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 Tiennette came as early as five o’clock to reserve a fillet of beef.”

“Well, Dionis, this is a fine piece of work!” said Massin, hastening to meet the notary, who was coming into the market-place.

“Well, what? All is going well,” replied the notary. “Your uncle has sold his stock, and Madame de Portenduère has asked me to call upon her to sign a bond of a hundred thousand francs mortgaged upon her property and lent by your uncle.”

“Yes, but if the young people were to marry?”

“It is as if you were to tell me that Goupil was my successor,” replied the notary.

“The two things are not impossible,” said Goupil.

Upon her return from mass, the old lady sent word to her son by Tiennette to come to see her.

This little house had three rooms on the first story. Madame de Portenduère’s and that of her late husband were on the same side, separated by a large dressing-room lighted by a borrowed light, and uniting again in a little anteroom opening upon the staircase. The window of the other room, occupied at all times by Savinien, looked out, as did his father’s, on the road. The staircase extended behind, in such a way as to provide this room with a small study lighted on the side of the courtyard by a round window. Madame de Portenduère’s room, the gloomiest in the whole house, looked out upon the courtyard; but the widow passed her days in the parlor on the ground floor, communicating by a corridor with the kitchen, which was built at the


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 bottom of the courtyard; so that this parlor served both as salon and dining-room. The room of the late Monsieur de Portenduère remained in the same state as on the day of his death; the deceased only was missing. Madame de Portenduère had made the bed herself, placing on it her husband’s naval uniform, sword, red ribbon, orders and hat. The gold snuff-box from which the viscount had taken a last pinch was on the pedestal, with his prayer-book, watch and the cup from which he had drunk. His white hair, framed and arranged in a single lock, hung over the crucifix with its holy water font in the alcove. In short, the knickknacks which he used, his newspapers, furniture, the Dutch spittoon, his field-glass hanging up over the mantelpiece, nothing was missing. The widow had stopped the old timepiece at the hour of his death, which was thus indicated for all time. One could still smell the powder and snuff of the deceased. The hearth was as he had left it. To go in there was to see him again in meeting with all the things that told of his habits. His great gold-headed cane remained where he had placed it, together with his thick doeskin gloves close by. On a bracket shone a coarsely carved gold vase, worth a thousand crowns, presented to him by Havanna, which, at the time of the American War of Independence, he defended from an attack of the English whilst fighting against a superior force, after having safely brought into port the convoy he was protecting. As a reward, the King of Spain had made him a Chevalier

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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 of his orders. Raised for this feat to the rank of commodore at the first promotion, he received the red ribbon. Sure then of the first vacancy, he married his wife, who had two hundred thousand francs. But the Revolution prevented promotion, and Monsieur de Portenduère emigrated.

“Where is my mother?” said Savinien to Tiennette.

“She is waiting for you in your father’s room,” replied the old Breton servant.

Savinien could not suppress a thrill. He knew the rigidity of his mother’s principles, her creed of honor, her loyalty, her faith in the nobility, and he foresaw a scene. And so he went as if to an assault, his heart beating, his face almost pale. In the half-light filtering through the blinds, he saw his mother, dressed in black, wearing a solemn air befitting this chamber of the dead.

“Monsieur le Vicomte,” she said, when she saw him, rising and seizing his hand to lead him beside the paternal bed, “there your father expired, a man of honor, dying without a single self-reproach. His spirit is there. He must indeed have lamented up there at seeing his son sullied by an imprisonment for debt. Under the ancient monarchy, you might have been spared this mud-stain through a lettre de cachet and by being shut up for a few days in one of the State prisons. But, at length, here you are before your father, who hears you. You who know all that you did before going into this ignoble prison, can you swear to me before this shadow and before


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 God, who sees all, that you have never committed any dishonorable action, that your debts were the result of youthful impulse, and that, finally, your honor is unsullied? If your blameless father were there, alive, in this armchair, if he asked you for an account of your conduct, after having listened to you, would he embrace you?”

“Yes, mother,” said the young man, with respectful seriousness.

She then opened her arms and pressed her son to her heart while shedding a few tears.

“Then let us forget it all,” she said, “it is only a little money the less; I will pray God that we may recover it, and, since you are still worthy of your name, kiss me, for I have suffered much!”

“I swear, my dear mother,” he said, stretching out his hand over the bed, “never again to give you the least trouble of this sort, and to do all I can to atone for my early shortcomings.”

“Come to breakfast, my child,” she said, leaving the room.

If the laws of the stage are to be applied to this story, Savinien’s arrival, by introducing to Nemours the only character yet wanting amongst those who are to figure in this little drama, here brings the prologue to an end.


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 PART SECOND THE MINORET INHERITANCE

*

The action commenced with an arrangement so often employed in ancient as well as in modern literature, that nobody would have believed in its effects, in 1829, had it not been a question of an old Bretonne, a Kergarouët, a refugee! But, let us hasten to acknowledge, that in 1829, the nobility had recovered in morals a little of the ground lost in politics. Moreover, the feeling which governs the relatives from the moment there is a question of matrimonial relations is an imperishable feeling, very closely bound up in the existence of civilized society and imbibed into the family spirit. It prevails in Geneva as in Vienna, as in Nemours, where Zélie Levrault but lately refused her consent to her son’s marriage with the daughter of a bastard. Nevertheless, all social law has its exceptions. And so Savinien was considering how to bend his mother’s pride before Ursule’s innate nobleness. The struggle began on the spot As soon as Savinien was (187)


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Spectroheliograph


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 the two seasons of Spring and Autumn, while, beneath the feet of Noah, four seasons represent the changed state made by the Flood.

By the side of Seth is Elijah: he comprehends all the prophetic characters. He is seen on his fiery chariot, bowing before the throne of the Saviour. In like manner the figures of Seth and his wife comprehend the Fathers before the Flood, and their generations: when seen remote, they appear as one man. A little below Seth, on his right, are two figures, a male and a female, with numerous children. These represent those who were not in the line of the Church, and yet were saved from among the antediluvians who perished. Between Seth and these, a female figure represents the solitary state of those who, previous to the Flood, walked with God.

All these rise towards the opening cloud before the throne, led onward by triumphant groups of infants. Between Seth and Elijah three female figures, crowned with garlands, represent Learning and Science, which accompanied Adam out of Eden.

The cloud that opens, rolling apart from before the throne, and before the new heaven and the new earth, is composed of various groups of figures, particularly the four living creatures mentioned in Revelations as surrounding the throne. These I suppose to have the chief agency in removing the old heavens and the old earth, to make way for the new heaven and the new earth, to descend from the throne of God and of the Lamb. That living creature on the left of the throne gives to the seven Angels the seven vials of the wrath of God, with which they, hovering over the deeps beneath, pour out upon the wicked their plagues. The other living creatures are descending with a shout, and with the sound of the trumpet, and directing the combats in the upper elements. In the two corners of the picture: on the left hand, Apollyon is foiled before the sword of Michael; and, on the right, the two witnesses are subduing their enemies.

On the cloud are opened the books of remembrance of life and of death: before that of life, on the right, some figures bow in


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text: Page:Poems, Volume 1, Coates, 1916.djvu/44


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Page:Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922).djvu/164

 126

{{Hoyt quote | num = | text = Comparisons do ofttime great grievance. John Lydgate—Bochas. | place = Bk. III. Ch. VIII. | seealso = (See also {{sc|Boiardo) Who wer as lyke as one pease is to another. Imx—Euphves. P. 215. | seealso = (See also {{sc|Gascoigne}}) | topic = | page = }}

{{Hoyt quote | num = | text = Hoc ego, tuque sumus: sed quod sum, non potes esse: Tu quod es, e populo quilibet esse potest. Such are thou and I: but what I am thou canst not be; what thou art any one of the multitude may be. MARTiAii—Epigrams. V. 13. 9. | author = | work = | place = | note = | topic = | page = 126 }}

{{Hoyt quote | num = | text = Sunt bona, sunt qusedam mediocria, sunt mala plura. Some are good, some are middling, the most are bad. | author = Martial | work = Epigrams. | place = I. 17. 1. | note = | topic = | page = }}

{{Hoyt quote | num = 15 | text = L'ape e la serpe spesso Suggon l'istesso umore; The bee and the serpent often sip from the selfsame flower. Metastasio—Morte d'Abele. I. | author = | work = | place = | note = | topic = | page = 126 }}

{{Hoyt quote | num = | text = II y a fagots et fagots. There are fagots and fagots. Moltere—he Medecin Malgr& lui. I. 6. | author = | work = | place = | note = | topic = | page = 126 }}

{{Hoyt quote | num = | text = The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould. * * * The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbour causes a war betwixt princes. Montaigne—Apology for Raimond de Sebond. Bk.H. Ch.XII. | author = | work = | place = | note = | topic = | page = 126 }}

{{Hoyt quote | num = | text = A man must either imitate the vicious or hate them. Montaigne—Essays. Of Solitude. | author = | work = | place = | note = | topic = | page = 126 }}

{{Hoyt quote | num = | text = We are nearer neighbours to ourselves than whiteness to snow, or weight to stones. Montaigne—Essays. | place = Bk. II. Ch. XII. | author = | work = | place = | note = | topic = | page = 126 }}

{{Hoyt quote | num = | text = No more like together than is chalke to coles. Sir Thos. More—Works. P. 674. | author = | work = | place = | note = | topic = | page = 126 }}

{{Hoyt quote | num = | text = Everye white will have its blacke, And everye sweet its soure. Thos. Percy—Bdiques. Sir Cvrline. | author = | work = | place = | note = | topic = | page = 126 }}

{{Hoyt quote | num = | text = Another yet the same. | author = Pope | work = Dunciad. | place = Bk. III. L. 90. | author = | work = | place = | note = | topic = | page = 126 }}

{{Hoyt quote | num = | text = The rose and thorn, the treasure and dragon, joy and sorrow, all mingle into one. Saadi—The Gvlistan. Ch. VU. Apohgve2. Boss' trans. | author = | work = | place = | note = | topic = | page = 126 }}

{{Hoyt quote | num = | text = Einem ist sie die hohe, die himmlische Gottin, demandern Eine tuchtige Kuh, die ihn mit Butter versorgt. To one it is a might}' heavenly goddess, to the other an excellent cow that furnishes him with butter. Schiller—Wissenschaft. | author = | work = | place = | note = | topic = | page = 126 }}


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Rh

COMPASS-PLANT Suphium laciniatum

COMPENSATION


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 128


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 Rh


text: Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Roosevelt, Nicholas I.


