialects; as "zij hebt zich eslagen," for "zij hebben elkander geslagen." See Opmerkingen omtrent den Gelderschen Tongval, in Taalkundig Magazijn ii. 14. p. 403.

Of the use of ser for hinanden or hverandre, when uncombined with the verb, we have, amongst other, the following example in the Icelandic version of the Paradise Lost:—

B. 6.

Similar to this are the phrases vi se os igjen, we see us (each other) again, in Danish, and wir sehen uns wieder, in German. Examples from the M. H. G. are given in the D. G. iv. The Turkish sign of the reciprocal verb is identical with the demonstrative pronoun, i. e. ش. This may possibly indicate a connection between the two forms.

Other points upon the subject in hand may be collected from the Deutsche Grammatik, iii. 13. 82; iv. 454. Here the adverbial character of the M. H. G. einander for einandern, the omission of ein, as in anander for an einander, and the omission (real or supposed) of ander in "wider ein=wider einander," are measures of the laxity of language caused by the peculiarity of the combination in question. At present it is sufficient to repeat the statement, that for one group of languages at least there is satisfactory proof of certain deponents having originally been reciprocal, and of certain reciprocal expressions having originally been reflective.

[Pg 57]

READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY.
MARCH 9, 1849.

It is well-known that by referring to that part of the Deutsche Grammatik which explains those participial forms which (like y-cleped in English, and like ge-sprochen and the participles in general in German) begin with ge or y, the following doctrines respecting this same prefix may be collected:—

1. That it has certainly grown out of the fuller forms ka or ga.

2. That it has, probably, grown out of a still fuller form kam or gam.

3. That this fuller form is the Gothic equivalent of the Latin cum=with.

Such are the views respecting the form of the word in question. Respecting its meaning, the following points seem to be made out:—

1. That when prefixed to nouns (as is, not rarely, the case), it carries with it the idea of association or collection:—M. G. sinþs=a journey, ga-sinþa=a companion; O. M. G. perc=hill; ki-pirki=(ge-birge) a range of hills.

2. That it has also a frequentative power. Things which recur frequently recur with a tendency to collection or association:—M. H. G. ge-rassel=rustling; ge-rumpel=crumpling.

3. That it has also the power of expressing the possession of a quality:—

[Pg 58]

This is because every object is associated with the object that possesses it—a sea with waves=a wavy sea.

The present writer has little doubt that the Tumali grammar of Dr. Tutshek supplies a similar (and at the same time a very intelligible) application of a particle equivalent to the Latin cum.

He believes that the Tumali word=with is what would commonly be called the sign of the plural number of the personal pronouns; just as me-cum and te-cum would become equivalents to nos and vos, if the first syllables were nominative instead of oblique, and if the preposition denoted indefinite conjunction. In such a case

Such is the illustration of the possible power of a possible combination. The reasons for thinking it to have a reality in one language at least lie in the following forms:—

1. The Tumali word for with is da.

2. The Tumali words for I, thou, and he respectively are ngi, ngo, ngu.

3. The Tumali words for we, ye, they are ngin-de, ngon-da, ngen-da respectively.

4. The Tumali substantives have no such plural. With them it is formed on a totally different principle.

5. The Tumali adjectives have no plural at all.

6. The Tumali numerals (even those which express more than unity and are, therefore, naturally plural) have a plural. When, however, it occurs, it is formed on the same principle as that of the plurals of the substantive.

7. The word da=with is, in Tumali, of a more varied application than any other particle; and that both as a pre-position and a post-position:—daura=soon (da=in, aura=neighbourhood); datom=in (with) front (face); d-ondul=roundabout (ondul=circle); dale=near (le=side), &c.

8. Prepositions, which there is every reason to believe are already compounded with da, allow even a second da, to precede the word which they govern:—daber deling=over the earth (ber=earth).

9. The ideas with me, with thee, with him, are expressed by ngi-dan, ngo-dan, and ngu-dan respectively; but the ideas of with us, with you, with them are not expressed by nginde-dan, ngonda-dan, ngenda-dan; but by peculiar words—tinem=with us; toman=with you; tenan=with them.

[Pg 59]

On the other hand, the following fact is, as far as it goes, against this view, a fact upon which others may lay more stress than the present writer. "Da admits of a very varied application. Respecting its form the following should be observed: (a.) That a may be elided when it happens to stand as a preposition before words which begin with a vowel: for instance, ardgen, 'the valley'; dardgen, 'in the valley'; ondul, 'the circle'; dondul, 'round about in the circle'. (b.) It changes its a into ê, e, i, o, u, according to the vowel of the syllable before which the da is placed, or even without any regard to it. Instances of this are found in diring, dorong, &c.; further instances are, doromko, 'into the hut' (rom); dètum or dotum, 'in the grave.' (c.) As a postposition it appends an n: adgdan, 'on the head'; aneredan, 'on the day.'" Taking the third of these rules literally, the plural pronouns should end in dan rather than in da and de.

It is considered that over and above the light that this particular formation (if real) may throw upon the various methods by which an inflection like that of the plural number may be evolved, and more especially upon the important but neglected phænomena of the so-called inclusive and exclusive plurals, many other points of general grammar may be illustrated.

[Pg 60]

READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY,
MARCH 9, 1849.

The writer wishes to make the word cujum, as found in a well-known quotation from the third eclogue of Virgil,—

Dic mihi Damæta cujum pecus?

the basis of some remarks which are meant to be suggestions rather than doctrines.

In the second edition of a work upon the English language, he devoted an additional chapter to the consideration of the grammatical position of the words mine and thine, respecting which he then considered (and still considers) himself correct in assuming that the current doctrine concerning them was, that they were, in origin, genitive or possessive cases, and that they were adjectives only in a secondary sense. Now whatever was then written upon this subject was written with the view of recording an opinion in favour of exactly the opposite doctrine, viz. that they were originally adjectives, but that afterwards they took the appearance of oblique cases. Hence for words like mine and thine there are two views:—

1. That they were originally cases, and adjectives only in a secondary manner.

2. That they were originally adjectives, and cases only in a secondary manner.

In which predicament is the word cujum? If in the first, it supplies a remarkable instance of an unequivocally adjectival form, as tested by an inflection in the way of gender, having grown out of a case. If in the second, it shows how truly the converse may take place, since it cannot be doubted that whatever in this respect can be predicated of cujus can be predicated of ejus and hujus as well.

Assuming this last position, it follows that if cujus be originally a case, we have a proof how thoroughly it may take a gender; whereas if it be originally an adjective, ejus[Pg 61] and hujus (for by a previous assumption they are in the same category) are samples of the extent to which words like it may lose one.

Now the termination -us is the termination of an adjective, and is not the termination of a genitive case; a fact that fixes the onus probandi with those who insist upon the genitival character of the words in question. But as it is not likely that every one lays so much value upon this argument as is laid by the present writer, it is necessary to refer to two facts taken from the Greek:—

1. That the class of words itself is not a class which (as is often the case) naturally leads us to expect a variation from the usual inflections. The forms οὗ, οἷ, ἕ, and ὅς, οὗ, ὧ, are perfectly usual.

2. That the adjectives ὃς = ἑὸς,[1] κοῖος = ποῖος, and ὁῖος, are not only real forms, but forms of a common kind. Hence, if we consider the termination -jus as a case-ending, we have a phænomenon in Latin for which we miss a Greek equivalent; whilst on the other hand, if we do not consider it as adjectival, we have the Greek forms ὁῖος, κοῖος = ποῖος and ὃς = ἑὸς, without any Latin ones. I do not say that this argument is, when taken alone, of any great weight. In doubtful cases, however, it is of value. In the present case it enables us to get rid of an inexplicable genitival form, at the expense of a slight deflection from the usual power of an adjective. And here it should be remembered that many of the arguments in favour of a case becoming an adjective are (to a certain extent) in favour of an adjective becoming a case—to a certain extent and to a certain extent only, because a change in one direction by no means necessarily implies a change in the reverse one, although it is something in favour of its probability.

Probably unius, ullius, illius, and alterius, are equally, as respects their origin, adjectival forms with ejus, cujus, and hujus.

Now it must not be concealed that one of the arguments which apply to words like mine and thine being adjectives rather than genitives, does not apply to words like ejus, cujus, and hujus. The reason is as follows; and it is exhibited in nearly the same words which have been used in the work already mentioned.—The idea of partition is one of the ideas expressed by the genitive case. The necessity for expressing this idea is an element in the necessity for evolving a genitive case. With personal pronouns of the singular number the idea of partition is of less frequent occurrence than[Pg 62] with most other words, since a personal pronoun of the singular number is the name of a unity, and, as such, the name of an object far less likely to be separated into parts than the name of a collection. Phrases like some of them, one of you, many of us, any of them, few of us, &c., have no analogues in the singular number, such as one of me, a few of thee, &c. The partitive words that can combine with singular pronouns are comparatively few, viz. half, quarter, part, &c.; and they can all combine equally with plurals—half of us, a quarter of them, a portion of us. The partition of a singular object with a pronominal name is of rare occurrence in language. This last statement proves something more than appears at first sight. It proves that no argument in favour of the so-called singular genitives, like mine and thine, can be drawn from the admission (if made) of the existence of the true plural genitives ou-r, you-r, the-ir. The two ideas are not in the same predicament.

Again, the convenience of expressing the difference between suus and ejus, is, to a certain extent, a reason for the evolution of a genitive case to words like is; but it is a reason to a certain extent only, and that extent a small one, since an equally convenient method of expressing the difference is to be found in the fact of there being two roots for the pronouns in question, the root from which we get ea, id, eum, ejus, &c., and the root from which we get sui, sibi, suus, &c.

