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INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS
OF ARTS AND SCIENCE

INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS

OF

ARTS AND SCIENCE

EDITED BY

HOWARD J. ROGERS, A.M., LL.D.

DIRECTOR OF CONGRESSES

VOLUME V
HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

COMPRISING

Lectures on Comparative Language, Semitic

Languages, Indo-Iranian Languages, Greek

Language, Latin Language, English

Language, Romance Languages

and Germanic Languages

UNIVERSITY ALLIANCE

LONDON NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT 1906 BY HODGHTON, MIFFLIN & Co.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
COPYRIGHT 1008 BY UNIVERSITY ALLIANCE

ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME V

FACING
PAGE

ABELARD AND His SCHOOL . . . ... Frontispiece

Photogravure from the painting by F. FLAMENG

DR. BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER . . . . . . . . . 16

Photogravure from a photograph

PORTRAIT GROUP OF GEORGE LYMAN KITTREDGE, DR. PAUL MEYER, DR.

JEAN REVILLE AND DR. WILLIAM HENRY SCHOFIELD . . . 234
Photogravure from a photograph

TAKING THE DOCTOR'S DEGREE . . 312

Photogravure from the painting by K. STORCH

TABLE OF CONTENTS

VOLUME V

HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

The Fundamental Conceptions and Methods of the History of Language 3
BY PROF. THOMAS LOUNSBURY, LL.D.

The Progress of the History of Language during the Last Century 17
BY PRESIDENT BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER, Ph.D., LL.D.

COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE.

The Relations of Comparative Grammar to Other Branches of Learning 32
BY PROF. CARL DARLING BUCK, Ph.D.

Some Present Problems and Tendencies in Comparative Philology . 53
BY PROF. HANS OERTEL, Ph.D.

SEMITIC LANGUAGES.

The Relation of Semitics to Religion ...... 69

BY PROF. JAMES ALEXANDER CRAIG, Ph.D.

Two Semitic Problems . . . . . . . . '» . 87

BY PROF. CRAWFORD HOWELL TOY, LL.D.

iNDO-lRANIAN LANGUAGES.

The Transformation of Sanskrit Studies in the Course of the Nine-
teenth Century ......... 99

BY PROF. SYLVAIN LEVI, Litt.D.

The Main Problems in the Field of Indian Languages . . .111
BY PROF. ARTHUR ANTHONY MACDONELL, Ph.D.

GREEK LANGUAGE.

The Greek Language in its Relation to the Psychology of the Ancient

Greeks. ............ 131

BY PROF. HERBERT WEIR SMYTH, Ph.D.

The Problems of Greek 162

BY PROF. MILTON WYLIE HUMPHREYS, Ph.D., LL.D.

LATIN LANGUAGE.

The Relations of Latin . . . . . . 177

BY PROF. EDWARD ADOLF SONNENSCHEIN, Litt.D.

A Century of Metaphysical Syntax .... . 191

BY PROF. WILLIAM GARDNER HALE, LL.D.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

The History of the English Language Considered in its Relation to

Other Subjects 205

BY PROP. OTTO JESPEBSEN, Ph.D.

Present Problems in the Study of the English Language . . . 220
BY PROF. GEORGE LYMAN KITTBEDGE, LL.D.

ROMANCE LANGUAGES.

Beginnings and Progress of Romance Philology .... 237
BY PROP. PAUL MEYER, D.C.L.

Present Problems of Romance Philology . » , . . 256

BY PROP. HENRY ALFRED TODD, Ph.D.

GERMANIC LANGUAGES.

The Relation of German Linguistics to Indo-Germanic Linguistics and

to German Philology . . . . . . . . 273

BY PROP. EDUARD SIEVERS, Ph.D.

Problems in Comparative Germanic Philology . + . . . 286
BY PROF. HERMANN COLLITZ, Ph.D.

Reference Works on Indo-European Comparative Philology . . 303
Special Works of Reference on Semitic Languages . ... . 306
Special Works of Reference on Indo-Iranian Languages . . . 307
Works of Reference on the Greek Language ..... 308
Special Works of Reference on the Latin Language . . . 310
Works of Reference on Romance Philology . . . ' . .311

HISTORY OF LITERATURE

Literary Vitalities . . 315

BY PROF. JAMES ALBERT HARRISON, LL.D.

The Development of Literary Studies during the Nineteenth Century . 323
BY PROP. CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY, LL.D.

INDO-IRANIAN LITERATURE.

Our Interest in Persia and the Study of her History, Language,
and Literature . . . . . . . . . 357

BY PBOF. A. V. WILLIAMS JACKSON, Ph.D.

DIVISION B— HISTORICAL SCIENCE (continued}

DEPARTMENT V — HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

DEPARTMENT V— HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

(Hall 4, September 20, 2 p. m.)

CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR GEORGE HEMPL, University of Michigan.
SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR T. R. LOUNSBURY, Yale University.

PRESIDENT BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER, University of California.

THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS OF
THE HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

BY THOMAS RAYNESFORD LOUNSBURY

Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury, Professor of English, Yale University, b. Jan-
uary 1, 1838, Ovid, New York. A.B. Yale College, 1859; LL.D. ibid. 1892;
ibid. Harvard College, 1893; L.H.D. Lafayette, 1895; ibid. Princeton, 1896.
Instructor in English, Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University, 1870-;71.
Edited complete edition of Charles Dudley Warner's Works, with biographical
sketch. Author of Life of James Fenimore Cooper; Studies in Chaucer; History
of the English Language; Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist; Shakespeare and
Voltaire; Standard of Pronunciation in English.]

IT is only within comparatively recent times that the principles
which underlie the development of language have been clearly under-
stood. By those who went before us speech was usually regarded,
not as an emanation from us, not as an expression of us, but as some-
thing outside of us, a sort of mechanism with which we had to do;
which was sometimes good, sometimes bad, but having largely an
independent life of its own. Hence it could improve or degenerate
without much regard to the character or attainments of those who
spoke it. All that it behoved these to do was to improve it, and so far
as that could be done, perfect it. When that happy result was
reached care was to be taken that no further changes were to be made
in it; but preserved as much as possible unimpaired, be transmitted
to posterity, and so continue the length of years it was permitted to
live.

For along with this belief existed another. Every language, it was
supposed, went through the same sort of experience as the individ-
uals to whom it was a possession. It had its period of birth, of growth,
and of maturity. Then followed the inevitable decay. This could be
retarded, but it could not be averted. The generally accepted view
was expressed by Dr. Johnson in the preface to his dictionary.
"Life," he said, "may be lengthened by care, though death cannot
be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural

4 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution:
let us make some struggles for our language."

Undoubtedly traces of -this belief still linger among us: but in
general it meets no longer with acceptance. We have come to feel,
even when we have not come to know, that language has no inde-
pendent life outside of the life of those who speak it. Their spirit it
expresses, their hopes and aspirations it embodies; and as a conse-
quence it is operated upon by the same influences which affect their
action in other ways. It shall be my aim in the present address to
point out how it is so thoroughly the reflex of man's nature that even
the very agencies which affect the character of its vocabulary and the
development of its grammatical structure are essentially like those
which determine his conduct and career in other respects. My illus-
tration will naturally be drawn from the speech with which I am most
familiar; but parallel illustrations will occur to any one to whom the
possession of any cultivated tongue belongs by right of birth.

Language is constantly acted upon by numerous influences, all of
which are diverse and some of which are not only different but act-
ually hostile. Speech is really a compromise between opposing tend-
encies in the minds of its users. The peculiar character it exhibits
in any given case is a result that has been brought about by these
various agencies. The time is too short to treat the subject with
exhaustive detail. Here it may be sufficient to give a general idea
of its nature by setting forth two or three of these conflicting agen-
cies which are always operating upon the users of speech, whether
educated or illiterate, -and affect unconsciously their methods of
utterance. Then we shall be in a position to consider with more
advantage the broad distinctions which prevail between the develop-
ment of cultivated and uncultivated tongues.

The first, to which I call attention, of these contradictory tenden-
cies that are always manifesting themselves in speech, is the disposi-
tion to practice economy of utterance and the antagonistic disposition
to indulge in prodigality of utterance. By the former I am not refer-
ring to orthoepy, where its effects have been most frequently noted,
tending as they do to induce the speaker to spend as little time
as possible in the pronunciation of words, and as a result of this
economy of effort, modifying their form. It is the material itself
of language, the words as they are weaved into the sentence, that
comes here under consideration. The one aim that the user of speech
has constantly in mind is to express himself as briefly as possible
consistent with easy and full comprehension. This is a feeling which
affects all men in every conceivable stage of intellectual develop-
ment. Grammatically speaking, we are all endeavoring to convey
our meaning in any given sentence with the fullest economy of
utterance. Mark me, I say grammatically speaking, not rhetorically.

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS 5

The latter is a personal influence acting upon individuals and not
upon the body of speakers as a whole.

This practically universal disposition towards economy of utterance
has been one — though doubtless not the principal one — of the
agencies which have contributed to the development and diffusion of
the sign language. In a rudimentary form this prevails everywhere.
We see it exemplified daily in numerous gestures in which the move-
ment of some part of the body indicates to the eye what the lips
neglect to put into words. But what concerns us here specifically is
the effect of this disposition upon the structure of the sentence. No
small number of the rules laid down in our grammars are for the pur-
pose of meeting the requirements of the situation produced by the
desire of the users of speech to express what they have to say with
the least expenditure of effort. Take as one illustration out of many
the grammatical construction called apposition. It is called into
being for no other purpose than to explain a practice of omitting
words for the sake of economy of utterance, which has established
itself so generally that it has come to seem normal. Hence we never
take into account the fact that it denotes nothing more than the
abridgment of a complete dependent phrase. This is but a single fact
out of the multitude of facts of this sort which the student of the
grammar of every tongue meets on every side. In going through the
process we call parsing we are constantly under the necessity of
declaring some word to be understood. Its presence is not required
for comprehension; but grammar requires it for the explanation of
the construction. Language abounds in these short cuts to expres-
sion. Every tongue has peculiarities of its own in this respect which
other tongues, at least some other tongues, will not tolerate at all.
We have a striking illustration of this in English in the constant
omission of the relative. In such a sentence as "The man you saw
yesterday came to-day," no one, whether speaking or hearing, feels
the absence of the pronoun. It is only when we set out to analyze the
sentence grammatically that we recognize the need of dragging into
light the suppressed relative. This is a usage to which many languages
cannot resort ; but there is probably not a language on the globe in
which a single word is not made to do often the duty of a whole sen-
tence.

But there is another side of the shield. We find a force at work
which impels men not to economize effort, but to put it forth in pro-
fusion. They are not content with the fewest words or abridged con-
structions in order to make themselves understood. They amplify,
they vary, they employ expressions which abstractly may seem
unnecessary. Here again I am not referring to the expansion of the
thought in the way of adorning it or illustrating it, which belongs to
the domain of rhetoric and not of linguistics proper. But the reason

6 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

for the course indicated as being followed is that the user of speech
often feels that with the words sufficient to make his meaning com-
prehended, it may not after all be fully comprehended. He seeks
therefore to add to its clearness by the addition of terms and phrases
which will not leave the hearer or reader in the slightest doubt.
Hence always has come and always will continue to come into speech
an army of expressions which we group under the general names of
expletives and redundances. These often cause great grief to the
grammarian; but the user of speech cannot be deterred from employ-
ing them because he recognizes that the first aim of his utterance is
to be distinctly understood. These expressions, in consequence,
are not really expletives and redundances. So they might be deemed,
were men always in a state of mental alertness, so that nothing what-
ever escapes their attention. But unfortunately the human mind is
apt to be inattentive. It often misses the sense, which in theory has
been sufficiently expressed to be conveyed fully. Therefore in every
tongue and at all periods men resort to strictly superfluous words and
expressions to prevent their meaning being missed or overlooked. As
one illustration out of scores, take in our own tongue the placing of
the preposition from before the adverbs hence, thence, and whence.
From the fourteenth century to the present day it has been so
employed constantly by the best speakers and writers. Strictly
speaking, the preposition is unnecessary. There are places, indeed,
where its introduction could be deemed no other than an impertin-
ence. There are other places where it adds distinctly to the ease of
comprehension.

Nor is clearness the only thing aimed at by the users of speech in
the employment of what from one point of view is superfluous. There
is equally the desire to impart force to expression. Examples of this
abound on every side. " Forever and ever" is a phrase that theoret-
ically conveys no more meaning than the simple "forever"; but it
makes more of an impression upon the mind. Linguistically, not
morally, the desire to strengthen the expression is the justification of
the vast variety of expletives which make up the vocabulary of pro-
fanity. When the practice of it is frequent, it defeats its own end;
but when sparingly indulged in, especially in situations where great
interests are at stake, it conveys an intensity of meaning that the
mere words, though carrying the full sense, do not even remotely
suggest.

Let us now proceed to the consideration of two other opposing
agencies, always operating upon language, which more especially
affect the inflectional system. They might be called the principles
of unity and diversity; but as these words are susceptible of being
misunderstood, I shall call them, from the paths they mainly adopt,
the principles of analogy and authority. In the matter of inflection

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS 7

there always prevails a disposition in the users of speech to reduce
everything to a common procedure. A certain form is not only in use,
but it is in far the most common use. The principle of analogy at once
asserts itself, for it appeals to every speaker. As most of certain
classes of words follow one particular inflection, why not make them
all assume it? The tendency manifests itself to have the leading form
grow at the expense of the others, and to discard from use all forms
which are different from it or in conflict with it. It does not often
meet with absolute success, to be sure, but it frequently meets with
great success; and the effort to make its success complete never
ceases. There is no better illustration of this than the history of the
declension of the noun in English. When we first come to the know-
ledge of our tongue during the Anglo-Saxon period, we find that
certain vowel declensions which had once existed had very largely
passed away. The comparison of other Teutonic languages reveals
what they must have been. The survival of occasional forms* leads
to the unavoidable inference that there was a time when theae de-
clensions were flourishing; indeed, they may have been flourishing
at the very time itself in some then existing dialect of which no
memorials have been preserved. What these declensions had lost,
other declensions had gained, especially the one most predominant.
Owing to agencies of which I shall speak later, the process of efface-
ment was temporarily arrested, or at least was largely shorn of its
strength. But the moment the restraining power of literature was
withdrawn in consequence of the Norman Conquest, the principle of
analogy resumed and carried out its work on a grand scale. When
English in the fourteenth century emerges with a literature so valu-
able as to possess an authority of its own,, not only have the varying
vowel declensions been reduced to the common inflection exhibited
by one of them, but even to that has been entirely conformed the
single but important consonant declension which had once been in
wide use. In the case of this last the process has gone on so steadily
that English furnishes to-day but the one word ox, with its- plural
oxen, as the single genuine survival in common speech of a declension
which embraced at one time about half the nouns of the language.

Powerful as is the influence of analogy in reducing diversities to
a common unity, there is in existence an opposing agency which fur-
nishes resistance and at times the sturdiest resistance to this leveling
tendency. This, which, for the lack of a better name, I have called
the principle of authority, cherishes and strives to retain all variant
forms of inflection which are actually in existence and makes a deter-
mined stand against any change whatever, whether the change
would be for the better or the worse. That which is established has
authority simply because it is established. This influence varies
distinctly with the intellectual status of the users of speech; but it is

8 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

more or less in operation at all times. In cultivated tongues it is
exceedingly powerful, if not actually dominant. What it saves from
the wreck which has been brought about by the principle of analogy,
it clings to earnestly, and indeed will never let go, if it can be avoided.
Illustrations of this tendency need not be given here; for they will be
exemplified in the part of the subject with which we now come to
deal.

These are some of the agencies which are always operating upon
the internal life of a language. They are largely responsible for the
changes which take place slowly or rapidly in methods of expression.
So far as we can discover, they are true of the speech of the most
illiterate and degraded races; they are certainly true of those which
have attained any degree of intellectual development. This leads us
to the next topic, the difference in the agencies which act upon
cultivated and uncultivated speech.

It is a mere commonplace to say that every living language con-
stantry undergoes change. It may be little or it may be great; it may
go on very slowly or very rapidly. These are the accidents of cir-
cumstance. But so long as it has life, it must undergo modification or
alteration as do the persons who speak it.

These changes belong generally to two classes, those affecting the
vocabulary and those affecting the grammatical structure. Both of
these agencies are always in operation; but they operate very dif-
ferently at different periods and under different conditions. Here
arises at once the great distinction which exists between the life and
growth of cultivated and uncultivated speech, or perhaps it would
be better to say more specifically between speech with a literature
and speech without one. The processes that are going on in each are
precisely the same. Changes are taking place in each both in gram-
mar and vocabulary; but they manifest themselves in ways essen-
tially distinct and they proceed at entirely different rates of move-
ment. The differences, indeed, are so marked that they may be called
fundamental. This is not to maintain that there will not be in each
class apparent and it may be real exceptions to the rule laid down;
it is only the general principle which is here stated.

Now the first point is that in uncultivated speech changes in
vocabulary under ordinary conditions take place slowly and on a
somewhat petty scale. Very few new words are introduced into the
speech, and any extension of meaning in the case of those already
existing happens rarely. The reason for this lies on the surface. The
users of uncultivated speech are thernselves uncultivated. They have
comparatively little knowledge and few ideas outside of the range
of those which are brought to their attention by their necessities or
limited opportunities for observation. Their vocabulary is not ample,
to start with, and as time goes on they do not add to it many words.

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS 9

It is not that any open hostility exists to their adoption. They are not
introduced into the speech because they are not needed. The circle
of knowledge and of thought being small, the existing stock of terms
is amply sufficient to meet all the demands which are made upon it.
Consequently the vocabulary suffers little enlargement, and indeed
may remain practically stationary for an indefinite period, though it
is of course liable to be added to whenever the desire for a new word
to express something previously unknown cannot be satisfied by any
new meaning which can be attached to an old word or to a combin-
ation of old words.

But in the case of the grammatical structure the reverse of this is
apt to be true. It is not so necessarily, indeed, but there is no counter-
acting agency powerful enough of itself to prevent its being so. The
one great object of speech which every man, educated or illiterate,
sets always before his eyes is to make himself understood. Now if the
speaker in an uncultivated tongue succeeds in effecting this, he has
secured all that he cares for. In so doing he may discard old forms,
old inflections; or he may unconsciously develop new ones; or he
may confuse with one another those which already exist. He may
vary his expression essentially from the construction which he himself
has been wont to use as well as those he is addressing. But about
none of these things does he trouble himself, if he can succeed in
making himself comprehended. There is no one to find fault with
him; or if such a person could be supposed to exist, the violator of
usage does not feel himself under the least obligation to heed the
censure he receives. All this implies that in uncultivated speech there
is nowhere a standard of authority of any sort which any one feels
bound to respect. Consequently changes in grammar are effected
easily, if they are effected at all. If outside agencies ever operate
upon the users of such a speech, if these are subjected to conquest,
if they are brought in frequent contact with the speakers of another
tongue, and are under the necessity of communicating with them con-
stantly, modifications of the grammatical structure are likely to take
place on a grand scale, though the vocabulary may be affected but
slightly. There is no better illustration of this principle than that
which has actually happened in the history of our own speech. For
more than two hundred years after the Norman Conquest the English
added scarcely anything to their stock of words from the language of
the men of the race to whom they had become subject, though with
them they came into constant contact. On the other hand, during this
same period the grammatical structure underwent violent and
extensive alteration.

Such are the principles which control the development of unlet-
tered speech. In exceptional circumstances these may undergo
modification, and perhaps in some instances reversal; but their

10 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

general applicability to the facts of linguistic history cannot well
be gainsaid. But the moment a speech comes into the possession of
a great literature, this condition of things is changed. The same
agencies are at work as in the case of an uncultivated tongue; but
they vary distinctly in the influence they exert, and the results in
consequence are in striking contrast to those just given.

In cultivated speech addition to the vocabulary goes on extens-
ively, goes on rapidly. Furthermore it goes on with little opposition.
The hostility to the introduction of new terms is almost invariably
directed against particular words, and in the case of these it is often
confined to particular persons. It therefore takes the form of an
expression of individual prejudice and not that of general aversion
on the part of users of speech. In cultivated speech addition to the
vocabulary is in truth a necessity of the situation. The circle of
knowledge and thought is constantly enlarging. The new facts learned,
the new discoveries made, the new inventions originated, the new
ideas entertained, the new distinctions set up, all these demand either
the use of old words in new senses or the introduction or formation
of new words. The latter is the course most usually followed. It is
not, nor is it felt to be objectionable. Men indeed frequently make it
a matter of boast that they were the first to hit upon the employment
of some term which designates exactly the view of some new fact or
theory or condition which all recognize but have found difficult to
express. The irruption of a large number of words hitherto unknown
into a speech is under the circumstances just mentioned not an indica-
tion of the corruption or decay of a language, but an evidence of the
intellectual health and vigor of its users. Scores and even hundreds
of terms will be proposed for admission which find no permanent
lodgment; for speech can ordinarily be trusted to reject that which
is really needless, that which adds nothing to clearness or to force of
expression; on the other hand, to choose arid to hold fast with an
instinct which may almost be deemed unerring that which it requires
for its best and fullest development.

Consequently in a cultivated tongue the introduction of new
words is something that is going on constantly whenever and wher-
ever intellectual life exists. But when to such a tongue comes the
consideration of new giammatical forms or constructions, there ensues
at once a complete change of front. The attitude, instead of being
one of friendliness or acquiescence, is that of violent hostility. The
newcomer meets with examination from everybody and with denun-
ciation from many. There is a feeling on the part of the cultivated
users of speech that any alteration of grammatical structure cannot
be an improvement upon existing usage, as would be conceded by all
in the case of the introduction of some new word. Rightly or wrongly
the disposition does not prevail to look upon it as a process of evolu-

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS 11

tion. So far as it goes, it is regarded as revolution, and therefore to
be resisted. Accordingly no change can take place in the grammar
of a cultivated speech which is not compelled to fight its way to
acceptance. It never succeeds without going through a struggle which
lasts at least scores of years. If it triumphs, it triumphs because it
recommends itself to the users of speech as accomplishing something
for expression which had not previously been secured. If once they
become thoroughly imbued with that view, vain are the protests of
purists and grammarians; for the educated users of speech know
better what they want than any or all of their self-constituted
instructors.

The reason for this contrast between the attitudes assumed by
lettered and unlettered speech is due to a factor which has at all times
played an important part in the development of language, but with
the wide diffusion of education in modern times is destined to play
one stiil more important. This is the creation of literature. Its
existence in any tongue tends immediately to weaken or overthrow
entirely other influences which have been operating upon the speech.
Few even among scholars have learned to appreciate fully the con-
servative influence which literature exerts over language. Men used
to take the ground that speech was always moving away from its
sources; that the longer a tongue continued to live, the more increas-
ingly difficult of comprehension became its earlier form to its later
speakers. There is, or at least there may be, a great deal of truth in this
view so long as we confine our attention to tongues which can boast
of no literary monuments of excellence. It becomes absolutely false,
however, after a great literature has been created and has become
widely diffused. If the speech then undergoes changes on any great
scale, that result will be owing to outside influences and not to any
which belong to its own natural development.

Yet this belief about the steady recession of speech from its
sources has lasted long after any reason for it has disappeared. Even
to-day it can be heard occasionally expressed. It is therefore not
surprising to find it once widely prevalent. By the great authors of
the time of Queen Anne and the first Georges dismal forebodings were
universally entertained and frequently uttered as to the ruin which
was to overtake their own writings, in consequence of the changes
constantly going on in English speech. Their works, they com-
plained, could not hope to outlast a century, unless the language
became what they called fixed, and they were in perpetual distress
of mind because some person or some organization could not be
induced to undertake and accomplish that impossible feat.

The fact which these men did not perceive at all, and which is
none too clearly comprehended now, is that the moment a great
literature has been established, the language revolves about it, and,

12 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

so long as a healthy national life exists, never moves far away from
it. The great authors are read and studied everywhere and at all
times. They make familiar to the knowledge of their admirers the
words and constructions they employ; and these in turn are repro-
duced by their imitators. The operation of this influence has been
curiously illustrated in the history of our own tongue. To us the
language of the Elizabethan age is much nearer than it was to the
men of the eighteenth century, mainly because the authors of that
earlier age are now much more read. As a result their words and
usages have unconsciously become a part of our own intellectual
equipment. Very few would be the men found now who would take
the view, widely entertained at the beginning of the eighteenth cen-
tury, that a great deal of Shakespeare's language was not merely
archaic but practically obsolete. The numerous imitators of Spenser
later in that same century furnished glossaries to their productions,
explaining the antiquated or unusual terms they had employed. In
some cases this was needed distinctly; for the words they used had
never any existence outside of their own pages. But they frequently
denned those about whose meaning no man of ordinary education
would now entertain a doubt. Even the necessity they seemed to
have felt themselves under of explaining the more purely poetic
words excites a certain surprise. What poet would think now of
apologizing, as did Prior in 1706, for using such obsolete words, as he
called them, as behest in the carefully defined sense of " command,"
band in that of " army," / ween in that of " I think," prowess in that
of "strength," and whilom in that of "heretofore." Some of these
very definitions show too that in all cases he did not understand the
exact meaning of the word he employed.

But far more than in the vocabulary is the conserving power of
literature — especially of a great literature — exhibited in the gram-
matical structure. The moment it has been in existence long enough
to make its influence felt, it at once proceeds to restrict change there
within the closest possible limits; or if it permits any to be made with
comparative ease, its action is directed in such instances to the selec-
tion of one out of two or more forms in common use. Let me illus-
trate its methods in this particular by a reference to the history of the
two conjugations of our tongue. After the Norman Conquest English
lost the literature she possessed which had attached to it any author-
ity. Though not entirely disused as a written speech, there existed
no standard to which any one felt bound to conform. In consequence
a general dissolution of the grammatical structure took place. One
of its results was that verbs of the strong conjugation went over to the
weak in great numbers. It seemed for a while as if it were merely a
question of time when every one of the former would disappear from
the language. Analogy was entirely against them. Any new verbs

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS 13

that came in, and a full half, if not the majority, of the old ones
formed their preterite by a syllable usually represented in modern
English by -ed or -d. Why should not this rule be extended to all?
This was a feeling that operated constantly upon men before they
came into the possession of a. literature. So general was the move-
ment, so large were the losses of the strong conjugation, that this early
transition has imposed upon the men of later times. There were not
wanting in the nineteenth century linguistic scholars of considerable
eminence who gravely announced that the strong conjugation was
destined to disappear from English speech. As a matter of fact, the
moment that literature had been widely enough diffused to exert its
full influence, the transition of verbs of the strong conjugation to
the weak ceased entirely. Not an instance can be pointed out where
a single one of these verbs has gone over since the reign of Queen
Elizabeth. Not the least sign of any movement of this nature mani-
fests itself now. On the contrary, the tendency is, if anything, in the
reverse direction.

But literature does not content itself with merely arresting change
which is going on in grammatical forms. It presents a hostile attitude
to anything which takes the shape of grammatical innovation. That
which already exists has been found sufficient by the great writers of
the past to do all that is required for expression. What then can be
the need of new forms, of new constructions, of which they, far greater
than we, did not feel the lack? To add anything whatever seems
therefore of the nature of an attempt to paint the lily. This is the
reason why every effort of the nature of innovation meets, in the case
of the grammatical structure, with hostility so general and with
denunciation so violent. It is the exhortation of literature to stand
fast by the ancient ways.

But the users of speech are always striving for greater clearness and
force of expression. If the existing forms and constructions do not
exactly meet their requirements, they will cast about for ways to
secure what they are aiming at. Let me illustrate this principle by
a further example from our speech. For a long period modern English
suffered from the lack of a distinct form for the passive which would
apply to all verbs. The inflection in common use was made up of the
substantive verb with the past participle of another verb. This
worked very well in many cases, especially so in the case of words
which denoted a continuous action or state of mind. The phrase,
"the man is loved or is hated," conveys adequately the sense of the
speaker when he is referring to the present time. But when the word
employed itself denoted. a single act, the form just mentioned meant
an action fully completed and not one in process of going on. It was
really something past which was indicated and not anything present.
The phrase " the man is killed " could not possibly suggest the idea

14 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

that the subject of the verb was merely in danger of death; ijt meant
that he was actually dead. The form therefore, as applicable to all
verbs, broke down.

There is hardly anything more interesting in the history of our
speech than the various devices to which speakers and writers
resorted to get round the difficulty the construction of the passive
presented, the efforts they put forth to contrive something which
would be of universal applicability. The various attempts made give
us a peculiarly vivid conception of the infinite pains that are taken in
speech, often unconsciously, to render expression clear. All of these
efforts were for a long time unsatisfactory. They involved a change
of construction or a change of the form of the sentence or they were
made ineffective by the clumsiness of circumlocution. At last a way
was opened. A construction already existed in the speech which,
though fully authorized, belonged in its origin to the class of so-called
corruptions. To certain verbs, but especially to the substantive verb,
a verbal noun preceded by the preposition on or in had been added to
complete the sense, as, for instance, "he was gone on hunting." The
form of the connecting preposition was in the first place corrupted
into a ; finally it was dropped altogether. This caused the verbal
noun, when joined to the substantive verb, to be regarded not as
a noun, but as the present participle; but a present participle, not in
its usual active signification, but in the sense of a passive. Hence
arose such expressions as "the dinner is preparing," "the house is
building." In these the verb is active in form but passive in meaning.
But the goafcould not be reached in this way. The form suffered from
exactly the same embarrassment which attended the ordinary one
with the past participle. Satisfactory with certain verbs, it could not
be used with all. The moment an object with life was introduced as
the subject, the passive sense disappeared. When we hear it said that
" a man is eating," we think of him as the doer of an action and not
the object of one. It does not occur to us that he himself is under-
going mastication from others. Here, too, in consequence the form
broke down. It was to remedy this condition of things that the
verb to be was at last united with the compound past participle.
This passive form conveyed an unmistakable meaning, and if desired
could be applied to any verb whatever. When we are told, to use the
previous illustration, that "a man is being eaten," there is not the
slightest doubt in the mind of any one as to what is actually taking
place.

This particular form first began to be distinctly noticeable towards
the end of the eighteenth century. For a while, however, it attracted
but little attention. But no sooner did the sentinels who profess to
watch over the purity of speech have their attention called to it, than
a violent outcry at once arose. Few at the present day have any

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS 15

conception of the clamor to which this new grammatical form gave
rise during the early and middle part of the nineteenth century, and
of the denunciation to which it was subjected. According to its
assailants its introduction and use was a distinct foreshadowing of
the ruin that was impending over the speech. Direful consequences
were predicted if the objectionable form should succeed in establish-
ing itself in the language. But the construction was too desirable an
acquisition to be allowed to disappear. Its usefulness prevailed over
all opposition, and at present it is fully accepted, or meets at least
only now and then with a protest from some belated survivor of the
conflict which once raged so violently.

It must not be forgotten, however, that the hostility to the intro-
duction of new grammatical forms, though sometimes manifesting
itself absurdly, is an undeniably healthy hostility. So long as it con-
tinues, the speech can be trusted to remain steadfast to its moorings.
It is the existence of this feeling which keeps a language moving not
from but about its literature. The vocabulary can be increased almost
indefinitely without affecting the character or intelligibility of the
tongue which retains in familiar use the words employed by its great-
est writers. But the moment its grammatical construction undergoes
a violent upheaval, that moment the language is on the road to decay
and death. For additions there, unlike those made to the vocabulary,
do not range themselves alongside of the ones already in use, or
usurp at best merely a part of the domain of signification. A new
grammatical form is not long content with standing side by side with
an old one. It first displaces it from its supremacy, and then super-
sedes it altogether: and this means in process of time a complete
change in the character of the tongue.

From the hasty consideration which has been given here of the
characteristics which attend the development of cultivated speech,
we are enabled to draw certain positive conclusions. A language
cannot be made either to improve or degenerate of itself. It is
nothing but the reflex of the spirit and aims of the men who employ
it, and it will rise or fall in accordance with their intellectual and moral
condition. Its continued existence, therefore, depends solely upon
the fact whether the men to whom it is an inheritance are cultivated
enough to enrich its literature, virtuous enough to elevate and main-
tain its character, and strong enough to uphold and extend its sway.
All these conditions are necessary to its permanence, but in modern
times the last has attained an importance it never before held. The
most insignificant of tongues has, it is true, tremendous vitality: it
will cling to life long after the most conclusive reasons have mani-
fested themselves for its death. Yet it is a question whether under
modern conditions any language can be sure of continued existence
which does not have behind it the support of a great nationality. It is

16 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

a question whether the languages of smaller peoples will not recede
before the encroachments of their powerful neighbors, just as dialects
steadily tend to disappear before the advance of the literary speech.
At all events the danger which once threatened cultivated lan-
guages from the limitation of the knowledge of their literature to a
comparatively small number of men, has largely disappeared with the
invention of printing and the diffusion of education which increas-.
ingly reaches every one in the community, the low as well as the
high. Forecasts about the future of any speech and its permanence
must therefore now be made subject to conditions which never before
prevailed. The one thing only, which has been indicated, can be
relied upon with certainty. The continuance of any language rests
upon the ability, upon the character, upon the strength of the men
to whom it belongs. Its literature may be its glory. It may be a
source of just pride to the race which has created it or has inherited
it. But however rich and varied it be, it cannot of itself preserve its
life, though it may retard its death and hallow its memory. No
tongue can depend for its continuance upon the achievements of its
past. It can exhibit no more than the vigor, the purity, and the
vitality of the men who speak it now, or are to speak it hereafter: and
if their vigor, their purity, and their vitality disappear, the language
as a living speech will not survive their decay.

THE PROGRESS OF THE HISTORY OF LANGUAGE
DURING THE LAST CENTURY

BY BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER

[Benjamin Ide Wheeler, President of the University of California, b. July 15, 1854,
Randolph, Massachusetts. Brown University, 1875; A.M. 1878; Ph.D. Heidel-
berg, 1885; LL.D. Princeton, 1896; Harvard, 1900; Brown, 1900; Yale, 1901;
Johns Hopkins, 1902; University of Wisconsin, 1904; Illinois College, 1904;
Dartmouth, 1905. Professorof Comparative Philology, 1886, and of Greek, 1888,
Cornell University; Professor of Greek, American School of Classical Studies,
Athens, Greece, 1896. Member of American Philological Association, American
Oriental Society, The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, Correspond-
ing Member of Kaiserlichen Archaeologischen Institut. Author of The Greek
Noun Accent; Analogy in Language ; Introduction to the History of Language;
Dionysos and Immortality ; Organization of the Higher Education in the United
States; Life of Alexander the Great, etc.]

IT cannot be the purpose of this brief address to present even in
outline a history of the science of language in the century past; it
can undertake only to set forth the chief motives and directions of its
development.

A hundred years ago this year Friedrich von Schlegel was in Paris
studying Persian and the mysterious, new-found Sanskrit; Franz
Bopp was a thirteen-year-old student in the gymnasium at Aschaffen-
burg; Jakob Grimm was studying law in the University of Marburg.
And yet these three were to be the men who should find the paths b)'
which the study of human speech might escape from its age-long
wanderings in a wilderness without track or cairn or clue, and issue
forth upon oriented highways as a veritable science.

Schlegel the Romanticist, who had peered into Sanskrit literature
in the interest of the fantastic humanism modish in his day, hap-
pened to demonstrate (Ueber die Sprache und Weisheit der Inder,
1808) beyond cavil the existence of a genetic relationship between the
chief members of what we now know as the Indo-European family of
languages. Bopp * found a way to utilize this demonstrated fact in
a quest which, though now recognized as mostly vain, incidentally set
in operation the mechanism of comparative grammar. Grimm,2 under
the promptings of a national enthusiasm, sought after the sources of
the German national life, and, finding in language as in lore the roots
of the present deep planted in the past, laid the foundations and set
forth the method of historical grammar. The grafting of comparative
grammar upon the stock of historical grammar gave it wider range
and yielded the scientific grammar of the nineteenth century. The
method of comparative grammar is merely auxiliary to historical

1 First work: C onjugationssy stem der Sanskritsprache, 1816.

2 Deutsche Grammatik, vol. 1 (1819).

18 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

grammar; it establishes determinations of fact far behind the point
of earliest record, and enables historical grammar to push its lines of
descent in the form of "dotted lines" far back into the unwritten
past.

