tion it may have combined their varieties. Beyond this we can affirm nothing; and rather than hazard an idle speculation, are willing to leave the question in the obscurity where probably it must ever remain. We have now completed the outline of this inquiry, as far as the physiological argument is concerned. It has, we think, been rendered, on purely scientific grounds, next to certain that man is one in species-highly probable that all the varieties of this species are derived from one pair, and a single locality on the earth. There are no difficulties attending these conclusions so great as those which other theories involve-and it may be accepted as a further indication of truth, that, in proportion as our knowledge in the several sciences connected with this subject has become larger and more exact, in the same proportion have these difficulties lessened or disappeared. Armed, then, with this strong presumption, derived from one source, we approach the second part of the argument, as originally proposed; that, to wit, depending on the history of human languages in their various forms, and connection with the history of nations over the globe. But on this theme, needful though it be to the completion of the subject, and largely embodied in the works before us, we cannot at present enter further than to show its intimate relation to the inquiry, and the general results to which it leads. It is far too copious to be dealt with in the small space we have at our disposal, and too complex to admit of any intelligible abridgment. That language should exist at all, and that it should exist among every people and community of the earth, even those lowest in the scale of civilization, is in itself a cogent argument for the unity of man as a species. As is the case with so many other wonders amidst which we live, its very familiarity disguises to us the marvelous nature of this great faculty of speech, confided to man, and to man alone, by the design of his Creator.* * We will not, by widening the definition of language, embarrass ourselves with the question whether this faculty be not possessed by various animals subordinate to man. Admitting fully the expression of Cuvier, in comparing the faculties of brutes with those of man, "Leur intelligence exécute des opérations du même genre," we still believe that no just definition can identify the mere instinctive communications by sound, however modified, through which the wants of animals are expressed and supplied, with those wonderful forms and devices of language which have rendered even grammar itself a science, and an index of human The more deeply we look into the structure and diversities of language, the more does this wonder augment upon us; mixed, however, with great perplexity, in regarding the multitude and variety of these different forms, hitherto reckoned only by approximation, but certainly exceeding some hundreds in number. Many of these are reducible, with more or less deviation, to certain common roots-others do not yet admit of such affiliation-others, again, have been so imperfectly examined or recorded, owing to the want of a common phonetic system, that no sure place has yet been assigned to them in the series. It is to this seeming chaos of tongues that the labors of modern scholars and philosophers have been earnestly directed; not simply for the solution of questions as to the structure, diversities, and connections of language, but with yet higher aim, in regard to the origin and progress of nations. Ethnology owes many of its most precious documents to these researches. They have aided it where the records of history were obscure or altogether wanting; and it cannot be doubted by those who have watched the course of this science of late years that it is destined to advance much farther by the same prolific methods of inquiry. We have before noted the names of some of the eminent men engaged on the subject. The "Discourse on Ethnology" by Chevalier Bunsen is a remarkable example of these labors, and of the philosophical refinements which have been added to the study of language. The vague and partial conjectures of etymology, and the crude catalogues of words caught by the untutored ear, are now replaced by a close and critical research into the principles of language, and into analogies of a higher class than those founded upon words and sounds alone. We could willingly pursue this topic further, but must limit ourselves simply to what may show the vast aids derived from this source to the study of the history of Man; and the increasing certainty of the conclusions, as the materials become character and culture. Of the writers who have sought to assimilate the language of inferior animals to that of man, the late Dr. Maculloch is the most able, and in his posthumous work on Natural Theology will be found a very ingenious chapter on this subject, defaced, it must be owned, by a style and spirit of writing which robs his works. of half their value. In this case it seems less his object to elevate our notions of the faculties of the lower animals, than to degrade our estimate of the human being. larger, and the methods of using them more comprehensive and exact. The classification of languages is, in truth, the classification of mankind-the migration and intermixture of languages are records of the changes and movements of man over the face of the globe. From the singular multiplicity, however, of these forms of human speech, a person new to the subject might well suppose it impossible to arrive at any certain issue; while those who have gone deepest into it find certain limits, which no genius or labor can surmount. Neverthe less, in relation to our argument, this very multiplicity, like that of the physical varieties of mankind, becomes an evidence of common original. Whatever opinion be held as to the primitive source of language-and many have found cause to consider it of divine communication-we