Here the paper should end, for here ends the particular suggestion supplied by the word in question. Two questions however present themselves too forcibly to be wholly passed over:—

I. The great extent to which those who look in Latin for the same inflections that occur in Greek, must look for them under new names. That two tenses in Greek (the aorist like ἔ-τυπ-σα, and the perfect like τέ-τυφ-α) must be looked for in the so-called double form of a single tense in Latin (vic-si, mo-mordi) is one of the oldest facts of this sort. That the Greek participle in -μενος (τυπτόμενος) must be sought for in the passive persons in -mini is a newer notice.

II. The fact that the character of the deflection that takes place between case and adjective is not single but double. It goes both ways. The change from case to adjective is one process in philology; the change from adjective to case another; and both should be recognized. This is mentioned for the sake of stating, that except in a few details, there is nothing in the present remarks that is meant to be at variance with the facts and arguments of five papers already laid before this Society, viz. those of Mr. Garnett on the[Pg 63] Formation of Words from Inflected Cases, and on the Analysis of the Verb.

The papers alluded to really deal with two series of facts:—(A.) Deflection with identity of form.—In this the inflection is still considered an inflection, but is dealt with as one different from what it really is, i. e. as a nominative instead of an oblique one. Some years back the structure of the Finlandic suggested to the present writer:—

1. A series of changes in meaning whereby such a term as with waves might equal wavy.

2. The existence of a class of words of which sestertium was the type, where an oblique case, with a convertible termination, becomes a nominative.

3. The possible evolution of forms like fluctuba, fluctubum=fluctuosa, fluctuosum, from forms like fluctubus.

Mr. Garnett has multiplied cases of this kind; his illustrations from the Basque being pre-eminently typical, i. e. like the form sestertium. If the modern vehicle called an omnibus had been invented in ancient Rome, if it had had the same name as it has now, and if its plural form had been omnibi, it would also have been a typical instance.

Words of the hypothetical form fluctuba, fluctubum, have not been discovered. They would have existed if the word just quoted had been (if used in ancient Rome at all) used as an adjective, omnibus currus, omniba esseda, omnibum plaustrum.

(B.) Deflection with superaddition.—Here the inflection is dealt with as if it were not inflectional but radical. This is the case with ἴφιος. Words like it-, as proved by the genitive i-t-s, and the so-called petrified (versteinerte) nominative cases of the German grammarians, are of this class.

[Pg 64]

READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY,
MARCH 11, 1853.

A well-known rule in the Eton Greek Grammar may serve to introduce the subject of the present remarks:—"Quinque sunt aoristi primi qui futuri primi characteristicam non assumunt: ἔθηκα posui, ἔδωκα dedi, ἥκα misi, εἴπα dixi, ἥνεγκα tuli." The absolute accuracy of this sentence is no part of our considerations: it has merely been quoted for the sake of illustration.

What is the import of this abnormal κ? or, changing the expression, what is the explanation of the aorist in -κα? Is it certain that it is an aorist? or, granting this, is it certain that its relations to the future are exceptional?

The present writer was at one time inclined to the doubts implied by the first of these alternatives, and gave some reasons[2] for making the form a perfect rather than an aorist. He finds, however, that this is only shifting the difficulty. How do perfects come to end in -κα? The typical and unequivocal perfects are formed by a reduplication at the beginning, and a modification of the final radical consonant at the end of words, τύπ(τ)ω, τέ-τυφ-α; and this is the origin of the χ in λέλεχα, &c., which represents the γ of the root. Hence, even if we allow ourselves to put the κ in ἔθηκα in the same category with the κ in ὀμώμοκα, &c., we are as far as ever from the true origin of the form.

In this same category, however, the two words—and the classes they represent—can be placed, notwithstanding some small difficulties of detail. At any rate, it is easier to refer ὀμώμοκα and ἔθηκα to the same tense than it is to do so with ὀμώμοκα and τέτυφα.

The next step is to be sought in Bopp's Comparative[Pg 65] Grammar. Here we find the following extract:—"The old Slavonic dakh 'I gave,' and analogous formations remind us, through their guttural, which takes the place of a sibilant, of the Greek aorists ἔθηκα, ἔδωκα, ἧκα. That which in the old Slavonic has become a rule in the first person of the three numbers, viz. the gutturalization of an original s, may have occasionally taken place in the Greek, but carried throughout all numbers. No conjecture lies closer at hand than that of regarding ἔδωκα as a corruption of ἔδωσα," &c.... "The Lithuanian also presents a form which is akin to the Greek and Sanscrit aorist, in which, as it appears to me, k assumes the place of an original s." (vol. ii. p. 791, Eastwick's and Wilson's translation.) The italics indicate the words that most demand attention.

The old Slavonic inflection alluded to is as follows:—

Now it is clear that the doctrine to which these extracts commit the author is that of the secondary or derivative character of the form of κ and the primary or fundamental character of the forms in σ. The former is deduced from the latter. And this is the doctrine which the present writer would reverse. He would just reverse it, agreeing with the distinguished scholar whom he quotes in the identification of the Greek form with the Slavonic. So much more common is the change from k, g and the allied sounds, to s, z, &c., than that from s, z, &c. to k, g, that the à priori probabilities are strongly against Bopp's view. Again, the languages that preeminently encourage the change are the Slavonic; yet it is just in these languages that the form in k is assumed to be secondary. For s to become h, and for h to become k (or g), is no improbable change: still, as compared with the transition from k to s, it is exceedingly rare.

As few writers are better aware of the phænomena connected with the direction of letter-changes than the philologist before us, it may be worth while to ask, why he has ignored them in the present instances. He has probably done so because the Sanscrit forms were in s; the habit of considering whatever is the more Sanscrit of two forms to be the older being well-nigh universal. Nevertheless, the difference between a language which is old because it is represented by old samples of its literature, and a language which is old because it contains primary forms, is manifest[Pg 66] upon a very little reflection. The positive argument, however, in favour of the k being the older form, lies in the well-known phænomenon connected with the vowels e and i, as opposed to a, o, and u. All the world over, e and i have a tendency to convert a k or g, when it precedes them, into s, z, sh, zh, ksh, gzh, tsh, and dzh, or some similar sibilant. Hence, as often as a sign of tense consisting of k, is followed by a sign of person beginning with e or i, an s has chance of being evolved. In this case such a form as ἐφίλησα, ἐφίλησας, ἐφίλησε, may have originally run ἐφίληκα, ἐφίληκας, ἐφίληκε. The modified form in σ afterwards extends itself to the other persons and numbers. Such is the illustration of the hypothesis. An objection against it lies in the fact of the person which ends in a small vowel, being only one out of seven. On the other hand, however the third person singular is used more than all the others put together. With this influence of the small vowel other causes may have cooperated. Thus, when the root ended in κ or γ, the combination κ radical, and κ inflexional would be awkward. It would give us such words as ἔλεκ-κα, &c.; words like τέτυπ-κα, ἔγραπ-κα, being but little better, at least in a language like the Greek.

The suggestions that now follow lead into a wide field of inquiry; and they may be considered, either on their merits as part of a separate question, or as part of the proof of the present doctrine. In this latter respect they are not altogether essential, i. e. they are more confirmatory if admitted than derogatory if denied. What if the future be derived from the aorist, instead of the aorist from the future? In this case we should increase what may be called our dynamics, by increasing the points of contact between a k and a small vowel; this being the influence that determines the evolution of an s. All the persons of the future, except the first, have ε for one (at least) of these vowels—

τύψ-σ-ω, τύψ-σ-εις, τύψ-σ-ει, τύψ-ε-τον, &c.

The moods are equally efficient in the supply of small vowels.

The doctrine, then, now stands that k is the older form, but that, through the influence of third persons singular, future forms, and conjunctive forms, so many s-es became developed, as to supersede it except in a few instances. The Latin language favours this view. There, the old future like cap-s-o, and the preterites like vixi (vic-si) exhibit a small vowel in all their persons, e. g. vic-s-i, vic-s-isti, vic-s-it, &c. Still the doctrine respecting this influence of the small vowel in the way of the developement of sibilants out of gutturals is defective until we find a real instance of the change as[Pg 67]sumed. As if, for the very purpose of illustrating the occasional value of obscure dialects, the interesting language of the Serbs of Lusatia and Cotbus supplies one. Here the form of the preterite is as follows; the Serb of Illyria and the Lithuanic being placed in juxtaposition and contrast with the Serb of Lusatia. Where a small vowel follows the characteristic of the tense the sound is that of sz; in other cases it is that of ch (kh)

[Pg 68]

FROM THE
TRANSACTIONS OF THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY,
JUNE 23, 1843.

In respect to the cæsura of the Greek tragic senarius, the rules, as laid down by Porson in the Supplement to his Preface to the Hecuba, and as recognised, more or less, by the English school of critics, seem capable of a more general expression, and, at the same time, liable to certain limitations in regard to fact. This becomes apparent when we investigate the principle that serves as the foundation to these rules; in other words, when we exhibit the rationale, or doctrine, of the cæsura in question. At this we can arrive by taking cognizance of a second element of metre beyond that of quantity.

It is assumed that the element in metre which goes, in works of different writers, under the name of ictus metricus, or of arsis, is the same as accent in the sense of that word in English. It is this that constitutes the difference between words like týrant and resúme, or súrvey and survéy; or (to take more convenient examples) between the word Aúgust, used as the name of a month, and augúst used as an adjective. Without inquiring how far this coincides with the accent and accentuation of the classical grammarians, it may be stated that, in the forthcoming pages, arsis, ictus metricus, and accent (in the English sense of the word), mean one and the same thing. With this view of the arsis, or ictus, we may ask how far, in each particular foot of the senarius, it coincides with the quantity.

[Pg 69]

First Foot.—In the first place of a tragic senarius it is a matter of indifference whether the arsis fall on the first or second syllable, that is, it is a matter of indifference whether the foot be sounded as týrant or as resúme, as Aúgust or as augúst. In the following lines the words ἡκω, παλαι, εἰπερ, τινας, may be pronounced either as ἥκω, πάλαι, εἴπερ, τίνας, or as ἡκώ, παλαί, εἰπέρ, τινάς, without any detriment to the character of the line wherein they occur.

or,

Second Foot.—In the second place, it is also matter of indifference whether the foot be sounded as Aúgust or as augúst. In the first of the four lines quoted above we may say either νέκρων or νεκρών, without violating rhythm of the verse.