It was the discovery of Sanskrit to the attention and use of Euro-
pean scholars at the close of the eighteenth century that gave occa-
sion to an effective use of the comparative method and a consequent
establishment of a veritable comparative grammar. But in two other
distinct ways it exercised a notable influence upon the study of lan-
guage. First, it offered to observation a language whose structure
yielded itself readily to analysis in terms of the adaptation of its
formal mechanism to the expression of modifications of thought, and
thus gave an encouragement to the dissection of words in the interest
of tracing the principles of their formation. Second, the Hindoo
national grammar itself presented to Western scholars an illustration
of accuracy and completeness in collecting, codifying, and reporting
the facts of a language, especially such as related to phonology, inflec-
tion, and word-formation, that involved the necessity of a complete
revolution in the whole attitude of grammatical procedure. The
discovery of Panini and the Pratic,akhyas meant far more to the
science of language than the discovery of the Vedas. The grammar of
the Greeks had marked a path so clear, and established a tradition so
strong, guaranteed in a prestige so high, that the linguistics of the
West through all the generations faithfully abode in the way. The
grammatical categories once taught and established became the ir-
refragable moulds of grammatical thought, and constituted a system
so complete in its enslaving power that if any man ever suspected
himself in bondage he was yet unable to identify his bonds.

The Greeks had addressed themselves to linguistic reflection in
connection with their study of the content and the forms of thought ;
grammar arose as the handmaiden of philosophy. They assumed,
without consciously and expressly formulating it as a doctrine, that
language is the inseparable shadow of thought, and therefore pro-
ceeded without more ado to find in its structure and parts replicas
of the substances and moulds of thought. They sought among the
facts of language for illustrations of theories; it did not occur to them
to collect the facts and organize them to yield theirown doctrine. Two
distinct practical uses finally brought the chief materials of rules and
principles to formulation in the guise of a system of descriptive
grammar: first, the interpretation of Homer and the establishment
of a correct text; second, the teaching of Greek to aliens, and the
establishment of a standard by which to teach. These practical uses
came in, however, rather as fortunate opportunities for practical
application of an established discipline than as the motives to its
creation. With the Hindoos it was the direct reverse. They had a

PROGRESS DURING LAST CENTURY 19

sacred language and sacred texts rescued from earlier days by means
of oral tradition. The meaning of the texts had grown hazy, but the
word was holy, and even though it remained but an empty shell to
human understanding, it was pleasing to the gods and had served
its purpose through the generations to bring gods and men into
accord, and must be preserved; likewise the language of ritual and
comment thereon, which, as the possession of a limited class, required
not only to be protected from overwhelming beneath the floods of the
vernacular, but demanded to be extended to the use of wider circles
in the dominant castes. Sanskrit had already become a moribund or
semi-artificial language before grammar laid hold upon it to continue
and extend it. But from the outstart the Hindoo grammarian sat
humbly at the feet of language to learn of it, and never assumed to be
its master or its guide. Inasmuch as the language had existed and
been perpetuated primarily as a thing of the living voice and not of
ink and paper, and had been used to reach the ears rather than the
eyes of the divine, it followed, in a measure remotely true of no other
grammatical endeavor, that the Hindoo grammar was compelled to
devote itself to the most exactingly accurate report upon the sounds
of the language. The niceties of phonetic discrimination represented
in the alphabet itself, the refinements of observation involved in the
reports on accent and the phenomenon of pluti, the formulation of
the principles of sentence phonetics in the rules of sandhi, the ob-
servation on the physiology of speech scattered through the Prati-
fakhyas are all brilliant illustrations of the Hindoo's direct approach
to the real substance of living speech. None of the national systems
of grammar, the Chinese, the Egyptian, the Assyrian, the Greek, or
the Arabic, had anything to show remotely comparable to this; and
up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, despite all the long
endeavors expended on Greek and Hebrew and Latin, nothing
remotely like it had been known to the Western world. The Greek
grammarians had really never stormed the barriers of written lan-
guage; they were mostly concerned with establishing and teaching
literary forms of the language. Even when they dealt with the
dialects, they had the standardized literary types thereof before their
eyes rather than the spoken forms ringing in their ears. When the
grammars of Colebrooke (1805), of Carey (1806), and of Wilkins
(1808) opened the knowledge of Sanskrit to European scholars, it
involved nothing short of a grammatical revelation, and prepared the
way for an ultimate remodeling of language-study nothing short of
a revolution. Though these Hindoo lessons in accurate phonetics as
the basis of sure knowledge and safe procedure had their immediate
and- unmistakable influence upon the scientific work of the first half
century, their l full acceptance tarried until the second half was well
1 Cf. H. Oertel, Lectures on the Study of Language, p. 30 ff. (1901).

20 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

on its way. Even Jakob Grimm, whose service in promoting the
historical study of phonology must be rated with the highest, was
still so blind to the necessity of phonetics as to express the view that
historical grammar could be excused from much attention to the
"bunte wirrwar mundartlicher lautverhaltnisse," and though von
Raumer in his Die Aspiration und die Lautverschiebung (1837) had not
only set forth in all clearness the theoretical necessity of a phonetic
basis, but had given practical illustration thereof in the material with
which he was dealing, it still was possible as late as 1868 for Scherer
in his Geschichte der deutschen Sprache justly to deplore that " only
rarely is a philologist found who is willing to enter upon phonetic
discussion." The phonetic treatises of Briicke1 (1849 and 1866) and
of Merkel (1856 and 1866) 2 failed, though excellent of their kind,
to bring the subject within the range of philological interest, and it
remained for Eduard Sievers in his Grundzilge der Lautphysiologie
(1876) and Grundzuge der Phonetik (1881), by stating phonetics more
in terms of phonology, to bridge the gap and establish phonetics as
a constituent and fundamental portion of the science of language.
The radical change of character assumed by the science in the last
quarter of the century is due as much to the consummation of this
union as to any one influence.

But it was not phonetics alone that the Indian grammarians were
able to teach to the West; they had developed, in their processes
of identifying the roots of words, a scientific phonology that was all
but an historical phonology. In some of its applications it was that
already, for in explaining the relations to each other of various
forms of a given root as employed in different words, even though
the explanation was intended to serve the purposes of word-analysis
and not of sound -history, the grammarians virtually formulated in
repeated instances what we now know as "phonetic laws." The
recognition of guna and vrddhi, which antedates Panini, must rank
as one of the most brilliant inductive discoveries in the history of
linguistic science. The theory involved became the basis of the treat-
ment of the Indo-European vocalism. The first thorough-going
formulation, that of Schleicher in his Compendium (1861), was con-
ceived entirely in the Hindoo sense, and it was to the opportunity
which this formulation offered of overseeing the material and the
problems involved that we owe the brilliant series of investigations
by Georg Curtius (Spaltung des a-Lautes, 1864), Amelung 3 (1871,

1 E. Briicke, Untersuchungen uber die LautbiMung und das naturliche System der
Sprachlaute(1849)-,Grundziige der Physiologic undSystematik derSprachlaute (1856).

2 C. L. Merkel, Anatomic und Physiologic des menschlichen Stimm- und Sprach-
organs (1856); Physiologic der menschlichen Sprache (1866).

3 A. Amelung, Die Bildungder Tempusstamme durch Vocalsteigerungim Deutsch-
en, Berlin, 1871. Erwiderung, KZ. xxn, 361 ff., completed July, 1873, published
1874 after the author's death. Der Ursprung der deutschen a-vocale, Haupt's Zeit-
*chr. xviii, 161 ff., 1875.

PROGRESS DURING LAST CENTURY 21

1873, 1875), Osthoff (N '-Declination, 1876), Brugmann (Nasalis
sonans, 1876; Geschichte der stammabstufenden Declination, 1876),
Collitz (Ueber die Annahme mehrerer grundsprachlichen a-laute, 1878),
Job. Schmidt (Zwei arische a-laute, 1879), which led up step by step
steadily and unerringly to the definite proof that the Indo-European
vocalism was to be understood in terms of the Greek rather than the
Sanskrit. These articles, written in the period of intensest creative
activity the science has known, represent in the cases of four of the
scholars mentioned, namely, Curtius, Amelung, Brugmann, Collitz,
the masterpieces of the scientific life of each. Though dealing with a
single problem, they combined, both through the results they achieved
and the method and outlook they embodied, to give character and
direction to the science of the next quarter-century. Karl Verner's
famous article, EineAusnahme der ersten Lautverschiebung (KZ. xxni,
97 ff., July, 1875), which proved of great importance, among other
things, in establishing a connection between Indo-European ablaut
and accent, belongs to this period; and Brugmann's article, Nasalis
Sonans, which served more than any other work to clear the way for
the now prevailing view of ablaut, was influenced by Verner's article,
which was by a few months its predecessor. Both articles, it is worthy
of noting, were distinctly influenced by the new phonetic; Verner's,
it would appear chiefly by Briicke, Brugmann's, through a suggestion
of Osthoff's, by Sievers, whose Lautphysiologie had just appeared
within the same year. The full effect upon Western science of the
introduction of the Indian attitude toward language-study appears
therefore to have been realized only with the last quarter of the
century.

More prompt than the response of European science to the teach-
ings of Hindoo phonetics and phonology had been the acceptance of
the Hindoo procedure in word-analysis, especially with relation to
suffixes and inflectional endings. The centuries of study of Greek
and Latin had yielded no clue to any classification or assorting of this
material according to meaning or function. The medieval explana-
tion of dominicus as domini custos was as good as any. Besnier in, his
essay, La science des Etymologies (1694), counted it the mark of a
sound etymologist that he restrict his attention to the roots of words,
for to bother with the other parts would be "useless and ludicrous."
And when Home Tooke in the Diversions of Purley, n, 429 (1786-
1805), just before the sunrise, wrote the startling words, "All those
common terminations in any language . . . are themselves separate
words with distinct meanings," and (u, 454) "Adjectives with such
terminations (that is, -ly, -ous, -ful, -some, -ish, etc.) are, in truth, all
compound words"; and when he flung out like a challenge the ana-
lysis of Latin ibo, " I shall go," as three letters containing three words,
namely, i " go," 6 ( = /3ov'A.o/xai) " will," o ( = ego) " I," no one seems to

22 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

have been near enough to the need of such instruction to know whether
or not he was to be taken seriously; for the words bore no fruit, and
only years afterward when Bopp's doctrine had been recognized were
they disinterred as antiquarian curiosities. Eleven years later, in the
full light of the Sanskrit grammar, Bopp published his Conjugations-
system, and the clue had been found. To be sure Bopp was misguided
in his belief that he could identify each element of a word-ending with
a significant word, and assign to it a distinct meaning, but he had
found the key to an analysis having definite historical value and per-
mitting the identification of such entities as mode-sign, tense-sign,
personal endings, etc. The erroneous portion of his doctrine based
upon his conception of the Indo-European as an agglutinative type
of -speech dragged itself as an incumbrance through the first half-
century of the science, and, though gasping, still lived in the second
edition of Curtius's Verbum (1877). This, along with many other
mechanical monstrosities of its kind, was gradually banished from the
linguistic arena by the saner views of the life-habits of language,
which had their rise from linguistic psychology as a study of the rela-
tions of language to the hearing as well as speaking individual and
the relations of the individual to the speech community, and which
asserted themselves with full power in the seventies. We shall have
occasion to return to this subject later.

Bopp had from the beginning devoted himself to language-study,
not as an end in itself, but as we know from his teacher and sponsor
Windischmann,1 as well as infer from the direction and spirit of his
work, he hoped to be able "in this way to penetrate into the mys-
teries of the human mind and learn something of its nature and its
laws." He was therefore unmistakably of the school of the Greeks,
not of the Hindoos; for the Greek grammarian in facing language
asks the question '' why," grammar being to him philosophy, whereas
the Hindoo asks the question, " what," grammar being to him a science
after the manner of what we call the " natural sciences." There is
indeed but slight reason for the common practice of dating the begin-
ning of the modern science of language with Bopp, aside from the one
simple result of his activity, which must in strict logic be treated as
merely incidental thereto, namely, that he gave a practical illustra-
tion of the possibility of applying the comparative method for widen-
ing the scope and enriching the results of historical grammar.

As Bopp had tried to use the comparative method in determining
the true and original meanings of the formative elements, so did his
later contemporary, August Friedrich Pott2 (1802-87), undertake
to use it in finding out the original meaning of words. The search for

1 Introduction to Bopp's Conjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache, p. 4, 1816.

2 A. F. Pott, Etymologische For&chungen, 2 vols. Lemgo, 1833-36; 2d ed.
6 vols. 1859-76.

PROGRESS DURING LAST CENTURY 23

the etymology or real meaning of words had been a favorite and
mostly bootless exercise of all European grammarians from the Greek
philosophers down, having its original animus and more or less con-
fessedly its continuing power in the broadly human, though barely
on occasion half-formulated conviction, that words and their values
by some mysterious tie naturally belong to each other. In the instinct
to begin his task Pott was still with the traditions of the Greeks and
the Graeco-Europeans, but in developing it he was guided into new
paths by two forces that had arisen since the century opened. Under
the guidance of the comparative method whereby the vocabularies
of demonstrably cognate languages now assumed a determinate rela-
tion to each other, he came unavoidably to the recognition of certain
normal correspondences of sounds between the different tongues. On
the other hand, in almost entire independence hereof, Jakob Grimm
in the pursuit of his historical method had formulated the regularities
of the mutation of consonants in the Teutonic dialects, and had set
them forth in a second edition of the first volume of his grammar,
appearing in 1822. In all this was contained a strong encouragement
as well as warning to apply these new definite tests to every etymo-
logical postulate, and therewith arose, under Pott's hands, the begin-
nings of a scientific etymology. It was a first promise of deliverance
from a long wilderness of caprice.

The positivistic attitude which had been gradually infused into
language-study under the influence of the Hindoo grammar finally
reached its extremest expression in the works of August Schleicher
(1821-68). The science of language he treated under the guise of
a natural science. Language appeared as isolated from the speaking
individual or the speaking community to an extent unparalleled in
any of his predecessors or successors, and was viewed as an organism
having a life of its own and laws of growth or decline within itself.
Following the analogies of the natural sciences and trusting to the
inferred laws of growth, he ventured to reconstruct from the scattered
data of the cognate Indo-European languages the visible form of
the mother speech. His confidence in the character of language as
a natural growth made him the first great systematizer and organizer
of the materials of Indo-European comparative grammar (Com-
pendium der vergleichenden Grammatik, 1861); as confidence in the
unerring uniformity of the action of the laws of sound made Karl
Brugmann the second (Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik,
1886-92).

It is not by accident that the first one to voice outright the dogma
of the absoluteness (Ausnahmslosigkeif) of the laws of sound was
a pupil of Schleicher, August Leskien (Die Declination in Slavisch-
litauischen und Germanischen, xxvm, 1876). The use of this dogma
as a norm and test in the hands of a signally active and gifted body

24 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

of scholars who followed the leadership of Leskien and were known
under the title of the Leipziger Schule or the Junggrammatiker, and the
adherence to it in practice of many others who did not accept the
theory involved, — a use which was undoubtedly greatly stimulated
by Verner's discovery (1875) that a great body of supposed excep-
tions to Grimm's law were in reality obedient to law — gave to the
science in the two following decades not only an abundance of results,
but an objectivity of attitude and procedure and a firmness of struc-
ture that may fairly be said to represent the consummation of that
positivist tendency which we have sought to identify with the influ-
ence of Hindoo grammar.

This movement, however, derived its impulse by no means exclu-
sively through Schleicher. A new stream had meanwhile blended its
waters with the current. The psychology of language as a study of
the relations of language to the speaking individual, that is, of the
conditions under which language is received, retained, and repro-
duced, and of the relations of the individual to his speech community,
had been brought into play preeminently through the labors of
Heymann Steinthal,1 who though as a psychologist, a follower of
Herbart, must be felt to represent in general as a linguist the attitude
toward language-study first established by Wilhelm v. Humboldt.
William D. Whitney shows in his writings on general linguistics the
influence of Steinthal, as well as good schooling in the grammar of the
Hindoos and much good common sense. His lectures on Language
and the Study of Language (1867) and the Life and Growth of Lan-
guage (1875) helped chase many a goblin from the sky. Scherer's
Geschichte der deutschen Sprache (1868) combined, more than any book
of its day, the influences of new lines of endeavor, and especially gave
hearing to the new work in the psychology as well as the physiology
of speech. To this period (1865-80), under the influence of the com-
bination of the psychological with the physiological point of view,
belongs the establishment of scientific common sense in the treatment
of language. By virtue of this, as it were, binocular vision, language
was thrown up into relief, isolated, and objectivised as it had never
been before. Old half-mystical notions, such as the belief in a period
of upbuilding in language and a period of decay, all savoring of
Hegel, and the consequent fallacy that ancient languages display
a keener speech-consciousness than the modern, speedily faded away.
The centre of interest transferred itself from ancient and written
types of speech to the modern and living. Men came to see that vivi-

1 H. Steinthal, Der Urprung der Sprache, im Zusammerihang mil den letzten
Fragen attes Wissens, 1851 ; Charakteristik der hauptsdchlichsten Typen des Sprach-
baues, 1860; Einleitung in die Psychologic und Sprachwissenschaft, 1881; Gesch.
der Sprachw. bei den Gfriechen und Romern, 1863; 1890-91. Also editor with
Lazarus of the Zeitschrift fur Volkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft, from
1859.

PROGRESS DURING LAST CENTURY 25

section rather than morbid anatomy must supply the methods and
spirit of linguistic research. The germs of a new idea affecting the
conditions under which cognate languages may be supposed to have
differentiated out of a mother speech, and conceived in terms of
the observed relations of dialects to language, were infused by
Johannes Schmidt's Verwandtschafts-verhdltnisse der indogerman.
Sprachen (1872). The rigid formulas of Schleicher's Stammbaum
melted away before Schmidt's Wellentheorie and its line of successors
down to the destructive theories of Kretschmer's Einleitung in die
Geschichte der griech. Sprache (1896). Herein, as in many another
movement of the period, we trace the results of applying the lessons
of living languages to the understanding of the old. A remarkable
document thoroughly indicative of what was moving in the spirit of
the times was the Introduction to Osthoff and Brugmann's Morpho-
logische Untersuchungen, vol. i (1878). But the gospel of the period,
and its theology, for that matter, was most effectively set forth in
Hermann Paul's Principien der Sprachgeschichte (1st ed. 1880), a
work that has had more influence upon the science than any since
Jakob Grimm's Deutsche Grammatik. Paul was the real successor of
Steinthal. He also represented the strictest sect of the positivists in
historical grammar. As a consequence of the union in Paul of the two
tendencies, his work acquires its high significance. He established the
reaction from Schleicher's treatment of language-science as a natural
science; he showed it to be beyond perad venture one of the social
sciences, and set forth the life conditions of language as a socio-
historical product.

The work of the period dominated by Paul and the nee-gramma-
rians, as well as the theories of method proclaimed, shows, however,
that the two factors just referred to had not reached in the scientific
thought and practice of the day a perfect blending. A well-known
book of Osthoff 's bears the title Das physiologische und psychologische
Moment in der sprachlichen FormenbUdung (1879). The title is symp-
tomatic of the times. The physiological and the psychological were
treated as two rival interests vying for the control of language. What
did not conform to the phonetic laws, in case it were not a pheno-
menon of mixture, was to be explained if possible as due to analogy.
This dualism could be expected to be but a temporary device, like
the setting up of Satan over against God, in order to account for the
existence of sin. A temporary device it has proved itself to be. The
close of the first century bf the modern science of language is tending
toward a unitary conception of the various forms of historical change
in language. The process by which the language of the individual
adjusts itself to the community speech differs in kind no whit from
that by which dialect yields to the standard language of the larger
community. The process by which the products of form-association

26 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

or analogy establish themselves in language l differs no whit in kind
from that by which new pronunciations of words, that is, new sounds,
make their way to general acceptance. The process by which loan-
elements from an alien tongue adjust themselves to use in a given
language differs psychologically and fundamentally no whit from
either of the four processes mentioned. In fact, they all, all five,
are phenomena of " mixture in language. " 2 The process, furthermore,
by which a sound-change in one word tends to spread from word to
word and displace the old throughout the entire vocabulary of the
language is also a process of "mixture," 8 and depends for its mo-
mentum in last analysis upon a proportionate analogy after the same
essential model as that by which an added sound or a suffix is carried
by analogy from word to word. All the movements of historical
change in language respond to the social motive; they all represent
in some form the absorption of the individual into the community
mass. It has therewith become evident that there is nothing physio-
logical in language that is not psychologically conditioned and con-
trolled. So then it appears that the modern science of language has
fairly shaken itself free again from the natural sciences and from
such influences of their method and analogies as were intruded upon
it by Schleicher and his period (1860-80), and after a century of
groping and experiment has definitely oriented and found itself as
a social science dealing with an institution which represents more
intimately and exactly than any other the total life of man in the
historically determined society of men.

Within the history of the science of language the beginning of the
nineteenth century establishes beyond doubt a most important
frontier. To appreciate how sharp is the contrast between hither and
yonder we have only to turn to any part or phase of the work yonder,
— the derivation of Latin from Greek, or mayhap to be most utterly
scientific, from the ^Eolic dialect of Greek, the sage libration of the
claims of Dutch as against Hebrew to be the original language of
mankind, the bondage to the forms of Greek and Latin grammar, as

1 Gustaf E. Karsten, The Psychological Basis of Phonetic Law and Analogy,
Public. Mod. Lang. Assoc. ix, 312 ff. (1894), first sought a unitary psychological
statement for the two impulses. We are here, however, speaking of the establish-
ment of the results of the impulses in linguistic use.

z See O. Bremer, Deutsche Phonetik, Vorwort x ff . (1893) ; B. I. Wheeler, Causes
of Uniformity in Phonetic Change, Transac. Amer. Philol. Assoc. xxiu, 1 ff. (1901).

1 A point of view involving the recognition of a more recondite form of speech-
mixture is that first suggested by G. I. Ascoli (Sprachunssenschaftliche Briefe, pp.
17 ff. 1881-86; trsl. 1887), whereby the initiation of phonetic and syntactical
changes in language, and ultimately the differentiation of dialects and even of
languages, may assume relation to languages of the substratum, as they may be
termed, that is, prior and disused languages of peoples or tribes who have through
the fate of conquest or assimilation been absorbed into another speech community.
Notably has this point of view been urged by H. Hirt (Indog. Forschungen, rv 36 ff ,
1894) and by Wechssler (Giebt es Lautgesetze, pp. 99 ff.). With this point of view
the science of language will have largely to deal, we are persuaded, in the second
century of its existence.

PROGRESS DURING LAST CENTURY 27

well as to the traditional point of view of the philosophical grammar
of the Greeks, the subordination of grammar to logic, the hopeless
etymologies and form analyses culminating in the phantasies of Hem-
sterhuis and Valckenaeer, the lack of any guiding clue for the explana-
tion of how sound or form came to be what it is, and the curse of arid
sterility that rested upon every effort. All the ways were blind and all
the toil was vain. On the hither side, however, there is everywhere
a new leaven working in the mass. What was that leaven? To identify
if possible what it was has been the purpose of this review. I think
we have seen it was not the influence of the natural sciences, certainly
not directly; wherever that influence found direct application, it led
astray. It was not in itself the discovery of the comparative method,
for that proved but an auxiliary to a greater. If a founder must be
proclaimed for the modern science of language, that founder was
clearly Jakob Grimm, not Franz Bopp.

The leaven in question was comprised of two elements. One was
found in the establishment of historical grammar, for this furnished
the long-needed clue; the other was found in the discovery of Hindoo
grammar, for this disclosed the fruitful attitude for linguistic ob-
servation. Historical grammar furnished the missing clue, because
it represented the form of language as created what it is, not by the
thought struggling for expression, but by historical conditions ante-
cedent to it. Hindoo grammar furnished the method of observation
because by its fundamental instinct it asked the question how in a
given language does one say a given thing, rather than why does
a given form embody the thought it does.

The germinal forces which have made this century of the science
of language are not without their parallels in the century of American
national life we are met to celebrate to-day. Jakob Grimm was of the
school of the Romanticists, and he gained his conception of historical
grammar from his ardor to derive the institutions of his people direct
from their sources in the national life. The acquaintance of European
scholars with the grammar of India arose from a counter-spirit in the
world of the day whereby an expansion of intercourse and rule was
bringing to the wine-press fruits plucked in many various fields of
national life. Thus did the spirit of national particularism reconcile
itself, in the experience of a science, with the fruits of national expan-
sion. After like sort has the American nation in its development for
the century following upon the typical event of 1803 combined the
widening of peaceful interchange and common standards of order
with strong insistence upon the right of separate communities in things
pertaining separately to them to determine their lives out of the
sources thereof. Therein has the nation given fulfillment to the
prophetic hope of its great democratic imperialist Thomas Jefferson,1
1 Letter to Mr. Madison, 1809.

28 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

" I am persuaded no constitution was ever before so well calculated as
ours foi extensive empire and self-government."

The linguistic science of the second century will build upon the
plateau leveled by the varied toils and experiences of the first. More
than ever those who are to read the lessons of human speech will gain
their power through intimate sympathetic acquaintance with the
historically conceived material of the individual language. But
though the wide rangings of the comparative method have for the
time abated somewhat of their interest and their yield, it will remain
that he who would have largest vision must gain perspective by
frequent resort to the extra-mural lookouts. Language is an offprint
of human life, and to the student of human speech nothing linguistic
can be ever foreign.

SECTION A — COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE

SECTION A — COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE

(HaU 4, September 21, 10 a. m.)

CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR FRANCIS A. MARCH, Lafayette College.
SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR CARL D. BUCK, University of Chicago.

PROFESSOR HANS OERTEL, Yale University.
SECRETARY: PROFESSOR E. W. FAY, University of Texas, Austin, Tex.

THE Chairman of the Section of Comparative Language was Pro-
fessor Francis A. March of Lafayette College, who stated, in opening
the Section, that the scientific study of language takes its facts
largely from ancient languages, and interprets them as human
institutions by means of which society is organized and man de-
veloped. Comparative philology rejoices in unfolding the history of
nations. It has sought to find its laws in the forces of nature, the
bodily organization, and external habits of life, the influences of
climate, the law of least effort working throughout like the law of
gravitation. Its success has been as wonderful as that of the astro-
nomers, and it will be a pleasure to hear of it to-day.

THE RELATIONS OF COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR TO
OTHER BRANCHES OF LEARNING

BY CARL DARLING BUCK

[Carl Darling Buck, Professor and Head of the Department of Sanskrit and Indo-
European Comparative Philology, University of Chicago, since 1900. A.B.
Yale University, 1886; Ph.D. ibid. 1889. Member of American School of
Classical Studies, Athens, Greece; Student in German Universities, chiefly in
Leipsic. Assistant Professor of Sanskrit and Indo-European Comparative Philo-
logy, University of Chicago, 1892-94; Associate Professor, ibid., 1894-1900.
Member, American Philological Association, Archaeological Institute of America,
American Oriental Society. Author of Vocalismus der Oskischen Sprache, A
Latin Grammar (with W. G. Hale), a grammar of Oscan and Umbrian.]

IN considering the relations of comparative grammar to other
branches of learning it is essential to bear in mind that the term
is used in a wider and a narrower sense, and is applied to more than
one recognized field of scientific inquiry. Comparative grammar in
the widest sense, or general comparative grammar, does not restrict
itself to the study of some one group of related languages, but deals
with all the known languages of the earth. It classifies them in
groups, as far as possible according to genetic relationship, but also
according to general structure, and compares not only the general
mechanism for expressing relations, but the very distinctions and
relations which find linguistic expression at all.

Comparative grammar in a narrower sense is used of the gram-
matical study of a group of genetically related languages, and in this
application represents as many distinct fields of inquiry as there are
well-defined groups of cognate languages. There is the comparative
grammar of the Indo-European languages, of the Semitic languages,
of the Finno-Hungarian languages, of the Malay-Polynesian lan-
guages, etc., etc. But the term Comparative Grammar is often ap-
plied still more specifically to the study of one of these groups of
languages, namely, the Indo-European. It is obvious that this has
no exclusive right to the title, and is more properly designated
Indo-European Comparative Grammar. Yet the use of the broader
term in this connection has a certain justification in the fact that it
is in the field of the Indo-European languages that the methods and
principles of comparative grammar were first established and have
reached their highest development.

I believe I shall not go far amiss if, while not unmindful of its
broader aspects, I shall consider comparative grammar mainly
from the point of view of its application to a group of related

RELATIONS OF COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR 33

languages, as especially exemplified in Indo-European Comparative
Grammar.1

The Relation of Comparative Grammar to the Study of an Individual

Language

The most intimate relation which comparative grammar sustains
is to the study of an individual language. No one to whom language
is an object of intrinsic interest, and not merely a means to an end,
is satisfied with purely descriptive grammar, the bare statement
of the facts of a given language, however essential this is as a found-
ation for historical investigation. And even he who believes it the
function of the grammarian of an individual language to state only
facts, and prides himself on the avoidance of anything even remotely
savoring of comparative grammar — and there are still some eminent
scholars who maintain such an attitude — is almost certain to deceive
himself as to what constitutes a fact. If in recording a form a and
a somewhat different form 6 appearing at another time or place with
the same meaning as a, he states that a becomes b, he is going beyond
the facts and introducing what is none the less an hypothesis because
it seems so obvious. Indeed, comparative grammar may furnish con-
clusive evidence that both a and 6 are independent inheritances from
the parent speech. The moment that one begins to deal with the
relations of facts to one another, with their historical development,
it becomes impossible to treat a given language as an isolated set
of phenomena, and to ignore the evidence of the other languages of
the same family. What is obscure from the point of view of a single
language may become clear when the evidence of the sister languages
is taken into account. If the comparative method is essential in the
history of other human institutions such as art or religion, how pre-
eminently is this true of language, for in no other sphere of intellect-
ual activity is there such continuity of development as in language,
which in this respect is more analogous to the biological sciences.

1 I have employed the term Comparative Grammar throughout as the one, of
those in actual use, which best conforms to the classification of the sciences repre-
sented hi the programme of the Congress, and is the most suitable for the intended
subject of discussion in this Section. But as the name of what is actually the Indo-
Europeanist's field of interest, I prefer Indo-European Comparative Philology
(Indo-European Philology would be sufficient, since Indo-European implies that
it is comparative, but the term Comparative may well be retained hi deference to
the familiar Comparative Philology). It is true that Philology in the term Com-
parative Philology was originally intended in its narrower and secondary ap-
plication to purely linguistic study, so that Comparative Philology and Com-
parative Grammar were identical. But since Philology is also used in English, as
always hi German, in its wider application to the study of the whole intellectual
activity of a people, no matter how manifested, we may so understand it also in
Indo-European Comparative Philology, which will then embrace a branch of in-
quiry which holds a legitimate, though quite subordinate, position in the Indo-
Europeanist's field of interest; namely, the comparative study of Indo-European
institutions, to which reference will be made below.

34 COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE

The history of a given language belonging to a well-defined family can
be regarded only as a section of a long and continuous develop-
ment.

Between historical grammar and comparative grammar there is
no essential difference. One may for convenience apply the term
historical grammar preferably to the study of the actually quotable
material belonging to different periods of the same language, and the
term comparative grammar where the evidence of cognate languages
is introduced. But both alike are historical and comparative. A
given form, meaning, or construction is traced back step by step to
the earliest stage of which there is historical evidence. And it is with
the object of taking a still further step in the same direction, of pene-
trating the prehistoric period, that one resorts to the comparison of
the cognate languages. There can be no more fundamental miscon-
ception of the purpose and value of comparative grammar than is
shown in the utterance of one of Germany's most eminent Hellenists
in the preface to a Greek grammar which is unrivaled for its collec-
tion of facts, though marred by too many antiquated explanations.
His words are substantially as follows : " The function of comparative
grammar is to compare, that is, to recognize the like and the unlike
in related languages, from which the explanation of the forms of the
individual language often results of itself, but not always, and when
it does not, the comparative grammarian has nevertheless fulfilled
his duty by the correct comparison. I do not regard it as the business
of comparative grammar to reconstruct the Indo-European, that is,
a language which is wholly hypothetical and of which no one knows
or ever will know when and where and by what sort of a people it
was spoken. How does such a language concern us? Still I will not
object if one wishes to write a grammar or even a lexicon of Indo-
European." Presumably it is the representative of a science, and
not one who is not even in sympathy with it, who is most competent
to define its scope, and it is safe to say that no professed represent-
ative of comparative grammar will accept any such limitation of its
function as is prescribed in the words quoted.

Comparison is only a means to an end. The recognition that
a certain Greek form is the equivalent of a certain Latin form, or a
Sanskrit form of a Greek, may be interesting, but of what importance
in itself? Its value lies in the conclusions it enables us to draw as to
the parent form. The form of any one language will admit of various
possible origins, but the range of possibilities will not be the same
for each language, and by a process of exclusion we reduce these to
the one (or sometimes more than one) which satisfies the requirements
of all the related languages. Often the evidence is so complete and
conclusive that we feel as certain of the actual existence of the parent
form thus reconstructed as of the existence of the historical forms

RELATIONS OF COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR 35

coming from it. If we say, for example, that the Indo-European
form for "is" was *6sti, there is every reason to believe that we are
coming as near the exact truth as when we say that the Greek form
was IO-TI, the Latin est, the Gothic ist, etc. To be sure, we are ignorant
of the precise physiological character of each sound in the Indo-
European * esti, we do not pretend to know the exact quality of the
e, or whether the t was a pure dental or an alveolar, like our English t.
But the finer nuances of pronunciation are unknown also in the case
of the Greek or Latin form. All that one claims for the assumed
* esti is that it represents the parent form as nearly as our ordinary
written symbols ever represent the spoken form. However, the
assumed Indo-European forms differ widely not only in the degree
of certainty which attends their reconstruction, but also in the degree
of accuracy intended by them,1 and, while every such reconstructed
form implies a belief in its existence on the part of the one who
employs it, they are in general best regarded as convenient formulse,
furnishing the means of expressing briefly the combined evidence and
its interpretation, but subject to change with the progress of the
science. Such formulse are indispensable to such a highly organized
science as the Indo-European Comparative Grammar of the present
day, and from the fact that but little use is made of them in Semitic
Comparative Grammar the Indo-Europeanist is prone to infer, sub-
ject to correction^ that it is still on a stage of development parallel
to Indo-European Comparative Grammar of the time of Bopp.

I have said that the comparison of related forms was not an end in
itself, but a means of reconstructing the parent form. But I do not
wish to imply that these parent forms are of great intrinsic interest
or that the reconstruction of the parent speech is the ultimate aim.
No one is ambitious to speak this hypothetical language, nor does it,
as Bopp fondly hoped, furnish the key to the problems of primitive
linguistic development. Indeed, this language which we arrive at by
reconstruction is itself a highly developed form of speech, which has
behind it thousands of years of history which is forever inaccessible
to us.