may fairly presume that the numerous varieties of speech, now existing, had their origin in the detached localities and under the various conditions in which portions of mankind were early spread over the earth. Their formation, and the changes they have undergone, have been determined by the faculties, feelings, and social instincts, common to the whole species, and requiring analogous modes of expression by speech. Accordingly, we find that the grammatical relations of different languages, apart from those technical forms which disguise them to ordinary observation, are more certain and closer than the connection by words and roots. Were there more than one species of mankind, and were the type of one race really inferior in its origin to that of another, nothing would be so likely to attest this as the manner of communication of thought and feeling. Language itself would become the surest interpreter of this difference. But its actual varieties, only partially coincident with the degree of civilization and social advancement, offer no such lines of demarcation; and, however great the differences, all possess and manifest in their structure a common relation to the uses or necessities of man. The most peculiar class of languages, that most detached from others in its genius as well as forms, is undoubtedly the monosyllabic, as spoken and written in China and certain conterminous countries. The singularities of this inorganic language, as it may well be termed, have furnished endless matter of discussion to the most accomplished philologists. It has even been made a question whether it should be termed the most imperfect or the most perfect form of human speech; whether the rudest or the most philosophical of inventions. Without engag ing in a warfare of definitions, which here, as in so many other cases, are the real matter in dispute, we may safely state it to fulfill all the probable conditions of language in its earliest and most simple form. M. Bunsen goes so far as to consider it as a monument of antediluvian speech, insulated from others by physical changes on the globe, and retaining those primitive and fundamental characters which have elsewhere merged into secondary and more complex forms. Without following him into this bold speculation, it is sufficient to say that, even if the Chinese language were proved to stand absolutely alone in its most prominent features, we could recognize in this no proof of a separate stock of mankind. The physical characters of this people distinctly denote them as belonging to the great Mongolian family; and as the monosyllabic form of language does not extend to other nations of that race, we are not entitled from its peculiarities to deduce a conclusion which is opposed to these less dubious marks of a common original. We are left, then, amidst this multitudinous array of tongues, with no more certain clue of origin than those common necessities of social life and intercourse which belong to the species. These, however, are necessities in the strongest sense of the word. They compel the formation of language, and even of the more essential grammatical forms which it assumes. To explain its multiplied varieties we can do no other than admit, what is probable, indeed, on other grounds, the early separation of the human race into distinct communities, and the dispersion of those into localities so far detached as to give cause and scope for the formation of new languages; some of them retaining obvious traces of a primitive root, and collater ally connected more or less closely with other tongues; others, again, seemingly insulated in origin and independent of all such connection. The latter case is obviously the one most difficult to conceive, compatibly with a single origin of mankind; and in seek ing for explanation we feel ourselves forced backward upon periods of time which may well alarm the imagination and discourage inquiry. Recent research, however, has done a good deal to abate these difficulties; and it is important to remark here, as we have done in respect to the physical diversities of mankind, that the more minute the inquiry, the more do all differences and anomalies disap pear from view. A mere superficial regard to words and sounds often leaves widely asunder what a rigid analysis of methods and roots will exhibit as closely related in origin, and dissevered only by successive steps, which are sometimes themselves to be traced in existing forms of speech. The philosophy of language thus becomes a guide to ethnology, the best interpreter of the history of nations. Were we not limited here to a mere outline of the subject, many instances might be given of these recent discoveries in philology which have removed old barriers of time and space, and thrown their light forward upon fields of knowledge still unexplored. It is interesting to note how much these discoveries, as well as the classification and nomenclature of languages previously adopted, connect themselves with the recorded tripartite division of mankind into three great families after the Scriptural deluge. Some of the most remarkable results recently obtained are those which disclose relations, hitherto unsuspected or unproved, between the language of Ancient Egypt and the Semitic and Japhetic languages of Asia; thus associating together in probable origin those three great roots which, in their separate diffusion, have spread forms of speech over all the civilized parts of the world. Taking the Japhetian, or Indo-Teutonic branch, as it has lately been termed, we find these inquiries embracing and completing the connections between the several families of language which compose this eminent division of mankind; already dominant in Europe for a long series of ages, and destined apparently, through some of its branches, to still more general dominion over the globe. We may mention, as one of the latest examples of the refined analysis of which we