Third Foot.—In this part of the senarius it is no longer a matter of indifference whether the foot be sounded as Aúgust or as augúst; that is, it is no longer a matter of indifference whether the arsis and the quantity coincide. In the circumstance that the last syllable of the third foot must be accented (in the English sense of the word), taken along with a second fact, soon about to be exhibited, lies the doctrine of the penthimimer and hephthimimer cæsuras.

The proof of the coincidence between the arsis and the quantity in the third foot is derived partly from à posteriori, partly from à priori evidence.

1. In the Supplices of Æschylus, the Persæ, and the Bacchæ, three dramas where licences in regard to metre are pre-eminently common, the number of lines wherein the sixth syllable (i. e. the last half of the third foot) is without an arsis, is at the highest sixteen, at the lowest five; whilst in the remainder of the extant dramas the proportion is undoubtedly smaller.

2. In all lines where the sixth syllable is destitute of ictus, the iambic character is violated: as—

[Pg 70]

These are facts which may be verified either by referring to the tragedians, or by constructing senarii like the lines last quoted. The only difficulty that occurs arises in determining, in a dead language like the Greek, the absence or presence of the arsis. In this matter the writer has satisfied himself of the truth of the two following propositions:—1. That the accentuation of the grammarians denotes some modification of pronunciation other than that which constitutes the difference between Aúgust and augúst; since, if it were not so, the word ἅγγελον would be sounded like mérrily, and the word ἁγγέλων like disáble; which is improbable. 2. That the arsis lies upon radical rather than inflectional syllables, and out of two inflectional syllables upon the first rather than the second; as βλέπ-ω, βλεψ-άσ-α, not βλεπ-ώ, βλεψ-ασ-ά. The evidence upon these points is derived from the structure of language in general. The onus probandi lies with the author who presumes an arsis (accent in the English sense) on a non-radical syllable.

Doubts, however, as to the pronunciation of certain words, leave the precise number of lines violating the rule given above undetermined. It is considered sufficient to show that, wherever they occur, the iambic character is violated.

The circumstance, however, of the last half of the third foot requiring an arsis, brings us only half way towards the doctrine of the cæsura. With this must be combined a second fact arising out of the constitution of the Greek language in respect to its accent. In accordance with the views just exhibited, the author conceives that no Greek word has an arsis upon the last syllable, except in the three following cases:—

1. Monosyllables, not enclitic; as σφών, πάς, χθών, δμώς, νών, νύν, &c.

2. Circumflex futures; as νεμώ, τεμώ, &c.

3. Words abbreviated by apocope; in which case the penultimate is converted into a final syllable; δώμ', φειδέσθ', κεντείτ', εγώγ', &c.

Now the fact of a syllable with an arsis being, in Greek, rarely final, taken along with that of the sixth syllable requiring an arsis, gives, as a matter of necessity, the circumstance that, in the Greek drama, the sixth syllable shall occur anywhere rather than at the end of a word; and this is only another way of saying, that, in a tragic senarius, the syllable in question shall generally be followed by other syllables in the same word. All this the author considers as so truly a matter of necessity, that the objection to his view of the Greek cæsura must lie either against his idea of the[Pg 71] nature of the accents, or nowhere; since, that being admitted, the rest follows of course.

As the sixth syllable must not be final, it must be followed in the same word by one syllable, or by more than one.

1. The sixth syllable followed by one syllable in the same word.—This is only another name for the seventh syllable occurring at the end of a word, and it gives at once the hephthimimer cæsura: as—

2. The sixth syllable followed by two (or more) syllables in the same word.—This is only another name for the eighth (or some syllable after the eighth) syllable occurring at the end of a word; as—

Now this arrangement of syllables, taken by itself, gives anything rather than a hephthimimer; so that if it were at this point that our investigations terminated, little would be done towards the evolution of the rationale of the cæsura. It will appear, however, that in those cases where the circumstance of the sixth syllable being followed by two others in the same words, causes the eighth (or some syllable after the eighth) to be final, either a penthimimer cæsura, or an equivalent, will, with but few exceptions, be the result. This we may prove by taking the eighth syllable and counting back from it. What follows this syllable is immaterial: it is the number of syllables in the same word that precedes it that demands attention.

1. The eighth syllable preceded in the same word by nothing.—This is equivalent to the seventh syllable at the end of the preceding word: a state of things which, as noticed above, gives the hephthimimer cæsura.

2. The eighth syllable preceded in the same word by one syllable.—This is equivalent to the sixth syllable at the end of the word preceding; a state of things which, as noticed above, rarely occurs. When, however, it does occur, one of the three conditions under which a final syllable can take an arsis must accompany it. Each of these conditions requires notice.

α). With a non-enclitic mono-syllable the result is a penthimimer cæsura; since the syllable preceding a monosyllable is necessarily final.

[Pg 72]

No remark has been made by critics upon lines constructed in this manner, since the cæsura is a penthimimer, and consequently their rules are undisturbed.

β). With poly-syllabic circumflex futures constituting the third foot, there would be a violation of the current rules respecting the cæsura. Notwithstanding this, if the views of the present paper be true, there would be no violation of the iambic character of the senarius. Against such a line as

there is no argument à priori on the score of the iambic character being violated; whilst, in respect to objections derived from evidence à posteriori, there is sufficient reason for such lines being rare.

γ). With poly-syllables abbreviated by apocope, we have the state of things which the metrists have recognised under the name of quasi-cæsura; as—

3.—The eighth syllable preceded in the same word by two syllables.—This is equivalent to the fifth syllable occurring at the end of the word preceding: a state of things which gives the penthimimer cæsura; as—

4. The eighth syllable preceded in the same word by three or more than three syllables.—This is equivalent to the fourth (or some syllable preceding the fourth) syllable occurring at the end of the word preceding; a state of things which would include the third and fourth feet in one and the same word. This concurrence is denounced in the Supplement to the Preface to the Hecuba, where, however, the rule, as in the case of the quasi-cæsura, from being based upon merely empirical evidence, requires limitation. In lines like—

or (an imaginary example),

there is no violation of the iambic character, and consequently no reason against similar lines having been written; although from the average proportion of Greek words like επεικασαι and ασπιδηστροποισιν, there is every reason for their being rare.

After the details just given the recapitulation is brief.

[Pg 73]

1. It was essential to the character of the senarius that the sixth syllable, or latter half of the third foot, should have an arsis, ictus metricus, or accent in the English sense. To this condition of the iambic rhythm the Greek tragedians, either consciously or unconsciously, adhered.

2. It was the character of the Greek language to admit an arsis on the last syllable of a word only under circumstances comparatively rare.

3. These two facts, taken together, caused the sixth syllable of a line to be anywhere rather than at the end of a word.

4. If followed by a single syllable in the same word, the result was a hephthimimer cæsura.

5. If followed by more syllables than one, some syllable in an earlier part of the line ended the word preceding, and so caused either a penthimìmer, a quasi-cæsura, or the occurrence of the third and fourth foot in the same word.

6. As these two last-mentioned circumstances were rare, the general phenomenon presented in the Greek senarius was the occurrence of either the penthimimer or hephthimimer.

7. Respecting these two sorts of cæsura, the rules, instead of being exhibited in detail, may be replaced by the simple assertion that there should be an arsis on the sixth syllable. From this the rest follows.

8. Respecting the non-occurrence of the third and fourth feet in the same word, the assertion may be withdrawn entirely.

9. Respecting the quasi-cæsura, the rules, if not altogether withdrawn, may be extended to the admission of the last syllable of circumflex futures (or to any other polysyllables with an equal claim to be considered accented on the last syllable) in the latter half of the third foot.

[Pg 74]

FROM THE
ANNALS AND MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY,
JUNE, 1859.

The text upon which the following remarks have suggested themselves is the Accentuated List of the British Lepidoptera, with Hints on the Derivation of the Names, published by the Entomological Societies of Oxford and Cambridge; a useful contribution to scientific terminology—useful, and satisfied with being so. It admits that naturalists may be unlearned, and provides for those who, with a love for botany or zoology, may have been denied the advantage of a classical education. That there are many such is well known; and it is also well known that they have no love for committing themselves to the utterance of Latin and Greek names in the presence of investigators who are more erudite (though, perhaps, less scientific) than themselves. As a rule, their pronunciation is inaccurate. It is inaccurate without being uniform—- for the ways of going wrong are many. Meanwhile, any directions toward the right are welcome.

In the realities of educational life there is no such thing as a book for unlearned men—at least no such thing as a good one. There are make-shifts and make-believes ad[Pg 75] infinitum; but there is no such an entity as an actual book. Some are written down to the supposed level of the reader—all that are so written being useless and offensive. Others are encumbered with extraneous matter, and, so encumbered, err on the side of bulk and superfluity. Very rarely is there anything like consistency in the supply of information.

The work under notice supposes a certain amount of ignorance—ignorance of certain accents and certain quantities. It meets this; and it meets it well. That the work is both a safe and reliable guide, is neither more nor less than what we expect from the places and persons whence it has proceeded.

It is likely, from its very merits, to be the model on which a long line of successors may be formed. For this reason the principles of its notation (for thus we may generalize our expression of the principle upon which we use the signs of accent and quantity as guides to pronunciation) may be criticised.

In the mind of the present writer, the distinction between accent and quantity has neither been sufficiently attended to nor sufficiently neglected. This is because, in many respects, they are decidedly contrasted with, and opposed to, each other; whilst, at the same time—paradoxical as it may appear—they are, for the majority of practical purposes, convertible. That inadvertence on these points should occur, is not to be wondered at. Professional grammarians—men who deal with the purely philological questions of metre and syllabification—with few exceptions, confound them.