Its value lies rather in the light which is thereby reflected on the
history of each individual language belonging to the group. Each
language contributes its share of evidence for the reconstruction
of the parent speech, and each in turn is illuminated by it. The real

1 For example, in the reconstructed *p3fe(r), "father" (Skt. pita, Grk. irar^p,
Lat. pater, etc.), no such degree of accuracy is claimed for the first vowel as for
that of * esti. Indeed, the a is merely a convenient symbol for a certain vowel
which appears, in a whole series of words, in Sanskrit as i, in the European lan-
guages as a, but which must have differed originally both from i (which is i in Eu-
ropean as well as in Sanskrit) and from a (which is a in Sanskrit as well as in
European), and which moreover appears as the reduced grade of a long vowel.
The usefulness of the symbol is not impaired by the fact that the original pro-
nunciation of the vowel cannot be determined.

36 COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE

object throughout is to trace the development of a linguistic phe-
nomenon from its earliest attainable stage to its latest expression.
Comparative grammar is simply a history of a group of related lan-
guages, and when that is said, its relation to the history of an indi-
vidual language of the group is obvious. They are not different
sciences, one merely auxiliary to the other, but represent a wider
and a narrower range of the same subject. Whatever differentiation
exists is consequent only upon a division of labor. The historian of
the Greek language, for example, is, from the purely linguistic stand-
point, a specialist within the Indo-European field. And if the wider
outlook of comparative grammar is essential to the intelligent
study of the history of the individual language, it is no less true
that comparative grammar depends for its very existence upon the
investigation of the special facts and conditions of each language.
The material presents itself in various forms, and its critical employ-
ment involves an acquaintance with paleography, epigraphy, metres,
numismatics, history of private and public institutions, in fact,
every branch of philology in its wider sense. The errors to which the
historian of a single language ignorant of the results of comparative
grammar is liable are no whit more serious than the dangers which
await the comparative grammarian who deals with material of which
he has only a superficial knowledge, whose familiarity with a given
language is limited to turning the pages of the grammar and lexicon.
The comparative . grammarian covers so wide a field that it is ob-
viously impossible for him to possess an intimate, detailed, acquaint-
ance with all the languages of the group. He may be expected to
know something of all, at least in their earlier stages, and a good
deal about some. He should have the broader philological training in
some of the fields, in classical philology, Indie or Indo-Iranian philo-
logy, Germanic, Celtic, or Slavic philology, if only to make him fully
conscious of his limitations and need of cooperation in the others.
And his selection of such a field will depend upon his individual
tastes. But at best he must rely to a considerable degree upon the
investigations of those whose interest is largely concentrated on the
individual language.

In all . this I hope I shall not be understood as ascribing to the
student of one language the role of a handmaiden who gathers
materials only to lay them at the feet of the comparative grammarian.
It is true that no special investigation however minute can fail to
be of some interest and value to the comparative grammarian, but
its author is certainly not debarred from drawing his own conclusions
simply because he is not a professed comparative grammarian. Each
language offers numerous problems of its own, which involve pro-
cesses taking place within the historical period, and which can be

RELATIONS OF COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR 37

solved upon the basis of internal evidence, if only one attacks them
with that better insight into the principles of linguistic develop-
ment and greater precision of method which has been gained by the
assistance of comparative grammar. Indeed, it can be said of many
specific matters which belong properly to comparative grammar and
which the comparison of cognate forms first made clear, that precisely
the same result would now be reached even if these cognate forms
were not in existence. Only without the help of comparative gram-
mar we should never have attained that knowledge of the characteris-
tics of each language which makes this possible.

To demand that every student of a special language should be
a comparative grammarian or that every comparative grammarian
should have equal knowledge of each language with a specialist,
would be to deprecate that division of labor which is absolutely
essential in such a wide field of investigation. But what can and should
be expected is the fullest cooperation, each recognizing that both
are working within the same general field and that neither can with
safety ignore the other's results.

The Relation of Comparative Grammar to Physiology

The comparative grammarian has to do primarily with the history
of spoken language. It is true that except in its latest stages the
material is available only in its written form. The invention of the
phonograph unfortunately came some thousands of years too late
to admit of our possessing reproductions of the speech of the Vedic
Hindus, of the Homeric Greeks, of the early Romans, the Goths or
the Norsemen, the Celts and the Slavs. One might as well ask out-
right for a reproduction of the parent Indo-European, or even of the
primitive language or languages of the earth. The school-boy who is
taught the proper "pronunciation of the letters" may conceive of
speech-sounds as invented to represent these letters, and even the
fathers of comparative grammar had not shaken off the domination
of the written symbol when they discussed what is now called
phonology under the head of "History of the Letters." But now at
least there is no failure to recognize that the written language is
something secondary, merely an attempt, at best only crude and
inadequate, to represent the spoken language, which is the real ob-
ject of investigation. Spoken language is made up of a succession of
speech-sounds, and the changes with which the historian of language
has to deal, so far as they concern the form rather than the con-
tent, consist in large part of certain shiftings of the individual
speech-sounds which are found to occur with a degree of uniformity
which makes their study the very foundation of all comparative

38 COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE

grammar. These speech-sounds are molecular vibrations produced
by the organs of speech and perceived by the organs of hearing.
The historian of language must know something of the nature and
mechanism of these organs, of the organic and acoustic character of
the sounds, of the processes or more often combination of processes
involved in their changes. The branch of science which deals with
such matters, known as practical phonetics or the physiology of
sound, is an application of physiology and physics to linguistic
material, and in its latest development, experimental phonetics, has
reached a degree of refinement never suspected as possible. Direct
visual observation, which can be employed only to a limited extent,
is supplemented by mechanical devices of all sorts, ranging from the
simple artificial palate, upon which is marked the exact position and
area of the tongue contact, to the various instruments used to record
the manifold vibrations of a vowel, from which a curve of vibration
is plotted, the extent of each vibration measured in millimetres and
transferred by a formula to time measurement to the hundred thou-
sandth of a second. In many cases the knowledge gained experi-
mentally is of undoubted interest and value to the historian of lan-
guage. On the other hand, some of the experimental investigations
are so refined that one cannot conceal one's skepticism as to their
availability for the history of language. Certainly they go beyond
the present interest of linguistic students and appeal more to phys-
icists and physiologists. "The physical definition of a vowel will
consist of the mathematical expression for the course of the mole-
cular vibrations which it involves" are the words of one of the
principal exponents of experimental phonetics in this country. The
comparative grammarian cannot yet foresee the time when his com-
parison of vowels will be so minute as to be based on a study of
their vibration curves, even if this were not impossible for any lan-
guage not actually spoken to-day. Yet he should be the last to
depreciate any investigations which deal, from whatever point of
view, with the material which is his chief concern.

The Relation of Comparative Grammar to Psychology

The advent of comparative grammar and the historical method for-
ever put an end to the role which speculative philosophy had so long
played in linguistic discussions, from the time of the Greeks, who
debated the origin and nature of speech while still ignorant of even
the crudest analysis of the forms of their own language, to the gram-
moire generate or universal grammar of the eighteenth century, to
Gottfried Hermann, who decided that the number of original cases
must have been six, as in Latin, corresponding to Kant's categories

RELATIONS OF COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR 39

of logic. But a daughter of philosophy, modern psychology, has taken
its place and established itself in a relation with the historical study
of language which is as vital and as fruitful of the best results to
both sciences as the old relation was artificial and barren of anything
but vague speculations which only disguised the ignorance of the
time as to linguistic development. One of the chief characteristics
of the language-study of the last fifty years is the increased attention
paid to the psychological factors in language, and never has the
relation between linguistics and psychology been so close as at the
present moment. There is no better external evidence of this than
the two large volumes which one of the most eminent psychologists
has devoted to the psychology of language and the attention which
has been given them by students of language, or the numerous
special investigations of problems in language psychology, whether
written by one who is primarily a comparative grammarian or by one
who is primarily a psychologist, or, as in some cases, under the joint
authorship of a representative of each science.

In one sense all linguistic phenomena are psychological. Even
the regular phonetic changes which we have treated as involving
physiological relations have of course their psychological back-
ground, are, in other words, psycho- physical.1

But the historian of language is constantly dealing with matters
which involve purely psychological factors. Language is a register
of associations on the grandest scale. One of the most important
functions of the general comparative grammarian is to compare
the distinctions and relations which find expression in the gram-
matical categories of different groups of languages. These gram-
matical categories show the various ways in which objects and their
relations group themselves in the minds of different peoples. What in
one language is an important grammatical distinction may be ignored
in another. For example, gender, which plays such a r61e in our own
family of languages, follows only one of the many lines of division
between objects which find grammatical expression in this or that
language, such as between objects animate and inanimate, human
and non-human, high or low in rank, beneficent or otherwise. Again,

1 In certain classes of phonetic changes the psychological element seems to be
the more obvious factor, notably in the assimilation, dissimilation, or metathesis
of non-contiguous sounds, which are most common in rapid or careless speech
and in a state of fatigue, and which are essentially pathological, momentary
lapses due to imperfect attention, only occasionally gaining general currency. Or
since such changes are by far the most common in the cases of liquids I and r
(e.g. marble from French marbre, Latin marmor, pilgrim from late Latin pelegrinus,
earlier peregrinus, etc.; in New Orleans one hears a certain confection called
indifferently praline or plarine), shall we not rather say that the physical relation-
ship of these sounds in their formation is such as to require greater attention
than other sounds for their proper adjustment to one another, so that even here
the physical element is equally fundamental? The question at least illustrates the
impossibility of separating the factors sharply.

40 COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE

some kind of formal distinction between singular and plural is com-
mon to practically all languages, but some have also a special form
for the dual, which is the linguistic expression of association between
objects occurring in pairs. Had familiar objects occurring in sets of
five, like the fingers and toes, been as numerous as those occurring in
pairs, the hands, feet, ears, eyes, etc., their association with one
another might equally well have reflected itself in another gram-
matical category. Not that we are to imagine any conscious effort
in the beginning to differentiate objects occurring in pairs and to
provide their names with endings significant of this. It is rather
that, given an expression, let us say, for " the hands," not in itself
indicative of their number, the expression for "feet," "eyes," etc.,
whether in their initial creation or later, would be assimilated to this,
until finally from a sufficient number of such forms there would
arise a consciousness of the significance of the common element,
which now becomes a "dual ending." But this consciousness of the
significance of the dual is only the prelude to its gradual loss as
a distinct formal category. For with the increasing clearness in the
perception of relations, the difference between one object and more
than one comes to be felt as the all-important one and the dual is
sooner or later merged in the plural.

The vocabulary is also significant of modes of thinking. It has
often been noted that people on a low stage of civilization show
what seems a high degree of differentiation, as when they have
separate words for washing, according as they mean washing the
hands, washing the face, etc. But in reality this is only a lack of
generalization, characteristic of what is termed fragmentary thinking.
The savage does not differentiate the concept wash into wash the
hands, wash the face, etc., but the notions of washing the hands, the
face, etc., are distinct, concrete concepts, not yet put into relation
with one another and generalized under the abstract wash.

But aside from the psychological significance of such general
linguistic phenomena, the every-day problems of the comparative
grammarian in the narrower sense are, to a large degree, psycho-
logical. For whether he is dealing with forms or with syntax, he
finds that the history of the individual word or construction is
affected by its associations. Changes in the form of a word are by
no means confined to those caused by the regular phonetic processes,
but are frequently due to the influence of forms which are for any
reason associated with it in the mind. All the phenomena classed
under Analogy, Leveling, or Contamination are examples of associa-
tive interference. If the child says teached for taught, if blowed for
blew is not uncommon, and if we all now say snowed for an earlier
snew, it is owing to the influence of the great body of words in

RELATIONS OF COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR 41

which the relation between present and past is that seen in love,
loved, as vice versa the child's think, thunk is due to the unconscious
association with drink, drunk, sink, sunk, etc., as dove, strove after
drove are not uncommon in place of dived, strived, as we all now
say dug for earlier digged, probably after stuck, struck, etc. The
historical grammar of any language is replete with examples of
such functional analogy or external grammatical leveling. Or, the
leveling may be between different inflectional forms of the same
word, that is internal grammatical leveling, as when we say hoofs,
roofs, instead of hooves, rooves (like calves, halves, shelves'), under the
influence of the singular hoof, roof, or as Latin honor beside earlier
honos owes its r to honoris, honori, etc., where the intervocalic r
for s is due to regular phonetic change. Other changes are due to
the association between congeneric words, such as words of rela-
tionship, of color, of sound, numerals, etc., as in Homeric mao-i after
Trarpao-i, etc., Sanskrit pdtyur (genitive of pdtir, when used in the
sense of "husband") after pitur (genitive of pitar-, "father"), etc.,
late Latin Octember after September, November, English colloquial
Febuary for February after January, though in ' this last example
the dissimilating influence of the second r has also been a factor
(cf. libary for library). Associations of this kind are not only pro-
ductive of changes in existing words, but are influential in the
creation of new words, and to them is due in large part the growth
of significant suffixes.

The vocabulary of every language is full of contaminations, like
Popocrat from Populist and Democrat, like Modern Greek Staravas
from Sia/3oAos, "devil," and Saravas, "Satan." Some indeed are con-
scious inventions of authors striving for humorous or picturesque
effect, like Stockton's whirlicane (whirlwind and hurricane). But
most of them are in their origin as naive as the child's begincement,
in which beginning and commencement are merged. Current slang
is full of examples, as hustle (hasten and bustle, rustle, etc.), swipe
(sweep and wipe), stunt (stint and stump). But there are plenty of
thoroughly respectable words which have originated in the same
way, as German bin, O. H. G. bim, which represents a merging of the
two forms seen in English be and am.

The manifold changes of meaning which words undergo in the
course of their history are also mainly due to associative processes.
A concept represents a complexity of elements, any one of which
may at one time or another be the centre of associations. With the
shifting of the dominant element come new associations. When
crescent was first applied to the crescent moon, the dominant element
was, as the origin of the word shows, the notion of growing, but this
was replaced by the notion of shape, forming a new centre of asso-

42 COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE

ciations, so that we say "the bay forms a crescent," etc., or even
"the crescent-shaped moon." In horn, as applied to an instrument
for producing sound by blowing, the dominant element was at first
the material, but ceased to be so before we could speak of a tin horn,
etc. Language is full of "faded metaphors," that is, metaphors
which have become so commonplace as no longer to be felt as such
(and which therefore are no longer metaphors in the stylistic sense),
representing all conceivable types of associations, as between various
sense-perceptions (we speak of a sweet smell or a sweet voice as freely
as of a sweet taste}, between physical and mental activities or con-
ditions (understand, forget, that is, for-get the opposite of get, horror,
originally a bristling up of the hair, glad cognate with German glatt,
"smooth"), between abstract and concrete (kindness as a quality or
a concrete act), subjective and objective (glad of a person, and glad
tidings, fear cognate with German Gefahr, "danger "), transitive and
intransitive (show cognate with German schauen) , and so on without
limit. The most frequent changes in meaning are those which are
classified, from the logical standpoint, under the head of specializ-
ation, as hound, formerly dog (cf. German Hund), poison from Latin
potio, "drink," German Gift, "poison," originally "gift," — or gen-
eralization, as barn, originally " a storehouse for barley," butcher,
originally "one who kills he-goats" (French boucher, from bouc=*
buck), smell and reek, both referring originally to the odor of some-
thing burning (cf. smoulder and German Rauch), equipped, originally
"furnished with horses," etc. Specialization means the restriction
of scope through the enlargement of content, caused by the absorp-
tion of associated elements, as when from a hunting-hound, that is,
a "hunting-dog," hound has absorbed the content of hunting, thus
restricting its scope. Generalization, on the other hand, means the
enlargement of scope through the narrowing of the content by the
ignoring of certain of its elements, as when in barn the notion of
barley is lost sight of.

The most scientific classification of semantic changes is without
much doubt the strictly psychological one, according to the character
of the associative processes involved, although the comparative
grammarian will probably prefer a more external grouping as the
best means of presenting the material.

Syntactical changes exhibit associative processes very similar
to those seen in the history of individual words. One construction
is modified by another which has some point of contact with it, or
there may be complete contaminations of two constructions. A
given inflectional form or phrase may change its force to any extent
by the gradual shifting of the dominant element.

But it is unnecessary to illustrate further the intimate connection

RELATIONS OF COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR 43

between psychology and comparative grammar, and we may con-
sider for a moment how far it is possible to define the respective
functions of each in the study of language. It is the part of compar-
ative grammar to present the facts of language in their historical
relations, to show what changes language has actually undergone,
and under what immediate linguistic influences. The psychological
processes of which the linguistic changes are the outward sign it is the
part of psychology to interpret and define. The psychology of lan-
guage is of course a branch of general psychology, and is in a sense
the application of general psychological principles to linguistic
phenomena. At the same time it is justly claimed for the newest
psychology of language that it does not represent a sort of external
application to linguistic phenomena of a preconceived system of
psychology, but that its principles are deduced -from its linguistic
phenomena themselves. In other words, it does not regard itself
merely as an auxiliary to language history, furnishing it with a set of
principles determined from other sources, but it holds that language
is in itself one of the most worthy objects of psychological investi-
gation, one of the most promising sources of psychological truth.
From this point of view, according to which language is an object
of intrinsic interest no less to the psychologist than to the historian of
language, the relation between the two sciences is closer than ever
before. And if we have correctly defined their respective functions,
it does not by any means follow that the representatives of each
confine themselves strictly within these limits. The comparative
grammarian may supplement his historical investigation of certain
linguistic phenomena by a consideration of the more immediate
psychological factors involved. Nor will the psychologist feel de-
barred from all independent assumptions as to historical relations.
Such overlapping of their activities is not only permissible but de-
sirable, for it should lead to increased sympathy and cooperation.

The Relation to Ethnology and History

The vital relation of language and history was recognized by Leib-
nitz in the seventeenth century, and his deep interest and activity
in collecting linguistic material was determined by its value in the
study of ethnological relations. And when in the beginning of the
nineteenth century comparative grammar was established on a sci-
entific footing, the possibilities of the new science made a deep im-
pression upon Alexander von Humboldt, whose words (Kosmos, n,
p. 142), slightly abridged, are as follows: "Compared among them-
selves and separated into families according to their inner structure,
languages have become (and this is one of the most brilliant achieve-

44 COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE

ments of the studies of recent times), a rich source of historical
knowledge. They lead us to a distant past to which no tradition
reaches. The comparative study of languages shows how widely
separated peoples are related with one another and have migrated
from a common home. It points out the course of migrations; it
recognizes in the greater or less degree of change, in the stability
of certain forms or in their advanced decay which people has kept
closer to the speech once spoken in the common home."

No comparative grammarian of to-day would venture to express
the relation of linguistic evidence to ethnology in such unqualified
terms. The application of linguistic evidence is not as simple as was
once believed, it has its limitations, and is not capable alone of laying
bare all the events of prehistoric times. Yet I for one do not believe
that anything in .our present views of its application has actually
diminished its importance. Whatever value we attach to other factors,
it remains true that language furnishes the most tangible evidence and
will always hold the first place in any ethnological discussion.

It is true, of course, that language is not always a key to race.
History furnishes numerous examples of the adoption by one people
of the language of another, -whether it be the speech of the conquerors
or the conquered that survives, and there is no reason to doubt that
this was equally frequent in prehistoric times. Hence the fallibility
of assuming community of race from community of language. Yet
the warning against the confusion of language and people is uttered
so vigorously, we are so emphatically admonished of the absurdity
of speaking, for example, of Indo-European or Aryan peoples^ that
I believe there is nowadays more danger of underestimating than
of overestimating the historical bearing of linguistic evidence. It is
still a truism that language implies a people speaking it. Even in
those cases where a people has changed its language, this has been
effected only by mixture with another people. If this other people
whose language becomes dominant is numerically stronger than the
people whose language is lost, then kinship with peoples of related
languages will be true of the larger contingent of the resulting mixed
people. And if the people whose language becomes dominant is
numerically weaker, this is in itself proof that it is intellectually
stronger, superior in civilization and organization, so that kinship
with peoples of related languages will still be true of what is the
more important contingent in the mixed people. The mere phys-
ical domination of a small body of invaders, forming only the ruling
class, is not sufficient to impose their language upon the masses.
Witness the fate of the Franks or the Normans in France, the Swedish
rulers of Russia, the Turkish Bulgarians, the Manchus in China.
If the Romans in Gaul, in spite of their numerical inferiority, imposed

RELATIONS OF COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR 45

their language upon the subject Celts, it was due to the power of the
Roman organization, of which they continued to form a part, the
country being governed from Rome and receiving from it a constant
influx of officials, soldiers, and tradesmen. The statement, often
made, that the Greeks, for example, may have received their Indo-
European language from a small body of invaders, so that they would
be only to a slight degree of Indo-European descent, is unwarranted
by historical analogies. This of course is not to doubt the existence
of one or more than one pre-Indo-European peoples in Greece and
the adjacent islands, and we are anxious for all possible information
in regard to them, especially if the so-called ^Egean civilization, wholly
or in part, antedates the appearance of the Indo-European Greeks.
(And let it be noted in passing that this question awaits its decision
from linguistic evidence. Are not all scholars impatient to learn
what is the language of the Cretan pictograph and linear signs?)
But the Indo-European Greeks must have come, like the Anglo-
Saxon invaders of England, in vast hordes and in successive waves of
migration, and the very fact that their language became dominant
entitles them to be regarded as the most important element of the
historical Greek people, however much may have been' contributed
to their civilization by earlier conditions.

And if linguistic evidence is subject to some reservation, what of
anthropological evidence? One after another of the anthropological
criteria has been found inadequate to serve as an absolute basis of
ethnological classification. Leading anthropologists like Virchow
hold that a mixture of dolichocephalic and brachycephalic, of blond
and brunette, etc., is the rule rather than the exception, and further-
more that such racial characteristics are not in themselves unchange-
able. And even if the matter of racial classification were in a more
satisfactory state than it is at present, it would take us back to
such remote periods as to have comparatively little bearing upon the
immediate prehistory of even the earliest known peoples. The period
of Indo-European speech-unity, for example, which no one need
place earlier than 5000 B.C., and is probably later than this, represents
a late date from the anthropological point of view, and it is alto-
gether likely that the people speaking this parent speech was already
of mixed race. Furthermore, is it not true in general that the phys-
ical characteristics of a people, in and of themselves, are subordinate
in historical significance to their institutions? Community in myths
and customs, but above all in language, is that which goes to make
up kinship as a subjective element, that is, that consciousness of
kinship which is an important factor in history. Language is the
most vital factor in the growth and retention of national feeling.
Nothing is so zealously guarded as essential to racial survival. No-

46 COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE

thing has been so systematically attacked in efforts to crush nation-
ality, from the time of the Assyrian kings, one of whom boasts of
having carried into captivity the subjects of the four quarters of the
world and made them of one speech,1 down to the present day, when
the "language question" is a burning problem in nearly every
European state.

Recent years have seen much discussion of the nature and origin
of dialects, the result of which only emphasizes how inseparable
are the linguistic and historical aspects of the question. In the first
place, " dialect" is not a purely linguistic concept. It does not, any
more than the term "language," represent a definable degree of
speech- variation (or speech-unity, according to the point of view).
It rests upon a combination of linguistic and historical elements. It
is true that in place of the popular conception of a dialect, a precise
and purely linguistic definition has been suggested,2 but it is one that
yields a concept too limited in scope to be usable, and if adopted
would only necessitate the invention of a new term as elastic as the

" The subjects of the four quarters (of the world, speaking) strange languages
and varied dialects, inhabitants of mountain and plain, over whom the warrior
of the gods, lord of all, rules, whom I had carried into captivity in the name of
Ashur, my lord, with my powerful staff, I made of one speech and settled them
therein." From the cylinder inscription of Sargon (722-705 B. c.), in Assyrian
and Babylonian Literature. Selected Translations, R. F. Harper.

- Oertel, Lectures on the Study of Language, p. 92 ff . Strictly, there is always
some variation between the speech of any two persons and even between two
utterances of the same person, so that, objectively considered, the only absolute
dialectal unit is the momentary utterance of a single individual. To call this
a dialect would obviously be absurd. But such variations may be top minute to be
noticed, so that subjectively they do not exist. Accordingly it is proposed to
make the test subjective instead of objective. " A dialectal unit is constituted by
the speech of all those persons in whose utterances variations are not sensibly
perceived or attended to. Subjective uniformity makes the dialect," is Oertel's
thesis. Higher groups he would classify as dialect-family, language, and language-
family, emphasizing that these represent only ideal types in contrast to the con-
crete type represented by a dialect as defined. It may be admitted that in this
way one can make of dialect a concrete and purely linguistic concept, and one
that is somewhat more comprehensive than that obtained objectively. But it is
still a too limited concept to which to restrict the term dialect. We could not speak
of the dialect of a single town, so long as it included, as often, perceptible varia-
tions in the speech of different classes. Its speech-form would rather be a dialect-
family. Or, waiving the matter of variation within a single town, we could speak
for example, to illustrate from Greek dialectology, of the speech of Tegea in Arcadia
as a dialect, but what we commonly call the Arcadian dialect would be a dialect-
family, what we commonly call the Arcado-Cyprian dialect-family would be a
language, and what we commonly call the Greek language would be a language-
family. The fact is, of course, that we cannot have a complete set of terms of
absolute value for all degrees of even perceptible variation, and if all but one
must necessarily be ideal types, not to be defined precisely, what is the advantage
of making an absolute concrete type of this one? Yet we had no right perhaps to
illustrate from the Greek, for it is obvious that the term dialect as defined cannot
be properly applied to any phase of speech no longer extant. For it is only in the
case of living speech that it is possible to take testimony as to what variations
are perceptible and so secure the subjective test.

I see no objection to the continued employment of the term dialect, as of dialect-
family, language, etc., in its present elastic sense, its special application being
shown by the context.

RELATIONS OF COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR 47

present "dialect." For we need a term to designate the speech of
certain territories or communities, without regard to the precise
degree of variation (or unity) represented.

But the very existence of dialects as ordinarily understood has
been denied, especially by certain eminent Romance scholars, one of
whom is honoring this Congress by his presence. Emphasizing what
has come to be rightly an accepted belief since J. Schmidt's exposition
of his famous wave-theory, namely, that a linguistic change starts
at a certain point and gradually spreads over contiguous territory,
and that different linguistic phenomena may start from different
centres and so cover wholly or partially different territories, they
conceive the resulting conditions to be such as would be illustrated
graphically by a large series of intersecting circles drawn from differ-
ent centres and representing the areas of the different linguistic
phenomena. They assert that there will be only an infinite series
of gradual variations, that we may if we choose give the name
dialect to the area of a particular linguistic phenomenon, but that
any broader grouping of dialects is purely arbitrary and unscientific.
Such a conception is possible only upon the basis of purely linguistic
theorizing, defying every historical probability. If we could imagine
a given territory occupied all at once by a people of uniform speech,
in settlements equally large and equally distant from one another,
like the squares on a checker-board, with no natural boundaries by
mountains and rivers, and further imagine that these settlements
remained of the same relative strength, no one of them gaining
predominance over others, then, indeed, speech-variation might
proceed with such a result as has been pictured. But such conditions
never exist. Even if the incoming people were wholly homogeneous
without even the germs of dialectic variation, which is rarely if ever
the case, there would inevitably arise certain social and political
groupings which would reflect themselves in speech. Some degree of
centralization is as certain in speech as in politics. The evolution
of a standard language is only the culmination of what on a smaller
scale is always operative. There is no time when the centrifugal
force of speech-variation starting from innumerable centres is not
being more or less counteracted by a centripetal force combining
certain phenomena in groups. The extent and the defmiteness of
these groups vary with the historical conditions. How clearly do the
linguistic conditions of ancient Greece reflect that particularism
which was so characteristic of the Greeks politically! No single
standard of speech until a late period, just as there was no political
unity, but numerous dialects, as there were numerous states, show-
ing centralization within certain limits. And will any one deny the
existence there of well-defined dialects so clearly marked by certain

48 COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE

combinations of linguistic phenomena that the language of an in-
scription rarely leaves any doubt as to what part of Greece it comes
from, provided, of course, it antedates the wivy period? Or will it
be objected that we know these dialects only in written form and
that the relative uniformity within their limits may be artificial?
There may be something in this, and it is not unlikely that there was
more merging of one dialect into another near the boundaries than
the few inscriptional examples of this would indicate. But from the
varied character of the inscriptions, private as well as official, there
is no sufficient reason for doubting that we have in general a faith-
ful representation of what was actually spoken. And if evidence is
demanded of dialects which can be studied in their spoken form, it
may be pointed out that, as the whole discussion started with an
attack on certain groupings of French dialects, it has been shown
by minute investigation that well-defined French dialects do exist,
if only one recognize that the boundaries need not be mathematical
lines, but may be intermediary zones.

There can be no doubt that it is the first necessity of dialect-study
to define precisely the area of each linguistic phenomenon, as is done
in Wencker's Sprachatlas des deutschen Reiches, or on a still more
elaborate scale in the Atlas linguistique de la France of Gillie'ron et
Edmont, which is to contain some eighteen hundred maps, each
showing the pronunciation of some word or phrase in upwards of
six hundred places. But it is the legitimate aim of the dialecto-
logist, with constant reference to available historical data, to classify
such material in larger groups and unfold their history.

Since dialect relations reflect historical conditions, their evidence
may be used in turn to control and supplement imperfect historical
data. Nowadays one scarcely hears even echoes of the once lively
discussion of wave-theory versus Stammbaum-theory, for it is tacitly
recognized that there is truth in each. The difference is only one of
chronological emphasis, if I may so express it. There is no doubt
that points of agreement between dialects, so far as they are not
accidental, that is, due to independent development in each, are
significant of geographical continuity, — at some time. But this
may be the geographical continuity of the historical period, and this
is what was emphasized by J. Schmidt in his famous work; or it may
be that of a prehistoric period, and this is what is emphasized by
a tree-scheme, which is intended to illustrate how dialects or lan-
guages have diverged from a common prehistoric source. One may
object to specific tree-schemes as arbitrary, and certainly the attack
on existing tree-schemes of the Indo-European languages was entirely
justified. One may dispute in each case as to how far it is possible
to go in such a scheme. But one cannot doubt the existence of

RELATIONS OF COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR 49

migratory movements such as are properly represented by a tree-
scheme, or that such movements often reflect themselves in dialect
relations in an unmistakable fashion. Let me illustrate from the
Greek dialects. If we survey the whole body of linguistic phenomena
we may divide the points of dialect agreement into three classes.
Some we regard as accidental. Others are significant of geographical
continuity in their historic positions, as probably the psilosis on
the coast of Asia Minor in which the vEolic, Ionic, and Doric dialects
of this region share. Others are obviously significant of geographical
continuity in a period preceding the great migrations, and there of
course are the points upon which are based all attempts to classify
the dialects and stems. No one can possibly doubt the historical
significance of the agreement in features not found elsewhere between
Arcadian and the remote Cyprian, between Asiatic JSolic and
Thessalian, or of the mixture of Doric and JEolic characteristics in
Thessalian and Boeotian. And I have no hesitation in asserting
that those historians, fortunately few, who regard the tradition of the
Doric migration as a pure myth, either have no first-hand knowledge
of the dialects or are absolutely impervious to linguistic evidence.
There is enough that is still obscure in the relations of the Greek
dialects, but there is also much that is as clear as day.

It may be said of this or any other like case that it is arbitrary to
regard certain points of agreement as accidental and others as sig-
nificant, and that in combining the latter with vague traditional data
and then drawing historical conclusions we are guilty of reasoning
in a vicious circle. Perfectly true. But where is there a branch of
inquiry in which the so-called vicious circle is not employed, and jus-
tified too, if only the circle is completed without undue pressure?
When a number of linguistic facts fit together with one another and
with traditional data, which in itself may be of little weight, we are
entitled to regard them as significant.

I can only allude to the historical significance of borrowed words
not due to any racial mixture, such as the Greek words in Latin which
bring before us the successive periods of Greek influence: first, the
remote period -when certain articles of commerce were brought to
Italy by Greek mariners, then the influence exerted by the Greek
colonists of Magna Grsecia, then the time when educated Romans
were familiar with Greek literature and sent their sons to Athens for
study, and lastly the period when Rome was filled with Greek-
speaking slaves. Or, to take an example of a totally different and
less usual character, the words which the Gypsies have adopted
from the various languages with which they have come in contact
since leaving their home in India, some of them, like the Armenian
and Modern Greek words, common to all dialects and so significant

50 COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE

of their wanderings as an undivided people, others indicative only of
the wanderings of certain groups.

But something must be said of the relation of comparative gram-
mar to the study of prehistoric antiquities. For it is this phase of
the subject which is regarded with the greatest suspicion within the
ranks of comparative grammarians; and at the same time makes
the strongest appeal to popular interest. What Woman's Club has
not been privileged to listen to a paper upon "The Cradle of the
Aryans"? Linguistic Palaeontology, as it is often called, refers to
the study of the reconstructed vocabulary of a parent speech with
reference to the light it throws upon the civilization of the people
using this language. Investigation along this line was initiated
and has been most vigorously pursued within the Indo-European
field, but similar studies have been made for the Semitic and other
families of languages. The common possession, by the various
languages of a family, of a given word in the form appropriate to
the known phonetic characteristics of each is evidence of the existence
of such a word in the parent speech, and consequently of the object
designated by this word. Such a series as Sanskrit cva, Avestan spa
(cf. also o-TraKtt, quoted as Median by Herodotus), Armenian sun,
Greek KVWV, Latin cam's, Old Irish cu, Gothic hunds (certainly not to
be separated, though possibly contaminated with the root seen in
English hunt), Lithuanian szu, Old Prussian sunis (Russian sobaka
must have been borrowed from Iranian), leaves no room for doubt
that the primitive Indo-Europeans were acquainted with some
species of dog. Similar evidence is sufficient to show their acquaint-
ance with numerous other animals, with certain trees, with at least
one metal, with a kind of grain, with some means of conveyance
both by land and by water, with three seasons, including winter with
snow, with the art of sewing, plaiting, weaving, and making vessels
of earthenware, with a complete family organization, etc., etc.

But the earlier essays at a comprehensive view of such conditions,
those idyllic pictures of primitive Indo-European life with the
milkmaid in the foreground, were marked by so little appreciation
of the limitations of linguistic evidence as to bring the whole subject
into a disrepute from which it has never fully recovered. Later
progress has consisted in a more precise valuation and a more critical
application of the evidence from language, and especially in con-
trolling and supplementing it by evidence from other sources, such
as prehistoric archaeology, historical accounts of early conditions
among the various Indo-European peoples, and general ethnology
as showing what conditions are likely to be found together. With
regard to linguistic evidence, we must recognize that absence of
agreement in the designation of an object is no proof that it was

RELATIONS OF COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR 51

unknown, since the old word may for various reasons have been lost
or replaced, just as the old words for brother and sister have been
replaced in Greek, those for son and daughter in Latin; further,
that agreement in a given word is not always proof of its existence
in the parent speech, since, aside from the possibility of independent
formation, this agreement may rest on a succession of borrowings,
as is the case with the word for wine; lastly, even where the existence
of the word in the parent speech is not open to question, its precise
meaning may be uncertain. From the series, Sanskrit ayas, Avestan
ayah-, Latin aes, Gothic aiz (English ore), which in different times
and places mean copper, bronze, iron, or metal in general, we can,
indeed, infer that the Indo-Europeans were acquainted with some
metal, but when we conclude that this was probably copper, we do
so on other than purely linguistic grounds. Furthermore there are
countless points upon which linguistic evidence is altogether silent.
But when the skepticism is carried so far as to assert that no value,
or at the most very slight value, is to be attached to linguistic evidence,1
this can only be stamped as an unwarranted exaggeration. The
elimination of borrowed words from apparent cases of agreement
has long been recognized as an important corrective. But it is a
mere splitting of hairs to urge that all cases of agreement may rest
upon borrowing, only in the remote period when the later Indo-
European languages, though already somewhat differentiated, were
still spoken in contiguous territory. No exception need be taken to
such a statement if intended only as a warning that the conclusions
reached may not be applicable to precisely the same period and that
the combination of the various conclusions may not be truly homo-
geneous. The same is true of the reconstructed forms, and I would
emphasize again what was said in reference to the parent speech,
that we are concerned with it not so much for any intrinsic interest
it possesses for us as for its bearing on later development. If we are
able to trace a given institution back to a period before the bonds
between the Indo-European peoples were severed and antedating
the more individual development of each in the land of its per-
manent home, what more do we ask? We may deny the application
of linguistic evidence in individual cases, but not in principle. It
must be used with caution, but the danger of its abuse is not greater
than is the case with archaeological evidence. Often it fails us entirely,
but often it is, in the nature of things, the only available evidence.
What archaeological evidence can tell us how far the numeral system
was developed, or can throw such light on the family organization

1 I refer especially to the' radical position taken by Krestcher, Einleitung in die
Geschichte der griechischen Sprache, p. 48 ff., in the criticism of which I am in
entire accord with the remarks of Schrader, Reallexikon der indogermanischen
Altertiimen, p. 8 ff.