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VV for W
This page uses VV instead of W several times, using W only once, primarily this is in the name of the Element Water, thus VVater, though in one case it is Water and another instance is VVherefore. I recommend we keep the original. There's also an occurrence of "heavy" apparently spelt "heayy". We should check these and all obvious typographic errors or oddities against the errata, though it probably wouldn't be efficient to do so yet. (Note, although I'm watching this page, I may not notice a post, please reference this note and start a discussion on the text's main talk page if you disagree with my decision to mark them as such, as it affects the whole text; on the other hand, if you merely disagree with my reading of the original here, please comment here and ping me on my talk page or via e-mail, thanks). --Doug (talk) 22:15, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

 * I suppose you are concerned that in occult literature there may be encoded or encrypted communication, beyond the words alone, for example line acrostics or numerology; and significance might be lost by reformatting. Unfortunately of course translation followed by transcription would already have lost much of that sort of thing, and there will also be all the usual innocent typographical and other mistakes of the period. Esoteric scholars will always use the original, which is usefully indexed by the wikitranscript. I agree it makes sense to leave as much as possible unchanged in the transcript, VV, errata and all. Jezzabr (talk) 22:26, 23 January 2011 (UTC)


text:
User talk:86.162.131.73

Welcome

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title: User talk:86.162.131.73


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/John VIII (pope)


text:
Translation:Shulchan Aruch/Even ha-Ezer/21

To distance oneself from arayos

להתרחק מן העריות

Paragraph 1 — A person must stay very far from women. He is forbidden to signal with his hands or his feet, or to hint with his eyes, to one of the arayos. He is forbidden to be playful with her, to be frivolous in front of her, or to look upon her beauty. Even to smell the perfume upon her is forbidden. He is forbidden to gaze at women doing laundry. He is forbidden to gaze at the colorful garments of a woman whom he recognizes, even if she is not wearing them, lest he come to have [forbidden] thoughts about her. If one encounters a woman in the marketplace, he is forbidden to walk behind her, but rather [must] run so that she is beside or behind him. One may not pass by the door of a promiscuous woman [or: a prostitute], even four cubits [around 6–8 ft or 2–2.5 m] distant. If one gazes even at the little finger of a woman with the intent to have pleasure from it, it is as though he gazed at her shameful place. It is forbidden to listen to the voice of an erva or to look at her hair. If one intentionally does one of these things, we give him lashes of rebellion. These things are also forbidden in the case of ordinary Biblical prohibitions.

סעיף א — צריך אדם להתרחק מן הנשים מאד מאד. ואסור לקרוץ בידיו או ברגליו ולרמוז בעיניו לאחד מהעריות. ואסור לשחוק עמה, להקל ראשה כנגדה או להביט ביופיה. ואפילו להריח בבשמים שעליה אסור. ואסור להסתכל בנשים שעומדות על הכביסה. ואסור להסתכל בבגדי צבעונים של אשה שהוא מכירה, אפילו אינם עליה, שמא יבא להרהר בה. פגע אשה בשוק, אסור להלך אחריה, אלא רץ ומסלקה לצדדין או לאחריו. ולא יעבור בפתח אשה זונה, אפילו ברחוק ארבע אמות. והמסתכל אפילו באצבע קטנה של אשה ונתכוין ליהנות ממנה, כאלו נסתכל בבית התורף (פי' ערוה) שלה. ואסור לשמוע קול ערוה או לראות שערה. והמתכוין לאחד מאלו הדברים, מכין אותו מכת מרדות. ואלו הדברים אסורים גם בחייבי לאוין.

Paragraph 2 — Jewish women may not go with uncovered head in the marketplace, whether married or not.

סעיף ב — לא תלכנה בנות ישראל פרועות ראש בשוק, אחד פנויה ואחד אשת איש.

Paragraph 3 — It is permissible to gaze at an unmarried woman to determine if she is attractive, in order [to decide whether] to marry her, whether she is a virgin or not, and moreover it is fitting to do so. But he may not look at her in a promiscuous way, and about this it is said (Job 31:1) : "I made a covenant with my eyes, and how can I look upon a virgin?"

סעיף ג — מותר להסתכל בפנויה, לבדקה אם היא יפה שישאנה, בין שהיא בתולה או בעולה, ולא עוד אלא שראוי לעשות כן. אבל לא יסתכל בה דרך זנות, ועל זה נאמר: ברית כרתי לעיני ומה אתבונן על בתולה (איוב לא, א).

Paragraph 4 — It is permitted for a man to look at his wife, even if she is menstrually impure and is an erva to him. Even though he has pleasure in looking at her, he will not come to sin, since she is permissible after a time. But he may not be playful or frivolous with her.

סעיף ד — מותר לאדם להביט באשתו, אף על פי שהיא נדה והיא ערוה לו; אף על גב שיש לו הנאה בראייתה, הואיל והיא מותרת לאחר זמן אינו בא בזה לידי מכשול. אבל לא ישחק ולא יקל ראש עמה.

Paragraph 5 — It is forbidden to be served by a woman at all, whether she is an adult or a minor, whether a slave or free, lest he come to have forbidden thoughts. What service were they speaking of? Washing his face, hands, and feet, even to pour water so he can wash his face, hands, and feet, even if she does not touch him; or making his bed in front of him; or pouring a drink. Rem"a: Some say that eating with her with a bowl is also forbidden with every erva, as with his menstrually impure wife. There are those who are lenient in all of this, that they only prohibited affectionate things with one's menstrually impure wife.  Some say that all this is forbidden only when they are alone, but in a place like a bathhouse where many people are found, one may be washed by an idolatrous slave woman, and this is the custom.  And some say that anything not done in a affectionate manner (בדרך חבה), where his intent is only for Heaven's sake, is permitted.  Thus the custom is to be lenient in these things.  Some say that one should not do affectionate things even with his wife, such as to inspect her head for lice, in front of others.)

סעיף ה — אסור להשתמש באשה כלל, בין גדולה בין קטנה, בין שפחה בין משוחררת, שמא יבא לידי הרהור עבירה. באיזה שמוש אמרו, ברחיצת פניו ידיו ורגליו, אפילו ליצוק לו מים לרחוץ פניו ידיו ורגליו אפילו אינה נוגעת בו, והצעת המטה בפניו ומזיגת הכוס. הגה: ויש אומרים דהוא הדין באכילה עמה בקערה נמי אסור בכל ערוה כמו באשתו נדה (בנימין זאב סימן קמ"ג). ויש מקילין בכל אלה, דלא אסרו דברים של חבה רק באשתו נדה (רשב"א אלף קמ"ח). ויש אומרים דכל זה אינו איסור רק במקום ייחוד, אבל במקום שרוב בני אדם מצויים כגון במרחץ, מותר לרחוץ מעובדות כוכבים שפחות. וכן נוהגים (מרדכי פ' אע"פ בשם הר"ש בר ברוך). ויש אומרים דכל שאינו עושה דרך חבה, רק כוונתו לשם שמים, מותר. לכן נהגו להקל בדברים אלו (תוספות סוף קידושין). יש אומרים דאין לנהוג אפילו עם אשתו בדברים של חבה, כגון לעין ברישיה אם יש לו כינים, בפני אחרים (נ"י פרק חזקת הכתים).

Paragraph 6 — One may not inquire after a woman's welfare at all, even through an intermediary, and it is forbidden to send regards to her even through her husband. But it is permissible to ask her husband about her welfare.

סעיף ו — אין שואלים בשלום אשה כלל, אפילו על ידי שליח, ואפילו כעל ידי בעלה אסור לשלוח לה דברי שלומים. אבל מותר לשאול לבעלה איך שלומה:

Paragraph 7 — To hug or kiss one of the arayos whom people do not normally lust after, such as his adult sister or his aunt or similar, even though he derives no pleasure at all, is very reprehensible, forbidden, and the act of a fool. For we do not make close contact with our arayos at all, whether adult or minor, except father with daughter or the mother with son. In what conditions? A father is permitted to hug his daughter, kiss her, and sleep next to her with flesh touching, and so too a mother with her son, as long as they are minors. When they grow up, so that the son is an adult, and the daughter is an adult until "her breasts are formed and her hair grows" (Ezekiel 16:7), they must sleep clothed. If the daughter is embarrassed to stand before her father naked, or she is betrothed, and likewise if the mother is embarrassed to stand before her son naked – even if they are minors, when they reach the point of being embarrassed, they may not sleep together except clothed.