In English Latin (by which I mean Latin as pronounced by Englishmen) there is, in practice, no such a thing as quantity; so that the sign by which it is denoted is, in nine cases out of ten, superfluous. Mark the accent, and the quantity will take care of itself.

I say that there is no such a thing in English Latin as quantity. I ought rather to have said that

English quantities are not Latin quantities.

In Latin, the length of the syllable is determined by the length of the vowels and consonants combined. A long vowel, if followed in the same word by another (i. e. if followed by no consonant), is short. A short vowel, if followed by two consonants, is long. In English, on the other hand, long vowels make long, whilst short vowels make short, syllables; so that the quantity of a syllable in English is determined by the quantity of the vowel. The i in pius is short in Latin. In English it is long. The e in mend is short in English, long in Latin.

[Pg 76]

This, however, is not all. There is, besides, the following metrical paradox. A syllable may be made long by the very fact of its being short. It is the practice of the English language to signify the shortness of a vowel by doubling the consonant that follows. Hence we get such words as pitted, knotty, massive, &c.—words in which no one considers that the consonant is actually doubled. For do we not pronounce pitted and pitied alike? Consonants that appear double to the eye are common enough. Really double consonants—consonants that sound double to the ear—are rarities, occurring in one class of words only—viz. in compounds whereof the first element ends with the same sound with which the second begins, as soul-less, book-case, &c.

The doubling, then, of the consonant is a conventional mode of expressing the shortness of the vowel that precedes, and it addresses itself to the eye rather than the ear.

But does it address itself to the eye only? If it did, pitied and pitted, being sounded alike, would also be of the same quantity. We know, however, that to the English writer of Latin verses they are not so. We know that the first is short (pĭtied), the latter long (pītted). For all this, they are sounded alike: so that the difference in quantity (which, as a metrical fact, really exists) is, to a great degree, conventional. At any rate, we arrive at it by a secondary process. We know how the word is spelt; and we know that certain modes of spelling give certain rules of metre. Our senses here are regulated by our experience.

Let a classical scholar hear the first line of the Eclogues read—

and he will be shocked. He will also believe that the shock fell on his ear. Yet his ear was unhurt. No sense was offended. The thing which was shocked was his knowledge of the rules of prosody—nothing more. To English ears there is no such a thing as quantity—not even in hexameters and pentameters. There is no such thing as quantity except so far as it is accentual also. Hence come the following phænomena—no less true than strange,—viz. (1) that any classical metre written according to the rules of quantity gives (within certain narrow limits) a regular recurrence of accents; and (2) that, setting aside such shocks as affect our knowledge of the rules of prosody, verses written according to their accents only give metrical results. English hexameters (such as they are) are thus written.

In the inferences from these remarks there are two assump[Pg 77]tions: 1st, that the old-fashioned mode of pronunciation be adhered to; 2nd, that when we pronounce Greek and Latin words as they are pronounced in the recitation of Greek and Latin poetry, we are as accurate as we need be. It is by means of these two assumptions that we pronounce Tityre and patulæ alike; and I argue that we are free to do so. As far as the ear is concerned, the a is as long as the i, on the strength of the double t which is supposed to come after it. It does not indeed so come; but if it did, the sound would be the same, the quantity different (for is not patulæ pronounced pattule?). It would be a quantity, however, to the eye only.

This pronunciation, however, may be said to be exploded; for do not most men under fifty draw the distinction which is here said to be neglected? Do not the majority make, or fancy they make, a distinction between the two words just quoted? They may or they may not. It is only certain that, subject to the test just indicated, it is immaterial what they do. Nine-tenths of the best modern Latin verses were written under the old system—a system based not upon our ear, but on our knowledge of certain rules.

Now it is assumed that the accuracy sufficient for English Latin is all the accuracy required. Ask for more, and you get into complex and difficult questions respecting the pronunciation of a dead language. Do what we will, we cannot, on one side, pronounce the Latin like the ancient Romans. Do what we will, so long as we keep our accents right, we cannot (speaking Latin after the fashion of Englishmen) err in the way of quantity—at least, not to the ear. A short vowel still gives a long syllable; for the consonant which follows it is supposed to be doubled.

Let it be admitted, then, that, for practical purposes, Tityre and patulæ may be pronounced alike, and the necessity of a large class of marks is avoided. Why write, as the first word in the book is written, Papiliō´nidæ? Whether the initial syllable be sounded papp- or pape- is indifferent. So it is whether the fourth be uttered as -own-, or -onn-. As far as the ear is concerned, they are both long, because the consonant is doubled. In Greek, πᾰππιλλιόννιδαι is as long as πᾱππιλλιόννιδαι.

Then comes Machā´on, where the sign of quantity is again useless, the accent alone being sufficient to prevent us saying either Mákkaon or Makaón. The a is the a in fate. We could not sound it as the a in fat if we would.

Pīeridæ.—What does the quantity tell us here? That the i is pronounced as the i in the Greek πίονος, rather than[Pg 78] as the i in the Latin pius. But, in English Latin, we pronounce both alike. Surely Pī´eris and Pie´ridæ tell us all that is needed.

Cratæ´gī.—Whether long or short, the i is pronounced the same.

Sinā´pis, Rā´pæ, and Nā´pi.—The ( ¯ ) here prevents us from saying Ráppæ and Náppi. It would certainly be inelegant and unusual to do so. Tested, however, by the ear, the words ráppæ and náppi take just the same place in an English Latin verse as rápe-æ and nápe-i. Is any one likely to say sináppis? Perhaps. There are those who say Dianna for Diana. It is very wrong to do so—wrong, not to say vulgar. For the purposes of metre, however, one is as good as the other; and herein (as aforesaid) lies the test. The real false quantities would be Diana and sinnapis; but against these the accent protects us. Nor is the danger of saying sináppis considerable. Those who say Diánna are those who connect it with Anna and would, probably, spell it with two n's.

Cardamī´nĕs.—All that the first ( ¯ ) does here is to prevent us saying cardami´nnes. The real false quantity would be carda´mmines. The accent, however, guards against this.

The second ( ¯ ) is useful. It is certainly better to say cardamín-ees than cardamín-ess, because the e is from the Greek η. And this gives us a rule. Let the ( ¯ ) be used to distinguish η from ε, and ω from ο, and in no other case. I would not say that it is necessary to use it even here. It is better, however, to say Macháōn than Macháōn. By a parity of reasoning, the ( ˘ ), rejected in the work before us, is sometimes useful. Let it be used in those derivatives where ε replaces η, and ο replaces ω; e. g. having written Machaōn, write, as its derivative, Machaōnidæ—i. e. if the word be wanted.

This is the utmost for which the signs of quantity are wanted for English Latin. I do not say that they are wanted even for this.

One of the mechanical inconveniences arising from the use of the signs of quantity is this—when a long syllable is accented, two signs fall upon it. To remedy this, the work before us considers that the stress is to be laid on the syllable preceding the accent. Yet, if an accent mean anything, it means that the stress fall on the syllable which it stands over.

A few remarks upon words like Pīeridæ, where the accent was omitted.—Here two short syllables come between two long ones. No accent, however, is placed over either. Evidently, quantity and accent are so far supposed to coincide, that the accentuation of a short vowel is supposed to make[Pg 79] it look like a long one. It is a matter of fact, that if, on a word like Cassiōpe, we lay an accent on the last syllable but one, we shock the ears of scholars, especially metrical ones. Does it, however, lengthen the vowel? The editors of the work in question seem to think that it does, and, much more consistent than scholars in general, hesitate to throw it back upon the preceding syllable, which is short also. Metrists have no such objection; their practice being to say Cassíope without detriment to the vowel. The entomologists, then, are the more consistent.

They are, however, more consistent than they need be. If an accent is wanted, it may fall on the shortest of all possible syllables. Granting, however, that Cassiópe (whether the o be sounded as in nōte or nōt) is repugnant to metre, and Cassíope to theory, what is their remedy? It is certainly true that Cássiope is pronounceable. Pope writes—

No man reads this miscéllanies; few read it míscellánies. The mass say mis´cellanies. Doing this, they make the word a quadrisyllable; for less than this would fall short of the demands of the metre. They also utter a word which makes Cas´siope possible. Is Cássiope, however, the sound? Probably not. And here authors must speak for themselves:—

"Take, e. g., Cassiope and Corticea: in words like the former of these, in which the last syllable is long, there is no greater difficulty of pronunciation in laying the stress upon the first syllable than upon the second."

True! but this implies that we say Cássiopé. Is -e, however, one bit the longer for being accented, or can it bear one iota more of accent for being long? No. Take -at from peat, and -t from pet, and the result is pe—just as long or just as short in one case as the other.

The same power of accenting the first syllable is "particularly the case in those words in which the vowel i can assume the power of y. Latin scholars are divided as to the proper accentuation of mulieres, Tulliola, and others: though custom is in favour of mulíeres, mul´ieres appears to be more correct." Be it so. Let mulieres be múlyeres. What becomes, however, of the fourth syllable? The word is no quadrisyllable at all. What is meant is this:—not that certain quadrisyllables with two short vowels in the middle are difficult to accentuate, but that they are certain words of which it is difficult to say whether they are trisyllables or quadrisyllables.

For all practical purposes, however, words like Cassiope[Pg 80] are quadrisyllables. They are, in the way of metre, choriambics; and a choriambic is a quadrisyllable foot. They were pronounced Cassíope, &c., by English writers of Latin verses—when Latin verses were written well.

Let the pronunciation which was good enough for Vincent Bourne and the contributors to the Musæ Etonenses be good enough for the entomologists, and all that they will then have to do is not to pronounce cratægum like stratagem, cardamines like Theramenes, and vice versâ. Against this, accent will ensure them—accent single-handed and without any sign of quantity—Cardamínes, Therámenes, cratæ´gum, strátagem.