52 COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE

as the restriction of the inherited words for father-in-law and mother-
in-law to the parents of the husband? It is idle to discuss whether
the study of Indo-European antiquities is a branch of linguistic
science to which prehistoric archaeology is auxiliary, or vice versa.
For the relative importance of each kind of evidence will vary accord-
ing to the individual problem. It is only by the recognition of the
claims of each, by the conservative employment of evidence from
whatever source, that this branch of investigation can attain its
highest development, and even then we must content ourselves
with what is only a fragmentary picture at best.

I have now mentioned, not indeed all branches of science which
could be adduced as standing in some sort of relation to comparative
grammar, but those which seem to me to stand in the closest relation-
ship to it, a relationship which is not merely theoretical but a vital
fact, the importance of which to each science concerned has never
been so fully recognized as at the present day.

SOME PRESENT PROBLEMS AND TENDENCIES IN COM-
PARATIVE PHILOLOGY

i

BY HANNS OERTEL

[Harms Oertel, Professor of Linguistics and Comparative Philology, Yale Univers-
ity, b. April 20, 1868, Geithain, Saxony. A.M. (hon.) Yale, 1888; Ph.D. •ibid.
1890. Member of American Oriental Society; Librarian, ibid. Author of Lectures
on the Study of Language, The Jaiminiya or Talavakdra Upanisad Brahmana
(Text, Translation, and Notes), and many articles on Linguistics and Sanskrit
Philology.]

IN an address delivered almost sixty years ago (in 1846; printed in
Lassen's Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes, vol. vn, 1850,
p. 25 ff .) Schleicher divided the new science of comparative philology,
which owes its name to Friedrich.Schlegel, into the following three
departments: (1) The "philosophical," in so far as the comparative
study of languages aims to discover the laws and processes of lin-
guistic development ("die fur die Sprache geltenden Entwicklungs-
gesetze aufzustellen," p. 36). Included in this are also questions
touching the relation of speech and thought, and the origin of lan-
guage. It is immaterial here whether the languages compared are
genetically related to one another or not. (2) The " historical," which
deals with such ethnological information regarding prehistoric times
as may be inferentially derived from a comparison of cognate lan-
guages; it thus appears as a valuable ally of history. In contradis-
tinction to the preceding division, the interest here does not centre
in language itself, but in the historical, mythological, institutional,
inferences which may be based upon language. Language plays
here the same part in the investigation of prehistoric periods which
Wolf, in his Alterthumswissenschaft, assigned to it for historic times.
(3) The "grammatical," in which the grammatical system of a given
language is illumined and cleared up by the comparison of cognate
languages. While the first two departments dealt respectively with
language in general and with the historical inferences to be derived
from a set of cognate languages, this third department is concerned
with some one definite language whose structure it analyzes by
means of the comparative method.

Although these three divisions are not mutually exclusive, still
less antagonistic to each other, and although the work of most
scholars has been, to a certain degree, extended over more than a
single one of the three subdivisions, it is easy to name the pioneer
and earliest representative for each, namely, Wilhelm von Humboldt
for the first (the "philosophical"), August Schleicher himself for
the second (the "historical"), and Franz Bopp for the third (the
"grammatical").

54 COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE

Now since all investigations along any one of the three main lines
indicated by Schleicher — if they are to be inductive — must neces-
sarily rest upon a careful examination of the facts of actual lan-
guages and dialects, the large mass of special problems which are
connected with each individual language and dialect form, in a sense,
problems of comparative philology, nor can they be regarded as
minor problems, inasmuch as the whole structure of linguistic science
ultimately rests upon their correct solution. And yet a discussion of
even a select number -of such special problems seemed both impos-
sible and unsuited to the present occasion. For, extending over
a great variety of languages, they would require for their adequate
presentation the combined labor of many specialists. On the other
hand, their very nature would restrict an interest in them to a
comparatively small number, as their discussion would, of necessity,
have to be of a very technical character. But since these lectures are
addressed, I take it, to a wider audience, I have selected a number
of problems which are more general, and I shall endeavor to discuss
briefly some general problems and tendencies of linguistic thought,
which by influencing the methods of investigation, determine, to
a considerable extent, the manner in which special problems present
themselves for treatment, the point from which their objects are
viewed, and the way in which they are grouped and correlated.

In his division of the comparative study of language, Schleicher
distinguished between the "historical" and the "grammatical"
application of the comparative method to a group of cognate lan-
guages. And the contrast between these two as to the ultimate
purpose and end for which the comparative method is used is, even
now, so important for a proper valuation of the results achieved that
I cannot forego dwelling briefly upon it. The difference may perhaps
be summed up in these words, that in its last aims Schleicher's
"historical" method is reconstructive, while his "grammatical"
method is* interpretative. In taking Bopp as representative of the lat-
ter, I do not, of course, refer to his attempt at explaining the origin
of those forms which express grammatical relations (or, in simple
words, the origin of inflection), but rather to what he considered a pre-
liminary step toward the solution of this problem, namely, the com-
parative description of the organic structure of the Indo-European
languages. In fact Bopp's lasting importance does not lie in the
attempted solution of the riddle of inflection, but in what his com-
parative method allowed him to do for each individual and con-
crete language embodied in his Compendium. By it he was enabled
"to extend his gaze beyond the narrow confines of a single lan-
guage and to group its facts, in the light of all the cognate mem-
bers of the same family, so as to bring system and organic con-
nection into the linguistic material presented by each individual

PROBLEMS IN COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY 55

language" (p. vm of the preface to the Vergleichende Grammatik).
Schleicher, on the other hand, used the comparative method for an
entirely different ultimate end, namely, to reconstruct inferentially
a parent language upon the basis of a comparison of the really exist-
ing cognate languages, and in his Compendium "the attempt has
been made to place the inferred Indo-European parent language
alongside of its really existing descendants" (2d. ed., p. 8, note).
The contrast is clear. For Bopp the comparative method is largely
a means of bringing order and system into the grammars of the
individual historical languages. For Schleicher it is a key to open
a prehistoric period by recovering its lost language. Save only
where he proceeds to speculate upon the ultimate origin of inflection,
the former's face is turned toward the historical periods of a language,
the facts of which he interprets from his higher pinnacle; while the
latter uses the historical languages as a basis for his inferences, as
a spring-board, if one may use the figure, for a leap into the pre-
historic.

Any one who has followed the trend of recent discussions cannot
have failed to see that there is at present a growing disinclination to
believe in the historical reality of reconstructed forms and meanings.
The more thoroughly we study the nature and mechanism of lin-
guistic development the clearer it must become that it can properly
be compared neither, in Schleicher's biological fashion, to the pro-
pagation of an animal, nor, as has been done more recently, to the
derivation of a number of manuscript copies from one archetype. The
processes of consolidation and disintegration to which dialects owe
their constantly changing being are so complicated and of so peculiar
a character that such comparisons can be made in the most general
and figurative way only, and they cannot justify the application of a
method designed for and capable of restoring a lost archetype to the
reconstruction of a language. The recent anthropological discussions
of Ratzel * make one point perfectly clear, namely, that for the
development of a secondary ethnic group with such definite and uni-
form characteristics as the fair, blond, tall, and long-headed Indo-
Europeans exhibit we are forced to assume a very large area; for
its dispersion over a wide area was its only protection against alien
influences and the guarantee of its survival. To think then of this
period as one " in which the individual members of the Indo-Euro-
pean family were still united by the consciousness of a common
tongue" seems to me to imply a complete reversal of all that we
know empirically of political and linguistic history, for in both the
course appears to be uniformly from multiplicity toward unity. As
all historical nations are the result of a consolidation of tribes, so all
historical languages are the result of a consolidation and unification

1 Berichte d. sacks. Gesel. d. Wiss., 1898, p. 1, and 1900, p. 25.

56 COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE

of dialects.1 What else does the great diversity of the Italic dialects,
with their marked divergence in the most common words as well as
in the grammatical material, indicate but that the hordes and tribes
which invaded Italy were far from uniform, and that the linguistic
unification accompanied the political and economic consolidation of
Italy under the leadership of Rome? If we once admit that the Indo-
European ethnic group long before the opening of history inhabited,
and developed in, a large area embracing Middle and Eastern Europe
and reaching far into Western Asia, then the assumption of a well-
rounded and evenly developed grammatical structure 2 becomes as
impossible as that of a uniform culture. It is not necessary to assume
that all Indo-Europeans once possessed knowledge of, and terms for,
agriculture, and that the absence of such terms among the Eastern
branch is due to loss. Are we not justified in seeing here primitive
differences? Exactly3 so it seems to me unnecessary to assume a
fully developed and generally accepted differentiation of optative
and subjunctive throughout all Indo-European territory. Is it not
possible that the Italic tribes, for instance, did not fuse what was
originally distinct, but represent a section and stage which never
utilized the ie : I etc. forms for the purpose of differentiating between
wish (optative) and will (subjunctive)? And may it not be just as
incorrect to speak of the meaning of a common Indo-European
optative as it would be to speak of a common Indo-European agricul-
ture? In other words, are not many supposed losses and fusions in
reality rather primitive and original local absences and primitive
and original local failures to differentiate? It seems to me that con-
siderations like these must have been the cause which have led, in
recent standard works on comparative syntax, to the substitution of
" Gebrauchssphaere " for the older "Grundbedeutung." The latter
implied unity, local uniformity; the former puts in its place multi-
plicity, and thus allows for primitive local differences which we may
find continued in the historical languages.

I am not here attacking the starred, constructed forms of our
comparative grammars, the value of which no sane scholar under-
rates. What I try to combat is the belief that these constructed
forms can be utilized for historical inferences. Since the method by
which they are produced is purely logical (namely, a summation of
correspondences and an elimination of differences), their character
is essentially unhistoric. But this unhistoric quality in no way im-
pairs their value as aids in the grammatical study of a given lan-

1 Heyck, Histor. Zeitsch., vol. 85, p. 68; Wrede, ibid., vol. 87, p. 39; Koegel,
Gotting. Gel. Am., 1897, p. 648.

2 A. Ludwig wrote in 1867: " Auch die Ursprache in der Zeit ihrer (nattirlich
immer nur relativen) Vollkommenheit bot keine vollkommerie Einheit." (Si-
tzungsberichte d. phil. hist. Cl. d. Kais. Akad. d. Wiss. Wien. 1867, vol. 55, p. 134.)

* The following paragraph has been elaborated more fully by E. P. Morris and
the author in the Harvard Studies in Classical Philology for 1905.

PROBLEMS IN COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY 57

guage. Instead of attaching to these constructed forms the historical
value which they possessed in Schleicher's eyes, I should rather
regard them as algebraic grammatical notations * in which the com-
parison of parallel forms of two or more languages may be most
easily and conveniently summarized and expressed. The construc-
tion of a form like kmtdm means that Greek C-KOTOV, Latin centum,
German hund, Sanskrit catam, etc., should be grouped together. It
is in other words the common denominator of these forms. The
constructed m is a convenient symbol to mark the fact that Greek
a, Latin en, German un, Sanskrit a, etc., are to be paralleled and are
alike in so far as they are weak grades, a fact which for some does not
lie at all close to the surface and, indeed, is brought to light by the
comparison of cognates only. The signs which go to make up the
alphabet of the Indo-European are the symbolical expressions of
grammatical parallelisms rather than representatives of the historical
sources from which the sounds of the concrete languages are descended.
But even those who would grant historical reality to the formal
reconstructions of Indo-European words will hardly go so far as to
extend it to the semantic 2 reconstructions dealing with the force
and meaning of Indo-European cases, modes, and tenses. So long
as it was believed that from the very beginning the mode and tense
formatives were charged with a definite modal and temporal meaning
inherent in them, a formal reconstruction of the formative carried
with it semantic reconstruction also. But all recent investigations
(they have just been summarized and extended by Hirt 3) uniformly
tend to show that there was, generally speaking, no such inherent
meaning in these formatives. What we call the modal or the tense-
system of a language is the result of a very gradual development in
which old formal material has been adapted to certain semantic
uses. Witness, for instance, the use made of thematic (asa-ti) and
unthematic (as-ti) forms for the differentiation of subjunctive and
indicative, or the turning of the s-formative into a tense-sign. If, as
seems incontestable, the tense-system of the Indo-European lan-
guages is by no means primitive, but a secondary structure, into
which material of a previous period was built by charging old forms
with new meaning,4 it is not necessary to assume that this new
system was uniformly worked out in what is called Indo-European
times, and the attempt to construct universally accepted Indo-
European meanings from which, by loss or addition, those of the

1 This statement agrees with Delbriick, Einleitung in das Sprachstudium (1880)
p. 52. Einleitung in das Studium der indogermanischen Sprachen (1904), p. 126.

2 For a fuller discussion of this see E. P. Morris's and the author's paper in the
Harvard Studies in Classical Philology for 1905.

3 In the seventeenth vol. of the Indogermanische Forschungen.

4 Compare also the acquired modal force of the augmentless preterites, Thurn-
eysen, Bezz. Beitr. vin, p. 282.

58 COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE

individual languages must be derived would seem unwarranted. It
is for this reason that I should be slow to assert that the Latin
subjunctive forms are semantically the product of a fusion of Indo-
European subjunctive (feras) and optative (faxis) forms. I cannot
see what obstacle should prevent our interpreting these forms as re-
flexes of a section of Indo-European speech in which the adaptation
of forms terminating in long a e o and those with the formative ie : I
to subjunctive and optative uses respectively had never taken
place; just as the Italic and Celtic r-forms of the passive have their
formal but not their semantic counterpart in Sanskrit. Thus, while
in dealing with the formal side of Indo-European speech the con-
struction of parent forms is a useful and convenient device and
cannot under any circumstances do harm, the case is different in
syntactical work with its emphasis on the semantic side. Here insist-
ence on a uniform parent language with well-defined semantic sys-
tems shared in by all sections of Indo-European folk seems fraught
with danger and must often tend to cloud the issue by injecting
foreign semantic elements, which in reality were, perhaps, never
present in the history of a mode or tense. It seems methodologically
wrong to assume that because certain formatives in a given num-
ber of languages can be formally united, their respective semantic
contents must also be unified under one denominator, which is to
be regarded as starting-point and fountain head from which the
meanings in the individual languages are to be historically derived.
Early formal identity of formatives may well go hand in hand with
primitive semantic differences due to separate and sectional develop-
ment.

I turn from this general discussion of the value of inferred forms
and meanings to a number of problems connected with the different
departments of grammar, selecting a few which are of a more general
nature.

In phonetics the problem of the causes upon which rests the
striking uniformity of sound-changes is not yet finally solved. The
investigation of the nature of phonetic changes has been, in the
main, confined to the causes which produce primary changes, that
is, those which originated in, and were created by, the individual,
who therefore plays an active part in their production. While these
changes have received detailed treatment, another phase of the
subject, namely, the cause which underlies the comparative uniform-
ity of these changes in a large number of individuals scattered over
a considerable area, has been touched only lightly and in a more or
less general way. There are two possible ways of accounting for such
uniformity. One theory (and it is important to note that the fore-
most authority on the psychology of language holds this view, cf.
Wundt's Volkerpsychologie, Die Sprache, vol. i, p. 391) explains it as

PROBLEMS IN COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY 59

due to simultaneous changes which rise independently in the members
inhabiting a certain area. Its collective character is, if I understand
Wundt aright, due to the fact that the causes for its existence are
uniformly present in many members, who, therefore, at about the
same time independently hit upon the same change. According to
this view, every change starts and spreads as a primary change. The
other theory makes a sharp distinction between primary and second-
ary changes and explains the spread of a change as due to the adop-
tion of the innovation by the rest of the speech-community. Having
been originated elsewhere, the change is afterwards accepted and
— mostly unconsciously — imitated. In two ways this latter view
(which is shared, among the latest writers, by Delbriick, cf. his Ein-
leitung in das Studium der indogermanischen Sprachen, 4th edition,
p. 149) seems to me to have an advantage over the other. In the
first place, it bridges the gulf which separates phonetic changes from
those of a semantic and syntactical kind. For it seems hard to
maintain that the change in a syntactical construction or in the
meaning of a word owes its universality to a simultaneous and inde-
pendent primary change in all the members of a speech-community.
By adopting the theory of imitative spread, all linguistic changes
(formal as well as semantic) may be viewed as one homogeneous
whole. In the second place, the latter view seems to bring linguistic
changes into line with the other social changes, such as modifications
in institutions, beliefs, and customs. For is it not an essential charac-
teristic of a social group that its members are not cooperative in the
sense that each member actively participates in the production of
every single element which goes to make up either language, or
belief, or customs? Distinguishing thus between primary and
secondary changes and between the origin of a change and its spread,
it behoves us to examine carefully into the causes which make the
members of a social unit, either consciously or unconsciously, willing
to accept the innovation. What is it that determines acceptance
or rejection of a particular change? What limits one change to a
small area, while it extends the area of another? Before a final
decision can be reached in favor of the second theory of imitative
spread it will be necessary to follow out in minute detail the mechan-
ism of this process in a number of concrete instances; in other words
to fill out the picture of which Tarde ( Les Lois de I' Imitation) sketched
the bare outlines. If his assumptions prove true, then we should have
here a uniformity resting upon other causes than the physical uni-
formity that appears in the objects with which the natural sciences
deal. It would enable us to establish a second group of uniform
phenomena which is psycho-physical in its character and rests upon
the basis of social suggestion. The uniformities in speech, belief, and
institutions would belong to this second group.

60 COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE

In another direction, also, a study of the process of the spread
of linguistic changes, combined with a study of the mechanism
of dialect formation and early tribal migrations, would be of con-
siderable interest. Hirt, some time ago (IF, IK, 292), directed at-
tention to the similarities, both phonetic and morphological, in
neighboring but unrelated dialects.1 "It is a well-known fact that
the same phonetic changes are met with in different but adjacent
dialectal areas. Most striking are such parallelisms in the languages
of the Balkan peninsula. Though much is uncertain, one fact is
plain, namely, that Rumanian, Albanian, and Bulgarian, three
fundamentally different languages, possess similar features which it
is hardly possible to ascribe to mere chance." It seems possible to
explain these similarities by assuming at the beginning a large
number of many small ethnic units of great mobility and only mod-
erate coherence.2 These, moving with considerable ease 3 within a com-
paratively large geographical area, combined, often only temporarily,
with other units into larger bodies which may frequently enough
have employed a variety of heterogeneous dialects. These, accord-
ing to the degree of intensity of intercourse and according to the
duration of the union, could not help influencing each other. Finally,
a certain number of these units permanently consolidated, and, being
held together by a common material civilization, they began to form
a larger and more coherent unit, became more and more closely
knit as time went on, and in the same proportion in which the mem-
bers of this new body politic coalesced and began to feel their unity,
they were further and further separated from their neighbors, and
this contrast, which grew up on a political and economic basis, was
reflected in the independent development of the language which the
new group produced. Such must have been the process which gave
rise to definite dialects,4 and this manner of forming them explains
why — though in historical times we have clearly established dia-
lectal boundary zones — we yet find surprising correspondences
between dialects which, in historical times, are completely inde-
pendent and distinct. They are due to the admixture of small roving
bodies of a different linguistic complexion which were themselves
absorbed by the larger mass, but which left a trace in the language of
those with whom they united.

And, finally, if we maintain the distinction between primary and
secondary changes, we shall look for the causes of a change only
where that change is primary. It is, of course, true that all sec-

1 On such similarities and their explanation see Kretschmer, Einleitung z. Gesch.
d. griech. Sprache, p. 98.

* Edward Meyer, Gesch. d. Alterthums, n, p. 44; Kretschmer, loc. tit. p. 75.

8 Note, e. a. the ease with which German tribes moved and combined, Lamp-
recht, Deut. Gesch. i (1891), p. 7; Goes. B. G. i, 31.

4 Bremer in Paul's Grunariss, in, pp. 747, 763.

PROBLEMS IN COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY 61

ondary changes must have originated as primary changes, and as
such they are the direct result of certain forces. But as secondary,
that is, adopted changes, they appear where these forces never
existed. Not everywhere, therefore, where a certain change is ob-
servable may we expect to find the causes also to which it is due;
such generative forces can only be discovered where the change is
primary. It is wrong to infer that the mere use of a certain syn-
tactical form is prima facie evidence of a given mental attitude.
As soon as any syntactical phenomenon, such as the order of words
in a sentence, has become habitual, it is vain to seek for the causes
which lead a given speaker to arrange his words in the accepted
order.1 And Siitterlin (Das Wesen der sprachlichen Gebilde, p. 11)
very properly points out that for the modern naive French speaker
the analytic il a aime is as much a unit as was the synthetic amavit
for a Roman. "At the time when the phrase il a aime was first
created, the single elements were still comparatively clearly felt;
but after it had once become habitual [that is, when uttered by those
who simply imitated it] it was fused into one whole. As a matter, of
fact, the uneducated Frenchman has no idea whether he pronounces
one word or three." In a similar way we may speak of the grouping
and moulding of a compound concept in the sentence only in those
cases where the process is really one of original analysis, but not in
those cases where we have a repetition of an analysis already made
and cast into linguistic form.2 A good portion of the ordinary talk of
many persons is undoubtedly of this second, mechanical type.3

I pass over the problem of the origin of Indo-European inflection
whch has been discussed in its various bearings in two very recent
papers by Delbriick (Einleitung in das Studium der indogermanischen
Sprachen, 4th ed. p. 127) and Hirt (IF, xvn, 36). The latter especially,
collecting the scattered results of previous investigations (including
his own concerning Indo-European gradation and dissyllabic bases),
makes four points perfectly clear: namely, that the inflectional
system of the Indo-European languages was preceded by an inflec-
tionless period, traces of which are not at all rare in the historical
forms. Second, that the distinction of verbal and nominal inflection
is not original and that the whole sentence-architecture of the Indo-
European, with its characteristic division into subject and verbal
predicate, is a secondary growth. Third, all the tense-formatives
do not originally refer to time, but to the kind of verbal action.
Their tense-force is secondary throughout. And, fourth, that a
certain number of what used to be considered suffixes (but not all)
are not external accretions, but are the final syllables of a base,

1 Wundt, Vdlkerpsychologie, Die Sprache, n, p. 365 ff.

2 Compare Jerusalem's discussion of the " Ennnerungsurtheil " in his Urtheils-
f unction (1895).

3 Compare Howells's Lady of the Aroostook, pp. 106 and 215.

62 COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE

which in the course of time acquired the force and function of a
suffix.

In syntax, the most important feature which has influenced the
methods of investigation has been the tendency to carry into practice
Humboldt's maxim that language is not so much an Ipyov as an
evepyeia,1 in other words, to view language not solely as a collec-
tion of facts (spoken or written words or sentences) but rather as an
activity and a psychical process of which the spoken word itself is
only the outward and audible sign. This desire to turn from the fin-
ished product to an examination of the producing agency explains the
change from the logical to the psychological treatment of grammar.

The arrangement of facts in grammars viewing language as
static is largely a classification of linguistic products according to
external similarities, similar to the Linnsean classification of plants.
Whether this be rougher or finer, whether the subdivisions be few
or many, the character of this classification remains essentially the
same, inasmuch as it is based upon the present external appearance
of things and often cannot take into consideration the genesis of
the very qualities according to which it classifies. Now, while such
a descriptive classification is necessary, useful, and sufficient for the
practical mastery of the details of a language, where the sole object
is acquaintance with the facts as they are or were, it is scientifically
insufficient because it fails to indicate how these objects came to be
what they are. More than that, it may be positively misleading
when it groups together facts which have an external similarity but
owe their existence to different causes. These genetic, differences a
descriptive classification at times veils and obscures. For while it is a
truism that a like combination of like forces must produce like effects,
it is no less true (though sometimes forgotten) that a different
combination of different forces may produce like effects also. It is
wholly wrong to work on the principle that like effects must neces-
sarily imply like causes.2 Many illustrations might be given of the
grouping together of genetically different material under such general
descriptive heads as "assimilation," " anaptyxis," etc. And only
recently Meumann 3 has called attention to the abuse of the term
" metaphor " when applied to the variations in the semantic sphere
of the child's vocabulary, by showing how entirely different are
the psychological processes which underlie the creation of a poetical
or rhetorical metaphor from the so-called " generalizing tendency " of
the child.

The desire to investigate processes of development rather than
classify finished products has affected semantic investigations in

1 Delbriick, loc. tit. p. 45.

2 Cf. Foy in IF, xn, 33.

3 Die Sprache des Kindes, pp. 60-63.

PROBLEMS IN COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY 63

two ways. In the first place it has directed attention to the study
of modern dialects and some of the most important contributions
(like that of Schiepek, Der Satzbau der Egerldnder Mundart, 1899)
have been along that line. In the second place it has necessarily led
to dealing with concrete and individual forms and phrases rather
than with general, abstract, and purely conceptual grammatical
categories. The advantage of this mode of procedure is that the
treatment of a single concrete phrase can take into account all those
factors which in the generic treatment by grammatical categories
must be disregarded, for all classification implies a more or less
judicious slighting. Consequently, "the inevitable result of over-
attention to classification is a diversion of attention from details."1
To illustrate by an example from the author just quoted (p. 210):
"It is common ... to speak of the deliberative subjunctive. But
the function [does not abide in the single verb-form, for example,
faciam, but] belongs to the whole word-group. In the typical form
Quid ego nunc faciam each word contributes to the total meaning.
... If both [ego and nunc] are omitted the question is not necessarily
dubitative. The subjunctive form also contributes to the expression
of the function of the group, though it is not essential, since the
same function is occasionally expressed by sentences with the indic-
ative. But deliberation cannot be expressed by any one of the four
words alone, and it is not, therefore, a function of any one of them
alone. There is no such thing as the deliberative or dubitative sub-
junctive; to use the term is to attribute the function of the whole
word-group to a single member of the group."

The mention of grammatical categories suggests an important
problem which awaits investigation, namely, in how far our so-called
grammatical categories exist in the mind of the nai've speaker. Does
the untutored speaker who is not sicklied o'er with the pale cast of
grammar really possess the categories of number, case, substantive,
adjective, etc., apart from the individual forms? The strongest
argument in favor of the independent existence of such categories
would be the process of so-called functional association. By this is
meant the association of words which are neither related in root-
meaning (as "father" and "mother"), nor resemble each other in
sound (as "co(h)ors" and "curia"), but which play the same part
in the construction of the sentence (as two nominatives plural or
two first persons of the imperfect). I am not aware that this sort of
association appears in any of the experimental investigations which
the psychologists have furnished. They are in the habit of distin-
guishing two main kinds of association only : one by sense, the other
by sound. The nature of the material on which they base their classi-
fication may account for the absence of this kind of association in
1 Morris, On Principles and Methods in Latin Syntax, p. 217.

64 COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE

the cases which they investigated. But it would seem important
to subject the cases of alleged functional association and analogy-
formation to a renewed scrutiny with a view of determining whether
the psychological process in these cases has not, perhaps, been mis-
interpreted.

We say, for instance, that in the Oscan dialect the ending of the
nominative plural ~os of the masculine -o- stems has affected the
corresponding case of the relative pronoun (pos) and displaced its
regular and distinctive ending (seen in Latin qui), much as in vulgar
English the sigmatic plural of the noun has affected the personal
pronoun of the second person, changing you to yous. And, since in
these cases neither the meaning of the words nor phonetic resem-
blances can have given rise to associative connection, we are inclined
to attribute it to functional likeness. It may, however, be submitted
that there is another possibility, namely, the transfer of the termin-
ation of one word to an adjacent word simply on account of this
local contiguity. Words, we must remember, do not in actual speech
ordinarily occur isolated, but combined in phrases. Words like the
article or pronouns habitually occur in closest proximity to the noun
they qualify, and, in general, words with like grammatical function
cannot help being placed together in very many instances. Under
these conditions it would not be at all surprising if — without any
realization by the speaker of their functional similarity — the ending,
or the accent * of one member of the group should encroach upon
that of the other member, especially if both form a phonetic unit or
speech-bar. Such interference may operate in either forward or
backward direction, and its character would not be different from
that of the so-called regressive and progressive assimilation of sounds
within the same word. And this explanation is actually proffered
by Wackernagel (IF, xiv, p. 367), for some transfers of endings:
"Transfer of endings," he says (p. 374), "is not only due to propor-
tional analogy, but also to the fact that the words affected are
construed together. . . . Hence the influence of pronominal words
on nouns." And he appears to regard in this light the transfer of
the ending -«s which, petrified, appears first in numerals like reVo^cs
with accusative function, and thence spreads over the adjacent
nouns. I am inclined to believe that what is now regarded as " func-
tional analogy" owes — if not wholly, at least in good part — its
existence to such spread. When we have, for example, in Greek 6/crw
and OTTTW (after cnra) I doubt whether the connecting link between
the two words was simply their grammatical category and that the
change originated in the isolated words, for the experiments which
I made concerning the association of numerals (American Journal

1 For the latter see Brugmann, Berichte d. sachsischen Gesellschaft d. Wissen-
schaften for 1900, p. 371 (with references).

PROBLEMS IN COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY 65

of Philology, xxn, p. 261) and which were supported by Ebbing-
haus's observations (Zeitschrift f. Psych, und Physiol. d. Sinnesorgane,
xix, 1902, p. 142) showed * that cases where one isolated numeral was
associated with another were excessively rare. I am, therefore,
inclined to believe that the frequent juxtaposition' of these two words,
without reference to the likeness of their grammatical category,
lies at the bottom of the change. And, in general, it would seem as
if too little weight is given in our whole treatment of analogy-
formation to the associations due to frequent juxtaposition and
habitual combinations. We are too apt to take words singly and
treat them apart from their ordinary setting. If a word for " day "
grammatically influences the word for " night " (as Nachts after Tags2 )
is it not because they frequently occur in close proximity in the
sentence rather than because the two are associated by sense? 3 The
coherence of the members of a phrase in the spoken language is
much greater than is usually supposed, as is proved by those instances
(rare enough in the revised written texts) in which one member
of a common word-group may be observed to carry in its train its
mate, though the latter be not needed or be even disturbing. Interest-
ing cases of such "agglutinative association" (cf. the author's Lec-
tures on the Study of Language, p. 183, sec. 16) are given by Kemmer
(Die Polare Ausdrucksweise in der griech. Litteratur, Schanz' Beitrdge,
vol. xv, p. 2; 45, 50, 57). They are paralleled in English by such
phrases as Colonel Henry Watterson's: * "It (Life) is racy of the
soil, even as Punch in London is racy of English soil, a reflection of
the moods and tens es of the time, of the thoughts and fancies
of the people "; and in these passages from a letter: "As J. was out
till morning doth appear, mother and I talked till late "; " This
is my regular in the springtime gentle Annie feeling." Such
cases 5 are the morphological counterparts to those phonetic altera-
tions where a word either loses or gains an initial by too intimate union
with another word, as Meiseribuhl (from im Eisenbuhl, cf. Zt. f. d.
deut. Unterricht, xvn, 1903, p. 728), and which, for English, are very
exhaustively treated by C. P. G. Scott (Transactions of American
Philological Association, xxm, 1892, p. 179, xxiv, 1893, p. 89).

1 Cf. also Ebbinghaus, Grundzilge der Psychologic, 2d ed., i, 1905, p. 704. The
objections of Marbe and Watts are discussed in American Journal of Philology,
xxvi, 1905, p. 95, note 1.

2 In the same way Lathi noclu after diu, Bartholomae, IF, x, p. 13.

* In this way Gothic haimos owes its feminine gender to its frequent connec-
tion with baurgs (Dieter, AUgerm. Dial. p. 571, sec. 330, 2, note 3), late Icelandic
f0tr its feminine gender to frequent connection with hendr (Dieter, ibid.) etc.

4 In an editorial in the Louisville Courier-Journal, reprinted in Life, vol. xin
(1903), no. 1099, p. 479.

8 Cf . also ' high and dry protectionist ' in the editorial of the New York Evening
Post for May 22, 1905, and similar instances collected by H. Willert, Archiv /. d.
Stud. d. neueren Spr. u. Lit., vol. cxi (= N. F. xi) p. 420.

SHORT PAPER

MR. ROBERT STEIN, of the United States Geological Survey, read a short
paper before this Section on the " Proposed International Phonetic Conference
to adopt a Universal Alphabet." The speaker said:

To prepare such an alphabet is a comparatively easy task. Scores of such
alphabets exist already, but not one of them possesses sufficient authority to
compel its universal use. How shall such authority be secured?

To this question, the circular recently issued by Boston University seeks to
obtain an answer. It invites opinions on the plan to hold an international con-
ference for the purpose of adopting a universal alphabet to be used first of all
as a key to pronunciation in all dictionaries of the leading languages. I may
state at once that the replies received from the editors and publishers of the
great American dictionaries are highly encouraging. They state with practical
unanimity that, if a universal alphabet were drawn up by a commission com-
posed of the foremost experts, and invested with the requisite authority by
scientific bodies of high standing, they would introduce that alphabet as a key to
pronunciation in future editions of dictionaries, primers, readers, grammars, and
language-manuals as fast as practicable.

It will be noted that the acceptance of the universal alphabet by the dictionaries
was made subject to an " if." They are willing to use this alphabet if it is presented
to them invested with a sufficient degree of authority. Nothing should be neglected
that can add to this authority. Hence the commission which is to prepare the
universal alphabet must fulfill four conditions:

(1) It should be composed of the foremost experts in phonetics.

(2) They should be invested with representative power by learned bodies of the
highest standing.

(3) They should receive their final commissions from various governments.

(4) They should conduct their work not merely by correspondence, but should
have at least one meeting, preferably several meetings, occupying an ade-
quate length of time.

The scholars able to do this work exist; it only remains to enable them to organ-
ize. For this purpose, the circular issued by Boston University is to serve as a
preliminary step. Its aim is to obtain the opinion of the learned public. Thus far
it has been sent only to the members of the Philological Association, and it may
be stated that out of the sixty-seven replies received up to September 16, only
four questioned the utility of the conference, the great majority being emphatic
and even enthusiastic in its advocacy.

SECTION B— SEMITIC LANGUAGES

SECTION B — SEMITIC LANGUAGES

(Hall 4, September 21, 3 p. m.)

CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR G. F. MOORE, Harvard University.
SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR JAMES A. CRAIG, University of Michigan.
PROFESSOR CRAWFORD H. TOY, Harvard University.

THE RELATION OF SEMITICS TO RELIGION

BY JAMES ALEXANDER CRAIG

[James Alexander Craig, Professor of Semitic Languages and Literatures, and
Hellenistic Greek, University of Michigan, since 1893. b. Fitzroy Harbour,
Ontario, Canada. A.B. McGill University, 1880; A.M. ibid. 1880; B.D. Yale,
1883; Ph.D. Leipzig, 1886; Instructor and Adjunct Professor of Biblical
Languages, Lane Theological Seminary, 1886-91; Acting Professor of Old Test-
ament Languages and Literature, Oberlin Theological Seminary, 1891-92;
engaged in Semitic Studies in London and Berlin, 1892-93; Instructor in
Sanskrit, University of Michigan, 1893-94. Member of Vorderasiatische Gesell-
schaft, Berlin. Author of Hebrew Manual ; Assyrian Religious Texts; and other
works.]