are speaking, the complete reduction of the Celtic to the class of Indo-Teutonic languages, through the labors of Bopp, Prichard, and Pictet; whereby an eighth family is added to this great stock, and the circle completed which defines their relations to one another, and to the other languages of mankind. In closing our remarks on this subject, we must again repeat, that we have almost exclusively limited them to what regards its general connection with the primitive history of man;-unable to include that vast body of knowledge which has given philology a place among the sciences, and associated it with ethnology by relations which serve to illustrate and verify both. Yet we have said enough to show how closely the history of human language is connected with that of the human species-and, further, how strongly these researches tend to the same conclusion as that already deduced from physiology, viz., that man is of one species, and derived from a single pair primitively created on the earth. There yet remain two inquiries, to which, notwithstanding their interest, we have only slightly adverted-those, namely, which regard time and place in their relation to this great event. But, to say nothing of the intrinsic difficulty of these questions under any circumstances, we consider that they cannot reasonably be brought into view until we have first mastered, as far as it may be done, this preliminary science of human languages. Our physical knowledge of man, as a part of the animal creation, is wholly inadequate to such inquiries; and he must, in truth, be an adventurous reasoner who expects to draw from either source any certain solution of them. We may possibly at a future time resume this important subject in the greater detail it requires. Meanwhile, we hope to have already justified the assertion with which we prefaced this article, that there is no subject of science of deeper interest than that which regards the natural history and original condition of man. Even were the questions it involves less remarkable, and less important in regard to the present and future condition of the species, the methods of argument and sources of evidence are such as may well engage and engross every scientific inquirer. The evidence is drawn from all parts of creation-from the mind, as well as from the bodily conformation of man himself. The argument is one of probability; always tending to greater certainty, though, it may be, incapable of ever reaching that which is complete. But this is a method of reasoning well understood to be compatible with the highest philosophy, and peculiarly consonant to our present faculties and position in the universe. And if "in this ocean of disquisition fogs have been often mistaken for land," as in so many other regions of science, we may at least affirm that the charts are more correctly laid down than ever before; the bearings better ascertained; and that our reason can hardly be shipwrecked on this great argument, if common caution be observed in the course we pursue. From Fraser's Magazine. ON MR. MACAULAY'S PRAISE OF SUPERFICIAL KNOWLEDGE.* 46 A little learning is a dangerous thing; THIS often-quoted passage has commonly been employed in such a way as to imply that the quoter has an interest in the doctrine which it expresses, and can afford to despise a little learning" and " shallow draughts." We believe that Mr. Macaulay was the first person who had the spirit to refuse to join this general league of self-complacency, and to take the other side on general grounds. A little while ago, at a public meeting at Edinburgh, he made a speech in which he took for his thesis the absurdity of these fears of the danger of superficial learning. This thesis he illustrated with his own peculiar brilliancy and fertility. What, he asked, is the standard of shallowness? Is it anything fixed? Is not the profoundness of one age the shallowness of the next? The same knowledge which made Ramahoun Roy profound among the Hindoos would have made him superficial among Edinburgh men. The boarding-school girls of this day are profound geographers in comparison with Strabo. Gulliver, who was a giant in Lilliput, was a pigmy in Brobdignag. The profound astronomer of a few centuries back was an astrologer: the profound chemist, an alchemist. Herschel and Faraday enable us to smile at such profundity. But now that the occasion is long past, it may not be without its use that we should look calmly at his assertions, and try to see with some precision where the fallacy is. For that there is a fallacy, even his own conclusions must make apparent to any sober thinker; and even the audience, who shouted their laughing applause when the orator told them how far they were superior to the astrologists and alchemists of the middle ages, must have had some misgiving when he asserted that each of them, and even most of their daughters, were more profound geographers than Strabo, and deeper astronomers than Kepler or Tycho Brahe. They can hardly have believed that a man who, like Strabo, knew the whole history of geographical discovery up to his own time, and had present to his mind the aspect of almost every city and every shore, was a shallow geographer in comparison with one of us, merely because we can repeat the names of Otaheite and New Zealand, and recognize a map of Baffin's Bay when we see it; or that, simply because we know how many satellites of Saturn have been discovered, and how many small planets there are between Mars and Jupiter, we are better astronomers than those men who, three centuries ago, settled When an orator has delighted his audience the form of the planets' orbits, and made by a series of lively sallies, which at the same out the irregularities of the moon's motions. time please their imagination and gratify their If we hold this, we must also assert ourselves vanity, it is an ungracious task to set coldly to be more profound astronomers than Newto work