[Pg 81]

READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY.
APRIL 11, 1845.

The words σάρος and sarus are the Greek and Latin forms of a certain term used in the oldest Babylonian chronology, the meaning of which is hitherto undetermined. In the opinion of the present writer, the sarus is a period of 4 years and 340 days.

In the way of direct external evidence as to the value of the epoch in question, we have, with the exception of an unsatisfactory passage in Suidas, at the hands of the ancient historians and according to the current interpretations, only the two following statements:—

1. That each sarus consisted of 3600 years (ἔτη).

2. That the first ten kings of Babylon reigned 120 sari, equal to 432,000 years; or on an average 43,200 years apiece.

With data of this sort, we must either abandon the chronology altogether, or else change the power of the word year. The first of these alternatives was adopted by Cicero and Pliny, and doubtless other of the ancients—contemnamus etiam Babylonios et eos qui e Caucaso cœli signa observantes numeris et motubus stellarum cursus persequuntur; condemnemus inquam hos aut stultitiæ aut vanitatis aut impudentiæ qui CCCCLXX millia annorum, ut ipsi dicunt, monumentis comprehensa continent.—Cic. de Divinat., from Cory's Ancient Fragments. Again—e diverso Epigenes apud Babylonios DCCXX annorum observationes siderum coctilibus laterculis inscriptas docet, gravis auctor in primis: qui minimum Berosus et Critodemus CCCCLXXX annorum.—[Pg 82]Pliny, vii. 56. On the other hand, to alter the value of the word ἔτος or annus has been the resource of at least one modern philologist.

Now if we treat the question by what may be called the tentative method, the first step in our inquiry will be to find some division of time which shall, at once, be natural in itself, and also short enough to make 10 sari possible parts of an average human life. For this, even a day will be too long. Twelve hours, however, or half a νυχθήμερον, will give us possible results.

Taking this view therefore, and leaving out of the account the 29th of February, the words ἔτος and annus mean, not a year, but the 730th part of one; 3600 of which make a sarus. In other words, a sarus=1800 day-times and 1800 night-times, or 3600 half νυχθήμερα, or 4 years+340 days.

The texts to which the present hypothesis applies are certain passages in Eusebius and Syncellus. These are founded upon the writings of Alexander Polyhistor, Apollodorus, Berosus, and Abydenus. From hence we learn the length of the ten reigns alluded to above, viz. 120 sari or 591 years and odd days. Reigns of this period are just possible. It is suggested, however, that the reign and life are dealt with as synonymous; or at any rate, that some period beyond that during which each king sat singly on his throne has been recorded.

The method in question led the late Professor Rask to a different power for the word sarus. In his Ældste Hebraiske Tidregnung he writes as follows: "The meaning of the so-called sari has been impossible for me to discover. The ancients explain it differently. Dr. Ludw. Ideler, in his Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie, i. 207, considers it to mean some lunar period; without however defining it, and without sufficient closeness to enable us to reduce the 120 sari, attributed to the ten ancient kings, to any probable number of real years. I should almost believe that the sarus was a year of 23 months, so that the 120 sari meant 240 natural years." p. 32. Now Rask's hypothesis has the advantage of leaving the meaning of the word reign as we find it. On the other hand, it blinks the question of ἔτη or anni as the parts of a sarus. Each doctrine, however, is equally hypothetical; the value of the sarus, in the present state of our inquiry, resting solely upon the circumstance of its giving a plausible result from plausible assumptions. The data through which the present writer asserts for his explanation the proper amount of probability are contained in two passages hitherto unapplied.

[Pg 83]

1. From Eusebius—is (Berosus) sarum ex annis 3600 conflat. Addit etiam nescio quem nerum ac sosum: nerum ait 600 annis constare, sosum annis 60. Sic ille de veterum more annos computat.—Translation of the Armenian Eusebius, p. 5, from Fragmenta Historicorum Græcorum, p. 439: Paris, 1841.

2. Berosus—σάρος δέ ἐστιν ἕξακόσια καὶ τρισχίλια ἔτη, νῖ ρος δὲ ἕξακόσια, σώσσος ἑξήκοντα.—From Cory's Ancient Fragments.

Now the assumed value of the word translated year (viz. 12 hours), in its application to the passages just quoted, gives for the powers of the three terms three divisions of time as natural as could be expected under the circumstances.

1. Σώσσος.—The sosus=30 days and 30 nights, or 12 hours × 60, or a month of 30 days, μὴν τριακονθήμερος. Aristotle writes—ἡ μὴν Λακωνικὴ ἕκτον μέρος τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ, τοῦτο δέ ἐστιν ἡμέραι ἑξήκοντα.—From Scaliger, De Emendatione Temporum, p. 23. Other evidence occurs in the same page.

2. Νῆρος.—The nerus=10 sosi or months=the old Roman year of that duration.

3. Σάρος.—The sarus=6 neri or 60 months of 30 days each; that is, five proper years within 25 days. This would be a cycle or annus magnus.

All these divisions are probable. Against that of 12 hours no objection lies except its inconvenient shortness. The month of 30 days is pre-eminently natural. The year of 10 months was common in early times. In favour of the sarus of five years (or nearly so) there are two facts:—

1. It is the multiple of the sosus by 10, and of the nerus by 6.

2. It represents the period when the natural year of 12 months coincides for the first time with the artificial one of 10; since 60 months=6 years of 10 months and 5 of 12.

The historical application of these numbers is considered to lie beyond the pale of the present inquiry.

In Suidas we meet an application of the principle recognised by Rask, viz. the assumption of some period of which the sarus is a fraction. Such at least is the probable view of the following interpretation: ΣΆΡΟΙ—μέτρον καὶ ἁριθμὸς παρὰ Χαλδαίοις, οἳ γὰρ ρκ´ σάροι ποιοῦσιν ἐνιαυτοὺς βσκβ´, οἳ γίγνονται ιε´ ἔνιαυτοὶ καὶ μῆνες ἕξ.—From Cory's Ancient Fragments[3].

[Pg 84]

In Josephus we find the recognition of an annus magnus containing as many ἔτη as the nerus did: ἔπειτα καὶ δι' ἀρετὴν καὶ τὴν εὐχρηστίαν ὧν ἐπενόουν ἀστρολόγιας καὶ γεωμὲτριας πλέον ζῇν τὸν Θεὸν αὐτοῖς παρασχεῖν ἅπερ οὐκ ἧν ἀσφαλῶς αὐτοῖς προειπεῖν ζήσασιν ἑξακοσίους ἐνιαυτούς· διὰ τοσοῦτον γὰρ ὁμέγας ἐνιαυτὸς πληροῦται.—Antiq. i. 3.

The following doctrine is a suggestion, viz. that in the word sosus we have the Hebrew שֵש = six. If this be true, it is probable that the sosus itself was only a secondary division, or some other period multiplied by six. Such would be a period of five days, or ten ἔׁτηׁ (so-called). With this view we get two probabilities, viz. a subdivision of the month, and the alternation of the numbers 6 and 10 throughout; i. e. from the ἔτος[4] (or 12 hours) to the sarus (or five years).

After the reading of this paper, a long discussion followed on the question, how far the sarus could be considered as belonging to historical chronology. The Chairman (Professor Wilson) thought there could be no doubt that the same principles which regulated the mythological periods of the Hindoos prevailed also in the Babylonian computations, although there might be some variety in their application.

1. A mahayuga or great age of the Hindoos, comprising the four successive yugas or ages, consists of 4,320,000 years.

2. These years being divided by 360, the number of days in the Indian lunar year, give 12,000 periods.

3. By casting off two additional cyphers, these numbers are reduced respectively to 432,000 and 120, the numbers of the years of the saroi of the ten Babylonian kings, whilst in the numbers 12,360 and 3600 we have the coincidence of other elements of the computation.

[Pg 85]

READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

Van den Bergh, Taal. Mag. ii. 2. 193-210.

Groningen.—Laurman, Proeve van kleine taalkundige bijdragen tot beter kennis van den tongval in de Provincie Groningen.—Groningen 1822.

J. Sonius Swaagman, Comment: de dialecto Groningana, etc.: una cum serie vocabulorum, Groninganis propriorum.—Groning. 1827.

Zaamenspraak tusschen Pijter en Jaap dij malkáár op de weg ontmuiten boeten Stÿntilpoorte.—Groninger Maandscrift, No. 1. Also in Laurman's Proeve.

Nieuwe Schuitpraatjes.—By the same author, 1836.

List van Groningsche Woorden.—By A. Complementary to the works of Laurman and Swaagman. With notes by A. de Jager.—Taalkundig Magazijn, second part, third number, pp. 331—334.

Groninsch Taaleigen door.—J. A. (the author of the preceding list). Taalkundig Magazijn, iv. 4. pp. 657—690.

Raize na Do de Cock.—Known to Van den Bergh only through the newspapers.

[Pg 86]

Subdialects indicated by J. A. as existing, (a) on the Friesland frontier, (b) in the Fens.

L. Van Bolhuis.—Collection of Groningen and Ommeland words not found in Halma's Lexicon; with notes by Clignett, Steenwinkel, and Malnoe. MS. In the library of the Maatschappij van Nederlandsche Letterkunde.

Over-ijsel.—J. H. Halbertsma, Proeve van een Woorden boekje van het Overijselsch.—Overijsselschen Almanak voor Oudheid en Letteren, 1836.

M. Winhoff, Landrecht var Auerissel, tweeee druk, met veele (philological as well as other) aanteckeningen door J. A. Chalmot.—Campen, 1782.

T. W. Van Marle, Samensprôke tusschen en snaak zoo as as der gelukkig néèt in te menigte zint en en heeren-krecht déè gien boe of ba zê, op de markt te Dêventer van vergange vrijdag.—Overijselschen Almanak, &c. ut supra.

Over de Twenthsche Vocalen en Klankwijzigingen, door J. H. Behrens.—Taalkundig Magazijn, iii. 3. pp. 332-390. 1839.