THIS is a subject so intricate in its nature and so extended in its
scope that much more time should have been given to its consider-
ation than the few hours which circumstances beyond my control
have permitted me to bestow upon it, and furthermore, it demands
even under the most favorable circumstances a more varied and
profound knowledge for an adequate discussion of it than it is my good
fortune to possess. I am reminded at the outset of the famous
saying of Euclid, one of the members of the early Ionic school of
Greek philosophers, the saying for which he was chiefly remembered
by posterity, and which contributed to his recognition by his con-
temporaries, namely, that it is necessary at the beginning of every
discussion to lay down some undeniable principle to start with.

It is self-evident that my subject, The Relation of Semitics to
Religion, stands in need of definition. It is, at least, necessary to
have some general understanding as regards the sense in which we
here use the word "religion." Religion in its largest sense would
comprise all its manifestations in all ages and lands, but it is manifest
that it cannot be in this sense of the word that I am invited to discuss
the relation of Semitics to religion, for the very plain reason that in
many instances no relations exist or have existed. At least there
have been no historical periods of contact in which a reciprocal in-
fluence may have been exerted, or periods of transmission through an

70 SEMITIC LANGUAGE

intermediary in which Semitic ideas may have penetrated to remote
peoples, as, for example, to the Incas or the Indian tribes of our own
continent.

The most that can be said is that in certain particulars there may
be found in all religions concepts similar to those held by the Semites
at certain stages of their development. Neither, on the other hand,
does our subject necessarily limit us to a consideration of the relation
of Semitics to those great religions which fall either entirely within
the field of Semitics, such as the Babylonian, Israelitish, and Jewish,
or to the various forms of Christianity which are based upon the
religious ideas of the Semites, and more especially upon those of
Israel and Judah. The subject calls for a discussion not of Semitics
in relation to religions, but in its relations to religion.

The subject tacitly and properly assumes that religion is natural
to man, and, if so, that men are universally religious. This fact
also bears upon the subject. Go the wide world around, if you have
any doubt about that. Pass through its cities, its towns and hamlets
and rural regions, and note on every hand what myriad mute, yet
convincing, testimonies there are to the religious nature of man.
Here are its grand cathedrals; on every street arise its pointing
spires, its mosques and minarets, its temples and pagodas; on high-
way and byway are its chapels, its capellas of saints, its sacred
stones. Or, reflect a little along historical lines. How much, for
example, of the best artistic creation of the ancient Babylonians and
Assyrians drew its inspiration from the religious spirit and relig-
ious genius? The fervor of adoration was felt in every chisel-stroke
which brought to form their imaginary deities, and their religious
sense found finest satisfaction in weaving into their decorative
work their conventionalized sacred trees and other emblems of their
religious world. With the exception, perhaps, of the animal form,
which they studied closely from nature, they are at their best in the
religious sphere. Look at the Greeks, the world's preceptors in this
region, to whom, more than to any others, it was "the eternal law
that first in beauty shall be first in might." Their art was born of
their religion. By art they bodied forth their gods, and gave to
them most glorious form. By the perfect sculpture of their temples
they strove to express the excellency of their religion.

Literature brings unimpeachable witness to the same fact. Even
their letters, said the ancients, they learned in the kindergarten of
the gods. As their art did, so their literature drew much of its power,
permanence, and beauty from religion. Peasant and prince alike
have been caught up by its power and taught majestic speech. The
Chrysostoms of Judaism were its prophets, and its national library
its books on religion. And these, mark you, have preserved its
people in their solidarity through all the catastrophes of war,

THE RELATION OF SEMITICS TO RELIGION 71

through all the persecutions of hate. A doubt of man's religious
nature in the face of these clamant facts in the history of this one
people would be the supremest paradox of thought. But Jewish
literature does not stand alone in this respect; the religion of Baby-
lonia has lifted her books of common clay out of the category of
things common and unclean. Her myths and epics, her hymns and
prayers, furnish us with the finest specimens of her literary art. The
stylus was of priestly invention. The "king's ear was enlarged"
by Nebo and Tashmit, and the nishik dupsharuti, the excellent art
of tablet- writing by which the wisdom of Nebo was recorded, was the
gift of the gods.

Go to India. There we find a literature that is nothing less than
wonderful, immense in quantity and rich in quality. Beginning with
the Mantras, almost two thousand years before Christ, with a grand
collection of over one thousand selected hymns known as the Rig-
Vedas, followed by three other Vedas, it continues down to that
comparatively modern body of doctrine known as the Puranas or
Traditions. Between this oldest and youngest collection there lie the
Brahmanas and Sutras. We have epic and philosophy, ethics and
law, brilliant teaching, which, in many an instance, is capable of
throwing unsuspected rays of light upon hard problems that lie
near to the human heart. What is the great distinguishing note'
sounding through all this vast body of literature? What was its
inspiration and to what end is it primarily addressed? If we must
give answer in one word, that word must be Religion.

It would be idle to point to Greek literature or to any other for'
further confirmation. As the best of Greek art looked toward the gods,
so the highest reaches of Greek literature were attained along the
ascents of religious thought.

We assume then with our subject that religion is natural to man.
It is an essential and necessary part of human life. It gives to itself,
moreover, public expression wherever men live together in social
organization; but it has its origin in individuals who become socially
related in religious thought or expression. I do not mean to affirm
that every individual has a religious nature, though any other con-
clusion with respect to the normal man seems difficult. All peoples,
and almost all individuals, have a language and the power of spe'ech,
have vision and are able to discriminate colors, yet here and there
a man is color-blind, or one is dumb. Such a man is said to be defect-
ive; the same reasoning must apply in the sphere of religion. Man
apparently can no more escape from religion than he can escape from
himself. And now, further, these last observations lead to another
view which stands in noteworthy contrariety to that which is pre-
vailingly held. Religion is not of the church. This great fact, which
is inherent in the nature of man and grows up out of his nature in

72 SEMITIC LANGUAGE

connection with the world-order in which he finds himself, exists
independently of the churches, and would still exist if there were
no churches. Out of it, and for it, the churches have arisen, not
vice versa, religion out of the church and for the church. In some
ecclesiastical organizations this fact of the priority of religion to,
and independence of, the church has been utterly forgotten or un-
recognized. When, for example, an order of Christians is said to be
"a religious order" because of its peculiar connection with the
church and its peculiar mode of life, or when a member of such a
body is briefly said to be "a religious," the church with its rites and
ceremonies is tacitly declared to be the author and guardian of re-
ligion, whereas, in fact, it is neither. Religion created the church
and is ever re-creating it, because it abides not in temples made of
hands, nor, in its last analysis, in courts and ecclesiastics, but in the
unspoiled hearts of individual men. It is the individual pure in
heart who sees God. Religion belongs to us as individuals, not to the
churches. The church is merely an agency for the promotion and
cultivation of religion, helpful to the majority of men within its
pale, but utterly powerless to affect or make appeal to the higher
intellectual and spiritual side of many profoundly religious minds
without it, though they may be deeply sympathetic towards many
of its aims.

If, then, religion is something that belongs to us all as individuals,
possessed by each, and possessing us in turn in absolute and unre-
stricted thought and service, except in so far as we by moral
choice subordinate our individual privilege to altruistic purposes,
let us go a step farther and ask whether we are mutually agreed as to
what religion is. One thing we have settled and I hope are agreed
upon, namely, that religion, being natural to man, belongs to the
individual, to me. As regards religion, I am, as an individual, to use
a legal phrase, "seized in fee and of right." It is neither a church
doctrine, nor a church service, nor both. It is neither of, nor from,
nor by the churches. The church did not create it, and it has not the
right to demand it of me, nor to command me with respect to it.
Its duty is simply to cultivate it among its free worshiping mem-
bers and promote among men generally, by the functions over which
it presides, its highest ideals.

How shall we define religion? It is something that has been vari-
ously defined as well as variously conceived. Not long ago I heard
a prominent American divine define religion as " An attempt on the
part of man to get into right relations to God." The defect of this
definition is at once apparent. Religion is not necessarily an attempt of
any kind, and if it be nothing more than an attempt, it is not religion
at all.

Frequently we find it of advantage in analyzing a concept to

THE RELATION OF SEMITICS TO RELIGION 73

turn for assistance to the etymology of the term by which it is ex-
pressed. In this instance, however, we look in vain to the Latin lexi-
con. The word connotes for us something quite different from that
which it suggested to the Romans, who did not agree among them-
selves as to its meaning. Cicero in his De Natura Deorum connected
religio with relegere, and says "those are said to be religious who
diligently recur to, and, as it were, repeat all those things which
pertain to the worship of the gods." But others, followed by the
great church father, Augustine, connect the word with religare,
to bind back, or firmly; thus rooting it essentially in a sense of obli-
gation. If we come down to more modern times, we find that philo-
sophers and theologians, in discussing religion, are divided into
three classes: those who seek its explanation in the intellect alone,
who make it purely a matter of thought, as Hegel; or of belief, as
Jacobi; or of intuitively perceived truths, as Schelling. Those who
would make it a matter of belief only exclude reason or make it
antagonistic to belief, thus making of the human mind the proverbial
house that is divided against itself. As for intuitive knowledge, that,
I think, finds little support from present-day philosophy. A second
class declares that religion has its fons et origo in the feelings alone.
It grows out of a sense of dependence. This is doubtless an important
source, but the old maxim Ex nihilo nihil fit is an immediate stay to
this conclusion. There can be no feeling where nothing but feeling is
involved. The case seems to be no better with the third class, who
derive it neither from the intellect nor from the feelings, but from
the conscience. Conscience is not an independent, separate, faculty,
wholly dissociated from intellect and feeling. On the contrary, it
presupposes both. The common and fundamental defect of all these
views of religion is that they limit it to a single sphere, whereas it
operates within and issues out of them all. The mind of man is not
made up of a series of bulk-head compartments. Any adequate view
of religion must, therefore, take cognizance of all the factors supplied
by these different sources. We would, consequently, define religion
as man's reasoned thought of the world-order of which he forms a
part, the feelings produced in him by this thought, and the deliberate
conduct in which it issues. This definition is comprehensive, suffi-
ciently apt, and adequate. I may indicate this by quoting two or
three definitions of prominent thinkers, all of which seem to me
defective. Herbert Spencer defines religion as " A feeling of wonder
in the presence of the unknown." Feeling is everything, and even
that is limited to the feeling of wonder. Test that by your thought
of Jesus, or of Paul. Were they simply wonderers? Newman, in his
Grammar of Assent, says, " Religion is the knowledge of God, of his
will, and of our duties toward him." Here the definition, taken
explicitly, makes knowledge everything. Martineau, in A Study of

74 SEMITIC LANGUAGE

Religion, describes it as " a belief and worship of the supreme mind and
will," and here the main element in Newman's definition is entirely
ignored.

I need not pursue this question further, or add to these quotations.
I proceed in the next place to ask what relation do Semitics sustain
to religion as thus defined? The importance of holding to this
definition is obvious. Suppose I were to take Spencer's definition
of religion as my starting-point, my subject would then run: The
Relation of Semitics to a Feeling of Wonder in the Presence of the
Unknown. How could I, how could you, discuss a question like that?

This historical and genetic relation of Semitic thought to religion
is unparalleled in degree, if not in kind. Semitic thought has been
the matrix whence have been born three of the greatest historical,
still extant, and dominant religions, — Judaism, Christianity, and
Mohammedanism. And, since the study of Semitics is the study of
Semitic thought as it has expressed itself more especially in language
and literature, the subject of the hour possesses a practical interest
and is of paramount importance. It is not a question of academic
interest solely, but one that may well engage the attention of pew
and pulpit, of all men who try to discover truth or find their relations
and do their duty in the world. .But the subject as a whole cannot
be discussed in a single lecture.

Let us take the first element of religion as we have defined it, —
man's thought of the world-order of which he forms a part, — and ask
what relations has Semitics to that. Or let us put the question differ-
ently : How and to what extent is that thought affected by the study
of Semitics? And, since the study of Semitics, as distinguished from
some branch of Semitics, is confined practically to Christian scholars,
or scholars in Christian nations, we shall deal with that thought as
it exists among Christians. To the preceding question the Semitist
must answer, it is affected in many ways and to a much greater
extent than is popularly supposed. Let us take the God of Christian
thought. Semitics, so far as I can discover, has no positive contribu-
tion to make to our present understanding of the nature of God.
Polytheistic Semites and monotheistic Semites alike believed in the
personality of Deity. On the nature of the ultimate and eternal
cause, or principle, we cannot now expect to learn better than we
know from a literature that was closed for the most part two thou-
sand years ago. But I think Semitics does aid us in arriving at some
reasonable conclusion with respect to the origin of the idea of a God,
or gods, and this points clearly in the direction of an animistic doc-
trine. It is true, of course, that when we meet a race in the possession
of a literature it is no longer in a primitive stage, but we are fortun-
ate enough to be able in the Semitic field to catch the people almost,
as it were, in passage from the earlier to the more advanced state.

THE RELATION OF SEMITICS TO RELIGION 75

The prevailing idea of a primitive monotheism is one that has come
down to us through the church. It has found, and finds, its advocates
among theologians, and also among archaeologists, and philosophers.
The theological view of it is derived from supposed explicit and final
statements in the Old Testament, especially in the opening chapters
of Genesis. In early times, during the Middle Ages, and, indeed,
down to a period not far removed from our own times, it was supposed
and held that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. This is not to be won-
dered at in view of the almost universal ignorance of clergymen not
only of Hebrew but also of general Semitic literature. In the field in
which they are supposed to be masters they are, as a rule, lamentably
uninformed. So ran the teaching — the history of his own times
Moses wrote from personal knowledge, the period of the patriarchs
he learned from tradition, and the history of creation and the earlier
experience of man in Paradise he got from the highest authority,
the Creator himself. This view so fixed itself in the minds of theolo-
gians that even scholars like Dillmann thought it necessary to combat
it in his last edition of Genesis. This one God, it was said, revealed
himself to mankind at its start, and this primitive monotheism was
handed down from the beginning through the line of Adam, Seth,
Noah, Abraham, the Prophets, and Jesus. The simplicity of the
idea diverted attention from its astonishing naivete".

The philosophical view approached this doctrine from another
side. To cite only one writer, let me take Creuzer, in his work Sym-
bolik und Myihologie. To him all old myths are theological. Almost
all of the myths of the Greeks were derived from the Orient. From
the Oriental point of view these myths stand for comprehensive
conceptions, and the myth is but the development of the religious
teachings of the priesthood. He holds that between the different
mythologies a close relation exists and that there is an original unity
of thought toward which the various mythologies point, and that
this unity presupposes, as its original type, a pure monotheism.
We shall say nothing about the logical, or better, the illogical leaps by
which he reaches his conclusion. This original monotheism, although
in the process of time it was corrupted into polytheism, yet never
wholly disappeared, but was preserved even in the priestly traditions
of the anthropomorphic systems of Greece. So long as the race was
a unit, this original monotheism, he claims, could and did maintain
itself, but the breaking up of the original stock into separate peoples
resulted also in the breaking up of the one-God idea — a suggestion
which sounds much the same as the one by which the origin of lan-
guage is explained in the eleventh chapter of Genesis, in which we
have a sound religious teaching based upon a popular and worthless
etymology of the word Babel. We can understand how one lan-
guage could give rise to a number of different though cognate Ian-

76 SEMITIC LANGUAGE

guages, but we should not expect any particular one of them to pre-
serve the original language in its purity, but all alike to change and
modify it. Neither should we expect the postulated original one-God
idea to be preserved in one out of all the tribes of the earth, and to
be sunk so completely beneath the religious consciousness of all the
other tribes as to be irrevocably lost to them. That supposition is
possible only by the help of another sheer assumption, namely, that
of a perpetual miracle which operated to preserve an idea in the
minds of the few in order that they might give it back again in the
course of the ages to the many, all of whom had it at the beginning.
What does our earliest historical literature in the field of Semitic
study teach us on this question of a primitive monotheism? In Baby-
lonia, at least, it teaches us what from other considerations we had
reason to anticipate. One of the many important results achieved
by the expedition sent out by the University of Pennsylvania to
Babylonia was its discovery in Nuffar, the site of the ancient Nippur,
of some of the earliest royal inscriptions that have yet come down to
us. An inscription of one of these kings, Lugalzaggisi, who, about
4000 B.C., ruled over a territory almost as vast as that of the later
Sargon I, was brought to light. It contained over one hundred and
thirty-two lines and was written upon scores of large vases which
the king's piety had prompted him to present to the old national
sanctuary in Nippur. This king calls himself the priest of Ana, that
is, the sky-god. He was looked upon by the faithful eye of Lugal-
kurkura, that is, Bel. Intelligence was given to him by Ea, the son
of Bel, or the Babylonian Hermes. He was invested with power by
Utu, the sun-god, and nourished by Ninharsag, the great Abarakku
of the gods. It is highly probable that this Bel, whose epithet here is
"lord of the mountains" or "lord of lands," was in early times an
astral deity, in fact, the sun-god, although an earlier designation of
Bel was Enlil, "lord of demons." In any case, the story of Tiamat,
which represents the primeval conflict in which the gods of darkness
were assailed by the gods of light, the story of the struggle by which
cosmic order was wrested from the body of Chaos — this story
appears to have passed through different recensions, and, in one
or more of them, Bel seems to have been the hero, and, if so, he was
in early times a god of light. This would make it all the easier for
the priestly schools to transfer to the solar deity Marduk, the god of
Babylon, the attributes of Bel when Babylon acquired the political
ascendency among the city kingdoms which had long struggled
for supremacy. This same Bel was worshiped in other early Baby-
lonian cities, in Erech, and Kish, for example, and Sin, the moon-god,
was the chief deity of the ancient city of Ur, and of the north Meso-
potamian sanctuary in Harran. The temple of Bel at Nippur was
erected, if the estimate of its excavators be correct, as early as 6000

THE RELATION OF SEMITICS TO RELIGION 77

or 7000 B.C. That means, then, that we have evidence of the worship
of the sun and other heavenly bodies as early as this period, a couple
•of millenniums before the time when, but a few years ago, sober-
minded men, on the basis of the Bible, declared that the world was
created.

When we meet with the old Babylonian on the threshold of his-
tory, we find him prostrate before the sun and other heavenly bodies,
though not worshiping astral deities exclusively. The Egyptian,
likewise, bows before his Osiris and Ra, and the priests of India
teach their followers to worship Surya, the same word as the Greek
Helios, the sun. The sun is the most awe-impelling and thought-
awakening object of the visible universe, majestic in splendor as he
marches across the heavens upon his daily round. What a contrast
to human experience he forms ! Man sees himself and everything that
is about him subject to change, his plans are frustrated, his way is
blocked, but yonder is a power, a being, for so the early-minded must
have thought, that knows unerringly his way and walks it unhindered,
unafraid. He is also beneficent and good, so good that when the
Hebrew prophet wishes a simile expressive of the goodness of his
national redeemer, he calls him "the sun of righteousness" who
comes with healing in his wings, as the Babylonian sun-god is repre-
sented on the cylinders.

" Unpropped beneath, not fastened firm, how comes it
That downward turned he falls not downward?
The guide of his ascending path, who saw it? "

Thus speaks the sage and worshiper of India.

Every lifeless thing unsupported in space, experience tells him,
falls. How does he always find his path so unerringly in the heavens
when there is none to guide him? He must choose it and adhere to
it himself, and it must be that behind all this regularity and persist-
ence of movement there is a purpose, for even the most primitive
man is conscious of a purpose within himself.

The Semitic literature of Babylonia, so far as I am able to see,
furnishes no evidence for the doctrine of a primitive monotheism,
but points rather to a polytheistic astral worship as, at least, one of
the earliest forms of religion. I am well aware that some Semitic
scholars have endeavored to support the monotheistic theory from
a study of other Semitic literature. This has been done especially
by one scholar, to whom I may refer, the eminent Assyriologist and
Semitist, Professor Hommel, of Munich. In his Ancient Hebrew Tra-
dition, published a few years ago, Dr. Hommel makes extended use
of the South Arabian Minsean and Sabsean inscriptions, so laboriously
collected by Dr. Glazer. In dealing with the proper names of these
inscriptions, and while admitting the polytheistic character of the
South Arabian religion, he nevertheless endeavors to make it appear

78 SEMITIC LANGUAGE

that the prevalence of names compounded with the generic name
Ilu, god, points back to an earlier monotheism. Characteristic of the
reasoning of this book, however, is another statement. In dealing
with a certain type of name of the period of Hammurabi, he points
out that the most of them are compounded with the names Sin,
Shamash, and Ramman, and, as in the case of the Minsean, the gen-
eric Ilu. Hethen continues, "Notwithstanding the countless greater
and lesser deities in which Babylonian polytheism abounded, the names
in general use seem to prove that it was only the moon, sun, and sky
which conveyed an impression of deity to the Babylonian mind"
(in this point he supports the idea of an original astral worship) ; " but
then/' he adds further, "if we substitute the simple word god, Ilu,
for the moon, the sun, or the sky, these names express no sentiment
which is inconsistent with the highest and purest monotheism."
This is much like saying, that, if we were to substitute for Fritz
Hommel the title Kaiser, he might pass for the Emperor of Germany.
I modestly own my inability to perform the syllogistic feats implied
in this mental process.

The more spiritual view which came in with the ethical monotheism
of the prophets is a development from the cruder stage of polytheistic
belief. "That was not first which was spiritual, but that which was
natural, and afterward that which was spiritual."

But granted that this result is achieved, some may say it is a nega-
tion and, therefore, nugatory? It is a negation, — a negation of a
widespread doctrine pertaining to man's knowledge of God. But
every negation establishes an affirmative as its opposite, and a nega-
tive conclusion may determine my action as forcibly as an affirmative.
If I establish the fact that there is no more gold to be found in yonder
mountain ledge, I will cease to dig there for gold. Action, as we have
seen, is motivated by feeling, and feeling issues out of knowledge. If
we find that there is no evidence of a primitive revelation of one
God from the one God, we have cleared the field for the inquiry, how
did man arrive at the idea of God? and our answer to this must, in
the nature of things, affect our religion.

Another question may now arise: assuming the existence of deity,
or first cause, or, perhaps better, constant cause (we are not here
concerned about the name), how is knowledge of this deity and his
will ascertained? The study of Semitics is, I think, in many quarters
at least, leading to different conclusions on this point. The Jewish
and the Christian doctrine especially have made this knowledge
wholly a matter of direct revelation, received in ecstasy, or otherwise.
Philo, the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher, taught that God's word
was obtained directly from God while the prophet was in a state of
ecstasy. Philo, who was widely read in classical literature, borrowed
his theory from Plato. The Egyptian priests taught the same. Abam-

THE RELATION OF SEMITICS TO RELIGION 79

mon, in reply to Porphyry, says, " the divinity comprehends every-
thing in us, but exterminates entirely our own proper consciousness.
The divine possession also emits words which are not understood by
those that utter them." And Philo says, God plays upon the soul of
the prophet just as the musician plays upon the flute. He uses the
lips of the prophet without any cooperation on the part of the prophet.
As the flute was not conscious of the music it produced, so the prophet
was not conscious of his message. This pagan doctrine was widely
adopted in the early Christian church and has come down to modern
times. Hengstenberg advocates it strongly in his Christology of the
Old Testament, differing from Philo only in making the prophet
aware of what he was saying. In one form, or another, this super-
naturalistic theory has found and finds many advocates. Among
English writers, it has been stated in its extreme form by Lea, who,
in his work on Inspiration, declares that the sacred authors were
but the "instruments" used by God in the communication of his
word; that they occupied the same relation to God as the pen does
to the hand of the writer. It is implied also in the teaching of theo-
logians nearer home, who would account for all defects and errors in
the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments by the absurd theory
of an "infallible original."

The study of the works of Mohammedan philosophers and theo-
logians shows how Mohammedanism, starting out from the same
point, by accepting the revelations of Mohammed as divine, developed
a doctrine of sacred scripture that equals the extremest views of
Christianity. The Shafi'ites with their doctrine of tradition outran
the thought of the Princetonites, and that almost one thousand
years in advance of them. Over against those who have insisted
upon the literal meaning of the word, are others, like the Shi'ists,
who look for a higher spiritual meaning in the verbal form, similar to
the Schoolmen who taught the multiplex intelligentia, which they
borrowed in turn from the Talmudists and Kabbalists. Then again
we have the Mutazilites, who held that the Quran was the work of
Mohammed, but was produced under divine influence, that it had,
therefore, a human as well as a divine side. Those things in it which
were not conformable to the truth, as they conceived it, could be
ignored. In the same way modern theologians refer the irreconcilable
views or teaching of the Bible, for example, the unfulfilled and unful-
fillable predictions of the prophets, to their human origin. The facts,
they say, which point to a human origin of the prophetic teaching,
" are no less striking than those which point to a divine origin." (They
should say they are much more striking.) This is the admission of
the Mutazilite professors in our present orthodox theological semin-
aries. There were those who held that the Quran was uncreated, and
those who held that it was created ; those who, like Ahmad ibn

80 SEMITIC LANGUAGE

Hanbal, held that religious truth had no other source than the
Quran and tradition, and that reason availed nothing. Ahmad, the
Mohammedan, was the Jacobi of Christianity, who said, " by my faith
I am a Christian, by my reason a heathen." The drift back to the
primitive monotheism of Mohammed, and the drift to an agnostic
mysticism, marks the thinking of many Mohammedans at the present
time, just as similar movements may be found among ourselves.
Starting out from practically the same principle of revelation, there
is a remarkable parallelism in the development of doctrine among
the followers of Mohammed with respect to the Quran to many
views held by our fellow Christians in different ages with respect to
our Scriptures. Christians will not admit the legitimacy of the
Mohammedan's reasoning with respect to his sacred Suras, though
it is in all essentials the same as their own.

Just so long as Semitists and theologians were shut up to the use
of the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, it was easier to
hold to the historic ideas of revelation and inspiration. But the
thoughts of men are widening with the emergence into view of the
life and thought of other branches of the Semitic family. No one
needs now to be told of the immense literature that fills the museums
of the world, which, during the last few decades, has been recovered
from many mounds in the traditional ancestral home of the Hebrews.
In the light of these histories, legends, myths, cosmogonies, these
epics, hymns, prayers, religious rituals, and incantations, legal codes,
etc., we read anew the life and thought of Israel. The first twelve
chapters of Genesis clearly draw from a Babylonian source. The
original matter came to the Hebrews by the way of Babylon. The
whole is recast in the spirit of the later prophetic and priestly mono-
theistic schools,, but none of us can hereafter look upon these chapters
as possessing that kind or degree of inspiration which, until lately, it
has been customary to ascribe to them. The two accounts of creation
in the first and second chapters of Genesis, it has long been recognized,
are utterly irreconcilable. The story of the building of the tower in
the land of Shinar, Gen. 11, and the " confusion of tongues," with
its impossible accounting for the name of Babel, are removed at once
from the sphere of history to that of legendary fiction, and Volks-
Etymologie. The laws purporting to have been revealed to Ham-
murabi by the god Shamash, twenty-three hundred years B.C., are in
many instances as wise, humane, and ethical, in others more so, as
those commonly supposed to have been given to Moses by Yahwe
one thousand years later.

When we come to the history of " Yahwe's Wars, " we read such an
account as that of the destruction of the Amorites at Gibeon in the
light of the victories of other gods " beyond the River." " And Yahwe
discomfited them before Israel, and he slew them with a great slaugh-

THE RELATION OF SEMITICS TO RELIGION 81

ter at Gibeon, and chased them by the way of the ascent of Beth-
horon, and smote them to Azekah. . . . And it came to pass as they
fled from before Israel . . . that Yahwe cast down great stones
from heaven upon them . . . and they died. They were more who
died with the hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew
with the sword." Such a passage has no longer a unique claim upon
our confidence. We must now place side by side with narratives like
these others supplied from the Babylonian archives, for example,
Ashur's response to Esarhaddon in the presence of his enemy the
Gimirrai. " Thou thy mouth hast opened. I thy distress have heard.
From the gate of heaven I will curse. Thou shalt stand within their
fortress. Before thee I shall arise. To the mountains I shall chase
them. Stones of destruction I shall rain down upon them. Thy foes
I shall cut off, with their blood I shall fill the river." As Yahwe
fought for Joshua and the kings of Israel, so Ashur fought for Esar-
haddon and the kings of Assyria. When King Mesha of Moab saw
that the Israelites were winning the day, the only strategy he knew
was to sacrifice his son upon the walls of the city to his offended god,
" and lo! the battle was stayed. There was great indignation against
Israel and they departed from the king of Moab and returned unto
their own land." Israel's god and Moab's god are seen in this story
to be twin deities, bone of the same bone, and flesh of the same
flesh, as the relationship of Moab and Israel might have led us to
expect. It matters not that the sacrifice of children died out in
Israel before it did among the people of Moab.

As we read the Hebrew scriptures in the light of the larger litera-
ture of the Semitic peoples, we find more and more justification for
the significant attempt made years ago by Robertson Smith when he
undertook to treat " The Religion of the Semites " as a whole. We see
more reason for laying stress upon the human side which was empha-
sized by the Mutazilites in their theory of the origin of the Quran.

Let us look for a moment at Prophecy in the light of this new
view we are learning from Semitics. Prophecy is more and more
seen to be the outcome of the conflicts and milling of kingdoms.
Political conditions, social conditions, moral sentiments, and patriotic
impulses on the one hand, on the other hand the prevailing con-
ception of Yahwe, who has not yet outgrown all the features of his
early tribal origin. These were its inspiration and are the most
evident facts in its explanation. It presents on its ethical side some
of the very best that is in our Bible. Its authors often walk on
moral heights far above their fellows, at times appear to soar in the
serene sublimities of the spiritual world. But how clearly we see the
play of situation and circumstance in the uttered message !

Look at Amos, the prophet of law. He learned a simple science
of nature as he trod the plains by day and tented beneath the stars

82 SEMITIC LANGUAGE

by night. He saw the seasons come and go with regularity and with
their constant phenomena. The thinking shepherd saw and learned.
He grasped in some rude fashion the thought of nature's uniformities.
Even in the lion's roar there was proclaimed the mighty law of
cause and effect. That' which he learned from the world of nature he
carried up into his thought of Yahwe's moral government. Here,
too, there was invariable antecedent and consequent, cause and
effect; evil antecedents, evil consequences, evil causes, evil effects.
It must be so. He thunders it forth before the calf-worshiping priest
Amaziah, before Israel's king, that moral emasculate, -Jeroboam,
before the vampire nobles and their wine-soaked courtesans, before
venal priests and sycophant prophets. " It must be so " runs through
his stern denunciations. Doom dogs the heels of crime. Thus Amos
became the prophet of law, the stern Puritan, bred, as so often, where
the limpid waters run, on the hillside where the horizon is wide, on
the open veldt, wherever the air blows free and pure.

Look again, this time at Hosea, who followed Amos, and see him
swinging clear to the opposite pole and declaring the transcendent
attribute of Yah we to be Love. Why Love? Why? Because it was
the feeling that welled up in his own heart. Won by the natural
charms of beauty in woman he had taken to himself Gomer bath
Diblaim. Alas, that beauty is not always the seamless cloak of nice
virtue! Temptation came, and Gomer sinned, but the cry of Hosea 's
heart went up for her. The steel of anguish entered his soul, but the
noble affection of his heart was not outraged. He loved her still, and
out of this human experience in which the eternal passion emerged
triumphant over the assaults of shame and crucifying pain, there
came, eight hundred years before Jesus and John, the message to
men that God is Love. God could not be less good than he.

Look again at Isaiah, patrician and priest of the temple. What is
his distinctive message? What as priest could it be but holiness,
with its antithetic correlates of sin and righteousness? It was most
natural that the live coal which purged his unclean lips should be
carried by cherub hands from the temple altar. Amos the herdsman
found God and his call as he wrenched the leg of the lamb from the
mouth of the lion. Note again, that Isaiah, of noble birth, a resident
of Jerusalem, a sort of Judaean metropolitan as compared with the
other prophets, proclaimed the inviolability of Zion. The spears
of the enemy, the arms of Assyria, would break upon her walls. With
all Isaiah's sincerity and moral uprightness, he lived too near the
centre of evil to see it in all the hideousness lent by perspective. His
aristocratic shield protected him from its worst assaults. He was
not deaf to its cries, not blind to its miseries, far from it, but they did
not touch home to the bone of him or his. How was it with his con-
temporary in the country village — Micah of Moresheth of Gath ?

THE RELATION OF SEMITICS TO RELIGION 83

It was from places such as this that the foul fiends of Jerusalem plu-
tocracy could be seen stripped of all the softening airs of gentility,
that the bones of the peasant and husbandman, of the widow and
orphan could be seen, ground, as in the fable, to make bread for the
plutocrat giants of Jerusalem. What message had Micah for Jeru-
salem? He had the only message that was possible for one in his
situation, a message flatly opposed to the assuring words of Isaiah.

" Zion is built with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity,
Therefore, Zion for your sake shall be plowed as a field,
And Jerusalem shall become heaps,
And the temple hill as the heights of a forest."

What have we here when we look at the very best, that which is
instinct with life and moral righteousness? Everywhere we see the
man as a mirror of the higher types of his kind ; everywhere the play
of natural forces, of common, or peculiar, historical and social con-
ditions. If you turn to the less attractive features of prophecy, you
will find them, for example, in the later parts of the book of Isaiah —
baseless visions of future splendor, mammoth desires for worldly
riches, Jerusalem to be the sacred coffer into which all the wealth of
the heathen shall be poured, Gentiles crowding day and night with
all their treasures to her open gates, the fat rams of Nebaioth smok-
ing upon her altars, high over her towers and temple and lighting
up the Holy City Yahwe shedding forth a divine effulgence, the
Jews now gathered from the ends of the earth, in lieu of all their
suffering and ignominy, shall feast on the fatness of the Gentiles,
mumble the beads of the Jewish rosary, and, as for the rest, since
there shall be no more need of work or business for them, sit like the
anchorites of old in rapt and holy contemplation. How startlingly
human all that is! Certainly if in the sublimer lines of Holy Writ
we see distinctly the figure of the human impressed in brighter
colors upon the page, we here see the darker shadow of the human
heart in these ecstatic and baseless visions of impoverished and
persecuted Jews. Now I say without fear of successful contradiction
that the study of Semitics, even of the book itself, which we all love
and revere, is leading gradually but surely to the bringing of it
forth from the holy seclusion and isolation to which it has been so
long consigned. It is working toward ridding this old literature from
the evil of dehumanization, partial or complete, to which a devout
but uninformed piety unfortunately subjected it.

I need not here refer to the work which has been accomplished in
the last decades in the field of the Old Testament by Historical
Criticism. The Pentateuchal books, instead of being the work of one
author, Moses, who in the field of legislation was divinely inspired
to horoscope the unborn centuries and write ante factum a complete
code applicable to the minutest details of a future nation's needs,

84 SEMITIC LANGUAGE

are finally determined to contain different codes, of gradual growth,
and of different ages. They now take their place among legal docu-
ments that have appeared in the progress of the world's history and
as kindred productions. Formerly they were thought to stand as an
exception to all that is definitely known in the history of legal
development. In speaking of these codes one might adopt the lan-
guage of the best legal historians with respect to English law. " The
time," says Pollock and Maitland, "has long gone by when English
lawyers were tempted to speak as though their scheme of ' forms of
actions ' had been invented in one piece by some all- wise legislator.
It grew up little by little. The age of rapid growth is that which lies
between 1154 and 1272. During that age the Chancery was doling
out actions one by one, there is no solemn actionem dabo proclaimed
to the world. ... It was an empirical process, for the supply came
in response to a demand. It was not dictated by an abstract juris-
prudence. ... It advanced along the old Roman road which leads
from experiment to experiment." And that which was true of
adjective law, of which he. is here speaking, we are assured, was also
true of the substantive law.