סעיף ז — המחבק או המנשק אחת מהעריות שאין לבו של אדם נוקפו עליהם כגון אחותו הגדולה ואחות אביו וכיוצא בהם אף עפ"י שאין לו שום הנאה כלל הרי זה מגונה ביותר ודבר איסור הוא ומעשה טיפשים שאין קריבים לערוה כלל בין גדולה בין קטנה חוץ מהאב לבתו והאם לבנה. כיצד מותר האב לחבק בתו ולנשקה וליישן עמה בקירוב בשר וכן האם עם בנה כל זמן שהם קטנים הגדילו ונעשה הבן גדול והבת גדולה עד שיהיו שדים נכונו ושערך צמח זה ישן בכסותו והיא ישנה בכסותה ואם היתה הבת בושה לעמוד לפני אביה ערומה או שנתקדשה וכן אם האם בושה לעמוד בפני בנה ערומה ואף על פי שהם קטנים משהגיעו ליכלם מהם אין ישנים עמהם אלא בכסותן.

 * }


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Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/381

 Brock published, through the Religious Tract Society, a work entitled 'Fraternal Appeals to Young Men.' In 1834 Brock threw himself with great energy into the final struggle connected with the abolition of West Indian slavery; spoke in every town in Norfolk and most of those in Suffolk; drew up papers in support of his views, and contributed articles to the public journals. It is stated that Brock was the first publicly to attack the inveterate custom of political bribery in Norwich.

In 1846, chiefly on account of failing health, Brock made a tour through France and Italy. In 1847 he suffered from defective sight, for the treatment of which he temporarily removed to London. At the election for Norwich in 1847 he opposed his intimate friend Sir Morton Peto, and supported Mr. Serjeant Parry, the candidate who favoured the separation of church and state. In consequence of enfeebled health Brock was ultimately advised to remove to London, where he became pastor of Bloomsbury Chapel on 5 Dec. 1848. Brock soon set on foot a philanthropic enterprise for the reclamation of the poor in the squalid and crowded district of St. Giles.

At Exeter Hall Brock lectured on behalf of the Young Men's Christian Association on 'Mercantile Morality.' He was personally acquainted with Sir Henry Havelock; and after the death of Havelock, in 1857, he published a memoir, which had an immense circulation, forty-five thousand copies being speedily disposed of in England. In 1859 the work of preaching in theatres on Sundays was instituted in London, and Brock delivered the first sermon in the Britannia Theatre, Hoxton.

In 1866 Brock made a tour in the United States. On his return he entered into the ritualistic controversy, and published two discourses under the title of 'Ritualism Mischievous in its Design.' He further drew up a series of resolutions, in a similar sense, in behalf of the 'general body of protestant dissenting ministers of the three denominations in and about London.' He helped at this time to form the London Association of Baptist Churches, and was elected its first president. In the course of twelve years the association included 140 churches, with nearly 34,000 members in communion. In 1869 Brock was elected to the presidency of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland. In September 1872 he resigned the post of minister at Bloomsbury Chapel. A few days before preaching his farewell sermon he lost his wife. After three years spent in comparative retirement he died on 13 Nov. 1875. In 1860 the senate of Harvard College conferred upon him the honorary degree of doctor of divinity.

In addition to the publications named in this article, Brock was the author (inter alia) of 'Sacramental Religion,' published in 1850; 'Sermons on the Sabbath,' 1853; 'The Gospel for the People,' 1859; 'The Wrong and Right of Christian Baptism,' 1864; 'The Christian's Duty in the forthcoming General Election,' 1868; and ' Mid-summer Morning Sermons,' 1872.

 BROCK, WILLIAM JOHN (1817?–1863), religious writer, born about 1817, married about 1845, in 1847 brought out a small volume of poems, 'Wayside Verses,' dating the preface London, 22 Sept.; and obtaining after this the degree of B.A., he took orders, and entered the church as curate of St. George's, Barnsley, Yorkshire (Twenty-seven Sermons, 2nd ed. p. 314). In 1855 he published at Barnsley, and by subscription, 'Twenty-seven Sermons,' in one volume, a publication which was quickly out of print (preface to 2nd ed.); and leaving Barnsley in 1858 to become incumbent of Hayfield, Derbyshire, Brock brought out a second edition of this book, dating it Hayfield Parsonage, 22 Sept. 1858, and adding to it the farewell sermon he had preached on leaving Barnsley. He died at Hayfield on 27 April 1863, and was buried there. After his death were published 'The Rough Wind stayed,' a volume of 'The Library of Excellent Literature,' 1867, and 'The Bright Light in the Clouds,' 1870.

 BROCKEDON, WILLIAM (1787–1854), painter, author, and inventor, was born at Totnes on 13 Oct. 1787. His father, who was a watchmaker, was a native of Kingsbridge, where and in the adjoining parish of Dodbrook his family had been occupants or owners of garden mills since the reign of Henry IV. This son, who was an only child, was educated at a private school in Totnes, but he learned little in it. His father was quite capable of supplying the deficiencies of school teaching as then understood, and under his instructions his son acquired a taste for scientific and mechanical pursuits. So great was his proficiency in mechanics that he was able to conduct the business during the illness of


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 nearly twelve months which ended in his father's death in September 1802.

Brockedon was proud to acknowledge his obligations to his father, whose 'natural talents,' as he wrote to a friend in 1832, he had 'never seen surpassed,' adding that 'whatever turn my own character may have taken, if the world thinks kindly of it, it grew under his instruction and advice, and the impressions made upon me before I was fifteen.'

After his father's death, Brockedon spent six months in London in the house of a watch manufacturer, to perfect himself in what he expected to have been his pursuit in life. On his return to Totnes he continued to carry on the business for his mother for five years. In a letter written to his friend, Octavian Blewitt, in November 1832, he says: 'I recollect with much pleasure the hand I had in making the present parish clock in the church at Totnes. An order was given to my father to make a new church clock a short time before the accident by lightning which, in February 1799, struck the tower, threw down the south-east pinnacle, and did so much damage to the church as to require nearly three years to repair it. This accident prevented the clock being put up until the summer of 1802, during my father's last illness.... I remember when the clock was making that I was set to do some of the work, though only about thirteen years of age, particularly cutting the fly-pinion out of the solid steel.'

During the five years in which he carried on the watchmaking business for his mother he devoted his spare time to drawing, for which from childhood he had as great a taste as he had for mechanics. Archdeacon (then the Rev. R. H.) Froude, rector of Dartington (father of Mr. J. A. Froude), encouraged him to pursue painting as a profession. The archdeacon liberally aided Brockedon's journey to London and his establishment there during his studies at the Royal Academy. Brockedon found another generous patron in Mr. A. H. Holdsworth, M.P. for Dartmouth, and governor of Dartmouth Castle.

This was in February 1809. From that time his career must be considered under three heads: 1, as a painter; 2, as an author; 3, as an inventor.

1. For six years he pursued his studies in London as a painter with little interruption till 1815. In that year, immediately after the battle of Waterloo, he went to Belgium and France, and had the benefit and gratification of seeing the gallery of the Louvre before its dispersion. From 1812 to 1837 he was a regular contributor to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy and the British Institution. In these twenty-five years he exhibited sixty-five works, historical, landscape, and portraits—thirty-six at the Academy and twenty-nine at the British Institution (, Dict. of Artists}. The works he exhibited in 1812 were portraits of Governor Holdsworth, M.P., and of Samuel Prout, who was, like himself, a Devonshire artist. He next exhibited 'a more ambitious work, of which artists of name spoke with approbation,' a portrait of 'Miss S. Booth as Juliet' (, 'Town and Table Talk,' ''Illustr. News'', 1854), pictures on scriptural and other subjects, portraits of Sir Alexander Burns, Sir George Back, now in the library of the Royal Geographical Society, and some interesting landscapes of Alpine and Italian scenery. He also painted the 'Acquittal of Susannah,' presented by him to his native county and now in the Crown Court of the Castle of Exeter; 'Christ raising the Widow's Son at Nain,' which he presented to Dartmouth church as a mark of respect to Governor Holdsworth, and which obtained for him the prize of one hundred guineas from the directors of the British Institution; and, about the same time, 'Christ's Agony in the Garden,' which he presented to Dartington church, a picture, he says in a letter to Blewitt, 'associated with my grateful recollections of Mr. Froude's friendship; and I mention it, trifling as it is, as one public testimonial of my desire to acknowledge his exceeding kindness to me.' Another large picture, representing the 'Delivery of the Tables of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai,' was presented by him to Christ's Hospital in 1835, and placed by order of the governors in their great hall. Another picture, painted at Rome in 1821, the 'Vision of the Chariots to the Prophet Zechariah,' excited so much interest that, by permission of the pope (Pius VII), it was exhibited in the Pantheon. At the same time Brockedon was elected a member of the Academies of Rome and Florence. In compliance with a law of the Florentine Academy he presented it with his portrait painted by his own hand. Brockedon's portrait is now a conspicuous object in the Uffizi of the Florence Gallery near those of Reynolds and Northcote.

2. Brockedon was meanwhile earning for himself a reputation as an author. In 1824 he made an excursion to the Alps for the purpose of investigating the route of Hannibal, and the idea of publishing 'Illustrations of the Passes' occurred to him. During the summers of 1825, 1826, 1828, and 1829, he was led in the course of his journeys to


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 cross the Alps fifty-eight times, and to pass into and out of Italy by more than forty different routes. The result was the publication, in 1827, of the first part of his 'Illustrations of the Passes of the Alps by which Italy communicates with France, Switzerland, and Germany.' The work, containing 109 engravings, was issued in twelve parts, from 1827 to 1829, forming when complete two royal quarto volumes, and was gratefully dedicated to his earliest patron, Archdeacon Froude. The drawings, which were entirely by Brockedon's own hand, were done in sepia, and were sold in 1837 to the fifth Lord Vernon for 500 guineas.