Twenther Brutfteleed.—Overijsselschen Almanak.

Dumbar the Younger (?).—Three lists of words and phrases used principally at Deventer. MS. In the library of the Maatschappij van Nederlandsche Letterkunde.

Drawings of twelve Overijssel Towns. Above and beneath each a copy of verses in the respective dialects. MS. of the seventeenth century. Library of the Maatschappij van Nederlandsche Letterkunde.

Gelderland.—H. I. Swaving, Opgave van eenige in Gelderland gebruikelijke woorden.—Taalkundig Magazijn, i. 4. pp. 305.

Ibid.—Ibid. ii. 1. pp. 76-80.

Opmerkingen omtrent den Gelderschen Tongval.—Ibid. ii. 4. pp. 398-426. The fourth section is devoted to some peculiarities from the neighbourhood of Zutphen.

N. C. Kist, Over de ver wisslingvan zedetijke en zinnelijke Hoedanigheden in sommige Betuwsche Idiotismen.—Nieuwe Werken der Maatsch. van Nederl. Letterkund. iii. 2. 1834.

Staaltje van Graafschapsche landtal.—Proeve van Taalkundipe Opmerkingen en Bedenkingen, door T. G. C. Kalckhoff.—Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen for June 1826.

Appendix to the above.—Ibid. October 1826.

Het Zeumerroaisel: a poem. 1834?—Known to Van den Bergh only through the newspapers. Believed to have been published in 1834.

Et Schaassen-riejen, en praotparticken tussen Harmen en Barteld.—Geldersche Volks-Almanak, 1835. Zutphen Dialect.

[Pg 87]

De Öskeskermios.—Geldersche Volks-Almanak, 1836. Dialect of Over Veluwe.

Hoe Meister Maorten baordman baos Joosten en schat deevinden.—Geldersche Volks-Almanak, 1836. Dialect of Lijm.

Opgave van eenige in Gelderland gebruikelijke woorden ae.—H. I. Swaving.—Taalk. Mag. iv. 4. pp. 307-330.

Aanteekeningen ter verbetering en uitbreiding der opmerkingen omtrent den Geldersehen Tongval.—Taal. Mag. iii. 1. pp. 39-80.

A. Van den Bergh.—Words from the provincial dialects of the Veluwen; with additions by H. T. Folmer.—MS. Library of the Maatschappij van Nederlandsche Letterkunde.

Handbook, containing the explanation and etymology of several obscure and antiquated words, &c. occurring in the Gelderland and other neighbouring Law-books.—By J. C. C. V. H[asselt].—MS. Library of the Maatschappij van Nederlandsche Letterkunde.

Holland.—Scheeps-praat, ten overlijden van Prins Maurits van Orange.—Huygens Korenbloemem, B. viii. Also in Lulofs Nederlandsche Spraakkunst, p. 351; in the Vaderlandsche Spreekwoorden door Sprenger van Eyk, p. 17, and (with three superadded couplets) in the Mnemosyne, part x. p. 76.

Brederoos Kluchten.—Chiefly in the Low Amsterdam (plat Amsterdamsch) dialect.

Hooft, Warenar met den pot.

Suffr. Sixtinus.—Gerard van Velsen. Amst. 1687.

Bilderdijk, Over een oud Amsterdamsch Volksdeuntjen.—Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen, 1808. Reprinted, with an appendix, at Leyden 1824.

Bilderdijk, Rowbeklag; in gemeen Zamen Amsterdamschen tongval.—Najaarsbladen, part i.

Gebel, Scheviningsch Visscherslied.—Almanak voor Blijgeestigen.

1. Boertige Samenspraak, ter heilgroete bij een huwelijk.

2. Samenspraak over de harddraverij te Valkenburg en aan heet Haagsche Schouw.

3. Boertige Samenspraak tusschen Heeip en Jan-buur.—These three last-named poems occur in Gedichten van J. Le Francq van Berkhey, in parts i. 221, ii. 180, ii. 257 respectively.

Tuist tusschen Achilles en Agamemnon. Schiutpraatje van eenen boer; of luimige vertaling van het 1^e Boek der Ilias, by J. E. Van Varelen.—Mnemosyne, part iv. Dordrecht, 1824.

The same by H. W. and B. F. Tydeman in the Mnemosyne, part iv. Dordrecht, 1824.

[Pg 88]

Noordhollandsch Taaleigen, door Nicolas Beets.—Taalk. Magaz. iii. 4. pp. 510—516, and iv. 3. pp. 365-372.

List of words and phrases used by the Katwijk Fishermen.—MS. Library of the Maatschappij van Nederlandsche Letterkunde.

Dictionary of the North-Holland Dialect; chiefly collected by Agge Roskan Kool.—MS. Ibid.

Zealand.—Gedicht op't innemen van sommige schansen en de sterke stad Hulst, &c. 1642. Le Jeune; Volkszangen, p. 190.

Brief van eene Zuidbevelandsche Boerin, aan haren Zoon, dienende bij de Zeeuwsche landelijke Schutterij. Zeeuwsche Volks-Almanak, 1836.

Over het Zeeuwsche Taaleigen, door Mr. A. F. Sifflé,—Taalkundig Magazijn i. 2. 169—171.

Notes upon the same, by Van A. D, J[ager].—Ibid. p. 175—177.

Taalkundige Aanteekeningen, door Mr. J. H. Hoefft.—Ibid. 1. 3. 248—256.

Collection of words used in Walcheren.—MS. Library of Maatschappij van Nederlandsche Letterkunde.

Collection of words used in States-Flanders.—MS. Ibid.

North brabant.—J. H. Hoefft, Proeve van Bredaasch taaleigen, &c.—Breda 1836.

J. L. Verster, Words used in the Mayoralty of Bosch.—MS. Library of Maatschappij van Nederlandsche Letterkunde.

Jewish.—Khootje, Waar binje? hof Conferensje hop de vertrekkie van de Colleesje hin de Poortoegeesche Koffy' uyssie, hover de gemasqwerde bal ontmaskert.—Amsterd.

Lehrrhede hower de vrauwen, door Raphael Noenes Karwalje, Hopper Rhabbijn te Presburg; in Wibmer, de Onpartijdige.—Amst. 1820, p. 244.

Negro[5].—New Testament.—Copenhagen, 1781, and Barby, 1802.

The Psalms.—Barby, 1802.

[Pg 89]

FROM
THE CLASSICAL MUSEUM OF 1846. VOL. 3.

The following train of thought presented itself to the writer upon the perusal of Mr. James Yates's learned and interesting work entitled Textrinum Antiquorum or an account of the art of weaving among the ancients. With scarcely a single exception the facts and references are supplied from that work so that to the author of the present paper nothing belongs beyond the reasoning that he has applied to them.

This statement is made once for all for the sake of saving a multiplicity of recurring references.

The negative assertions as well as the positive ones are also made upon the full faith in the exhaustive learning of the writer in question.

Now the conviction that is come to is this, that no tribe, nation or country ever existed which can be shewn to have borne, either in the vernacular or in any neighbouring language, the name Seres, Serica, or Terra Serica or any equivalent term, a conclusion that may save some trouble to the inquirers into ancient geography.

The nation called Seres has never had a specific existence under that name. Whence then originated the frequent in[Pg 90]dications of such a nation recurring in the writings of the ancients? The doctrine, founded upon the facts of Mr. Yates and laid down as a proposition; is as follows.—

That the name under which the article silk was introduced to the Greeks and Romans wore the appearance of a Gentile adjective and that the imaginary root of the accredited adjective passed for the substantive name of a nation. Thus, in the original form seric, the -ic had the appearance of being an adjectival termination, as in Medic-us Persic-us &c.; whilst ser- was treated as the substantive name of a nation or people from whence the article in question (i. e. the seric article) was derived. The Seres therefore were the hypothetical producers of the article that bore their name (seric). Whether this view involves more improbabilities than the current one will be seen from the forthcoming observations.—

1. In the first place the crude form seric was neither Latin nor Greek, so that the -ic could not be adjectival.

2. Neither was it in the simpler form ser- that the term was introduced into the classical languages so that the adjectival -ic might be appended afterwards.—

3. The name in question whatever might have been its remote origin was introduced into Greece from the Semitic tongues (probably the Phoenician) and was the word שריק in Isaiah XIX. 9. where the יק (the -ic) is not an adjectival appendage but a radical part of the word. And here it may be well to indicate that, except under the improbable supposition that the Hebrew name was borrowed from the Greek or Latin, it is a matter of indifference whether the word in question was indigenous to the Semitic Languages or introduced from abroad, and also that is a matter of indifference whether silk was known in the time of the Old Testament or not. It is sufficient if a term afterwards applied to that article was Hebrew at the time of Isaiah. Of any connection between the substance called שריק and a nation called Seres there is in the Semitic tongues no trace. The foundation of the present scepticism originated in the observation that the supposed national existence of the Seres coincided with the introduction of the term seric into languages where ic- was an adjectival affix.—

As early as the Augustan age the substantive Seres appears by the side of the adjective Sericus. In Virgil, Horace and Ovid the words may be found and from this time downwards the express notice of a nation so called is found through a long series of writers.—

Notwithstanding this it is as late as the time of Mela be[Pg 91]fore we find any author mentioning with detail and precision a geographical nationality for the Seres. "He (Mela) describes them as a very honest people who brought what they had to sell, laid it down and went away and then returned for the price of it" (Yates p. 184). Now this notice is anything rather than definite. Its accuracy moreover may be suspected, since it belongs to the ambiguous class of what may be called convertible descriptions. The same story is told of an African nation in Herodotus IV. 169.

To the statement of Mela we may add a notice from Ammianus Marcellinus of the quiet and peaceable character of the Seres (XXIII. 6.) and a statement from the novelist Heliodorus that at the nuptials of Theagenes and Chariclea the ambassadors of the Seres came bringing the thread and webs of their spiders (Aethiop. X. p. 494. Commelini).