The study of Semitics is working in its own degree, and in har-
mony with other sciences, towards the result of disestablishing the
old religious view which confined the revelations of God to a book and
his inspiration to the men alone who wrote the book. If God be dis-
coverable, the path of liberty, so long barred by theologic dogma,
which has its roots in heathenism, is being cleared of obstructions that
men may seek God where they will if, haply, they may find him.

We shall still read reverently that great soliloquy on the divine
omnipresence and omniscience contained in Psalm 139:

O Yahwe, thou hast searched me, and known me.

Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising,

Thou understandest my thought afar off,

Thou searchest out my path and my lying down,

And art acquainted with all my ways.

For there is not a word in my tongue,

But, lo! O Yahwe, thou knowest it altogether.

Thou hast beset me behind and before

And laid thine hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

It is high, I cannot attain unto it.

Whither shall I go from thy spirit?

Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there:

If I make my bed in Sheol

Behold! thou art there.

If I take the wings of the morning,

And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

Even there shall thy hand lead me,

And thy right hand shall hold me.

If I say, surely the darkness shall overwhelm me,

And the light about me shall be night;

Even the darkness hideth not from thee,

But the night shineth as the dav:

The darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

THE RELATION OF SEMITICS TO RELIGION 85

But we shall also turn with similar appreciation and sense of satis-
faction to the words of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita:

I am the ancient sage without beginning;

I am the ruler and the all-sustainer.

I am incomprehensible in form,

More subtle and minute than subtlest atoms.

I am the cause of the whole universe, i

Through me it is created and dissolved.

On me all things within it hang suspended

Like pearls upon a string. I am the light

In sun and moon, far, far beyond the darkness.

I am the brilliancy in flame, the radiance

In all that's radiant, the light of lights,

The sound in ether, fragrance in the earth,

The seed eternal of existing things,

The life in all, the father, mother, husband,

Forefather and sustainer of the world,

Its priest and Lord. I am its way and refuge,

Its habitation and receptacle,

I am its witness. I am victory

And energy; I watch the universe

With eyes and face in all directions turned.

I dwell as wisdom in the heart of all.

I am the goodness of the good,

I am beginning, middle, and eternal time,

The birth, the death of all. I am the symbol A

Among the characters. I have created all

Out of one portion of myself. Even those

Who are of low and unpretending birth

May find the path to higher happiness.

Then be not sorrowful, from all thy sins
I shall deliver thee. Think thou on me, •
Have faith in me, adore and worship me,
And join thyself in meditation to me.
Thus shalt thou come to me, O Arjuna!
Thus shalt thou rise to my supreme abode
Where neither sun, nor moon, have need to shine,
For all the lustre they possess is mine.

The bearing of one branch of Semitic study upon the Bible and,
therefore, of course, upon biblical religions, have been treated by Dr.
Delitzsch in his recent work, Babel und BibeL Others have written
along the same lines, such as the Bible, and Monuments, etc. I have
purposely refrained in this address from that individual method of
treatment. The facts which were set forth in Dr. Delitzsch's address
have been familiar to Assyriologists for many years, and it must have
come as a surprise to most of them, as I confess it did to me, that
such a theological furore should have been aroused by the publication
of his lecture.

Before closing I wish to mention two other facts which are of
the greatest importance in this connection and which must be borne
in mind in considering any form of religion based upon the commonly
accepted doctrine of our sacred books or any form of that doctrine.
The first of these is that the idea of conscience was of late develop-
ment even among the foremost peoples of ancient times. There is no
word for conscience in any ancient literature until the time of Zeno,

86 SEMITIC LANGUAGE

dr. 320 years B.C.; and the ancient Semites had no word for it
whatever. When, then, we find the prophets of the Old Testament
ringing out in the face of royal murderers, venal judges, false pro-
phets, a worldly priesthood, their stern and uncompromising de-
nunciations, and threatening the nation's doom, and prefacing these
prophecies with a "Thus saith Yahwe," we must ask ourselves in the
face of this fact what this "thus saith Yahwe" means. Now many
a Christian theologian has laid particular emphasis upon passages
so prefaced, and claimed for them a special degree of revelation, but
many of these phrases and ideas were formed in the days when men
were prattling as children, nearer to savagery than civilization, when
there was no science, no philosophy, no psychology, no pathology,
when a man's brains were supposed to be in his heart and his tender-
est emotions in his bowels, when a sterile octogenarian or a barren
concubine could bring the generous stork to the home by chewing
a mouthful of mandragoras root or bestowing the proper rites upon
the aban aladi, or birthstone. It was an age when pain was the poison
of demons, or the punishment of the gods, when an eclipse was an
almighty frown.

The other fact to which I have alluded is that there was no thought
of Secondary Causation. That is an idea that was introduced by the
Greeks. With the Semites all that happened was the direct result of
the divine interference. Even in Jesus' day he had to combat the
idea when he asked the Jews whether they thought that they upon
whom the tower of Siloam fell were more wicked than others. This is
the theory upon which the pragmatically constructed Book of Judges
rests. All the calamities which befell the tribes were the direct result
of departure from Yahwe; every deliverance from foes the reward of
return to him. This is the theory, too, which called forth that great
religious protest from the author of the book of Job. Conscious of his
own integrity, Job became the arch-heretic of his day, bade defiance to
all the teaching of the schools, and, though he had no explanation
for the mystery of pain, he, nevertheless, became a pioneer of truth,
cleared the way for better thought of God, and wrote himself immor-
tal. The pure in heart see God.

I have already said enough to indicate the way in which the
study of Semitics is contributing to clear the way for a new and larger
idea of deity and his relations to man and the universe. Biblical as
well as Semitic study is beginning to see that the deity of the Bible
is a Semitic deity and as such insufficient. And, as every religion
must be measured by its thought of God, it is clear that the work
that Semitics is performing in relation to religion is of fundamental
importance. A circumscribed, or limited God, or a God whose nature is
conceived of in terms of our own, cannot have a religion large enough
for humanity, any more than a bad God can have a good religion.

TWO SEMITIC PROBLEMS

BY CRAWFORD HOWELL TOY

[Crawford Howell Toy, Professor of Hebrew, Harvard University, since 1880. b.
Norfolk, Virginia, March 23, 1836. A.M. University of Virginia, 1856; Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary, 1859-60; University of Berlin, 1866-68; LL.D.
Harvard University, 1904. Professor of Interpretation of the Old Testament,
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1869-79. Member of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Oriental Society, Archaeological Insti-
tute, Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, American Folk-Lore Society.
Author of The Religion of Israel; Quotations in the New Testament; Judaism
and Christianity; Hebrew Text of Ezekiel; English Translation of Ezekiel ; Com-
mentary on Proverbs.]

THE Semitic questions now under discussion traverse the whole
field of Semitological science; they comprise phonological, morpho-
logical, syntactical, lexicographical, rhetorical, and historical pro-
blems. With every generation, it is true, some advance is made —
some questions are more or less definitely settled ; for example, the
signification of the two verb-forms, the Perfect and the Imperfect.
But, as investigation becomes more and more minute, new questions
come to the front, there is greater demand for exactness, and old
conclusions have to be reviewed and old opinions modified. Out of
this mass of problems we may select two for our present inquiry : one
relating to the primitive seat of the Semites, and the other to the
genesis of the Perfect and the Imperfect.

Primitive Seat of the Semites

The state of this question somewhat over twenty years ago I pre-
sented in an article read before the American Philological Association
in 1881, and printed in vol. xn of the Transactions of the Association.
I there considered the arguments which had been employed up to
that time for the settlement of the question. These arguments were
partly geographical, partly linguistic. In favor of Arabia as the
primitive Semitic home it was urged that the central position of
this country fits it to be a centre of distribution and that it has
always been in historical times a point of emigration. To this it was
replied that the geographical situation of Arabia by no means settles
the question; for though it has been a centre of distribution in his-
torical times before Islam and for a century or two after Islam,
still this cannot prove the case for earlier times. The same thing
holds of the Aramean region and of the Tigris-Euphrates valley,
both of which have poured forth streams of emigrants — there is
nothing in the geographical relations that could establish the

88 SEMITIC LANGUAGE

superiority of one of these regions as the centre of distribution in
prehistoric times.

It has been urged, also, that the people whose language exhibits
the earliest forms must have occupied the original seat of the race.
This consideration has been adduced in favor of Arabia as the Semitic
home, the Arabic language having preserved in general the earliest
Semitic forms, but this consideration is by no means conclusive. The
preservation or loss of early forms is a matter of wear and tear. A
people occupying the original seat may have had such social relations
as tended to degrade grammatical forms; and, on the other hand,
a community wandering from the original home may have remained
so secluded as to preserve to a great degree the earliest forms of its
language. To this it may be added that no one of the Semitic
languages has in all cases preserved the earliest grammatical forms;
but the formal degradation has been produced by conditions which
we are not able to fix with certainty. In any case it may be said
that the loss of grammatical forms in the Babylonian- Assyrian could
by no means of itself demonstrate that this language was not spoken
in the original seat of the Semitic race.

The argument from vocabulary has been stoutly pressed. If, it is
said, we can recover the vocabulary of the primitive language, its
contents, and especially the names of natural objects, will indicate
the region in which the language arose. This argument has been
urged especially in behalf of Babylonia as the Semitic home. It is
found that the Semitic dialects have the same words for certain
objects, as the vine, sheep, goat, camel, gold, copper, winter, summer,
heaven, river, canal, sea, and bitumen-brick, and this list appears to
point to Babylonia. Yet this argument also is not conclusive. The
Babylonian term for a movable object, as, for example, a metal, may
be an importation, and so to some extent words for plants and do-
mestic animals; animals might easily pass from one region to another,
a<?, for example, the horse was imported into Egypt. Further, when
two dialects agree in a word, one may have borrowed it from the
other; or one, having borrowed it from a foreign source, may have
transmitted it to others. Moreover, one may have changed its
home once or oftener, and its vocabulary may have been affected by
its various places of abode; all that can be said for any one region to
which the vocabulary points is that it has in some regards affected
the language, and such influence indicates a residence of the people
there at some time. Further, so far as regards the words mentioned
above as apparently pointing to Babylonia, some of them are names
of objects (as domestic animals, winter, summer, heaven) which
cannot be regarded as peculiar to any one place.

None of these arguments, then, can be regarded as conclusive,
nor has additional evidence been adduced along these lines. Recently,

TWO SEMITIC PROBLEMS 89

however, certain other considerations have been urged in favor of one
or another region as the home of the primitive Semitic people.

One argument is based on what is assumed to be the relation be-
tween the civilizations of Egypt and Babylonia. It is affirmed that
Egyptian civilization was borrowed from Babylonia, and it is thence
inferred that this latter country, having developed so vigorous a
culture at so early a time, must be the original Semitic centre. This
inference is by no means valid: supposing that Babylonia was the
first Semitic region to create a great civilization, it would not follow
that it was the original seat of the Semites, since it is quite conceiv-
able that the Babylonians might have migrated from their original
home to the Tigris-Euphrates valley. It is, in fact, doubtful how
far what we know as Babylonian civilization is of Semitic origin;
the Babylonians seem certainly to have borrowed much from their
non-Semitic predecessors. But, leaving this point aside, there is no
proof that Egyptian civilization was borrowed from the Babylonian.
The two have certain things in common, as indeed it is possible to
find common elements in all the ancient civilizations. The political
constitutions of the two countries show a certain similarity; but the
similar features arise naturally out of the social conditions, and
there is no reason why they should not have arisen independently
in two different countries. It is possible to discover some resemblance
in the architecture: the pyramids of Egypt have been compared
with the Babylonian tower-temples. Both of these structures consist
of a series of platforms built one over another. But similar structures
are found in other parts of the world, as, for example, in Mexico and
Polynesia. And the uses of the two were very different: in the one
case we have a tomb, in the other a temple. Perhaps the most striking
difference between the two civilizations is found in the religious
development, and that in two respects. In the first place the Egypt-
ians developed a system of departmental or specific gods, while the
Babylonians never really reached such a point. The Babylonian
deities are constructed after one design : any one of them may take
the place of any other — that is to say, they represent simply the
conception of superhuman power, and every local deity was sufficient
for all the needs of his worshipers. Each in turn becomes universal
and omnipotent. Now this is to some extent true of Egypt, as it is
true of all ancient countries. But the Egyptian pantheon developed
far more individualized divine characters, approaching in that
respect the Greek. Then there is the curious Egyptian worship of
living animals, to which nothing similar is found in Babylonia. In
the second place the two peoples diverged widely in their represent-
ations of the future life. No two conceptions, could be more unlike
than the colorless existence in the Babylonian underworld and the
vigorous moral element introduced by the Egyptians into the picture

90 SEMITIC LANGUAGE

of the future. Supposed resemblances between names of deities in
the two countries amount to nothing. At a comparatively late period
Egypt borrowed certain Semitic deities, whether from Babylonia
or from some other point is not certain. But this has no bearing on
the prehistoric situation. If Egypt borrowed its civilization from
Babylonia, the traces of the borrowing are no longer visible. One
might with equal plausibility say that the borrowing was in the
reverse direction; but for this, also, there is no good ground. There
is nothing to prevent our supposing that Egypt and Babylonia
were two independent centres of culture, their civilizations necessarily
showing certain resemblances, but on the other hand presenting
evident marks of independent origination.

In still another way the solution of our problem has been sought,
namely, in the relations between the Semitic and the Hamitic races.
The grammatical resemblances between the Semitic and the Hamitic
languages are of such sort as to force us to the conclusion that the
two are intimately related to each other. The pronouns and the
numerals are almost identical in the two, and the structure of the
verb is substantially the same. It is in the highest degree probable
that the two families go back to the same ancestor, and that there
was a time when the two peoples, the Hamitic and the Semitic,
formed one community. This time belongs to a very remote past,
since after the separation of the two the Semitic languages developed
their peculiar triliteral stems. If the abode of the primitive Hamito-
Semitic people could be determined, this might throw light on the
starting-point of the Semites. Hypotheses as to this original abode
have ranged over the whole of northern Africa and southwestern
Asia, and the absence of historical data makes it difficult to reach
a definite conclusion.

It has been supposed that a definite point of view might be gained
from the hypothesis of a Mediterranean race. In a remote antiquity,
it has been surmised, at a time when Europe and Africa were nearer
together than now, a race of people dwelt on both sides of the Mediter-
ranean whose descendants are seen in certain communities of south-
ern Europe and over a large part of northern Africa. It is held that
certain bodily features point to an original unity of these communities
— the color and form of the hair, the shape of the head, and certain
facial marks. If such a Mediterranean people existed, including both
Semites and Hamites, then there would be a strong presumption
that the original seat of the Hamito-Semitic race was in northern
Africa, and it would be from this point that we should have to trace
the Semites. But the hypothesis of a Mediterranean race has no
clearly demonstrable basis. That certain corporal similarities may
be discovered between peoples in Spain and Italy on the one hand
and peoples in Africa and Arabia on the other hand may be true. But

TWO SEMITIC PROBLEMS 91

such resemblances do not afford a trustworthy foundation for a theory
of ethnical unity. The period of the supposed Mediterranean race
must have been very remote, and in the lapse of thousands of years
it is impossible for us to say what original resemblances and differences
may have been effaced, and what new resemblances and differences
may have arisen. It is well known that climatic and social conditions
tend to affect bodily forms. The period in question was doubtless
one of migrations and mixtures, of which, however, there is no his-
torical record. The interval between that remote period and the
beginnings of history is a blank. It is not possible, therefore, to rest
any trustworthy conclusion on a supposition such as is described
above.

Putting the Mesopotamian theory aside, we have to ask whether
there is anything in the geographical and social conditions pointing
to one place or another as the probable home of the Hamito-Semitic
people. In historical times we find the Semites mostly in western
Asia, and the Hamites extending over a large space in northern
and northeastern Africa. The Semitic peoples form a compact
mass — their languages are very nearly allied among themselves ;
and this suggests an original Semitic unity at a comparatively late
period. The Hamites, on the other hand, present a greater variety
— their languages differ among themselves in grammar and vocabu-
lary to a much greater extent than is true of the Semitic tongues,
and they are spread over a very large territory. Hence it might be
inferred that Africa was the original seat of the combined people,
since it would be more natural that the larger part, remaining in the
primitive abode, should spread over a large space, while the seceding
part, smaller and compacter, would occupy a smaller territory. If
the body which later became the Semitic race withdrew from the
parent body, then the tribes that were left, constituting the majority,
might scatter over the whole of northern Africa, while the less
numerous body, the germ of the Semites, might withdraw to Arabia
or elsewhere. This is a not improbable supposition. But on the other
hand it is also not improbable that if the original seat of the Hamito-
Semites was in Arabia, a portion should have crossed over into
Africa, and there, under conditions which are not known, should
gradually have spread over a wide territory, this wide dissemination
itself giving rise to a greater diversity of dialects. The transit to
Africa might have been made by way of the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb,
or by the Isthmus of Suez. In either case a diffusion over the terri-
tory later occupied by the Hamites would be, as far as we know,
natural and easy. In the absence of all historical data, there is no-
thing in the climatic conditions to point to a decision of the question.

We may distinguish between the original abode of the Semites and
their centre of distribution. It is possible, as is pointed out above,

92 SEMITIC LANGUAGE

that they separated from the original mass and settled in some place
in Africa before crossing into Asia — there is nothing to make this
inconceivable. But because of the pronounced unity of Semitic
peoples, it is more probable that they would have come over into Asia
before breaking up into different nationalities. The question as to their
first resting-place is referred to above. The arguments commonly
adduced in favor of one region or another cannot be regarded as
conclusive. There is little in favor of Armenia as the cradle of the
Semitic race. The argument for it is that it lies in that central
Asiatic region whence so many streams of population have poured
forth; but, as we have seen, Arabia and Babylonia also have been
centres of dispersion. Recent writers are disposed to decide in favor
either of Babylonia or Arabia, the majority preferring the latter
region. There is much to say for this, especially if Arabia be under-
stood to include the whole desert region up to the Euphrates and
westward to the Aramean lands. More than this can hardly be said.
In view of the remoteness of the events involved, the absence of
historical monuments, and our ignorance of the social conditions
of that early time, it cannot be surprising that we should find our-
selves forced to leave the question unsolved. Succeeding discoveries
may open the way for a more definite opinion, but at present the
data are insufficient to permit a positive assertion or denial in the
case of any one of the regions under consideration.

The Perfect and the Imperfect

The basis of the Perfect, it is now commonly held, is a noun -
whether an abstract or a concrete noun it is not important in our
present inquiry to decide. In the third person this noun is inflected
in accordance with Semitic rules. The second and first persons are
formed by the attachment of pronouns expressing the subject or
agent of the action.

In like manner the basis of the Imperfect is a noun, inflected in the
third person according to nominal rules. This noun is not the simple
stem, but is made by a prefix. The second and first persons, also, are
formed by prefixes. The second person has the ordinary dual and
plural endings, and in the singular what seems to be a feminine
ending. The prefixes of the second and first persons appear to be
pronouns, and the same may be the case with the prefix of the third
person. Thus the formal difference between the Perfect and the
Imperfect is that in the former the grammatical subject is appended
to the stem, while in the latter it is prefixed.

The important part played in Semitic morphology by prefixes is gen-
erally recognized. While mere relational modifications are expressed
by affixes (as in the case of the feminine, the plural, and relative

TWO SEMITIC PROBLEMS 93

adjectives), the substantive modifications are expressed by prefixes
(as ma and to in nouns). Of the precise history of the development of
triliteral stems we know very little. It may be said to be probable
that these have arisen from biliterals: biliteral stems exist in Semitic,
and certain triliterals have obviously been formed from biliterals (as
where the second radical is doubled or a w or y is inserted). If this
be the case, the expansion has not stopped at triliterals. Quadri-
literal simple stems have been formed, and a large number of
derived stems, which express merely a modification of the meaning
of the simple stem. It is by means of prefixes that the Semitic lan-
guages have chosen to express the idea of reflex and causative action,
the former by na and to, the latter by a (ha) and sa. These prefixes
are variously combined together and variously attached to the stem.
Thus with na from katala we have inkatala (for nakatald), and niktal
(for naktal). The mode of combination is merely a matter of euphony.
The essential thing is that the signification of the simple stem is
modified in a substantive way by means of a prefix. This modifica-
tion attaches no new content to the signification of the stem, but only
indicates a certain direction of the action.

When now we find the Imperfect made from the simple stem by
a prefix, the question arises whether it belongs in the same category
with the derived stems above referred to. If we compare these
derived stems with the Imperfect, we discover an analogy in the
two cases, though with a difference. Niktal differs from katal merely
in that it indicates that the act is directed by the subject toward
himself; aktala in like manner differs from katala only in that it
states that the action is not performed, but is caused to be per-
formed, by the subject. So yaktulu differs from katala in affirming
not simply that the subject performs the act, but that he moves
toward the performance of the act. How such distinctions may
inhere in these prefixes it is not necessary to inquire; we do not
know their origin or the history of their development. It is sufficient
that they have these significations. Thus the Imperfect is naturally
based on the Perfect, or rather on the stem which is the base of the
Perfect. Both in form and in meaning it comes after the Perfect.
It is a peculiar Semitic formation, ignoring the element of time, and
choosing only to distinguish between the conception of an act pure
and simple (Perfect) and an act toward which the subject moves.
This grammatical conception has its advantages and its disadvan-
tages logically and rhetorically. But it falls in with the Semitic
system of expressing certain modifications by means of prefixes.
The Imperfect may attach itself to any stem, simple or derived,
triliteral or quadriliteral. Originally, it would seem, the Imperfect
of the simple stem assumed two forms: which, if we leave out the
later vowel distinctions, may be written yakatala and yaktala. Of

94 SEMITIC LANGUAGE

these the former was dropped by all Semitic dialects except Assyrian
and Ethiopic, and in these two were differentiated in function.
Further, there grew up a differentiation by means of vowels : yaktul
and yaktal; and the prefix was written sometimes yu instead of ya
(yi). These were originally simple phonetic differences, later func-
tionally differentiated. In the derived stems the Imperfect prefix
follows the same phonetic laws as the stem prefix. Thus from
inkatala (for nakatala) we have yankatilu (for yanakatilu), from
istaktala (for satakatala), we have yastaktilu (for yasatakatilu) .

The Assyrian Permansive presents a curious degraded aspect.
It resembles the ordinary Semitic Perfect in form, being made by
the addition of a pronoun to the simple stem. On the other hand it
has a prevailingly passive signification, and is of rare occurrence.
Two explanations of this state of things are possible: it may be
supposed that the Permansive is an embryonic Perfect, exhibiting
the attempt to create a form by the addition of a pronoun to the
stem, an attempt never completely carried out; or we may suppose
that the Permansive was a true Perfect which has fallen into relative
desuetude. The widespread use of the Perfect in the other Semitic
dialects, taken together with the linguistic unity of the Semitic
peoples, is a consideration that tells against the supposition that the
Permansive is an abortive Perfect; it would be strange if this form,
developed everywhere else in the Semitic area, had simply failed to
come to completion in Babylonia and Assyria. On the other hand,
the infrequency of its use in Assyrian may be accounted for by the
fact that the Imperfect was developed in a peculiar way. The func-
tion of the Perfect is to express the act pure and simple. This simple
act the Assyrian expresses by means of one of the Imperfect forms.
How it was led to this we do not know; but supposing that this usage
grew up, then it is conceivable that the Perfect should gradually
have fallen out, being retained only to express certain peculiar con-
ceptions. There are examples elsewhere of similar depression of
grammatical forms.

In this discussion no attempt has been made to discover the origin
of the Imperfect preformatives ya, ta, a, na ; it is only in regard to
their function as prefixes that they are examined. The view stated
above is not antagonistic to, is rather intended to be explanatory
of, the theory that the yaktulu of the Imperfect is originally a noun,
meaning "he who kills"; what is suggested is that this noun means
properly "he who moves toward the act of killing," and that the
Imperfect bears to the Perfect a relation similar to that borne by
the derived stems to the simple stem.

SHORT PAPER

PROFESSOR DUNCAN B. MACDONALD, of Hartford Theological Seminary, pre-
sented a paper to this Section on " The Poetry of Arabia and the Ballad Problem."
The speaker said in brief that the bearing of the poetry of Arabia on the ballad
problem has never received adequate, or possibly any, recognition. The Arabists
are few, indeed, who have passed beyond the philological and historical stages
to an aesthetic appreciation of the material of their labors. To most languages
a very few months' work will give an entrance, and the entrance once forced, the
garden of poetry lies open, but Arabic yields herself with no such lightness. Days
and nights must be spent on a grammar of bewildering subtilty, a vocabulary of
utter strangeness and overwhelming abundance, and a range of ideas which con-
ceal their common humanity behind veils of novel circumstance.

The speaker dwelt upon the confusion which lay in the name Arabian, and on
the probability that the greater part of Arabic literature had been written by men
in whose veins was scarcely any drop of Arabian blood. The medieval monk in
Ireland who wrote in Latin was hardly less a Roman than some others of Central
Asia, North Africa, or Spain, who wrote as Arabs. After the raid of Muhammad
and his successors came the Mush'm Empire, in which after a century or two the
Arabs had little or no part. The official language of the Empire remained a kind
of Arabic, thanks to the Koran and the whole system of Islam, with its commonly
and erroneously called Arabian literature, philosophy, science, etc., coming from
a multitude of nationalities and sects, which made up Islam. Little attention
has been paid to Arabia in the true sense, and the literary ideals, forms, and
methods of the Arabian peninsula and race. To Arabia itself and to the Arab
people in its own home must the folk-lorist and student of literature turn, when
he would seek the true Arabian poetry.

Of the beginnings of Arabian poetry we know nothing; they must lie with the
beginnings of the Arab race. The curtain rises with the appearance of Muhammad,
and from that point we can trace backward some hundred and fifty years. The
Arabs show themselves producing a poetry that is singularly popular in origin
and idea, highly developed and polished, and wonderfully rich. Grimm's ballad
formula, " Das Volk dichtet," holds most exactly of them, but in a different sense.
There is no anonymity, but there is a broad generality of authorship. Of great
poets the number was undoubtedly small, but the poetic gift was widely spread.
Our best commentaries on the old poems are the records of present-day wander-
ings. Further we have in it the strange phenomenon of a literature as perfectly
popular in origin and use as our ballads, which yet obeys rigid norms of meter,
rhyme, and form; clothes itself in language of fixed usage, of breadth and richness;
and has crystallized into narrow conventions of structure. It is true that it is not
literature in the precise sense. These verses were chanted and sung, stored in the
memory, and passed from lips to ears. Not till after the time of Muhammad,
when the need of interpreting the Koran and fixing the structure of classical
Arabic had arisen, were they finally reduced to written form.

In the course of the last century the desert was opened again to Europe by stray
adventurers. In the fifties, Wallin brought back from his epoch-making journey
some poems which were published in the Zeitschrift of the German Oriental
Society (vols. v, vi). Later, Wetzstein, German Consul at Damascus, made col-
lections and lectured on contemporary Arabian poetry at the University of Berlin
in the winter of 1867-68 and thereafter. Count Landberg also made very extensive
collections, which, like those of Wetzstein, are still unpublished. But our most

96 SHORT PAPERS

precise and widest information is undoubtedly due to the late Professor Socin in
his posthumous Diwan aus Centralarabien. Through this precious volume it
becomes abundantly clear that the poetry of Arabia of to-day is the same in all
essentials as the poetry of Arabia before Muhammad. From the sixth to the
twentieth century, the same stream has flowed, unchanging. The meters, the
forms, the ideas, the types, are all the same.

But most significant of all in its bearing on the ballad problem is one outstand-
ing characteristic. The Arabian poet, like the Semite in general, knows nothing
but a strictly subjective art. He can sing only of his emotions; all has to pass
through the alembic of his feeling and be reproduced as it affected him. He can
tell no objective story, as one without, seeing and relating what he sees; he must
be in the action, and what he tells us of it is what has come to himself. Thus a
description of warriors in battle array is wrought for us out of his own pride or
fear at the spectacle. The surge and swing of a charge is pictured to us through
what he said to his soul when the shouting line rushed on. Nature, too, we know
only because the stars shone brightly on his desert path or mocked in their slow
march his sleepless eyes, or because the little spots of verdure and flashing pools
after rain were a joy to him and gave him thoughts such and such.

A ballad, then, in our sense was impossible to him. He was not a " maker," a
iroiiiri) j, but a " feeler," a " knower," — so aha'ir, the Arabic word for poet, means.
The event was little; the man who saw it, understood it, told what came to him
from it, was all. And so these Arabian songs were never anonymous. If the
name of the author by chance has been lost to tradition, there stands at the
head some formula, " There said a man of Taghlib," or " There said one un-
named." Some one must have said it, for it tells the emotion of some one.
Western ballads tell events, who tells them is of no moment. The ballad stands
as a record which might have been made equally well by any one who saw the
fact. And therefore the identity of the teller bears no stress. After he has sung
his song, another may take it and sing it with equal aesthetic right. The name of
that first singer, maker of it as he was, is lost, and the song is the inheritance
of the people. But for the Arab ode, that was, and is, flatly impossible. And it
cannot but raise the final question whether it is not rather in the objectivity of
our Western ballads than in their popular use or any hypothetical communal
origin that we are to find the clue to their anonymity.

SECTION C — INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

SECTION C — INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

(Hall 8, September 22, 10 a. m.)

SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR SYLVAIN LEVI, College de France, Paris.

PROFESSOR ARTHUR A. MACDONELL, University of Oxford.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF SANSKRIT STUDIES IN THE
COURSE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

BY SILVAIN LEVI

(Translated from the French by Mabel Bode, Ph.D.)

[Sylvain Levi, Professor of Sanskrit, College de France; Director of Studies at the
High School, Paris, since 1894. b. Paris, 1863. Litt.F. 1883; Litt.D. 1890.
Master of Conferences at the High School, 1885; Assistant Professor in Sanskrit
of the Faculty of Letters, Paris, 1889. Member of Asiatic Society, Linguistic
Society, Society of Hebrew Studies, etc. Author and editor of The Hindoo Theatre;
Traces of the Greeks left on the Monuments of the Ancient Hindoos; The Doctrine
of Sacrifice according to the Brahmanas; The Nepal.}

AMONG the languages of the Indo-Iranian group Sanskrit takes
indisputably the highest place. I shall not make any attempt here
to justify this honor which Sanskrit owes to the length of its existence T
the wealth of its vocabulary, the vastness of its literature, and to its
role in history. It would be an easy task, and one flattering to the
heart of an Indianist, to take each of these points in turn and treat
each in detail. But I have put before myself another aim, more in
keeping with the general spirit of our meeting; I would like to show,
in dealing with Sanskrit, that a common impulse animates all the
efforts of human thought; the more those studies which I represent
seem far-away, indifferent, foreign alike to the passions and the
interests of real life, the better they will serve to support the thesis
I advance, if it be clearly shown that, in the course of their trans-
formations, they reflect the great ideas which lead humanity toward
its unknown goal.

The history of Sanskrit studies goes hardly a century back; they
came into being with the Independence of the United States and
with the French Revolution. In 1785 Charles Wilkins published in
London a translation of the Bhagavad Gitd, prepared in India with
the assistance of native scholars; four years later William Jones
laid before Western readers a translation of Cakuntala". Before these

100 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

initiators, of glorious renown, Europe had already heard of the San-
skrit language. Europeans settled in India had studied it, mastered
it, and even used it, but their knowledge had borne no fruit. They
were missionaries dedicated to the triumph of the Church, seeking
in Sanskrit an instrument of controversy or the spread of doctrine.
Certainly patience, energy, learning, and dignity of life were theirs,
but they lacked the active sympathy necessary for success, the
sympathy which animates research and makes it fruitful. Moreover,
they had not only the Brahmans to contend with; outside India
they were closely watched by adversaries who forced them to be
prudent and paralyzed them. Voltaire and his school witnessed with
triumph and joy the fall of the sacred barriers of ancient history at
the end of the seventeenth century. Bossuet analyzed the secret
designs of Providence and pointed out their workings without going
beyond the world known to the Fathers of the Church; the Church
was the central point of humanity. And, behold, other peoples, other
civilizations, and other literatures, unknown to the Scriptures, had
come to light, and were laying claim to such antiquity as to eclipse
the ancient Jewish tradition. The Brahmans were not sparing with
millions or myriads of years in their chronology. The Encyclopaedia
only asked to believe them; the Church only thought how to contra-
dict them; there was no one capable of discussing them.

But the mind of humanity was ripening; exact criticism was to sup-
plant idle controversy; facts were about to take the place of the arti-
fices of disputation. England, mistress of India by the fortune of arms,
opened up the Hindu genius to the world and the world to the Hindu
genius. France, vanquished on the field of battle, at least competed
with honor in the conquest of Asia's past. We know the admirable
history of Anquetil Duperron who went out as a volunteer to wring
from the distrustful dasturs 1 the sacred books of Zoroaster, which
he eventually brought back to France. The Bhagavad Gitd of
Wilkins, the Cakuntala of Jones excited the imagination of literary
Europe; Goethe's celebrated stanza rings in every one's memory.
The moment was auspicious; the classical tradition was worn out,
since the masterpieces of the seventeenth century; reason, proud
of her victory over imagination, too long a hindrance to her progress,
had nothing to offer in exchange but an insipid sentimentalism.
Men's minds impatiently desired violent emotions, dazzling pictures,
new landscapes, glaring lights; the senses demanded satisfaction
in their turn. The Persian and Arabian poets found translators and
imitators. The Egyptian campaign made the East popular. Bona-
parte at the Pyramids conjured up a past of forty centuries before
his wondering "soldiers. But Sanskrit, only lately won from the Brah-

1 The learned among the Parsi priests; literally, the chief priest of a Temple
of Fire.

TRANSFORMATION IN SANSKRIT STUDIES 101

mans, still remained the privilege of the English of India; Europe
possessed neither books, grammars, nor dictionaries. However, the
Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris possessed a collection of Sanskrit
manuscripts and some clumsy rudiments of grammar due to the
missionaries. Fascinated, like so many others, by reading Cakuntald,
Che"zy determined to go back, at any cost, to the original. A worthy
rival of the first humanists of the Renaissance, he set to work alone
to acquire a knowledge of Sanskrit. Che"zy was the son of a distin-
guished engineer, and destined originally for his father's profession.
It was not long before he deserted the too stern science of mathe-
matics for the kindly companionship of the Eastern muses. In him
an extreme sensibility was united with firmness and method; a
fortunate facility made the study of languages mere sport to him.
He became the pupil of Sacy and Langles, and was a master of his
subject at twenty years of age. He had been appointed to take part
in the labors of the Egyptian mission, but was stopped at Toulon by
illness. He returned to Paris to seek consolation in the Library
among the Oriental manuscripts. The story of his gropings and
success has the poignant interest of a drama in which science is at
stake; it was not even without a tragic catastrophe by which he lost
the sweet and precious peace of home life. He was forced to sacrifice
his conjugal happiness to the jealous demands of research, but his
obstinate enthusiasm did not falter; twenty-five years later, arrived
at the goal of his efforts, but overwhelmed with sorrows and filled
with bitterness, he crowned the six hundred and fifty pages of the
quarto volume, in which he had at last published the text of Cakuntald^
with this verse of Walter Scott, where he breathes out his very soul:
" That I o'erlive such woes, Enchantress, is thine own! "

I have not been able to resist giving in detail the first steps of this
heroic pioneer, to whom I may be allowed to offer homage here, as
a Frenchman, as a forerunner, and my own predecessor. It is Ch6zy's
chair which I now occupy at the College de France. " On the 29th of
November in the year of grace 1814 and the twentieth of the reign, J>
an ordinance of Louis XVIII, signed " at his royal chateau of the
Tuileries, " created at the same time two new chairs in the College
de France; one, to which Antoine Leonard de Che"zy was appointed,
was for the teaching of the Sanskrit language and literature; the
other, for the Chinese language and literature, was first occupied
by Abel Re'musat. Silvestre de Sacy, the recognized head of French
Orientalism, pompously thanked " Louis-le-De*sireY ' " through whom
letters flourished under the aegis of peace, in the shade of Minerva's
olive-tree." A less fervent royalist might have enjoyed recording
that the ancien regime was no sooner restored but it found itself
compelled to give its countenance, at the outset, to the conquests

102 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

of the modern spirit in that very asylum which Francis I had
thrown open to independent research, opposite the University
devoted to tradition. In 1530 Greek and Hebrew were sanctioned
by the royal will; it was the overthrow of the principle of authority
represented by the Latin of scholasticism. In 1814 Sanskrit and
Chinese, admitted on equal terms with classical studies, foretold a
wider humanity. •

Che'zy had not foreseen the far-reaching results of his work, any
more than Sacy or Louis XVIII. He was an Orientalist steeped in
classic rhetoric, and he sacrificed to elderly Muses and superannuated
Graces. His opening lecture seems addressed to the retired magis-
trates who translated Horace into French verse. "Do not believe,
gentlemen, that this literature has treasures only for science and
stern reason. No; lively imagination also has a large part, and among
no people in the world has brilliant poesy displayed itself in more
magnificent outward garb, or been accompanied by a retinue more
lovely and more captivating. From the haughty Epic to the timid
Idyll the most varied productions of taste will present themselves
in crowds to your enchanted gaze and arouse in you by turns every
kind of emotion of which the soul is susceptible." And to prove
" the fecundity of the Indian Muses " he enumerated all these kinds
"treated with equal success by the Bards of the Ganges."