In 1833 he published in one volume his 'Journals of Excursions in the Alps, the Pennine, Graian, Cottian, Rhetian, Lepontine, and Bernese.' He also edited Finden's 'Illustrations to the Life and Works of Lord Byron.' In 1835 he edited for the Findens the 'Illustrated Road Book from London to Naples,' with thirty illustrations by himself and his friends Prout and Stanfield. In 1836 he wrote for 'Blackwood's Magazine' 'Extracts from the Journal of an Alpine Traveller,' and he subsequently wrote the Savoy and Alpine parts of Murray's 'Handbook for Switzerland.' His next work, published in folio in 1842-4, was 'Italy, Classical, Historical, and Picturesque, illustrated and described,' with sixty engravings from drawings by himself, Eastlake, Prout, Roberts, Stanfield, Harding, and other friends. In 1855, in conjunction with Dr. Croly, he wrote part of the letterpress of David Roberts's 'Views in the Holy Land, Syria, &c.,' Croly writing the historical, and Brockedon the descriptive portions.

3. During all these years Brockedon's love of art and literature was divided with his love of mechanical and scientific pursuits. As far back as 1819 his taste for mechanics led him to turn attention to the mode of wire-drawing then in use. Brockedon invented a mode of drawing the wire through holes pierced in sapphires, rubies, and other gems. He patented this invention, and visited Paris in connection with it; but, from the facility of violation, it was not a source of profit, though now the mode universally adopted. In 1831 he invented and patented, in conjunction with the late Mr. Mordan, a pen of a novel form called the 'oblique,' from the slit being in the usual direction of the writing. He next turned his attention to the preparation of a substitute for corks and bungs by coating felt with vulcanised india-rubber. He took out a patent for this invention in 1838, and in 1840 and 1842 enlarged its scope by other patents for retaining fluids in bottles, and for the manufacture of fibrous materials for the cores of stoppers. This invention led to his forming business relations with Messrs. Charles Macintosh & Co. of Manchester. About the year 1841 he submitted to them his patents for a substitute for corks, through which he was interested in their business till 1845, when he became a partner, and retained that position till his death. In 1843 he patented an invention for the manufacture of wadding for firearms; another for condensing the carbonates of soda, potass, &c., into the solid form of pills and lozenges; and for preparing or treating plumbago by reducing common black lead to powder, and then compressing it in vacuo, so as to produce artificial plumbago for lead pencils purer than any that could then be obtained, in consequence of the exhaustion of the mines in Cumberland, and especially valuable to artists because free from (diamond) grit. The invention was first worked for him by Messrs. Mordan & Co., but at his death in 1854 the plant and machinery were sold by auction, and bought by one of the merchants connected with the lead industry at Keswick. In 1844, 1846, and 1851, he patented inventions for various applications of vulcanised india-rubber. In 1830 Brockedon took an active part in the formation of the Royal Geographical Society, and was elected a member of its first council. He was afterwards the founder of the Graphic, an art society. On 12 June 1830 he was elected a member of the Athenæum. It had been resolved to commemorate the opening of the new club house in Pall Mall by adding 200 members to the list, 100 being elected by the committee, and 100 by the club. Brockedon was one of the hundred elected by the committee. On 18 Dec. 1834 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In February 1837 he lost his mother, for whose happiness he made the most loving provision from the moment when his improved prospects enabled him to do so.

He married in 1821 Miss Elizabeth Graham, who died in childbirth on 23 July 1829, in her fortieth year, leaving two children, Philip North, born at Florence on 27 April 1822, and Mary, married to Mr. Joseph H. Baxendale, the head of the firm of Pickford & Co. The son, who was educated as a civil engineer, became the favourite and confidential pupil of Mr. Brunel, and gave the brightest promise of future eminence in his profession, but was carried off by consumption at the early age of twenty-eight, on 13 Nov. 1849. On 8 May 1839 Brockedon married, as his second wife, the widow of Captain Farwell of Totnes, who survived him, and by whom he had no issue.


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 Brockedon never recovered from the shock of his son’s death; his health and spirits declined visibly. For several years he had been a sufferer from gall-stones, and in July 1854 a succession of paroxysms of unusual severity ended in an attack of jaundice, under which he rapidly sank. He died on 29 Aug. 1854, in his sixty-sixth year, at 29 Devonshire Street, Queen Square, Bloomsbury, and was buried in the grave which contained the remains of his first wife and his son in the burial-ground of St. George the Martyr, in Hunter Street, Brunswick Square.

Mr. Peter Cunningham, in announcing his death in the ‘Town and Table Talk’ of the ‘Illustrated London News,’ said that ‘English artists were mourning the loss of an old friend.’ There were few of whom this could have been said with more perfect truth, for it would have been difficult to find any one who was more beloved by a large circle of friends at home and abroad, or who was more regretted by his professional contemporaries, many of whom had reason to cherish his memory with affection as that of a man ever ready to show kindness to others, and never likely to forget it when shown to himself.

.

 BROCKETT, JOHN TROTTER (1788–1842), antiquary, was born at Witton Gilbert, co. Durham. In his early youth his parents removed to Gateshead, and he was educated under the care of the Rev. William Turner of Newcastle. The law having been selected as his profession, he was, after the usual course of study, admitted an attorney, and practised for many years at Newcastle, where he was esteemed an able and eloquent advocate in the mayor's and sheriff's courts, and a sound lawyer in the branches of his profession which deal with tenures and conveyancing.

He was a man of refined tastes, and a close student of numismatics and of English antiquities and philology. He made considerable collections of books and coins and medals, in 1823-4 the choice library and cabinets which he had formed up to that time were dispersed by auction at Sotheby's, the sale of the latter occupying ten days, and that of the former fourteen days.

In 1818 he published 'Hints on the Propriety of establishing a Typographical Society in Newcastle' (8vo, pp. 8), which led to the foundation of such a society, and gave an impulse to the production of an interesting series of privately printed tracts at Newcastle. To that series he himself contributed several tractates, including, Also reprints of tracts on Henry III, on Robert, earl of Salisbury, and of three accounts of the siege of Newcastle.
 * 1) 'A Catalogue of Books and Tracts printed at the private press of George Allan, Esq., at Darlington,' 1818.
 * 2) 'Bartlet's Episcopal Coins of Durham,' &c., new edition by J. T. B., 1817.
 * 3) 'Beauvais' Essay on the means of distinguishing Antique from Counterfeit Coins and Medals,' translated and edited by J. T. B., 1819.
 * 4) 'Selecta Numismata Aurea Imperatorum Romanorum e Museo J. T. B.,' 1822.

In 1818 he published an 'Enquiry into the Question whether the Freeholders of the Town and County of Newcastle-upon-Tyne are entitled to vote for Members of Parliament for the County of Northumberland,' and in 1825 the first edition of his 'Glossary of North Country Words in Use' (Newcastle-on-Tyne, 8vo). The manuscript collections for this valuable work were not originally intended for publication, and they passed into the library of Mr. John George Lambton, afterwards Lord Durham, but that gentleman surrendered them for the public service. A second edition, to a large extent rewritten, was published in 1829; and a third was in preparation at the time of the author's death, and was published, under the editorship of W. E. Brockett, in 1846 (2 vols. 8vo). He also contributed papers to the first three volumes of 'Archæologia Æliana.' In 1882 a 'Glossographia Anglicana,' from a manuscript left by Brockett, was privately printed by the society, called 'The sette of odd volumes,' with a biographical sketch of the author by Frederick B. Coomer of Newcastle, who names one or two tracts by Brockett not noted above, and memoirs by him of Thomas and John Bewick, prefixed to the 1820 edition of Bewick's 'Select Fables.'

Brockett was a member of the Society of Antiquaries, a secretary of the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society, and one of the council of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-on-Tyne. He died at Albion Place, Newcastle, on 12 Oct. 1842, aged 54.


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BROCKIE, MARIANUS, D.D. (1687–1755), Benedictine monk, was born at Edinburgh on 2 Dec. 1687, and joined the Scotch Benedictines at Ratisbon in 1708. He was doctor and professor of philosophy and divinity, and for a considerable time superior of the Scotch monastery at Erfurt. In 1727 he was sent on the catholic mission to his native country, where he remained till 1739. After returning to Ratisbon, he was for many years prior of St. James's, during which time he wrote his 'Monasticon Scoticon.' He died, leaving it unfinished, on 2 Dec. 1755. It was completed by Maurice Grant, but the monastery was not able to publish it. The manuscript, bound in seven ponderous volumes, is preserved at St. Mary's College, Blairs. It was lent to Dr. James F. S. Gordon for consultation and use in his 'Monasticum,' printed at Glasgow in 1867. Brockie wrote 'Observationes critico-historicæ' on the 'Regulæ ac Statuta recentiorum Ordinum et Congregationum' which constitute the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th volumes of Holstenius's 'Codex Regularum Monasticarum et Canonicarum,' printed at Augsburg in 1759.