Now notices more definite than the above of the national existence of the Seres anterior to the time of Justinian we have none whilst subsequently to the reign of that emperor there is an equal silence on the part both of historians and geographers. Neither have modern ethnographers found unequivocal traces of tribes bearing that name.

The probability of a confusion like the one indicated at the commencement of the paper is increased by the facts stated in p. 222. of the Textrinum. Here we see that besides Pausanias, Hesychius, Photius and other writers give two senses to the root ser- which they say is (1.) a worm (2.) the name of a nation. Probably Clemens Alexandrinus does the same νῆμα χρυσοῦ καὶ σῆρας Ἰνδικοὺς καὶ τοὺς περιέργους βόμβυκας χαίρειν ἐῶντας. A passage from Ulpian (Textrinum p. 192) leads to the belief that σῆρας here means silk-worm. Vestimentorum sunt omnia lanea lineaque, vel serica vel bombycina.

Finally the probability of the assumed confusion is verified by the statement of Procopius αὕτη δέ ἐστιν ἡ μέταξα ἐξ ἧς εἰώθασι τὴν ἐσθῆτα ἐργάζεσθαι, ἣν πάλαι μὲν Ἥλληνες Μηδικὴν ἐκάλουν, τανῦν δὲ σηρικὴν ὀνομάζουσιν. (De Bell. Persic. I. 20.).

Militating against these views I find little unsusceptible of explanation.—

1. The expression σηρικα δερματα of the author of the Periplus Maris Erythraei means skins from the silk country.

2. The intricacy introduced into the question by a passage of Procopius is greater. In the account of the first introduction of the silk worm into Europe in the reign of Justinian the monks who introduced it having arrived from India stated that they had long resided in the country called[Pg 92] Serinda inhabited by Indian nations where they had learned how raw silk might be produced in the country of the Romans (Textrinum p. 231). This is so much in favor of the root Ser-being gentile, but at the same time so much against the Seres being Chinese. Sanskrit scholars may perhaps adjust this matter. The Serinda is probably the fabulous Serendib.

In the countries around the original localities of the silk-worm the name for silk is as follows—

It is the conviction of the present writer that a nation called Seres had no geographical existence.

[Pg 93]

READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

FEBRUARY 9, 1844.

It is considered that the evidence of any local connection between the Cimbri conquered by Marius, and the Chersonesus Cimbrica, is insufficient to counterbalance the natural improbability of a long and difficult national migration. Of such a connection, however, the identity of name and the concurrent belief of respectable writers are primâ facie evidence. This, however, is disposed of if such a theory as the following can be established, viz. that, for certain reasons, the knowledge of the precise origin and locality of the nations conquered by Marius was, at an early period, confused and indefinite; that new countries were made known without giving any further information; that, hence, the locality of the Cimbri was always pushed forwards beyond the limits of the geographical areas accurately ascertained; and finally, that thus their supposed locality retrograded continually northwards until it fixed itself in the districts of Sleswick and Jutland, where the barrier of the sea and the increase of geographical knowledge (with one exception) prevented it from getting farther. Now this view arises out of the examination of the language of the historians and geographers as examined in order, from Sallust to Ptolemy.

Of Sallust and Cicero, the language points to Gaul as the home of the nation in question; and that without the least intimation of its being any particularly distant portion of that country. "Per idem tempus adversus Gallos ab ducibus nostris, Q. Cæpione et M. Manlio, malè pugnatum—Marius Consul absens factus, et ei decreta Provincia Gallia." Bell.[Pg 94] Jugurth. 114. "Ipse ille Marius—influentes in Italiam Gallorum maximas copias repressit." Cicero de Prov. Consul. 13. And here an objection may be anticipated. It is undoubtedly true that even if the Cimbri had originated in a locality so distant as the Chersonese, it would have been almost impossible to have made such a fact accurately understood. Yet it is also true, that if any material difference had existed between the Cimbri and the Gauls of Gaul, such must have been familiarly known in Rome, since slaves of both sorts must there have been common.

Cæsar, whose evidence ought to be conclusive (inasmuch as he knew of Germany as well as of Gaul), fixes them to the south of the Marne and Seine. This we learn, not from the direct text, but from inference: "Gallos—a Belgis Matrona et Sequana dividit." Bell. Gall. i. "Belgas—solos esse qui, patrum nostrûm memoria, omni Galliâ vexatâ, Teutones Cimbrosque intra fines suos ingredi prohibuerunt." Bell. Gall. ii. 4. Now if the Teutones and Cimbri had moved from north to south, they would have clashed with the Belgæ first and with the other Gauls afterwards. The converse, however, was the fact. It is right here to state, that the last observation may be explained away by supposing, either that the Teutones and Cimbri here meant may be a remnant of the confederation on their return, or else a portion that settled down in Gaul upon their way; or finally, a division that made a circle towards the place of their destination in a south-east direction. None of these however seem the plain and natural construction; and I would rather, if reduced to the alternative, read "Germania" instead of "Gallia" than acquiesce in the most probable of them.

Diodorus Siculus, without defining their locality, deals throughout with the Cimbri as a Gaulish tribe. Besides this, he gives us one of the elements of the assumed indistinctness of ideas in regard to their origin, viz. their hypothetical connexion with the Cimmerii. In this recognition of what might have been called the Cimmerian theory, he is followed by Strabo and Plutarch.—Diod. Sicul. v. 32. Strabo vii. Plutarch. Vit. Marii.

The next writer who mentions them is Strabo. In confirmation of the view taken above, this author places the Cimbri on the northernmost limit of the area geographically known to him, viz. beyond Gaul and in Germany, between the Rhine and the Elbe: τῶν δὲ Γερμάνων ὡς εἶπον, ὁὶ μὲν προσάρκτιοι παρηκοῦσι τῷ Ὠκεανῷ. Γνωρίζονται δ' ἀπὸ τῶν ἐκβολῶν τοῦ Ῥήνου λαβόντες τὴν ἀρχὴν μέχρι τοῦ Ἄλβιος. Τούτων δὲ εἰσὶ γνωριμώτατοι Σούγαμβροί τε καὶ Κίμβροι.[Pg 95] Τὰ δὲ πέραν τοῦ Ἄλβιος τὰ πρὸς τῷ Ὠκεανῷ ἄγνωστα ἡμῖν ἐστιν. (B. iv.) Further proof that this was the frontier of the Roman world we get from the statement which soon follows, viz. that "thus much was known to the Romans from their successful wars, and that more would have been known had it not been for the injunction of Augustus forbidding his generals to cross the Elbe." (B. iv.)

Velleius Paterculus agrees with his contemporary Strabo. He places them beyond the Rhine and deals with them as Germans:—"tum Cimbri et Teutoni transcendere Rhenum, multis mox nostris suisque cladibus nobiles." (ii. 9.) "Effusa—immanis vis Germanarum gentium quibus nomen Cimbris et Teutonis erat." (Ibid. 12.)

From the Germania of Tacitus a well-known passage will be considered in the sequel. Tacitus' locality coincides with that of Strabo.

Ptolemy.—Now the author who most mentions in detail the tribes beyond the Elbe is also the author who most pushes back the Cimbri towards the north. Coincident with his improved information as to the parts southward, he places them at the extremity of the area known to him: Καῦχοι οἱ μείζονες μέχρι τού Ἀλβίου ποταμοῦ· ἐφεξῆς δὲ ἐπὶ αὔχενα τῆς Κιμβρικῆς Χερσονήσου Σάξονες, αὐτὴν δὲ τὴν Χερσόνησον· ὑπερ μὲν τοὺς Σάξονας, Σιγουλώνες ἀπὸ δυσμῶν· εἶτα Σαβαλίγγιοι εἶτα Κόβανδοι, ὑπὲρ οὓς Χάλοι· καὶ ἔτι ὑπερτάτους δυσμικώτεροι μὲν Φουνδούσιοι, ἀνατολικώτεροι δὲ Χαροῦδες, πάντων δὲ ἀρτικώτεροι Κύμβροι.—Ptolemæi Germania.

Such is the evidence of those writers, Greek or Roman, who deal with the local habitation of the Cimbri rather than with the general history of that tribe. As a measure of the indefinitude of their ideas, we have the confusion, already noticed, between the Cimbri and Cimmerii, on the parts of Diodorus, Strabo, and Plutarch. A better measure occurs in the following extract from Pliny, who not only fixes the Cimbri in three places at once, but also (as far as we can find any meaning in his language) removes them so far northward as Norway: "Alterum genus Ingævones, quorum pars Cimbri Teutoni ac Chaucorum gentes. Proximi Rheno Istævones, quorum pars Cimbri mediterranei." (iv. 14.) "Promontorium Cimbrorum excurrens in maria longe Peninsulam efficit quæ Carthis appellatur." Ibid. "Sevo Mons (the mountain-chains of Norway) immanem ad Cimbrorum usque promontorium efficit sinum, qui Codanus vocatur, refertus insulis, quarum clarissima Scandinavia, incompertæ magnitudinis." (iv. 13.) Upon confusion like this it is not con[Pg 96]sidered necessary to expend further evidence. So few statements coincide, that under all views there must be a misconception somewhere; and of such misconception great must the amount be, to become more improbable than a national migration from Jutland to Italy.

Over and above, however, this particular question of evidence, there stands a second one; viz. the determination of the Ethnographical relations of the nations under consideration. This is the point as to whether the Cimbri conquered by Marius were Celts or Goths, akin to the Gauls, or akin to the Germans; a disputed point, and one which, for its own sake only, were worth discussing, even at the expense of raising a wholly independent question. Such however it is not. If the Cimbri were Celts, the improbability of their originating in the Cimbric Chersonese would be increased, and with it the amount of evidence required; since, laying aside other considerations, the natural unlikelihood of a large area being traversed by a mass of emigrants is greatly enhanced by the fact of any intermediate portion of that area being possessed by tribes as alien to each other as the Gauls and Germans. Hence therefore the fact of the Cimbri being Celts will (if proved) be considered as making against the probability of their origin in the Cimbric Chersonese; whilst if they be shown to be Goths, the difficulties of the supposition will be in some degree diminished. Whichever way this latter point is settled, something will be gained for the historian; since the supposed presence of Celts in the Cimbric Chersonese has complicated more than one question in ethnography.