But more vigorous minds were already preparing to resume the
work and render it fruitful. It was the period in which the author of
Indian Wisdom, Schlegel, summed up the programme of Sanskritists
in three stages, Paris, London, India. Since 1812 Bopp had settled
in Paris, and, without allowing the din of near battles to distract
him, patiently collected the materials which his genius was to bring
into order. Others before .him, since the sixteenth century, had
observed the evident relationship of the Sanskrit vocabulary with
the classical languages. No European could hear the Sanskrit names
of relationship, pitar, mdtar, bhrdtar, the names of numbers, dvi, tri,
etc., the verb "to be" (French $tre, Sanskrit, asti}, but there awoke
in him a far-off echo of his mother tongue or of ancient languages.

Comparison, discussion, and speculation had gone on without rule
or measure; Bopp created the science of comparative grammar,
classed facts, and recognized laws. Under the varieties of language
prevailing in Europe, Iran, and India he pointed out a common
stock and succeeded in explaining most of the deviations from it,
going back by way of induction to the primitive type. Then appeared
a word which soon became current, a compound no less unexpected
than expressive, a symbol which summed up the revolution that
had been accomplished. India and Europe, which everything seemed
to separate till that time, came together and were henceforth fused
into one in the accepted expression "Indo-European." The Brah-

TRANSFORMATION IN SANSKRIT STUDIES 103

mans, so long mysterious, the obscure peasants of Bengal, the Punjab,

Gujerat, had received their heritage from the same linguistic fund as

a Homer or a Virgil; the groups which had been unknown, despised,

hated, — the German, Slav, and Neo-Latin, — grouped themselves

into a new family of languages. Soon new discoveries filled the gaps

and attached to the chain those links which were missing. The

deciphering of cuneiform inscriptions brought to light the Persian

of the Achscmenidse; Zoroaster spoke in the Avesta, which was

even explained in the original, and these ancient documents of Iran

connected the shores of the Indus with the valleys of the Caucasus.

Never had a Plato, a Descartes, a Leibnitz, in their vastest dreams

conceived so large a family within the human species. The learned

were dazzled; even their heads were turned, this time. Then arose

a strange and at first puerile sentiment, which proved disastrous

later, when it spread to the common people; comparative grammar

gave birth to Indo-European chauvinism. The Revolution, borne to

the far ends of Europe by Napoleon's wars, had awakened the national

conscience in one people after another. Allies or adversaries of France,

those who had been subjects the day before, awoke suddenly to find

themselves citizens; divine right was forgotten; the state ceased to

be incarnated in the monarch, and was incorporated in the entire

nation. Neither certain of their doctrines, nor of their own inmost

essence, but upheld nevertheless by the will to live, the nations

gouped themselves with restless fervor around their languages, their

institutions, their traditions, which constituted their collective titles

of nobility. The national spirit was formed, as in the cities of ancient

times, in the struggle with barbarians. When scholars afterwards

proceeded to call attention to the linguistic relationships which

antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance had neglected or

disdained, national pride was willing to lay claim to the kindred

groups. Led away by the bewildering charm of a grand discovery,

savants, and after them the public, took kinship of language to be

a sure indication of common origin. The peoples scattered over the

immense area of Indo-European languages saw themselves, in spite

of the natural sciences, and on the evidence of their language, grouped

into one single race which received the name of Indo-European

or Aryan race. The civilized world which was still within the limits

drawn by the prejudices current in Europe and the nearer half of

Asia, appeared thenceforward as the patrimony and the battle-field

of two races eternally hostile, the Aryan and the Semitic races, both

pushing forward to conquer the earth.

The fierce struggle between the Encyclopedia and the Church
was bearing fruit. In his eagerness to bring contempt on the Bible
Voltaire had already been imprudent enough to accept as genuine
testimony from ancient India a pretended Veda, the Ezour Vedam,

104 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGE

which a nobleman had brought from India and presented to him as
a book " translated from the Sanscretan by the high-priest or arch-
brahman of the pagoda of Chiringham, an aged man respected for
his incorruptible virtue." In reality the original "Sanscretan" had
never existed, and the arch-brahman was a Jesuit missionary. The
author of the clever imitation had hoped to lead the Hindus to the
Christian religion by this pious fraud; if he did not succeed in that,
he at least succeeded in duping Voltaire, and might rest satisfied.
But now the Sanskrit language, studied and taught in Europe, gave
access to the real Veda. The Brahmans persisted as long as they
could in defending this coveted treasure from the enterprise of profane
men of science; their delays and refusals only served to pique curiosity
and inflame imagination all the more. According to them the Veda
had no date, it went back beyond all time, back to a past impossible
to calculate. They easily imposed their conviction on the earliest
interpreters. At last the Aryan race had its Bible; an Aryan Bible.
But the Veda was not accommodating; written in an archaic tongue
which differed from classical Sanskrit even more than Homer from
Plato, bestrewn with puzzling forms and disused words, it seemed
to defy the sagacity of philologists. The only help afforded by India
was a commentary too late to be authoritative. On these ancient
texts was expended a wealth of science, of shrewdness, of patience,
and almost of genius. But a foregone conclusion, an unconscious
parti pris, direpted and influenced these efforts. There was a desire
to give the Aryans of Europe worthy ancestors. The German scholars
who occupied the first rank in philology had naturally substituted
for the title Aryan or Indo-European a word which flattered national
amour propre; they spoke of the Indo-Germanic language, of the
Indo-Germanic race. Thenceforward the Vedas were the complement
of the Niebelungen. The origins of religion took their place beside
the origins of the epic. It was pleasant to picture the singers of the
ancient hymns as grave and noble patriarchs, thoughtful, devout,
austere, patriarchs formed on the romantic model; their candid soul,
filled with enthusiasm for the grand spectacles of nature, poured
itself forth in lyric effusions. Lost in the radiance of the Veda, In-
dianism forfeited its independence and placed itself like a faithful
Achates at the side of comparative grammar. The infatuation of the
first days had died out some time before. The public, satiated with
the East by the Romantic School, found no further charm in it;
the successors of Wilkins and Jones pursued their laborious task
without exciting attention. But Sanskrit still remained, by well-
established right, the corner-stone of linguistic studies; perpetuated
without alteration for tens of centuries, it surpassed in purity all the
languages of the family. Moreover, the Hindu grammarians had been
the real creators of comparative grammar; it was in their school

TRANSFORMATION OF SANSKRIT STUDIES 105

that Bopp and his successors had learned the art of rigorous analysis
of words, the art of classing their elements, explaining their forma-
tion, and tracing their derivation through the vocabulary. The Hindus,
who have but little taste for observation of external phenomena,
who are but mediocre pupils of their neighbors in the domain of the
natural sciences, have given the closest study to the data of the inner
life; their psychology has penetrated to the unconscious and pre-
pared the way for modern investigation; their grammar, several cen-
turies before the Christian era, established the study of sounds
with almost faultless precision. The glorious name of Panini, even
to the present day, hovers over Indo-European linguistic science.

Although sheltered under the aegis of comparative grammar, the
study of the Veda was nevertheless tending toward a revolution.
Linked together from this time forth, the Semitic Bible and the
Aryan Bible were doomed to the same fate. Criticism, gradually
emancipated from the tradition of ages, had first tried its hand on
Homer, and, in spite of the anxious protests of defenders of the past,
. it had dared to direct a front attack against accumulated prejudices.
Emboldened by success, it seized on the Scriptures, braved the scandal,
and subjected them to severe examination.

There was no choice but to submit and recognize in the sacred
books a late compilation, sacerdotal in its origin and inspiration.
The shock of the attack reached the Veda. May a disciple of Abel
Bergaigne be allowed, upon this high occasion, to recall the name
of the master loved with a filial affection and everlastingly regretted,
who was the author of this revolution? The liturgy, when more
thoroughly studied and better known, threw a pitiless light on the
ancient hymns; those songs in which, as was at first believed, we
could almost hear the whimper of humanity in its cradle, betrayed
a soulless religion reduced to mere forms, a subtilized religion which
confounded the priest with the magician, a priestly poetry which
subsisted on old patches and worked to order. The trench which
had been ingeniously dug between the Veda and Sanskrit literature
narrowed and tended gradually to be filled up. The Veda once
Aryan became Hindu. Indianism lost its connection with Indo-
Germanic studies; it retired within itself, forming a mighty, organic
unity. The Veda lost nothing by this; it continued, by reason of
its age and influence, to dominate the development of India. Thus
transformed, the study of the Veda renewed its youth and entered
on a new era. Among the four great collections (Samhitd) which are
the foundation of Vedic literature, the Rig-Veda collection had long
kept possession of the favor and attention of scholars; it was the
Veda par excellence. This collection, methodically arranged, presented
to the view of those prepossessed in its favor an ensemble as noble
and correct as could be wished; it was possible to extract passages

106 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

of lofty reach, picturesque or pathetic or grandiose pieces such as the
Aryan Bible demanded. Two other collections, the Sama and the
Yajur-Veda, betrayed their liturgic origin too crudely to take rank
with the Rig- Veda. The fourth collection, the Atharva-Veda, had
nothing edifying about it; the Brahmans themselves had recognized
this more than once. It was a strange combination of charms, spells,
speculations, and domestic ritual, in which medicine, sorcery, de-
bauchery, political intrigue, and daily life, with its trifling incidents,
jostled each other. It was embarrassing for the ideal of Aryan nobil-
ity; it was kept at a distance, or at least in the background, like a
suspected personage, like a bastard. However, the world was chang-
ing; literary nobility and nobility of birth were sinking together;
la grande populace et la sainte canaille were claiming their turn.
History no longer confined herself to a list of exploits connected
with illustrious names. Watching the stir in the street, she had
guessed at the obscure supernumeraries taking their part in the
human drama; she strove to catch a glimpse of them in the shadows
of the past. Folk-lore came into existence, and the Atharva sup-
planted the Rig- Veda, fallen into discredit. Triumphant democracy
made its victory apparent in Vedic studies.

If limited to the study of the Vedas and the orthodox classics,
Sanskrit philology was in no danger of exhausting its material too
quickly; the enormous mass of works accumulated in the course of
twenty centuries by unwearying generations of writers gave promise
of a long time to be spent in exploiting them. A great number of
these works found favor with literary men by the beauty of their
form, with thinkers by the loftiness of their ideas or the boldness of
their speculations. But history, for which so much had been expected
from the discovery and study of these works, was destined to be
disappointed. Blinded by puerile vanity, the Brahmans had de-
tached India from the world; they had been wonderfully seconded
by nature, which seemed to have isolated the peninsula amid the
walls of the Himalayas, the formidable deserts of the Indus, and the
yet more formidable expanse of the sea. They delighted in represent-
ing "Hindu wisdom" as a fruit sprung spontaneously from the soil,
a miraculous production due to their power alone. Their fascinating
spell, which still sways so many candid minds, had already had its
effect upon the ancients. Did not Pythagoras, among others, pass
for a disciple of the Brahmans? With a consistency so strict that it
seems to imply a conscious determination, they had put away in-
convenient memories, and if, by chance, tradition forced a real name
upon them, they shrouded it in the mists of a false antiquity. If we
had to trust to their fantastic chronology, a glorious contemporary
of Alexander, Candragupta the Maurya (the Sandrakoptos of the
Greeks), would be placed seventeen centuries before the Christian

TRANSFORMATION IN SANSKRIT STUDIES 107

Era! Of Alexander himself and his expedition they naturally remem-
bered nothing. Up to the time of the Mussulman invasion, too positive
and too near to be by any possibility denied, they pictured India
happy and blissful, enjoying the willing or compelled respect of all
the barbarians of the earth. The positive and exact testimony of the
Greeks and Latins exposed the fraud of the Brahmans; Hellenism,
it was well known, had penetrated victoriously into the " Holy Land."
But it was not enough to bring to light the interested falsehoods of
the priestly caste; science undertook the colossal task of restoring
to India her lost history. Scattered over the vast expanse of the
country, steles, pillars, and rocks could still be met with, on which
were traced inscriptions in enigmatic characters, mute witnesses of
vanished epochs. The patience of investigators — a patience of
genius — succeeded in breaking through their long silence. After
a century of work the political history of the Hindu world begins to
appear to us; still broken up by enormous gaps, confused, uncertain,
calling for cautious judgment. It is still easy to mention dynasties
which waver, according to the differing hypotheses, within a space
of three centuries, the length of time which separates Alexander
from Augustus, the discovery of America from the Independence of
the United States. But, taken as a whole, the picture is already
clear. Political India shows a resemblance to religious India in a
continual production of small groups which combine together,
now and again, to form a system, and fall apart almost immediately.
And this history, which was believed to be as old as the world, does
not begin before the morrow of the Macedonian invasion! We have
not a single line of an inscription which we have the right to date
earlier than this. The epigraphy of India begins with the admirable
sermons which a Buddhist emperor, Ac.oka, caused to be engraved
in every corner of his vast dominions toward the year 250 before
the Christian Era. A happy chance, perhaps some deep excavations,
may open out to epigraphy a more distant horizon; but at the
present time our positive documents do not go beyond the date
mentioned. Sanskrit epigraphy begins still later. It appears in ten-
tative fashion at about the beginning of the Christian Era, but does
not begin to flourish till the middle of the second century. Before
this period the authors of the inscriptions used only dialects, related,
no doubt, to Sanskrit, but greatly disfigured and altered. I am far
from concluding that the Sanskrit language was not formed till this
late epoch; but it must be admitted on this testimony that Sanskrit
was not one of the vulgar tongues of India three centuries before the
birth of Christ. The grammarians who had lovingly fashioned it
had detached it from real life when they gave it fixed forms. Doubt-
less the divorce only became apparent by degrees; the difference
between the spoken language and the written Sanskrit at first only

108 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

seemed to lie in slight shades of correctness or purity; when the
distance widened, the priestly caste remained faithfully attached to
the privileged language that separated it from the illiterate masses;
it consecrated its own language to religion and imposed it on the
orthodox literature. Imagine the Latin of Cicero rescued by the
Christian Church, and, under her patronage, accepted as the language
of literature by all the peoples of Europe, irrespective of spoken
tongues, and you will understand the rdle of the Sanskrit language
and literature in India.

The Brahmans had intended to keep the monopoly of Sanskrit;
they nattered themselves that they shared it with the gods alone.
But two rebellious churches rose up against Brahman pretensions
and marked the hour of their triumph by the conquest of Sanskrit.
Cultivated by the Buddhists and Jains, the mass, already huge, of
Sanskrit literature spread and multiplied in spite of the Brahmans.
But Jainism, after a short time of prosperity, sank into a long torpor
and was forgotten. Buddhism, receiving a mortal blow by the invasion
of Islam, which burnt the convents and massacred or dispersed the
communities, disappeared from Hindu soil. The Brahman had his
revenge; he wreaked his jealous hatred on the remains of the rival
who had disputed empire with him; he thought to efface the last
traces of Buddhism, and preserved the mere name only to execrate
it. But again Western science baffled his calculations.

In 1816, by the force of British arms, a British resident, assisted
by two subordinates, was established at Nepal among the refractory
Gurkhas. Ten years later Hodgson with toilsome perseverance ex-
tracted the still immense ruins of Buddhist Sanskrit literature from
the libraries of Nepal. At about the same time Ceylon, Burma,
and Siam, which had remained faithful to the Law of the Buddha,
yielded up to investigators a still more considerable collection of
works both religious and profane, written in Pali, an ancient dialect,
near to Sanskrit and sprung from the same soil, but independent.

Sanskrit texts and Pali texts, coming from opposite points of the
Indian horizon, brought with them, each one, a body of tradition and
legend on the life of the Buddha and the destinies of the church.
By means of strictly critical comparison it was possible to extract their
part of history from these stories. Burnouf, the successor of Che"zy
at the College de France, undertook this heavy task, undaunted
by the multitude of manuscripts and the variety of languages; by
dint of sagacity, penetration, justice, and reason he accomplished at
the outset a definitive work. His Introduction to the History of Indian
Buddhism remains at the end of half a century of new discoveries
and researches an authority still safe and still consulted.

With Buddhism Sanskrit finally overstepped the frontiers of
India. The bold enterprise of Csoma de Koros, who had shut himself

TRANSFORMATION IN SANSKRIT STUDIES 109

up for several years in a convent of Ladakh, had brought to light an
immense Tibetan library, translated, to a great extent, from San-
skrit originals, some of which were preserved in Nepal, others lost.
China and Japan, thrown open by degrees to Western research,
yielded up in their turn similar collections translated from Sanskrit
originals. The history and literature of China added their testimony
to the power of the movement which, from the beginning of the
Christian Era onwards, carried Indian Buddhism in triumphant
marches as far as the palace of the Son of Heaven and even to the
islands of the sea, fructifying thought, elevating the souls of men,
awakening or transforming art. The memoirs of a Fa-hien, a Hiueri-
tsang, and I-tsing described the pilgrims fascinated by the " Holy
Land," impatient to adore the footprints of the Buddha, braving
the sterile sands and treacherous whirlwinds, the brigands, the
mountains, and the storms of the ocean in order to study the sacred
Sanskrit language and bring back to their own country a reliable
translation, with the authentic words of the master or his disciples.
So strong a movement of expansion must necessarily leave positive
traces; the expansion of Europe at the present day, following the
self-same routes, is bringing about by degrees the discovery of
the monuments of this long-perished past. No sooner was France
mistress of Indo-China than she began her work by an admirable
campaign of archaeological discovery; an immense harvest of inscrip-
tions collected from Cambodia up to Tonkin has revived a history
which was believed to be utterly wiped out. Sanskrit had served
for twelve centuries to immortalize the praises of the sovereigns of
Cambodia and Champa. The Ecole Fran£aise d'Extre'me-Orient,
founded in 1898, is methodically carrying on the work of the early
pioneers; science profits by the fruitful union of Sanskrit and
Chinese, brilliantly accomplished by this school. The rivality of
England and Russia in Central Asia has not been less fruitful. Since
1890 the attention of Indianists has been kept awake by a continuous
series of discoveries. Under the sands of the Takla Makan sleep
Pompeiis, half Hindu in character. Treasure-hunters, according to
the chances of their adventurous expeditions, have .unearthed frag-
ments of ancient manuscripts written in Sanskrit, mingled with
fragments in an unknown language; arithmetic, medicine, sorcery,
astrology, jostle one another in these incongruous leaves. A French
mission has brought from Khotan a manuscript of the Dhammapada
written in a dialect closely resembling Sanskrit and dating, without
doubt, at least fifteen hundred years back. Dr. Stein's mission in
1900 was the beginning of a methodical and first-hand exploration
of the buried ruins; the religious, administrative and artistic history
of Central Asia in the first centuries of the Christian Era shines forth
with unexpected clearness. The patience of scholars is still busied

110 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

with these documents, and, behold, new discoveries are already an-
nounced, due to the Griinwedel and Huth mission. This time we
have to do not with fragments of manuscript, but a text printed on
wood in the Tibetan manner. The work is in Sanskrit, with a marg-
inal title in Chinese, and belongs to the Buddhist Scriptures. What
splendid discoveries are we not justified in hoping for, now, if the
convents of Central Asia have multiplied copies of the sacred canon,
of the Sanskrit Tripitaka, in print!

Thus, a century after its birth, Sanskrit philology sees its field extend
to the limits of man's horizon. By its origin, by its grammar, by its
vocabulary, by its earliest monuments, Sanskrit belongs to the Aryan
group, extending from the mouths of the Ganges to the shores of the
Atlantic. By Alexander's expedition and the creation of new king-
doms to the northwest of India, Indian and Hellenic destinies were
linked together for three or four hundred years. By the expansion
of Buddhism India dominated the politics, the thought, and the art
of the Far East. The childish pride of the Brahmans had thought
to exalt the dignity of the sacred language by presuming to confine
it, like a secret treasure, within the impassable boundaries of India.
Science has once more broken down superstition and revealed a truth
grander than falsehood. No more than any other nation of the wrorld
has India created or developed her civilization alone. Our civilizations ,
by whatever particular name we choose to call them, are the collective
work of humanity. Far from developing in shy isolation, they are
only of worth when they borrow largely. The market of thought,
like the business market, is a continual movement of exchange. On
whatever point of the globe we may live, we are all legitimate heirs
of all the past of humanity; the richest are those who claim most of
that past. Whether applied to India or other regions, historical
studies have grandeur and beauty in so far as they increase the
patrimony of man; they awake in the individual the conscience of
the species; they reveal to us our double debt towards the past
which has formed us, towards the future which we are forming.
Thus they raise the labors of scholarship above a vain dilettantism;
by them her r61e is carried even into practical life, unjustly disdained,
and they show her toiling patiently and consciously for harmony
and progress.

THE MAIN PROBLEMS IN THE FIELD OF INDIAN
LANGUAGES

BY ARTHUR ANTHONY MACDONELL

[Arthur Anthony Macdonell, Boden Professor of Sanskrit, University of Oxford,
and Fellow of Balliol College, b. May, 1854, Mozaffarpur, Bengal, India. M.A.
Oxford, 1883; Ph.D. Leipzig, 1884. Taylorian Teacher of German, Oxford
University, 1880-99; Deputy Professor of Sanskrit, ibid. 1888-99. Member of
German Oriental Society, Royal Asiatic Society, Great Britain and Ireland,
Oxford Philological Society; Oxford University Scholar in German, 1876; in
Chinese, 1877; in Sanskrit, 1878; Chairman of the Board of Oriental Studies,
Oxford University, 1903-05. Author of Sanskrit Dictionary; Sanskrit Grammar;
Vedic Mythology ; History of Sanskrit Literature ; editions of the Sarvanukramani
and the Brhaddevata, etc.]

WHEN about to present a survey of the main problems which
await solution in my subject, the sacred .and classical language
of India in connection with its descendants, the first thought which
occurs to me is that few realize how large a section of the science of
man it covers and how important a part it has played in the history
of civilization. Most people know little further than that Sanskrit is
now studied not only in India but in all the more advanced countries
of Europe and in America. Thus there are now at least four pro-
fessors of Sanskrit in the United States ancl about twenty-five in
German universities. There is already at least one in Japan, where
the subject is beginning to be pretty widely studied. Beyond the
small circle of the initiated, few are, however, really aware that
Sanskrit is the key to the languages and civilization of nearly three
hundred million people in India, that it is, directly or indirectly,
through ancient daughter dialects, the vehicle of the religions of nearly
the whole of that vast population; and that, chiefly through Buddhism,
it has influenced not only the religion, but even to some extent the
laws and customs, of some four hundred millions of the human race
beyond the limits of India. It has thus been instrumental in raising
to a higher level the civilization of nearly one half of the human
race. In fact, what Greece and Rome did for the West, ancient
India may be said to have done for the farther East. The civiliza-
tion which it diffused was, though less advanced, distinguished by
much originality, profound thought, and deep morality, and that
diffusion — what has been so rare in the history of the world — was
a conquest of peace and not of the sword, a conquest made solely by
the influence of literature, religion, and art. Sanskrit literature
and science have had a considerable influence even on the West, -
in the Middle Ages, for example, through the migration of Indian
fables and fairy tales, but especially through the introduction of

112 INDOIRANIAN LANGUAGES

the numerical figures and the decimal system with which the whole
world reckons. The effects of the latter debt on civilization in general
can hardly be overestimated. Again, the discovery of Sanskrit and
its literature led in the nineteenth century to the foundation of the
sciences of Comparative Philology, Comparative Mythology, and
Comparative Religion; and through the first of these sciences it has
appreciably influenced the teaching of Latin and Greek in the schools
of the West. The results obtained from the study of Sanskrit are
also indispensable in the historical investigation of institutions and
customs. Indian studies are here peculiarly important because, with
the single exception of China, India is the only country which has
had a recorded historical development of some 3500 years. Let me
give a few examples to illustrate this remarkable continuity of civil-
ization. Sanskrit is still spoken by thousands of Brahmans as it was
centuries before our era. Nor has it ceased to be used for literary
purposes; for many books and journals written in this ancient
language are still produced. The copying of Sanskrit manuscripts
still goes on in hundreds of libraries in India, unchecked even
by the introduction of printing during the nineteenth century. The
Vedas are still learnt by heart as they were long before the inva-
sion of Alexander, and could even now be restored from the lips of
religious teachers if every manuscript or printed copy of them were
destroyed. A Vedic stanza, of immemorial antiquity, addressed to
the sun-god Savitri, is still recited in the daily worship of the Hindus.
The god Visnu, worshiped more than 3000 years ago, has countless
votaries in India at the present day. The wedding ceremony of the
modern Hindu, to single out but one social custom, is essentially
the same as it was hundreds of years before the Christian Era. The
only true basis of teaching and learning is still considered to be
oral instruction, just as it was in the very earliest times. Owing to
such survivals of language, thought, and custom from the days of
hoary antiquity, a visit to India is of peculiar value to the Sanskrit
scholar. For it is only thus that he can thoroughly realize the
actual facts of Indian civilization, and that the full force of much
that he has read is brought home to him. Let me illustrate this by
the experience of a friend of mine. There is a well-known hymn of
the Rig- Veda, in which the sound produced by pupils repeating their
lessons is compared with that made by frogs during the rains:

" When one repeats the utterance of the other
Like those who learn the lessons of their teacher."

My friend, a Sanskrit scholar, was a few years ago asked to visit
a school for native boys in the district of Behar. As he entered the
building, the croaking of the frogs in a neighboring watercourse
sounded loud in his ears. Making his way through various passages,
he at last came to a long corridor, where he was greatly surprised

PROBLEMS IN INDIAN LANGUAGES 113

to hear the same sound with extraordinary distinctness. The door
opened, and he stood face to face with a class of Hindu boys repeating
their lesson in unison.

In the domain of linguistic study India occupies a unique position.
For practically all the languages of this continent, shut off from the
rest of the world by its huge mountain barrier, and equal in extent
to the whole of Europe excepting Russia, can be traced to a single
ancient tongue through a recorded development of some 3500 years.
India may, in fact, be regarded as the linguistic delta formed by the
stream of Sanskrit speech which, a thousand years before the found-
ation of Rome, broke, like the mighty river which gives the whole
country its name, through the stupendous mountains of the north-
west. For this vast period we have linguistic records registering
every step of development with a completeness which, especially in
its earliest stages, is unparalleled in the history of any other branch
of the Indo-European family of speech. At the present day there are
in India about a dozen languages descended from the oldest form of
Sanskrit and subdivided into nearly 300 dialects, which are spoken
by about 220,000,000 of people. Beside them are the four main Dra-
vido-Munda languages which represent the aboriginal speech of India,
and are spoken by some 60,000,000. These have, however, been
Sanskritized at various periods, while their literature is based on
Sanskrit models. These forms of aboriginal speech, existing either
below or cropping up through the Sanskritic alluvium, furnish, as we
shall see, some highly interesting and important problems to the
linguistic investigator which have hardly yet been touched by
scientifically trained scholars. In this connection I may mention that
modern India furnishes many striking examples disproving the old
theory which classified races according to the languages spoken by
them. Thus the tribes called Bhil at present speak only three
debased Sanskritic languages, though it is ethnologically certain
that they belong to the aboriginal race. Other aboriginal tribes
partly still retain their primitive tongue, but have partly adopted
Sanskritic dialects. There is indeed every reason to believe that
a very large proportion of the Hindu population which now speaks
Sanskritic vernaculars represents the descendants of the aboriginal
race with hardly any admixture of Aryan blood.

As the history of the Indian languages admits of being traced
continuously in their successive stages from the earliest period,
it will, I think, conduce to clearness if, in considering the problems
which they offer at the present day, we follow the chronological
order of their development.

Owing to the extraordinary interest created in Europe by the
discovery of Sanskrit a century and a quarter ago and the undoubted
importance which it possesses, the attention of trained scholars

114 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

has been almost exclusively directed to the study of the earliest
linguistic phase of India. In consequence of this, coupled with the
fact that the study of Sanskrit in Europe began in a scientific age,
we have not only long possessed a Sanskrit Dictionary which in
comprehensiveness and accuracy surpasses that of any other dead
language; but also a grammar dealing on historical principles with
the Sanskrit language by that great American scholar, W. D. Whitney,
which stands unequaled in a similar way. As having led to the
foundation of comparative philology, Sanskrit long maintained
an exaggerated preeminence in that science. This was followed
about thirty years ago by a reaction which, starting from the dis-
covery that the vowel-system of Sanskrit is less primitive than that
of the European languages, tended to assign quite a subordinate
position to Sanskrit. Though I have from my student days at the
University of Gottingen given a good deal of attention to compar-
ative philology, I do not consider myself entitled to express an
authoritative opinion on the details of this science. I nevertheless
venture to make the general assertion that Sanskrit still occupies
and will continue to occupy a dominant position in comparative
grammar. By this I mean that, if all the linguistic material supplied
by Sanskrit were eliminated, the lacunaB in comparative philology
would be immeasurably greater than if the linguistic material of any
other Indo-European language were lacking. This seems to me to
be evident in the great authoritative work of Professor Brugmann,
the leader of comparative philology at the present day. It will, I
have little doubt, be still more clearly established on the comple-
tion of the comparative Sanskrit grammar of Professor Wacker-
nagel, of Gottingen, the second volume of which was passing through
the press before I left England and has since (1905) appeared. This
work will, I think, surpass all other comparative grammars of indi-
vidual Indo-European languages hitherto published, both in fullness
of detail and scientific trustworthiness.

Since in the early days of Sanskrit studies, European scholars
became acquainted only with that later phase of the ancient lan-
guage of India which is familiar to the Pandits, and is commonly
known as Classical Sanskrit, research remained almost entirely
limited to that dialect till about the middle of the nineteenth century.
Since then the earlier language of the Vedas has been assiduously
investigated in Europe and America. All the four Vedas have long
been accessible in thoroughly scientific editions, and much progress
has been made in the study of their language, their matter, and their
mutual relations. The Vedas have been proved by internal evidence
to be considerably anterior to the rise of Buddhism, that is, to have
been composed long before 600 B.C. The language of the three lesser
Vedas has further been shown to be posterior to that of the most

PROBLEMS IN INDIAN LANGUAGES 115

important, the Rig- Veda, through the application of the statistical
method by Professor Whitney, to whom the historical investigation
of Sanskrit owes more than to any other scholar, as well as by Pro-
fessor Lanman and others. Moreover, in the hymns of the Rig- Veda
itself, the existence of chronological strata has been discovered,
and some important general results have been arrived at, chiefly
by the labors of Professor Lanman, Professor Oldenberg, and the late
Abel Bergaigne. The most prominent problem which here confronts
Vedic scholarship is, by means of the minute investigation of all the
available evidence, phonetic, grammatical, lexicographical, metrical,
to ascertain the lines of demarcation dividing these literary strata.
The solution of this problem is of the highest importance for the
history of the Sanskrit language and literature. The work on Vedic
Meter recently (1905) published by Professor E. V. Arnold, of Ban-
gor, Wales, contributes valuable material to its solution as far as
the metrical evidence of the Rig-Veda is concerned.

Another unsolved problem, which partly depends on the one just
mentioned, is the approximate age of the Vedic language and litera-
ture, and the approximate date of the Aryan migration into the north-
west of India. Its solution appears to me to have made no advance
during the last forty-five years. Indeed, the question seems to be
invested with more doubt now than it was then. For there is, at the
present time, a difference of more than 3000 years between the
lowest and the highest estimate of the beginning of the Vedic age. I
cannot help thinking that this enormous divergence will, by patient
investigation, be reduced to one of a very%few centuries. Professor
Jacobi's astronomical theory based on the doubtful interpretation
of a Vedic word, which would indicate that the rainy season in the
early Vedic period began under astronomical conditions different from
those of later times, is ingenious, but has in my opinion been refuted
by Professor Oldenberg. According to this theory, the Vedic period
would begin about 4500 B.C. It seems to me quite incredible that
the comparatively small divergence between the language of the
earliest Vedic period and that of Panini (who dates from about
300 B.C.), a divergence hardly greater than that between Homeric
and Attic Greek, should have required more than 4000 years to
accomplish. Considering how very closely the language of the oldest
part of the Avesta, the Gathas, estimated to date from about 600 B.C.,
approximates to that of the oldest Veda, I find it hard to believe
that very many centuries could have elapsed from the time when the
Indians and Persians were still one people. In fact, 1500 B.C. seems
to me to be rather a high estimate for the approximate date at
which the Indo-Iranians separated and the Indians invaded the
northwest of India. More definite knowledge of the chronology of
the Rig- Veda, coupled with all the evidence which Iranian philology

116 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

can bring to bear, and the careful comparison of analogous phases of
ascertainable duration in other dead languages, can hardly fail to
lead to much greater certainty than is at present attainable.

A further problem presented by the Vedic language is the true
principle to be followed in interpreting the meanings of words
which are either exclusively Vedic or seem to have a different sense
from that which they bear in Classical Sanskrit. All scholars are
agreed that interpretation based exclusively on comparative philology
on the one hand, or native commentators on the other, cannot lead
to satisfactory results. At the same time there is a school of Sanskrit-
ists who tend to bring down the Vedas, as being exclusively Indian
literary products, linguistically too close to the Classical Sanskrit
period, and to color their interpretation too strongly with the thought
of that period. To speak of a work as purely Indian does not neces-
sarily take us much beyond fixing the geographical limits of its
origin. Beowulf is a purely English poem, but I doubt whether more
light is not shed on its language and thought by the Old Saxon
literature of the Continent than by the English literature of the age
of Tennyson. The principle advocated by Professor Oldenberg of
admitting every form of evidence, even extra-Indian, which is cap-
able of throwing light on the interpretation of the Vedas, appears to
me to be the correct one. What is at present wanted is defmiteness
in laying down the limitations which shpuld be imposed on the two
divergent methods I have indicated.

A branch of this problem is the true relation of Vedic myths
to the forms which they present in post- Vedic literature. Some
scholars hold that the latter shed much light on the interpretation
of the former; others that they add nothing to our knowledge of the
former, and are sometimes even based on a mi^mderstanding of
them. I cannot help thinking that the efforts which have hitherto
been made to illuminate obscure Vedic legends from the material of
the later period have not proved at all fruitful. Judgment should,
however, be suspended on the question as a whole, till all the avail-
able material has been examined in its historical connection.