BROCKLESBY, RICHARD (1636–1714), non-abjuring clergyman, was born at Tealby, near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, in 1636. His father was George Brocklesby, gentleman. He was educated at the neighbouring grammar school of Caistor, and as a sizar at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. in 1657 and M.A. in 1660. Some time between 1662 and 1674 he was instituted to the rectory of Folkingham, Lincolnshire. In the appendix to Kettlewell's Life, 1718, p. xxj, he is recorded as 'Mr. Brokesby, Rector of Folkinton.' No sympathy with the Jacobite party is to be inferred from his declining to abjure. Brocklesby retired to Stamford, and employed his leisure in composing an opus magnum, entitled 'An Explication of the Gospel Theism and the Divinity of the Christian Religion. Containing the True Account of the System of the Universe, and of the Christian Trinity. … By Richard Brocklesby, a Christian Trinitarian,' 1706, fol., pp. 1065. The preface truly says it is 'a book of many and great singularities;' it is crammed with reading from sages, fathers, schoolmen, travellers, and poets ; it bristles with odd terminology of the writer's special coinage. Brocklesby denies the eternal generation of the Son, and even his pre-existence ; yet asserts his consubstantiality as God-man begotten of God, 'an humane-divine person' (see especially bk. vi., 'The Idea of the Lord the Son'). He places the abode of Christ in heaven, from his coming of age to his public mission (p. 1019 sq.), though he calls the kindred notion of Socinus 'wild and pedantic.' The only Socinian writers whom he directly quotes are Enyedi, Krell, and the English 'Unitarian Tracts.' Nor does he know Servetus (p. 158) at first hand. Acontius (pp. 819, 821) he greatly values. Spinoza (p. 785) he cites with modified approval. John Maxwell, prebendary of Connor, issued in 1727, 4to, an English version ('A Treatise of the Laws of Nature') of Bishop Richard Cumberland's 'De Legibus Naturæ,' 1672, 4to. Out of Brocklesby's book, as he owns on his title-page, Maxwell carved two introductory essays and a supplementary dissertation. He simplifies Brocklesby's style, omits his theology, and adds some new matter from other sources. Brocklesby died at Stamford in 1714 (probably in February), and was buried at Folkingham. His will (dated 3 Aug. 1713, codicils 30 Jan. and 7 Feb. 1714, proved 13 Aug. 1714) was to have been included in the second volume of Peck's 'Desiderata Curiosa,' 1735, but was left over to a third volume, which never appeared. Out of considerable landed property in Lincolnshire and Huntingdonshire, a house at Stamford, &c., Brocklesby founded schools at Folkingham and Kirkby-on-Bain, Lincolnshire, and Pidley, Huntingdonshire, to teach poor children their catechism and to read the Bible. The charitable bequests are very numerous, and some rather singular. A complicated scheme for the distribution of bibles in five counties was to come into effect 'if the propagation of the gospel in the Eastern parts totally faileth, or doth not considerably succeed and prosper.' A sum of 150l. is left towards rebuilding the parish church of Wilsthorpe,Lincolnshire ; 150l. each for the benefit of the communities of French and Dutch refugees ; and 10l. each to eight presbyterian ministers. A bequest of 10l. to the celebrated Whiston was revoked by the first codicil. Brocklesby left two libraries. That at Stamford was sold by auction; the catalogue, Stamford, 1714, 4to, contains the titles of many rare volumes of the Socinian school. His library in London was left to be disposed of at the discretion of John


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 Observations, in two parts, from the year 1758 to the year 1763 inclusive, tending to the improvement of military hospitals and to the cure of camp diseases incident to soldiers,' 8vo, London. This was the first book in which sound principles of hygiene were laid down for the army. There were then but few barracks, and those few were ill built. Brocklesby shows that the soldiers must have plenty of air in their rooms if they are to remain healthy. Proper regulations are drawn up for field hospitals, and the necessity for giving the doctor absolute command in the hospital is pointed out. The observations on camp diseases are clear and original, and the remarks on treatment singularly wise. There is an interleaved copy of the book, with a few alterations and additions in the author's hand, in the library of the College of Physicians. To the same library Brocklesby gave a splendid copy, in twenty-five volumes folio, of Grævius and Gronovius's 'Thesaurus,' which contains an inscription in his handwriting. Brocklesby became F.R.S., and published some papers in the 'Philosophical Transactions.' He published also an account of a curious case of irregular pulse in 1767, and some experiments on seltzer water in 1768, both of which are to be found in the 'Medical Observations and Inquiries by a Society of Physicians in London,' 1767 and 1771. His compositions are all clear, and show that he possessed well-digested learning and good powers of observation. His conversation was abundant and full of all kinds of knowledge, but sometimes flowed too fast. Burke once speaks of 'Brocklesby's wild talk,' and Johnson once caught him up for giving too hasty an opinion as to the sanity of a reputed lunatic, and on another occasion corrected his quotation of some lines of Juvenal. But Brocklesby was often happy in his quotations, especially from Shakespeare, as Boswell's reports of his conversations with Johnson amply show (, Johnson, ii. 571). In Rees's 'Cyclopædia' (under the name) there is an account of a curious duel between Brocklesby and Dr. (afterwards Sir) [q. v.] After a short period of failing health Brocklesby died suddenly on 11 Dec. in the same year as Burke. He was buried in the church of St. Clement Danes, and bequeathed his house and its furniture, pictures and books, with 10,000, to Dr. Thomas Young. His portrait was painted by Copley, and has been engraved.

BROCKY, CHARLES (1807–1855), portrait and subject painter, was born at Temeswar, in the Banat, Hungary. When between six and seven years of age he lost his mother. Her sister had married the manager of a company of strolling players, and Brocky's father, who had originally been a peasant, followed the theatrical party in the capacity of hairdresser. He had many difficulties and hardships to contend against in his youth, but succeeded in obtaining some instruction in art at a free drawing-school at Vienna, and afterwards studied in the Louvre at Paris. He settled in London about 1837-8, and enjoyed some practice as a miniature-painter. Among his sitters was the queen. Brocky exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1839 to 1854 both portraits and subject pieces, among the latter an oil picture entitled 'The Nymph,' and four representations of the Seasons. The British Museum possesses four heads drawn by him in red chalk, executed in a masterly style, and four others are at the South Kensington Museum. When at Vienna he painted a St. John the Baptist, an altar-piece, a full-length portrait of the Emperor of Austria, a St. Cecilia, and a St. John the Evangelist. Brocky died in London on 8 July 1855, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery.

BRODERIC, ALAN,. [See .]

BRODERIP, FRANCES FREELING (1830–1878), authoress, second daughter of Thomas Hood, the poet, who died in 1845, by his wife, Jane Reynolds, who died in 1846, was born at Winchmore Hill, Middlesex, in 1830. She was named after her father's friend, Sir Francis Freeling, the secretary to the general post office. On 10 Sept. 1849 she was married to the Rev. John Somerville Broderip, son of Edward Broderip of Cossington Manor, who died in 1847, by his wife Grace Dory, daughter of Benjamin Greenhill. He was born at Wells, Somersetshire, in 1814, educated at Eton, and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he took his B.A. 1837, M.A. 1839, became rector of Cossington, Somersetshire, 1844, and died at Cossington on 10 April 1866. In 1857 Mrs. Broderip commenced her literary career by the publication of 'Wayside Fancies,' which was followed in 1860 by 'Funny Fables for Little Folks,' the first of a series of her works to which the illustrations were supplied by her brother, Tom Hood. Her other books appeared in the following order:  'Chrysal, or a Story with an End,' 1861.  Fairyland, or  Re-


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Logical Consistency in Views of Language

LOGICAL CONSISTENCY IN VIEWS OF LANGUAGE.

Considering how long the scientific study of language has now been pursued, and how much research and thought has been expended upon it, there exists among those engaged in its pursuit a discordance of opinion which is surprising, and by no means creditable. This discordance is found even among highly considered authorities. And it concerns not only matters of fact, such as the relationship of particular languages, the genesis of certain forms or systems of forms, the chronology of linguistic development, respecting which the collection of further evidence and the more careful sifting of that already obtained will bring ever clearer light, while upon many points certainty will doubtless never be reached; it concerns also theoretical questions of the most fundamental importance, like the relation of language to thought, to the individual, to the race, the ground of phonetic change, the character of the science of language, as to which we have abundant evidences, all that we shall ever have, and need only to understand and combine them rightly in order to arrive at competent and well-established views. The difficulty lies, it is believed, to no small extent, in carelessness of logical consistency respecting the general doctrines of linguistic science on the part of those who are engaged in the laborious investigation of special departments of the science: it will be at least mainly removed when scholars can be led to take up the subject at the right end, and to see that from certain obvious facts respecting language, which when clearly stated must command universal assent, there follow by a logical necessity certain truths which are equally undeniable, and which constitute a solid basis for rearing further conclusions upon. The following paper is an attempt to present the subject in this shape; and although it may contain little or nothing which has not been in some form already said, either by the writer himself or by others, its timeliness will be questioned by no one who realizes the present semi-chaotic condition of linguistic science, as briefly indicated above.

No fact in regard to language is more palpable, and at the same time more fundamental, than its diversity. The varieties of human speech are without number, and their differences endless, both in kind and in degree. These differences we may class, for convenience of review, under three heads: phonetic, structural, and significant.