Previous to proceeding in the inquiry it may be well to lay down once for all as a postulate, that whatever, in the way of ethnography, is proved concerning any one tribe of the Cimbro-Teutonic league, must be considered as proved concerning the remainder; since all explanations grounded upon the idea that one part was Gothic and another part Celtic have a certain amount of primâ facie improbability to set aside. The same conditions as to the burden of proof apply also to any hypotheses founded on the notion of retiring Cimbri posterior to the attempted invasion of Italy. On this point the list of authors quoted will not be brought below the time of Ptolemy. With the testimonies anterior to that writer, bearing upon the question of the ethnography, the attempt however will be made to be exhaustive. Furthermore, as the question in hand is not so much the absolute fact as to whether the Cimbri were Celts or Goths, but one as to the amount of evidence upon which we believe them to be either[Pg 97] the one or the other, statements will be noticed under the head of evidence, not because they are really proofs, but simply because they have ever been looked upon as such. Beginning then with the Germanic origin of the Cimbro-Teutonic confederation, and dealing separately with such tribes as are separately mentioned, we first find the

Ambrones.—In the Anglo-Saxon poem called the Traveller's Song, there is a notice of a tribe called Ymbre, Ymbras, or Ymbran. Suhm, the historian of Denmark, has allowed himself to imagine that these represent the Ambrones, and that their name still exists in that of the island Amron of the coast of Sleswick, and perhaps in Amerland, a part of Oldenburg.—Thorpe's note on the Traveller's Song in the Codex Exoniensis.

Teutones.—In the way of evidence of there being Teutones amongst the Germans, over and above the associate mention of their names with that of the Cimbri, there is but little. They are not so mentioned either by Tacitus or Strabo. Ptolemy, however, mentions a) the Teutonarii, b) the Teutones: Τευτονοάριοι καὶ Ουίρουνοι—Φαραδεινῶν δὲ καὶ Συήβων, Τεύτονες καὶ Ἄμαρποι. Besides this, however, arguments have been taken from a) the meaning of the root teut=people (þiuda, M. G.; þeód, A. S.; diot, O. H. G.): b) the Saltus Teutobergius: c) the supposed connection of the present word Deut-sch=German with the classical word Teutones. These may briefly be disposed of.

a.) It is not unlikely for an invading nation to call themselves the nation, the nations, the people, &c. Neither, if the tribe in question had done so (presuming them to have been Germans or Goths), would the word employed be very unlike Teuton-es. Although the word þiud-a=nation or people, is generally strong in its declension (so making the plural þiud-ôs), it is found also in a weak form with its plural thiot-ûn=Teuton-. See Deutsche Grammatik, i. 630.

b.) The Saltus Teutobergius mentioned by Tacitus (Ann. i. 60) can scarcely have taken its name from a tribe, or, on the other hand, have given it to one. It means either the hill of the people, or the city of the people; according as the syllable -berg- is derived from báirgs=a hill, or from baúrgs=a city. In either case the compound is allowable, e. g. diot-wëc, public way, O. H. G.; thiod-scatho, robber of the people, O. S.; þëód-cyning, þeod-mearc, boundary of the nation, A. S.; þiód-land, þiód-vëgr, people's way, Icelandic;—Theud-e-mirus, Theud-e-linda, Theud-i-gotha, proper names (from þiud-): himil-bërac, velt-përac; friðu-përac, O. H. G.; himinbiörg, valbiörg, Icelandic (from báirgs=hill)—ascipurc, hasalpurc,[Pg 98] saltzpurc, &c., O. H. G. (from baúrgs=city). The particular word diot-puruc=civitas magna occurs in O. H. G.—See Deutsche Grammatik, iii. p. 478.

c. Akin to this is the reasoning founded upon the connection (real or supposed) between the root Teut- in Teuton-, and the root deut- in Deut-sch. It runs thus. The syllable in question is common to the word Teut-ones, Teut-onicus, Theod-iscus, teud-iscus, teut-iscus, tût-iske, dût-iske, tiut-sche, deut-sch; whilst the word Deut-sch means German. As the Teut-ones were Germans, so were the Cimbri also. Now this line of argument is set aside by the circumstance that the syllable Teut- in Teut-ones and Teut-onicus, as the names of the confederates of the Cimbri, is wholly unconnected with the Teut- in theod-iscus, and Deut-sch. This is fully shown by Grimm in his dissertation on the words German and Dutch. In its oldest form the latter word meant popular, national, vernacular; it was an adjective applied to the vulgar tongue, or the vernacular German, in opposition to the Latin. In the tenth century the secondary form Teut-onicus came in vogue even with German writers. Whether this arose out of imitation of the Latin form Romanice, or out of the idea of an historical connection with the Teutones of the classics, is immaterial. It is clear that the present word deut-sch proves nothing respecting the Teutones. Perhaps, however, as early as the time of Martial the word Teutonicus was used in a general sense, denoting the Germans in general. Certain it is that before his time it meant the particular people conquered by Marius, irrespective of origin or locality.—See Grimm's Deutsche Grammatik, i. p. 17, 3rd edit. Martial, xiv. 26, Teutonici capilli. Claudian. in Eutrop. i. 406, Teutonicum hostem.

The Cimbri.—Evidence to the Gothic origin of the Cimbri (treated separately) begins with the writers under Augustus and Tiberius.

Vell. Paterculus.—The testimony of this writer as to the affinities of the nations in question is involved in his testimony as to their locality, and, consequently, subject to the same criticism. His mention of them (as Germans) is incidental.

Strabo.—Over and above the references already made, Strabo has certain specific statements concerning the Cimbri: a.) That according to a tradition (which he does not believe) they left their country on account of an inundation of the sea. This is applicable to Germany rather than to Gaul. This liability to inundations must not, however, be supposed to indicate a locality in the Cimbric Chersonese as well as[Pg 99] a German origin, since the coast between the Scheldt and Elbe is as obnoxious to the ocean as the coasts of Holstein, Sleswick and Jutland. b.) That against the German Cimbri and Teutones the Belgæ alone kept their ground—ὥστε μόνους (Βέλγας) ἀντέχειν πρὸς τὴν τῶν Γερμάνων ἔφοδον, Κίμβρων καὶ Τευτόνων. (iv. 3.) This is merely a translation of Cæsar (see above) with the interpolation Γερμάνων. c.) That they inhabited their original country, and that they sent ambassadors to Augustus— καὶ γὰρ νῦν ἔχουσι τὴν χώραν ἣν εἶχον πρότερον καὶ ἕπεμπσαν τῷ Σεβαστῷ ιἑρώτατον παρ' αὐτοῖς, λέβητα, αἰτούμενοι φιλίαν καὶ ἀμνηστίαν τῶν ὑπουργμένων· τυχόντες δὲ ὧν ἠξίουν ἀφῇραν. (B. i.) Full weight must be given to the definite character of this statement.

Tacitus.—Tacitus coincides with Strabo, in giving to the Cimbri a specific locality, and in stating special circumstances of their history. Let full weight be given to the words of a writer like Tacitus; but let it also be remembered that he wrote from hearsay evidence, that he is anything rather than an independent witness, that his statement is scarcely reconcileable with those of Ptolemy and Cæsar, and that above all the locality which both he and Strabo give the Cimbri is also the locality of the Sicambri, of which latter tribe no mention is made by Tacitus, although their wars with the Romans were matters of comparatively recent history. For my own part, I think, that between a confusion of the Cimbri with the Cimmerii on the one hand, and of the Cimbri with the Sicambri on the other, we have the clue to the misconceptions assumed at the commencement of the paper. There is no proof that in the eyes of the writers under the Republic, the origin of the Cimbri was a matter of either doubt or speculation. Catulus, in the History of his Consulship, commended by Cicero (Brutus, xxxv.), and Sylla in his Commentaries, must have spoken of them in a straightforward manner as Gauls, otherwise Cicero and Sallust would have spoken of them less decidedly. (See Plutarch's Life of Marius, and note.) Confusion arose when Greek readers of Homer and Herodotus began to theorize, and this grew greater when formidable enemies under the name of Sicambri were found in Germany. It is highly probable that in both Strabo and Tacitus we have a commentary on the lines of Horace—

"Eumdem (with the Chauci, Catti, and Cherusci) Germaniæ sinum proximi Oceano Cimbri tenent, parva nunc civitas,[Pg 100] sed gloria ingens: veterisque famæ lata vestigia manent, utrâque ripâ castra ac spatia, quorum ambitu nunc quoque metiaris molem manusque gentis, et tam magni exitus fidem—occasione discordiæ nostræ et civilium armorum, expugnatis legionum hibernis, etiam Gallias affectavêre; ac rursus pulsi, inde proximis temporibus triumphati magis quam victi sunt." (German. 38.)

Justin.—Justin writes—"Simul e Germaniâ Cimbros—inundâsse Italiam." Now this extract would be valuable if we were sure that the word Germania came from Justin's original, Trogus Pompeius; who was a Vocontian Gaul, living soon after the Cimbric defeat. To him, however, the term Germania must have been wholly unknown; since, besides general reasons, Tacitus says—"Germaniæ vocabulum recens et nuper additum: quoniam, qui primum Rhenum transgressi Gallos expulerint, ac nunc Tungri, tunc Germani vocati sint: ita nationis nomen, non gentis evaluisse paullatim, ut omnes, primum a victore ob metum, mox a seipsis invento nomine Germani vocarentur." Justin's interpolation of Germania corresponds with the similar one on the part of Strabo.