to point out the fallacy of the argu-ton, because we are apprised of the discovery ments and the falseness of the illustrations. And we must suppose that this was the reason why the many eminent and able men who listened to Mr. Macaulay's defence of "a little learning" acquiesced, by their silence, in the doctrines which he then put forward. *The Danger of Superficial Knowledge; an Introductory Lecture to the Course of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, delivered on the 1st and 2d of November, 1848. By J. D. Forbes, Esq., F.R. S., &c. London: John W. Parker, West Strand. of Uranus and Neptune; and greater geographers than Rennel and Malte-Brun, because we know where Boothia Felix and Mounts Erebus and Terror lie. But it is evident that all such assertions go upon the supposition, which is palpably absurd, that because the whole body of knowledge existing at the present day is greater than it was at any previous time, therefore we who possess any portion of that knowledge must know more than any one who lived a few generations ago. The absurdity of this better than Glauber himself did :—at least, we can give them their systematic name: we can call them sulphate of soda; but do we know as well as he did what will be the effects of mixture in the hot way and in the cold way, upon oil of vitriol and soda ;-how salts are made, and changed, by heat, and solution, and distillation? We can name such things; but do we know anything more than the name? We can laugh at the alchemists and their dreams of finding silver and gold in lead and iron; but can we take a piece of ore, and ascertain what silver and what gold is in it, which men could do three centuries ago? If we do not know what the men of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries did know— knowledge which was true, and which has only been transformed and translated into new language in modern times, not superseded and rejected-what right have we to plume ourselves upon a fancied superiority over them, merely because we have learnt to repeat some of the phrases in which knowledge more recently acquired has been expressed? The great masters in our time may be superior to those who have preceded them in the extent, and, if you please, in the profundity of the knowledge which they possess; but such men are never led by their superiority to think lightly of the discoverers and men of science who have preceded them; and if we, merely because we live among the great men of our age and country, and have the opportunity of hearing their voice and listening to the truths which they utter, are led to despise preceding philosophers for their inferiority, what does this prove, but that we are conceited through the smallness, not the largeness of our knowledge? What does it prove, except precisely what the poet says, that fancy is surely palpable enough. Granted | that the world knows much more now than it did in the time of Galileo, do we therefore necessarily know more than he did? Granted that much that was new and difficult then is easy and familiar now, may there not still be many things which were easy to him and which yet are difficult to us? Surely it is a very baseless and self-complacent delusion to identify ourselves with our age, as if we must needs share in its attainments, know much because it knows much, be profound because it is profound. We might object to calling the knowledge of the present day "more profound" than that of former times, merely because it is more advanced, more extended. We might say, that an astronomical lecturer of the present day is not necessarily more profound than Galileo, Kepler, Tycho, merely because he is acquainted with discoveries made since their time. We might reasonably object to a scale of profundity by which the world grows every year deeper and deeper in its knowledge. But grant such a scale. Let it be that the world in the nineteenth century is a very profound world. Let the ocean of its acquirements be deep as well as wide. Is there no such thing as a shallow draught from a deep vessel? Is it not possible that the stream may be shallow though the source be deep? May not a man have a superficial acquaintance with a profound subject? And is not this so with regard to ordinary readers? Do they know astronomy or chemistry profoundly, merely because it is profoundly known in this their day? Do they really know the sciences better than the astronomers and chemists of the sixteenth century? It is easy to laugh at astrologers and alchemists, and to please and amuse ourselves by thinking how far our views and our knowledge elevate us above their absurd projects and fables: but let us recollect that there has been a stage intermediate between them and us, and let us ask if we are equal to the men of that intermediate stage? We know that there are planets which Galileo or Copernicus did not dream of, but have we as exact a knowledge of the motions of Venus, and Mars, and Jupi- All this may be said, granting the truth of ter, as they had? Can we determine the Mr. Macaulay's illustration :-allowing that places of these planets at any given time, as knowledge goes on constantly growing a larthey could do?-as even Ptolemy and the ger and larger mass, a deeper and deeper Greek astronomers could do? It is easy to well,-allowing that the generations of men laugh at those who calculated nativities; but are of a constantly increasing stature, so that have we any right to laugh at those who the intellectual giant of one age is the intelcould calculate eclipses, which probably welectual pigmy of the next; so that man, in could none of us do? And so in other sub- this respect, is like Gulliver, a giant to the jects. We know what Glauber's salts are, Lilliputians who preceded him, a pigmy to Shallow draughts intoxicate the brain? And does not the very different temper of the most profound men of science in all times show to us, that Drinking deeply sobers us again? |