The phonetic differences of languages lie in the number and character of the articulate utterances composing them, and the manner in which these utterances are combined into syllables and words for the expression of meaning. The organs of speech of every human being are capable of forming an indefinite variety of sounds, more or less widely discriminated from one another; the list of those found to be actually used in known languages counts up to several hundreds; but of them no single dialect uses more than a small number—from say fifty (in languages so phonetically rich and varied as the English) down to hardly more than a dozen (in the poorest Polynesian tongues). Almost every language has sounds which are either rare or altogether unknown elsewhere. The same thing is true of syllabic combinations: what in one tongue is regarded as unpronounceable is in another easy and familiar. And the general tone and coloring of utterance, the varieties of pitch and stress, of accent and quantity, are not less marked; so that one who has fully mastered the individual sounds of a foreign tongue, and can even utter single words with unimpeachable accuracy, is nevertheless recognized as no native as soon as he attempts to put forth a sentence.

And yet, all this diversity is underlain by a certain degree of similarity, easily explainable as result of the substantial correspondence of human throats and mouths. All speech of men is articulate—that is to say, it is made up of a succession of syllables, normally discriminated by the antithesis of opener and closer utterances, of vowel and consonant elements. Of the vowel-system the extreme members a and i and u are never wanting, hardly ever also the intermediate e and o, in all their minor varieties of coloring. Well-nigh everywhere the consonants are classifiable into mutes and fricatives and nasals, and, by a division crossing this, into back, front and middle series (guttural, labial, and lingual, or however else we may choose to denominate them). From among the indefinite variety of possible oral products, practical convenience has led the way to a selection partly accordant.

The structural differences, in the second place, of different languages are mainly of the kind which we are accustomed to call grammatical. What classes of words, of various office and use in sentence-combination—that is to say, what parts of speech—if any, are distinguished from one another; what modifications and relations of the more substantial conceptions are plainly indicated, instead of being left to inference from the circumstances, and by what means they are indicated, whether by phonetic change within the word, by external addition to the word, by independent words (auxiliaries and form-words), by change of relative position, whether by more than one of these means, or by all of them in various combination—such are the questions coming up here for consideration. According to the differences thus brought to light, languages are wont to be classified, as isolating, agglutinative, polysynthetic, inflective, and so on. But the differences are also so various, in kind and degree, that no even fairly acceptable classification founded upon them is possible; and the whole subject is decidedly the least satisfactory and the least valuable part of theoretical linguistics: “agglutinative” and “inflective,” especially, are mainly terms for to conjure with. Schleicher alone succeeded in laying down a definition of “inflective”; but (though he did not think so) the term as defined by him applied only to one family of languages, the Semitic.

But a structural value is to be seen also even in the vocabulary of a language—in the way in which, for the purposes of material as well as formal expression, the objects of thought are viewed and classified and selected: how, for example, the colors are distinguished and named, or the kingdoms and classes and genera of natural existences, or the parts and qualities of man, or numbers and their combinations; even the extent of vocabulary has in it an element akin with the structural.

In the third place, the significant differences of language, differences in the assignment of certain combinations of sounds to certain senses, are even more striking than the phonetic and the structural. There is here no underlying similarity, as in the other two cases; there is unlimited and utter variety. It is conceivable that two languages should have the same spoken alphabet and a closely kindred structure, and yet that every conception should have in the two a different sign. Correspondences there are in abundance among different tongues; but in part they are purely accidental, in part they are historical, dependent upon a common tradition. In general, we may say that for a given conception there are as many spoken representatives as there are languages, or even dialects, in the world; for even in nearly related dialects the pronounced form and the range of meanings of what is historically one word are almost invariably different. A determining relation between sound and sense is nowhere to be discovered; there are no natural spoken signs of mental acts; even our exclamations, where such signs might most plausibly be sought, do not afford them.

All this is not a matter for any intelligent difference of opinion; the facts are so palpable that they cannot be denied.

Our next point concerns the relation of any given tongue to its speakers.

The languages and dialects of the world, thus differing in every conceivable manner and degree, are shared out among the various races and communities of men. Among the races of men only, we may not say, for a variety of obvious reasons. First, there is to be found on the earth no pure race of civilized men, and the existence of such a one of savages even is rare and doubtful. Second, it is a familiarly known fact that whole communities, races or divisions of races, have come to speak languages not made or used by their own progenitors: examples are afforded by the English language in Cornwall and Ireland, the Latin and its descendants in Italy and southern Europe, the Arabic in Syria and northern Africa. Again, languages become mixed in a way wholly unaccordant with mixtures of race: examples are the English, with its Latin elements brought in chiefly by the Germanic Normans, the Turkish, full of Persian and Arabic, the Japanese, full of Chinese. Yet again, every civilized community contains among the speakers of its own tongue, and undistinguished in speech from them, individuals representing recent importations from other communities, of other speech: striking examples are the Africans among ourselves. And, once more, it is only necessary for any child to be placed by peculiar circumstances in a companionship not of its own race, and it gets a corresponding language; a hired nurse, or birth on a journey of its parents in foreign lands, or the like, may cause its “mother-tongue” to be different from the tongue of its mother.

In short, race has nothing directly to do with giving an individual his language; the primary relation of language is not to race, but to community; to race only so far as community is founded on race—which, of course, it usually and normally is; a man is ordinarily born into the company of his parents and their kin. But one of a given race never speaks its language unless he grows up among and consorts with other and older speakers of the latter; if his first associates are of another descent, he inevitably speaks their tongue, and as readily and naturally as they and their kindred. As a human being, he is capable of acquiring any human language; naturally the possessor of none, he may become by education the possessor of one as well as another; toward any given one he stands in a relation not perceptibly different from that of every other human being. To maintain this is by no means to deny that there are differences in the mental endowments of races, and in the grade of perfection of languages; but these differences are not greater than those of endowment in the individuals of a single race, or of the resources of the same language as commanded by different native speakers. The inferior race-capacity of the African has full room to show itself in the mental work which he does with English when he has learned it: and there are a plenty of English blockheads who fall below the average African, and whose store of ideas and signs for them no average African need envy. A gifted Englishman, no doubt, would be crippled by the acquisition of an inferior tongue only; yet not otherwise than by the deprivation of other educational advantages which should draw out his powers and give them scope for exercise. A native Mozart would be thwarted and stunted in China, a native Euclid or Watt in Polynesia.

All this, again, is only another mode of expression for the simple fact that every man learns his language—his “native” language just as much as any other which he may acquire later: that he gets it in no other way, accepting passively whatever circumstances place within reach of his powers of acquisition. The same fact is read, not less distinctly, in the process of learning to speak gone through by every child under our own eyes. The child learns first to understand, and then by imitation to produce; to produce at first imperfectly, fragmentarily, as regards sound, structure, and vocabulary; in all these respects he makes gradual improvement, according to his capacity and his opportunities, but never attains perfection. His first steps are difficult, as on an untried way, but practice makes them easy, and long habit converts them into a second nature; it comes to seem “natural,” not only to speak, but to speak just as he does; his names for things and his ways of using them are the natural ones, and all others unnatural, artificial, barbarous; and what at the outset he would have acquired just as easily now appears to him of a difficulty quite exceeding his powers.

The principal facts thus laid down respecting the distribution of languages are also too obvious not to be admitted by all students of language who are not blinded by preconceived opinion. As regards, however, the simple doctrine that every language is learned by every one of its speakers, a doctrine which satisfies all the facts and which alone is able to satisfy them, there is less general accordance. Some have been able so far to confuse their minds as to deny that a language is learned. The opportunity of the confusion is plainly afforded by the unfortunate double sense of our word “language,” which we use to signify, on the one hand, the capacity or complex of capacities, a part of our endowment as human beings, whereby we are enabled to acquire, use, modify, and make spoken expression of our thoughts: and, on the other hand, any one of the existing bodies of signs and modes of their employment, established methods of expression, habits of speech. The former, of course, is given us by nature; it is in no sense acquired or learned, but only developed through use; but the latter is something quite different, the gradually accumulated result of the exercise of the other. We have the power of language, and hence are able to learn and use a language; no individual could learn, if he had not the same power to originate which has belonged to any other individual of his predecessors; but the faculty does not give us the developed product, any more than the possession of even an exceptional mechanical aptitude gives us mastery of a branch of mechanic art, like engineering, or the possession of a power to reckon makes us practised mathematicians.

From these two elementary and undeniable facts respecting language—the indefinite variety of languages, and the fortuitousness of their distribution to their various speakers—follow certain necessary inferences, which can in no way be avoided by any one who accepts those facts.

First, that there is no internal and necessary, but only an external and accidental, connection between a conception and its spoken sign. The tie consists in a mental association, formed not spontaneously, but under the guidance and after the example of others. If there are (let us say) a thousand different signs for each conception, any one of them answering its purpose as well as any other, and if every user of a sign has to learn it and form the habit of associating it with the conception, then each sign is an arbitrary and conventional one, and a language composed of such is in its totality of the same character. There is no room whatever for the answer “φυσει” to the question how the names of things exist; and no educated Greek would ever have thought of giving that answer if Greece in general had not been under the dominion of the prejudice already referred to, and even at the present day widely and deeply rooted among the uneducated, that the names which one’s own language gives are the real ones, and all others mere babbling shams.

It follows, of course, along with this, that there is no more special connection of the apparatus of thought with the muscular apparatus of vocal expression than with any other part of the muscular system. The predominance of the voice as instrumentality of expression is the result of a process of natural selection, experience teaching its higher availability for the purpose.

Further, it follows that language is not thought, but an instrumentality whereby vastly increased distinctness and precision and range are given to thought. The error of those who deny, in respect to any one of the characteristic modes of action of human intellect, that it can be carried on at all without the aid of external signs, is so great that it may fairly be called a blunder.

Second, we see the fundamental diversity of human language from that of the lower animals. The one is an endowment, natural, instinctive, alike in all individuals of the species, inelastic, unchanging; the other is an acquisition, a historical product, learned by each speaker, indefinitely various among individuals of the same race, and indefinitely variable and expansible. Hence all investigation of the cries of the lower animals, the chatterings of monkeys and the like, for their bearing on the origin and history of human speech, have been without fruit, and will always remain so, save so far as they may be directed to two points, now generally ignored: namely, a comparison with the natural and instinctive utterances of human beings, the only real analogues of those cries, utterances which just as much need investigation, and are far harder to get at, if they be at all attainable; and again, an inquiry as to what, if any, beginnings or hints of conventional expression, analogous with language, the most intelligent of the lower animals may show sporadic capacity of making, upon the foundation of their natural endowment. For a right understanding of the origin of language shows the natural utterances as suggestions and foundation of language, but not any part of its substance. Fear of a saltus, a lacuna in natural development, is just as much wasted here as it would be wasted on the relation of human clothing and ornament to the nakedness of the other animals, of human architecture to birds’ nests and rabbits’ burrows and beavers’ huts, of human song to that of birds, of human society to the gregariousness of bees and rooks and elephants.

Third, it is evident that the study of language is a historical branch of science, and not a physical. There is not and never was any foundation for the doctrine that linguistics is a physical science except in the most radical misunderstanding of the nature and history of language, and in the mistaking of surface analogies for substantial accordance—errors which were in some measure excusable, perhaps, in the initial stages of linguistic study, but are now as much out of date as the Ptolemaic theory of the solar system. Not less futile is the wisdom of those who would fain compromise these irreconcilable views by teaching that the study is partly historical and partly physical—physical, namely, so far as it involves those physical entities, audible sounds. For an uttered sound or complex of sounds in language is not a physical entity; it is a human act, just as much, and in precisely the same way, as is, for example, a significant gesture; it is made, indeed, by physical organs, but under direction of the will; in ultimate imitation, now become an only partially conscious habit, of similar sounds made by others; and for a purpose apprehended and entertained in the mind of the speaker. So a bell is a physical instrument; but a merry chime, or an alarm, or a toll of mourning, rung upon it by some one for the information of a village, is not a physical product, whose study would be a physical investigation. With much more reason might numismatics be called a science partly physical, since coins are of real physical substance, which is a product of nature, and subject to purely physical laws in the way of dulling, rusting, abrading, and so on; only, as it happens, all this is the mere dross of the subject to the numismatist, who concerns himself with the artificial refinement and alloy, the weight, the stamp, the place of impress and circulation, the period, the grade of art, and other such matters, all analogous with what the linguistic scholar studies in the signs of language.

Fourth, the office and value of linguistic study as an auxiliary to ethnology is an obvious corollary to what has already been said. It all lies in the probability, greater or less in different cases, that a community or complex of communities possessing an identical language or related languages has been, either from the beginning or at any rate for an indefinite period, a tolerably pure race-community also. This sounds, perhaps, like very little; but it is all there is; and, in the paucity of means of authentic knowledge which we have respecting the divisions of mankind and their relations and movements, it is comparatively a great deal. And, fortunately, the probability referred to is greatest where we have most need of its aid: among the wilder races, namely, where other means of information are most scanty, and in pre-historic periods. For it is the tamed and humanized races that offer least resistance to intermixture, and it is civilization aided by literature that gives a language propagative power, making it acceptable to wide communities not kindred in blood to those by whom it was developed.

A fact in language not less obvious and elementary than those already noticed by us is its constant change. No living tongue at any period of its existence maintains itself unaltered. And its mutations occur in every part Thus, in phonetic form, new sounds are developed and come into use; others, formerly used, are lost; and, most conspicuously, words come to be pronounced otherwise than they have been. Thus also, in all departments of structure, old forms are lost, and (much more sparingly) new forms are made, new parts of speech are developed, new auxiliaries and other form-words are originated; a language exchanges its prevalently synthetic for a prevalently analytic character. Most easily of all, a vocabulary is altered, by the bringing in of new material, with more or less loss of old. And all this involves, as a necessary part, changes in the significant value of vocal signs, which, moreover, go on independently. There is nothing in human speech so stable that it does not admit of alteration, or even of loss; though in different languages the changes vary in kind and degree, and, to be comprehended, need to be studied for each tongue in all their detail, item by item.

The question of highest theoretic interest here involved concerns the nature of the force by which the changes of language are effected. And to it the conclusions which we have already reached inexorably determine the answer. If every language is a body of conventional signs kept in use and life by tradition, taught by those who have learned it already to the new members who by birth or otherwise are added from time to time to their community, then it is, as a matter of course, accessible to such altering influences alone as proceed from its users. As its use lies wholly within the domain of voluntary human action, its modification can lie in no other domain. That is to say, language is changed by the action of men’s wills, and by nothing else. This does not by any means imply that the will is exerted directly toward the change of language, any more than the will of a fugitive is directed toward his own discovery when by voluntary action he leaves the tracks by which he is followed. Men will directly to use their means of communication for the various ends of communication; but this voluntary action is exposed to all the modifying influences which gradually alter voluntary action in other departments. The general governing consideration, including all the rest, is convenience; it is operative in every part of language, taking on a different form according to the peculiar character of each. No body of inherited human habits, such as conventional expression is, lives on and on without change; there is always a struggle in progress between the conservative influence of tradition, the inclination simply to propagate what has been handed down, and the inclination to adapt to new ends and to improve the adaptation to ends formerly served. But no body of traditional habits alters otherwise than very slowly; the collective influence of already existing habits (what in language we are used to call, and oftenest without understanding what we really mean by the expression, “the genius of a language”) opposes novelties, and makes whatever new is admitted accordant with the old. In the phonetical part of language-history, convenience takes the form of economy of utterance; and nearly everything in phonetic change is to be ascribed to the working of the tendency to economy; but the details of this working are sometimes very intricate, and, in our present imperfect comprehension of the physical processes of utterance, not a little obscure.

The tracing back of these successive changes in their order, and the restoration of earlier, and, if possible, even of primitive forms, constitutes the historical study of language. Something of this historical work has been done for many languages; but far more has been accomplished in the way of tracing up the dialects of our own family, the Indo-European, than of any other, because of the exceptional facilities which they offer to the student, in their variety and antiquity, and in the amount of their growth which is clearly traceable by the comparison of recorded forms. There is still, however, discordance of opinion respecting the general mode of historical development even in this family, and respecting its beginnings. The prevalent view since Bopp, who by its establishment and illustration became the founder of the science of comparative philology, is this: that all Indo-European forms, whether of inflection or of derivation, are made by the accretion of elements originally independent; that the ultimate elements were so-called roots—that is to say, signs possessing a crude significance, not involving any grammatical relation; all the distinctions of parts of speech, of primary and secondary derivation, and of declension and conjugation being wrought out later, as the result of aggregations which became integrated in various degrees, not seldom even to “inflection,” or the development of an internal difference re-enforcing, or finally replacing, the external addition. A minority, however, respectable both in numbers and in scholarship, reject this view altogether, and deny the historical character of roots, which they assert to be mere figments of the grammarian, obtained by an artificial analysis of the words of which they form a part. It cannot appear questionable, now, which of these views is in logical accordance with the established facts of language, and will crowd its rivals out of existence. The aggregative theory of Bopp is simply an application of the processes seen at work in all the historical periods of the language to explain the productions of the pre-historic period. This is a true scientific method; it is, in fact, the only one. The chain of argument by which it is upheld may be drawn out in brief thus: 1. Throughout the whole known history of Indo-European speech, there have been made combinations of elements which then by degrees assumed the character of integral words, and sometimes, by subordination of the one element to the other, of forms; and examples of forms, of every class and of every age, appear plainly to have been so made. 2. No material of this sort is seen to have been made in any other way; wherever exceptions, as forms with internal flection, seem to show themselves, they can be proved to be the inorganic result of processes originally aggregative. 3. There are nowhere found any formal distinctions of such a kind that they refuse explanation as made by aggregative processes similar to those by which other forms are actually seen to have been made. Hence, 4. If aggregation is thus demonstrably a real method of Indo-European form-making, and the only one possessing that character, and if it is adequate to the explanation of all the facts, then we ought to accept it as sufficient, and to acknowledge that we have no reason to suppose that forms have been made in any other way.

Evidently, no one has a right to reject this conclusion who does not squarely and honestly face the premises on which it is founded, and show good reason for regarding them as erroneous or insufficient. In general, they are simply disregarded by the dissidents, who ignore the difference between analogical inference and mere conjecture, and assume that one man’s guess is just as good as another’s as to how forms might, could, or should have been made. Or, it is urged that the great majority of formations cannot be satisfactorily traced to the independent elements out of which they have grown: which is like bringing up the numerous persons who have not witnessed a certain occurrence to refute the testimony of the few who have; since, as things go on in the traceable history of language, it is not only natural but unavoidable that the genesis of most forms should, like the etymology of many words, and of all or nearly all beyond a certain point, be lost in obscurity. Or, again, it is pointed out that during the historical period there has been, on the whole, a reduction in the length of forms and a loss of fullness of synthetic structure. This is a more legitimate objection, and not without a degree of plausibility, though of no real force against the argument as already stated. It merely brings to our notice the fact that, in the action and counter-action of the making-up and wearing-out processes, both of which have been operative in our languages from the first inception of structural growth, the former process was on the whole in the ascendant until a certain grade of structure was reached, since when, in very varying manner and degree, the opposite process has been more active: and there is no theoretical difficulty in the way of our recognizing and accepting this fact. On the contrary, there are insurmountable difficulties in the way of our accepting the opposing view, that language began with long words possessing any trace of organization, made up of radical elements with added apparatus of formative elements; the already demonstrated nature of language as an instrumentality, produced in order to the uses of expression, is absolutely and finally conclusive against it. An instrumentality cannot but have had rude and simple beginnings, such as are, in language, the so-called roots; intricacy of structure, special adaptation to special uses, must necessarily come later, as the result of skill developed by practice. So bows and arrows, hammers and hatchets with handles, boxes put together of boards, are of necessity later than clubs and stones and hollowed receptacles; suits of clothes are later than skins and bunches of leaves, and the like. And in like manner, and for the same reasons, parts of speech and classes of derived words and inflections come by development through experience of the faculties of language-making, after the use of such imperfect hints of expression as we call roots. The strength of the radicarian theory is that it accords with all that we have learned as to the nature of language, not less than with all we know as yet respecting the history of our family of languages, and that this can be said of no other theory.

Thus far we have spoken only of Indo-European language. But it is evident that the general view we have just reached is alike applicable to all human speech. If our knowledge of the nature of universal language, of the forces at work in its history and of the manner of their working, suggests as the only acceptable view of its earliest condition the assumption of a scanty body of grammatically formless roots, then to have demonstrated by historical evidence the former existence of such a primitive condition in that family of languages which has attained on the whole the highest grade of inflective structure is practically equivalent to having demonstrated it for all languages. It will take very strong and very direct evidence to convince us in regard to any family that its beginnings and its mode of development out of them have not been essentially of a like character. Even the elsewhere unparalleled and truly anomalous form of the tri-consonantal apparent roots of the Semitic tongues—the most difficult problem, perhaps, in language-history—cannot with our present light be regarded otherwise than as secondary, the product of a very peculiar growth; and this, whether we are or are not able ever to retrace with satisfactory clearness the steps of the growth. Other questions, of greater or less importance and intricacy, will come up in abundance for further discussion and difference of opinion, without derogating from the certainty of the general conclusion. Whether, for example, primitive roots were always of one syllable only, or also of more than one, is a matter of very inferior consequence; the Indo-European roots are held to have been monosyllabic because historical analysis finds them so, but the analogy need not be binding as regards other families. Whether, again, the Chinese vocables have never advanced out of the radical stage at all, or whether they are, rather, products of a development which for some reason was more limited than that of any other known tongue of a highly-endowed race, so that its relics have completely the semblance of roots, is a question of extreme interest as regards the history of that particular language, but of no necessary wider bearing. We do not know, and may very probably never be able to explain to ourselves, what in the particular character of different races, or what in the habits of speech formed by them in the first stages of language-making—either or both, but doubtless especially the latter—determines for all time the fundamental character of the language of each. In other departments than the linguistic, the non-progressive nature of some races as compared with others is clearly seen. And it appears as if a certain amount of habits of expression, learned by a generation from its predecessor, were sufficient to deaden its own originality, and limit its development to a certain line, or even to keep it almost at a single point. From the fact that we do not, anywhere in the historical period, see a language changing from isolating to agglutinative or inflective, we do not in the least need to draw the conclusion that each language had from the very beginning its own essential character in this regard, and has ever since maintained it unchanged, any more than, from the present persistency of physical race-characteristics, we need to infer that mankind, or each grand division of mankind, may not have had a single origin. The history of single forms in our own speech shows plainly enough that the transition from isolation to inflection is both possible and facile. The part of language-history covered by our observations is but a very small one Languages are all equally old, and all alike have gained and fixed their own style of structure long before they come within reach of our knowledge.

The question of the origin of language, as a scientific one, is simply this: to determine how men such as we actually see them to be, if no language were handed down to them from their predecessors, would proceed in order to possess themselves of such an instrumentality. That they would so possess themselves there is no reason to doubt. Men are always making language; for the alteration of a tongue from generation to generation is each generation’s contribution to the work, the same in principle though different in detail according to the circumstances—namely, the already established habits of expression—with the work of every other generation back to the first; and the beginnings need not have been more difficult than the subsequent changes. These beginnings were the first step in the history of language, and our whole knowledge of language and its history determines of what sort they must have been, and with definiteness enough to constitute, notwithstanding the points of minor consequence that still remain doubtful, a real and satisfactory solution of the general problem. Thus:

1. Language was brought into being primarily for purposes of communication, and not of self-development. Only the nearest and most obvious, the most external, inducement to its production was the effective one; every other advantage came as an unforeseen result of its possession.

2. It began with whatever signs could best be turned to account as means of mutual understanding between man and man: grimace, gesture, exclamation, onomatopœia and other forms of imitation, were drawn upon according to their various availability. What proportion belonged at the outset to each, and what were the steps of the process of natural selection (referred to above) whereby the voice attained its present predominance and almost monopoly, are among the matters of great though minor interest which will long attract research and discussion, and of which no other than a rudely approximate settlement will ever be possible.

3. As the first items of speech were directly intelligible signs, they must have denoted that which was most capable of being directly signified. That is to say, the first conceptions conveyed by language will have been determined, not by the conspicuousness and importance of the conceptions themselves, but by the feasibility of their intimation by the particular means employed. Hence they will have been primarily acts and qualities, and not concrete existences, for the latter are only signifiable by means of their characteristic acts and qualities. This is the easy solution of the question by which some are still perplexed, as to why roots, the ultimate elements of speech, have an abstract instead of a concrete significance. Concrete, to be sure, they were so far as this: they signified only physical, sensible acts and qualities; the point is one in regard to which theory is in full accordance with linguistic facts; for in all the history of significant change in language, the direction of progress is from the physical and sensible to the intellectual and moral. But here, again, the inquiry as to what particular conceptions led the way can be answered, if at all, only after the widest and deepest researches through all the varieties of human speech; none of the attempts hitherto made to answer it has met with any success.

4. The period of root-production will have been a limited one—limited by the circumstance that after a time it would come to be easier to make new names out of the significant material already in use, by combination and extension and change of application, than by the creation of new material. How long the period was, and what the number of roots produced, we have at present no means of determining, or hardly even ground for conjecturing.

5. To correlate the history of speech and the existence of man on the earth, so as to determine when the production of spoken language began and at what rate its development went on, is beyond our power until our knowledge of man’s primitive history shall be much greater; in all probability, it will always remain impracticable. But, at any rate, language was the indispensable means of conversion of gregarious into social life, the necessary foundation of all social institutions. We cannot even tell whether, assuming the origin of the race to have been one, there had been produced any settled and abiding speech before men had multiplied and spread and broken into divisions, holding thenceforward no intercourse with one another; but we do know, beyond all possibility of successful contravention, that there are no existing differences of speech among men which might not consist with unity of origin of speech.

The question, it may be remarked, whether the existence of dialects preceded that of languages or vice versâ, is an unscientific and blundering one. Correspondences between two languages are either accidental, or by borrowing, or dialectic; and dialectic correspondences are historical: that is to say, they are due to variation, according to the ordinary laws of linguistic change, of the same inherited material. The very conception of dialects involves descent from a common ancestor; and the earth is full of illustrations of the process by which a single language divaricates into forms more or less discordant. Instances are common enough, too, of the replacement of variety by unity of speech; but this is by no process of linguistic development; it is the result of external social causes, analogous with those which make the emigrant learn and use the tongue of his new country instead of that of his old one; and it affects equally dialects of any degree of relationship and unrelated languages. The natural growth of a language, combined with the spread and division of communities, makes dialects; but it is the growth of civilization, with its unifying and leveling influence, that makes widespread unity of speech, just as of other institutions.

Of other institutions, we say; because not only is language, as we called it above, the foundation of social institutions: every language is also itself an institution, the first and most indispensable of the social institutions of the community to which it belongs. No definition of the term can be made which will not apply equally well to it along with the rest. A social institution is a body of habits, of customary modes of action, whereby men in a certain community or congeries of communities attain a certain social end, regarded as conducing to their social welfare. The apprehension of the end and the formation of the means to its attainment are an outcome of the insight and experience of the community; the institution, we may say, grows gradually up in the never-ending contest between human nature and human circumstances; it is a historical product of the joint activity of generations, each one of which has contributed to its elaboration. It is handed down by tradition; every new member of the community, born into the state of things of which it forms a part, having it about him in his growing and impressible period, appropriates it, and adapts his own mode of thought and action to it so gradually and unconsciously that it comes to seem to him a part of the nature of things, the established order of the universe; its real origin and relation to the kindred or similar institutions of other communities is understood only by philosophers (if even by them); it is apt to be regarded as of divine origin, a revelation or ordinance of heaven—as indeed it is in a certain sense, though not as generally understood. Its ordinary changes go on slowly, since they can be made, as itself was made, only by the consenting action of its possessors; but these may, little by little, change it in time to any extent, as their trained preferences shall suggest or their altered circumstances shall prescribe; and, where circumstances are more imperious, it may even be revolutionized altogether, or crowded out of use and replaced by something of corresponding value adopted from another community.

In all these respects a language has its own peculiarities, distinguishing it from other institutions; but only as they all have their own, distinguishing them from one another: the difference is not in the fundamental points, but in non-essentials. The language of each community, in short, is one of the institutions that make up its civilization.

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text: Page:Poems, Volume 1, Coates, 1916.djvu/52


text: Page:Poems, Volume 1, Coates, 1916.djvu/53