We already know pretty clearly, in a general way, the various
phases through which the ancient language of India, by the gradual
loss of grammatical forms, — a process of decay rather than of
growth, — finally arrived at the stage stereotyped by the grammar
of Panini about 300 B. c. These phases have, however, yet to be
treated in greater detail and to be separated with greater definiteness
than has hitherto been done. It is intended that this task should be
accomplished in forthcoming contributions to Biihler and Kielhorn's
Encyclopedia of Indo-Aryan Research, dealing with the language of
the Vedas (by myself), and with that of the later period beginning
with the Brahmanas (by Professor Luders).

PROBLEMS IN INDIAN LANGUAGES 117

It is well known that Sanskrit has continued to be written and
spoken by the Brahmans from Panini's time down to the present
day. The grammar has, of course, remained unchanged; but the
construction and style have been to some extent modified, while
many words have been borrowed from the Sanskritic vernaculars,
some even from the aboriginal dialects. The problem as to the extent
of such influences on the Sanskrit both of the earlier and later period
has yet to be treated as a whole.

This brings us to the daughters of Sanskrit, the Prakrits, or ver-
naculars, which have been spoken in India from Vedic times down
to the present day. Three main stages can be distinguished in their
history. The ancient Prakrits may be regarded as coming down to
about the beginning of our era, the medieval Prakrits to about
1000 A.D., and the modern Prakrits down to the present day. There
is evidence to show that, even as early as the time of the Vedas,
vernaculars derived from the earliest form of Vedic language existed,
since borrowed words of the Prakrit type are to be found in the
Vedas, though not to the same extent as in later Sanskrit. The ex-
act extent to which vernacular words have been introduced into the
Vedic vocabulary has yet to be examined. We know that in the
sixth century B.C. Buddha preached his doctrine in a vernacular
dialect because the masses were no longer able to understand San-
skrit. We also know that the form of ancient Prakrit called Pali
was introduced into Ceylon along with Buddhism in the third century
B.C., and has ever since remained the sacred language of the southern
or purest form of Buddhism. It is a striking testimony to the anti-
quity of Sanskrit that a daughter language should have been thus
stereotyped long before the beginning of our era.

The literature of Pali is both extensive and important; more
important in some respects even than that of Sanskrit. For it em-
braces in their purest tradition the doctrines of Buddhism, a religion
which has been so potent an engine of civilization in countries beyond
the limits of India. It contains, moreover, a large amount of material
capable of shedding light on the social history of India during the
early centuries of our era, in a way which Sanskrit literature cannot
do. As the earliest recorded literary daughter of Sanskrit, it occupies
a position second only to the parent tongue in the linguistic history of
India. By the devoted labors of a very few scholars, a surprising
amount of work has already been done in the editing and translating
of Pali texts, in utilizing the matter contained in them — as appears
from such works as Professor Oldenberg's Buddha and Rhys Davids'
Buddhistic India, as well as in pioneering linguistic studies. But
vastly more still remains to be done. Many texts have yet to be
edited, others must be re-edited in a form better adapted to the
advancement of scholarship. Many important Pali works have yet

118 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

to be translated. All the material which is contained in the whole
range of this literature and bears on the history of Buddhist India
will have to be extracted and worked up. And after all this has been
done a critical history of Pali literature will have to be written.
Among the most urgent needs in the field of Pali scholarship at the
present day, however, is the compilation both of a comprehensive
and thoroughly scientific grammar and of a dictionary resembling
the Sanskrit work of Bohtlingk and Roth, which will include all
the lexicographical material that has become available during the
last thirty years since the publication of Childers' lexicon. A Pali
grammar of the kind I have indicated will no doubt be supplied
by the work which Professor Otto Franke, of Konigsberg, is about
to contribute to Bvihler and Kielhorn's Encyclopaedia of Indo-Aryan
Research. As to the Pali Dictionary, Professor Rhys Davids is at
present planning one on a large scale in cooperation with some other
scholars. It is sincerely to be hoped that this undertaking, which
would do more than anything else to promote Pali studies, will not
be retarded or frustrated by want of funds.

If research in the field of Pali is to be advanced in the manner which
the extent and importance of the subject demand, the establishment
of a few chairs of Pali is essential. At present there is, I believe, not
a single salaried professorship of Pali in Europe or America. Pali
studies are meanwhile being carried on either by a few professors
of Sanskrit, chiefly in Germany, or by scholars who, being obliged to
make their livelihood in some other way, are able to devote only
a scanty leisure to their favorite pursuit. I have, for some time past,
been urging the advisability of founding a chair of Pali in the Uni-
versity of Oxford, where Oriental subjects are otherwise very fully
represented. I do not, however, feel confident of success unless
some generous benefactor should step in. Perhaps the King of Siam,
the only Buddhist monarch in the world, who is well known to be
a munificent patron of Pali learning, having himself published on
a magnificent scale a complete set of the Pali canon in Siam, may
come forward as the founder of the first chair of Pali in the West.

As to the old Prakrits, they are known to have had a continuous
recorded existence in the form of inscriptions for several centuries,
beginning with the rock and pillar edicts of Asoka, the Buddhist
Emperor of the third century B.C., which are scattered all over India.
These early Prakrit inscriptions, as well as the Sanskrit ones which
begin to appear in the second century A.D., have been to a large
extent published; but many of them, owing to defective reproduc-
tion, will have to be re-edited. Epigraphical research would be
greatly advanced by collecting all these inscriptions within the
compass of a single work in a critical edition. The reconstruction
of the political history of the period from this material, together

PROBLEMS IN INDIAN LANGUAGES 119

with the evidence of contemporary coins, remains an important
problem to be solved by Indian scholarship. Medieval Prakrit has,
further, a recorded literary use from about 400 A.D., mainly as the
vehicle, in a particular dialect, of the extensive religious writings of
the Jains. It was, however, also employed in the composition of
secular works, for instance epic poems, and as the language spoken,
in various dialects, by the less educated classes in the Sanskrit
dramas. Only one play composed entirely in Prakrit, and dating
from about 900 A.D., is extant. This work has been edited in model
fashion, by Dr. Konow, as well as translated by Professor Lanman,
in the Harvard Oriental Series. I may observe, in passing, that that
series promises to mark a new stage in the method of editing Indian
texts. It will, I think, for the first time set an example of how
texts should really be edited so as to bring out their full value as
instruments of further research. I myself completed, just before
leaving England, a contribution to the series in two volumes, in
which this object has been kept steadily in view.

A vast advance in the study of medieval Prakrit has been made
by the publication of Professor Pischel's epoch-making Prakrit
grammar in Biihler and Kielhorn's Encyclopaedia. Now for the first
time the phonology and inflection of the various Prakrit dialects have
been stated and distinguished. The main thing that has to be done
is to bring out thoroughly scholar-like editions of the large number
of Prakrit texts which exist. It is only on such a foundation that the
various dialects of Prakrit can be satisfactorily kept apart and their
exact historical relationships to the Aryan vernaculars of modern
India clearly defined. Unfortunately the workers are here even
fewer than in the field of Pali studies, though a small band of pri-
marily Sanskrit scholars, such as Weber, Biihler, Pischel, Jacobi,
Leumann, have already done much valuable pioneering work. Hence
the time is probably far distant when the whole of Prakrit literature
will be accessible in a thoroughly trustworthy form, when its lin-
guistic facts will have been sifted throughout, when its history
will have been written, and when all the material extracted from
it will have been utilized to fill in many of the details wanting to
complete the still very imperfect picture we at present have of the
social, political, and religious aspects of India down to the period of
the Muhammadan conquest about 1000 A.D.

About the beginning of our era the Buddhists, and to a less extent
the Jains, commenced to learn Sanskrit, so that by the tenth century
Sanskrit was practically the only literary language of India. In this
way Sanskrit became almost the exclusive vehicle of the literature of
northern Buddhism, which spread to Nepal, Tibet, and China. With
it a vast number of Sanskrit Buddhistic works were introduced into
those countries and translated into Tibetan and Chinese. Thus

120 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

there is still in existence the large encyclopedia called Tanjur,
comprising a collection of 200 translations of Sanskrit works, so
faithfully rendered into Tibetan, that where the corresponding
Sanskrit text has been preserved and it happens to contain a lacuna,
the missing Sanskrit words can be restored with certainty. Among
the Sanskrit originals discovered in the countries where these trans-
lations have been preserved is the grammar of the Buddhist Can-
dragomin, found in Nepal only a few years ago. The Tibetan trans-
lation enabled Professor Liebig, in his edition of the text, to emend
successfully some passages which were defective in the original.
Diligent search will, it is to be hoped, result in the recovery of many
Sanskrit works (at least as far as Buddhist literature is concerned)
of which at present only the Tibetan or Chinese translations are
known. Much might have been expected in this direction from the
British occupation of Lhassa, where the monasteries must contain
many manuscript treasures, but the absence of any Sanskrit scholar
in the expeditionary force will, I fear, preclude the discovery of valu-
able Sanskrit manuscripts such as would probably have resulted,
had an energetic scholar of the type of my friend Doctor Stein,
accompanied the British troops.

Patient search may also lead to the recovery of some of the originals
of the numerous Sanskrit Buddhist works which were translated
into Chinese from the first century of our era onwards. Much may
be hoped in this direction from the labors of the Society of Oriental
Research recently founded in Japan, one of the objects of which is
to examine systematically the monasteries and temples of China
and Corea with a view to the discovery of Sanskrit manuscripts.
What is possible in this way will be apparent from the following
example. By the year 1879 all knowledge of Sanskrit had died out
in Japan. In that year two young Japanese Buddhists, named
Nanjio and Kasawara, were attracted by the influence of Max Miiller
to learn Sanskrit at Oxford, in order to study Buddhist texts in the
original Sanskrit as well as in Chinese translations. Through these
young scholars (whom I taught Sanskrit during the first year of
their studies), Max Miiller caused investigations to be made in
Japan, which soon led to the discovery, in an ancient monastery,
of a Sanskrit work dating from the sixth century A.D. and at that
time (1880) the oldest Sanskrit manuscript known.

The works of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims who visited India in
the fifth and seventh centuries A.D. mention a large number of
geographical and personal Indian names, the identification of which
is of great importance to Indian history. The transformations which
these words undergo, owing to the widely divergent character of
Chinese phonetics, often render their identification purely conjectural
in the present state of our knowledge. An important problem here

PROBLEMS IN INDIAN LANGUAGES 121

awaits solution on the part of those who are thorough Chinese as
well as Sanskrit scholars. It will consist in ascertaining on scientific
principles the phonetic laws according to which, in different centuries
and in different dialects, the Chinese language has reproduced the
corresponding Sanskrit sounds. Mr. Nanjio, the Buddhist scholar
I have already mentioned, and another Japanese who studied San-
skrit for three years at Oxford, and is now Professor of Sanskrit in
the University of Tokyo, are at present engaged on investigations of
this character. I hope that in the course of two or three years the
results of their labors will be published and materially advance our
knowledge of the history of India down to about 700 A.D.

We now come to the third period of the languages descended from
the earliest form of Sanskrit, the beginning of which about syn-
chronizes with the Muhammadan invasion of India and with the
conquest of England by the Normans in the eleventh century. Down
to the end of the second period the Prakrits, though phonetically
and inflectionally much worn down, were still synthetic languages.
But from the eleventh century onwards we find that the tertiary
Prakrits, the literatures of which date from the thirteenth and later
centuries, have assumed an analytic character, or in other words,
replace inflection by the use of prepositions and periphrastic forms,
much as modern English has done in comparison with Anglo-Saxon.

At the present day these Indo- Aryan tongues, spoken, as I have
already said, by 220,000,000 of people, consist of nine main lan-
guages. The most numerously spoken is Hindi, with 63,000,000;
then comes Bengali with 45,000,000; Bihari with 35,000,000; Oriya,
Rajasthani, Gujarati, with about 10,000,000 each; Marat hi with
18,000,000; Panjabi with 17,000,000; and the group of which Sindhi
is the principal tongue, with 8,000,000.

A comparative grammar of the chief languages was written as
much as thirty years ago, and has proved a useful pioneering work;
but it is no longer up to the knowledge or scientific standard of the
present day. One of the main problems in the study of modern
Aryan languages of India is the production of a thoroughly scientific
comparative grammar based on a more scholarly investigation of the
individual languages than has hitherto been made. Grammars and
dictionaries of all the principal languages have been compiled, but
most of them, though often of much practical value, are the work
of untrained scholars and therefore leave a good deal to be desired as
a basis of research. They deal, moreover, for the most part, only
with the literary form of the language. The non-literary dialects of
the uneducated, which are linguistically of great importance, have
been hitherto almost entirely neglected, and thus offer practically
a virgin field to the philologist. They are all the more important
owing to the extreme lengths to which the introduction of Sanskrit

122 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

words has been carried in some of the literary vernaculars, notably
Bengali. Among these vernaculars, Hindustani, which came into
literary use in the sixteenth century and is also the lingua franca of
India, is perhaps of least importance from a linguistic point of view,
since it is a form of the Sanskritic Western Hindi which has been
artificially filled with Persian words. The unadulterated natural
vernaculars often present features of great interest to the philo-
logist. Thus in the speech of Kashmir we see a language which is
caught in the act of transforming itself from the analytic into the
synthetic stage, and thus reentering the linguistic cycle through
which it has already passed. The chief problems which these
vernaculars present to the philologist are the accurate demarcation
of the main languages, as well as of their numerous dialects, and
the influence which has been exercised by foreign languages on
their phonetics, vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. Thus not only
have many Persian words been adopted by Hindustani, but sev-
eral have found their way even into the non-literary vernaculars.
Again, we already know that the Dravidian languages have af-
fected the phonology not only of Sanskrit and the old Prakrits,
but also of the modern vernaculars. It has also, for instance, been
shown with probability that contact with the Tibeto-Burmese lan-
guages has introduced a certain form of passive construction into
the Aryan vernaculars.

By the side of the Sanskritic tongues, the language spoken by
the aborigines of India who were conquered by the invading Aryans
still survives in various forms. Spoken by about sixty millions of
the inhabitants of India, it is represented by two main branches,
the Dravidian and the Munda, which have the common character-
istics of being agglutinative in formation and of possessing only
two genders, the one designating animate and the other inanimate
objects. The four main Dravidian languages are Telugu, with a
population of about 21,000,000, Tamil with 16,500,000, Canarese
with over 10,000,000, and Malayalam with 6,000,000. These four
languages have already been the subject of considerable study,
almost entirely on the part of missionaries, who have often acquired
a thorough practical and literary knowledge of them. But the
linguistic value of the work, in other respects often important, pub-
lished by these scholars is considerably diminished by the absence
of philological training. The dangers arising from the lack of such
a qualification may be illustrated by the following example. An
acquaintance of mine, who possesses a very extensive linguistic and
literary knowledge of one of the non- Aryan tongues of India, one day
remarked to me : " What a strange thing it is that the Sanskrit word
for horse and the English for donkey should be the same " [meaning
asva and ass]. A remark like that throws a flood of light on a man's

PROBLEMS IN INDIAN LANGUAGES 123

philological equipment. These Dravidian languages are full of
Sanskrit or Prakrit words borrowed at different periods; those
adopted at late date are easily recognizable; but others, which go
back to the time of early contact with Aryan civilization, have been
so worn down and assimilated as to be indistinguishable, except to
the trained scholar, from ordinary Dravidian words. A leading
problem in connection with these languages will be the ascertain-
ment of the phonetic laws by which the Sanskritic elements may be
detected, as well as the mutual influences of Sanskrit and Dravidian
determined. Singhalese, the very interesting vernacular of Ceylon,
presents a cognate problem. Here we have a language which has
been shown to have an Aryan basis due to the introduction of Pali,
as the sacred language of Buddhism, in the third century B.C. The
Tamil elements are, however, so considerable, that Singhalese was
long regarded as a Dravidian tongue. The scientific disentangle-
ment of the various strands of this language 'will furnish much
material of historical interest. How much historical information
a single word may convey, the following instance will show. The
word was is used in Ceylon to designate the holiday-time in the
summer months when the weather is settled, and, during the bright
moonlight nights, the people listen for hours to the recitation of
edifying works like the Jatakas, or tales of the incarnations of
Buddha. This word is ultimately derived from the Sanskrit varsa,
meaning the rainy season, the time when the mendicants in the
plains of northern India returned to their monasteries and devoted
themselves to the study of religious books. The term thus preserves
an historical connection with the original practice by indicating the
cause which led to it, though in the modern survival of that practice
in Ceylon the cause is altogether non-existent.

On the northeast and the east of India the Tibeto-Burman family
of speech forms a non- Aryan linguistic fringe. Here we have a pecul-
iarly interesting field for research in Nepal, a country in which some
thirty different dialects are spoken and which has been Hinduized
by an admixture of Rajputs, but at the same time is one of the
richest repositories of Buddhist antiquities. It was within the bor-
ders of this state that only a few years ago the site of Buddha's
birthplace, Kapilavastu, was discovered, a site which when ex-
cavated is likely to yield material of almost unrivaled interest to the
Indian archaeologist. Then there is Burma, which, like Siam, has
experienced both a Sanskrit influence through Hinduism and a Pali
influence through Buddhism. Hence the scientific investigation of
Burmese, as well as Siamese, which is still a task of the future,
should, with the aid of archaeology, furnish results throwing much
light on the linguistic, religious, and social history of those coun-
tries.

124 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

The labors of the Linguistic Survey of India, which have been carried
on during recent years under the auspices of the Indian Government
and under the able direction of Dr. G. A. Grierson, will vastly advance
our knowledge of the classification, the relationships, and the general
linguistic character of all the languages of India and of their almost
innumerable dialects. Six of the sixteen parts which will embody
the work- of the Survey have already appeared. The results of the
Survey as a whole have also been summarized and form a part of
the Indian Census Report for 1901, which has been published in three
volumes (1903). This report, which contains a vast amount of valu-
able information regarding the present condition of the population
of India in its various aspects, well deserves to be studied by all who
are interested in Indian affairs.

In conclusion, I should like to make some observations regard-
ing Indian languages from an educational point of view. The main
problem here seems to me to be, how Sanskrit, which, together with
its literature, is the key to the languages and civilization of modern
India, is to be made the instrument of mental training in the schools
and universities of India, as Latin and Greek are in Europe and
America. At present it is by no means such an instrument, either
under the native traditional system or the European method of
teaching Sanskrit in India. The native system consists in learning
certain books by an abnormal exercise of memory, to the great
detriment of the reasoning powers. It is bound to die out with the
spread of Western educational methods, which must take its place.
Western methods, however, as at present applied in the Government
colleges, to the teaching of Sanskrit, are even more unsatisfactory.
For memory is still the main faculty relied on, and that in a much
less disinterested way. A certain number of books, prescribed in a
somewhat haphazard way, are got up, generally with the aid of inade-
quate editions, not with a view to knowing them, but solely to passing
the examinations necessary for the attainment of a degree. The evil
is aggravated by the fact that the Indian Government has of late
years adopted the policy of appointing only native scholars to chairs
of Sanskrit. The consequence is that there is no longer any means
of teaching native students Sanskrit scientifically or of training
them in methods of research. Under these conditions there will
before long not be a Sanskrit scholar in the true sense of the word
left in India. The sort of scholarship to be expected in future will be
of the type indicated by the following anecdote. According to a rule
of the Bibliotheca Indica, no text was allowed to be edited in that
series except from three independent manuscripts. A certain native
scholar wished to edit here a text of which he possessed one manu-
script only. The difficulty would have appeared insurmountable
to the Occidental. But the Indian mind is nothing if not ingenious.

PROBLEMS IN INDIAN LANGUAGES 125

Our Sanskrit friend handed his manuscript to his Pandit copyists,
and then there were three ! I have little doubt that there was now
a plentiful crop of various readings for collation which in footnotes
would give an edition quite a critical appearance.

The remedy for this deplorable state of things appears to me to
be in the first place the nomination of a few trained European
scholars to Sanskrit chairs in each presidency to insure the spread
and continuity of scientific methods of teaching and research in
India. In the second place, a committee of experts might be ap-
pointed to examine the whole question of the teaching of Sanskrit
in Indian schools and colleges, and to make recommendations with
a view to securing an adequate curriculum and the publication of
suitable text-books in connection with it. I believe that by such
means Sanskrit, the classical language of the Hindus, could be made
a potent agency not only in stimulating and training the intellectual
faculties, but also, by enabling the Hindus to understand their own
civilization historically, in spreading that enlightenment which will
be the surest means of delivering the Indian people from the bondage
of caste which has held them enthralled for more than 2000 years.
Before the advance of such knowledge the mass of irrational prejudice
which so cruelly divides class from class must gradually disappear, as
the mists of night melt away before the rising sun. Sanskrit learning
might thus be made to contribute to that elevation of the human
race which is the ultimate aim of all the arts and sciences repre-
sented and coordinated at this great and unique Congress.

SECTION D — GREEK LANGUAGE

SECTION D — GREEK LANGUAGE

(Hall 3, September 22, 3 p. m.)

CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR MARTIN L. D'OoGE, University of Michigan.
SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR HERBERT WEIR SMYTH, Harvard University.

PROFESSOR MILTON W. HUMPHREYS, University of Virginia.
SECRETARY: PROFESSOR J. E. HARRY, University of Cincinnati.

THE Chairman of the Section of Greek Language was Professor
Martin L. D'Ooge, of the University of Michigan, who congratulated
the members of the Section upon the abundant evidence that is at
hand to show that Greek is a vital study and an educational force
of no small power. The speaker said in part:

"As one reviews the work done by the scholars of Europe and
America in this field of learning for the last thirty years, the con-
viction is borne in upon him that never before in the history of
scholarship has so much fruitful activity been shown in this depart-
ment of learning. Greek has certainly shared to the full in the
intellectual quickening so characteristic of the modern age.

" With the increase of material for study, due to the explorations
of archaeologists and to the discovery of new inscriptions and manu-
scripts, many old theories have been exploded, many new views
have been gained, and fresh light has been thrown upon problems
that vexed our forefathers.

" There is another matter that calls for congratulation. I refer to
the changed spirit in which Greek is learned and taught nowadays.
The ancient Greek is no longer a dead mummy, but simply an older
contemporary, whose thought and life are part of our own. Thanks
in part to the influence of our American School of Classical Studies
at Athens, the old Greek life has been made a reality, and the meaning
of Greek literature has become understood and appreciated as never
before. To read Homer in the light of the discoveries at Hissarlik
and Mycenae; to feel the thrill of the magnificent odes of the The-
ban poet on the plain of Olympia in sight of the stadium; to catch
the music of the beautiful chorals of Sophocles in the theatre of Dio-
nysos at Athens, — how the old Greek life with all its fascinations
throbs anew within the scholar's veins; and how infectious it
becomes to those who sit at the feet of a teacher thus inspired.

" It is not my task to review in connection with the event commem-
orated by this Exposition, under whose auspices this Congress is held,
the contributions made by the scholars of Europe to Hellenic learning
during the century that has elapsed since the Louisiana Purchase.

130 GREEK LANGUAGE

It is, however, my duty and privilege, on behalf of my compatriots
and associates to express to our brethren across the sea our profound
gratitude for the great service they have rendered us of this newer
world in quickening our torch of learning in order that here on this
western continent may be kindled many an altar of Athena and that
this western civilization may be saved from crass commercialism
and vulgarity by the spirit of Hellenic Culture."

THE GREEK LANGUAGE IN ITS RELATION TO THE
PSYCHOLOGY OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS

BY HERBERT WEIR SMYTH

[Herbert Weir Smyth, Eliot Professor of Greek Literature, Harvard University.
b. 1857, Wilmington, Delaware. A.B. Swarthmore College, 1876; A.B. Harvard
University, 1878; A.M. and Ph.D. University of Gottingen, 1884. Instructor in
Latin and Sanskrit, Williams College, 1883-85; Reader in Greek Literature,
Johns Hopkins University, 1885-88; Professor of Greek, Bryn Mawr College,
1888-1901; Professor of Greek, Harvard University, 1901-02; since 1902 Eliot
Professor of Greek Literature; Professor of the Greek Language and Litera-
ture, American School of Classical Studies, Athens, 1899-1900. Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences; President of the American Philo-
logical Association, 1904-05.]

BEFORE the battle of Plataea, when the Spartan ambassadors urged
Athens to reject the proposals made by the envoys of the Medes, the
Athenians responded that they could never betray the cause of
Greece, allied as it was by blood and language, the common sanc-
tuaries and sacrifices to the gods, and the community of Hellenic
customs (Herodotus 8, 144).

This is the earliest conscious formulation of the conception of
nationality extant in the history of Europe; though the impulses
making for a national Hellenic unity must have been dimly felt
long before the fifth century B.C., perhaps when the separate immi-
grant tribes from the north first came into contact with "Carian"
civilization. If we add to the definition (what is latent in the utter-
ance of the Athenians), the will of the different members of a people to
regard descent, language, religion, and customs as common ties, we
have the mint-marks of ancient nationality, in effect the conscious-
ness of the same past that carries with it the prospect of the same
future. Nationality is not identical with patriotism, nor yet with
racial affinity. Nor is it as objective elements, but as the conscious
expression of Hellenic feeling, that language and descent derive their
significance as factors of national sentiment. Despite the variations
in speech of almost every state or canton, the Greeks recognized
that a common language marked their individuality as a people;
though it was not till the third century A.D. that, with but one
notable exception, the last of the local dialects had given way before
the Koine, which, after Alexander, first attained the position of a
"high" Greek, and finally, together with Aramaic and Latin, became
one of the so-called world-languages of ancient times.

Doubtless Wilhelm von Humboldt and Schelling went too far in
maintaining that the individuality of a people is created by its lan-
guage. The speech of the Hellenes, we should rather say, is one of
the products of their national mind, a product in which their national

132 GREEK LANGUAGE

mind most readily, and perhaps first, gave expression to its individu-
ality. Though national differences are marked by language rather
than created by it, language more than any other expression of
national life displays the native endowments of a people and dis-
closes the innermost physiognomy of its nationality.1

It is to certain aspects of this general theme, the language of the
Greeks as the most complete expression of their national psychology,
that I especially invite your attention. An adequate treatment of
this theme carries with it an attempt to characterize the language
from certain psychological points of view and to discuss certain
qualities of national character. By singling out some departments of
the investigation of Greek that deserve ampler attention than they
receive at present, I shall endeavor to open up here and there certain
avenues of approach to that ideal which we all have in mind, —
a history of the Greek tongue in its relations to the other factors of
Greek life. We have, indeed, many Greek grammars, but no history
of Greek speech as an index of Greek nationality.

A thesis that has as its basis the determination of the national
mind of any people is of course open to the objection that the concep-
tion of national mind is elusive. Nor need one have any hesitation
in admitting that the science of national psychology, as set forth
by its adherents, is liable to error on every hand, and nowhere more
fatally than when it descends to arguments drawn from the rigid
insistence on the details of national character and soul. Terms
denoting the characteristics of nationality may be easily extended
in their application beyond their legitimate scope. Phenomena of
language may be interpreted in different ways. The necessities of
one language may be the luxuries of another; thus the relations
of time may be much more strictly expressed in one language than
in another, which is therefore not obscure in this regard; error is
possible in ascribing to one people a conservative character, to an-
other a progressive spirit, because of the retention or abandonment
of inherited sounds (as the vowels and especially the diphthongs, the
aspirates, the spirants, final consonants), cases (the locative, instru-
mental, ablative), or the tenses and moods (the aorist, the optative),
and in many other particulars, such as the dual number. Then there
is the danger of seeking to discover marks of capacity for emotion
or of individuality in the attribution of gender to senseless things.
But more than all, as the individual in his totality resists final
psychological analysis, so, a fortiori, the nation. Especially in the
case of ancient peoples we lack the means to arrive at even a partial
conception of the national soul; the total outcome of our investiga-

1 F. A. Wolf maintained the unique hypothesis that Greek mirrored the life of the
nation without distortion because it was not till late that the language fell under
the control of the grammarians.

GREEK AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS 133

tion is the mere moraine cast upon the surface by the movement of
the glacier forces of national existence.

The national type furthermore seems to vanish in the presence
of the individual. The student of national types, like the traveler,
constantly meets with individuals whose anomalies apparently
resist his classification under the hypothetical type; as was long ago
recognized by Apuleius of Madaura in his Apology (24) : " quando
non in omnibus gentibus varia ingenia provenere? quanquam
videantur quaedam stultitia vel sollertia insigniores, apud socor-
dissimos Scythas Anacharsis sapiens natus est, apud Athenienses
catos Meletides fatuus." In Greece the mass and the individual
stand in a certain opposition. The mass-type may be predomin-
ant, as among the Romans; whereas the forces making for indi-
viduality among the Greeks are far more marked than among the
Latin peoples, who have few men of the distinct individuality of
a Cato. So striking is the centrifugal tendency in Greece that in
certain respects not a few of the greatest writers present characteris-
tics that seem unhellenic; for example, Thucydides and Aristotle;
Polybius is largely Romanized. National character is the result of the
clashing of the mass-type and the individual-type : the insubordination
of the individual is compelled to moderation (as the national
phonetic laws restrict the tendency of the dialects to deflect from
the norm) ; the mass receives in exchange an indeterminate impress
from the individual. The national mind of the Greeks, then, while
it differs from the mind of each of the individuals composing the
nation, nevertheless exercises a controlling influence over all. Not-
withstanding the tendencies of Greek particularism, so pervasive
are the dominant qualities of the mass-type that the sum of the
differences between any two poets or prose writers is less than
the sum of their points of resemblance to two writers not
Hellenes. Or possibly (despite the opposition of Ionian and Dorian) ,
we may even go so far as to make this statement of any two
individuals.

The national mind of the Greeks is a product of ethnological,
sociological, and historical factors. Scientific proof of relative degrees
of national capacity is not afforded by arguments based on ethno-
logical considerations of the descent and racial characteristics of the
members of the Indo-European group, all of which we may assume
inherited a certain common endowment of potential capacity;
yet that native endowment has manifested itself in the most diverse
creations of literature, art, religion, language, architecture (the
language of form), and other products of civilization. Nations alike
in one respect, as intellectual character, often differ in other respects
and find points of resemblance with nations of a different type. We
may conjecture that by some subtle alchemy the fusion of the

134 GREEK LANGUAGE

Hellenic element with another stock yielded, as so often in the case
of the union of alien races, the peculiar quality of genius that gives
the Hellenes their separateness; yet after all comes the inevitable
admission that the processes of nature which create diversity among
nations, as among children of the same parents, defy all ultimate
analysis. Certainly all theories of the comparative aesthetics of the
structure of language fail to penetrate into the secrets of national
ability. Whatever the embryonic mind of the Greeks was, their
physical environment merely modified it or gave it opportunity to
express itself in different terms. The Greeks brought with them
from their inland home no memories of the sea; * nor did they inherit
from their Aryan progenitors names for the marine divinities; it
was their contact with the ^Egean that made them a seafaring folk,
as it was their inherent qualities as a people that made Poseidon the
god of the "on-swelling" waters and populated the deep with the
creations of their poetic fancy. We cannot penetrate beyond this
fact: that it was the unique prerogative of the Greeks that their
language possessed in its earliest known stages the power of ex-
pressing delicate relations of thought and feeling; while from the
dawn of Hellenic history the sovereignty of their greatest poet was
imposed on intellect and heart alike.

It is in form rather than in content that the individuality of the
Greek mind is expressed most inwardly. The religion, the customs
of the Greeks mark rather the expression of individuality as regards
content : their language sets forth not merely the content of thought ;
it sets forth the form, the movement of thought; it best voices the
Hellenic conception of the world. But it is not merely that the
Hellenic language expresses the mode of Hellenic thought : the lan-
guage reacts on the mode of thought. "Human reason," as Eduard
Meyer says, "grows with and in language." From the first day
that Greek speech consciously obeyed the will of the Greeks, it
continually adjusted itself to the enrichment of their mind; until
reflection, reacting on thought and aiming to idealize feeling, created
the language of the subtlest dramatic poetry and of philosophy.

Assuming by a broad generalization a division among different
peoples on the lines of a predominance of the intellect or of the
emotions, the Romans are a people whose language in its literary
and "popular" expression is marked by the intellectual quality.
In most uncivilized peoples feeling predominates, as is apparent in
part from their abundant use of simile and metaphor. Among all
languages that unite the qualities of intellect and emotion, Greek
stands supreme.

Will, too, enters into the question as an element of language.
Though the part it plays in the structure of national character is

1 Pictet thought the Indo-European peoples were familiar with the Caspian.

GREEK AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS 135

strongly marked (witness the difference between Greece and Rome),
its function in the differentiation of languages is less well known;
nor can I have the hardihood to attempt to set apart the activity
of the will from that of the intellect and feelings in this brief study
of the relation of the physiognomy of the Greek mind to Greek speech.

To this study there are two methods of approach, each of which
has its proper advantages. We may contrast the Greeks with them-
selves at different periods of their history, — tempera mutantur nos et
mutamur in illis. Or we may seek to discover the characteristics
of Greek speech by comparison with Latin or with the modern
languages. For my present purpose it is this method to which I
shall give special prominence.

For the study of the qualities of the Hellenic mind we have the
direct evidence of the peoples with which the ancient Greeks came
into contact. To this secondary source of information the moderns
must have recourse, but a surer guide is afforded by their own
examination of the expression of mind and character that is con-
tained in the records of the Greeks themselves.

The Roman characterization of the Greeks presents no exception
to the rule that the estimation of one people by another is colored
by the national traits of the observer. Roman analysis is in the main
deduced from contemporary observation.1 The Roman writers
were not impelled to search for the psychological causes that pro-
duced Hellenic superiority when Hellenic intellect or Hellenic arms
achieved their highest preeminence.

On the social side the Romans did not fail of appreciation of the
Greek comitas (Tacitus, Agr. 4), liberalitas, facilitas and elegantia.
Capitolinus, Maximinus (29, 3), says: soror mea (i. e. of Alexander
Aurelius) Graecis munditiis erudita.

To the keenness of the Greek, particularly the Attic, intellect, the
Roman pays tribute. Graeca facundia is echoed from Sallust to
Ausonius. Quintilian (12, 10, 36) opposes the strength of his coun-
trymen to the mental agility of the Greek: non possumus esse tarn
graciles, simus fortiores; subtilitate vincimur, valeamus pondere.
Greek sales, lepor, subtilitas, salsi eloquii venustas, the nasus Atticus,
are commonplaces of Roman criticism, but not infrequently the
sensitiveness of the Greek intellect appears as ingenium molle to the
rugged and less delicate Roman. But it is the levitas propria Graeco-
rum (Cicero, pro Flacco, 57) that is the dominant note. Lactantius
says : quorum levitas . . . incredibile est quantas mendaciorum nebu-
las excitaverit (Div. Inst. 1,15). Akin to this levitas is the negligentia
of the Greek (Cicero, Epist. 16, 4, 2) ; the Greek is otiosus et loquax
(de Oral. 1, 102). Cicero says: hoc vitio (ineptum esse) cumulata

1 The evidence is collected by Wolflin in Archiv fur Latein. Lexicographic und
Grammatik, 7 (1890-92), 140f.

136 GREEK LANGUAGE

est eruditissima Graecorum natio (de Oral. 2, 18). Augustine (Civ.
Dei, 2, 14) speaks of the lascivia Graecorum in the same breath with
which he brands their levitas. The accusation of luxury is brought
against them by Trebellius Pollio (xxx tyr. 16, 1), and by Paulus
(Festus, p. 215). Greek arts of flattery are reprehended in the Graeca
adulatio of Tacitus (Ann. 6, 18) and the Graecia blanda of Ennodius
(344, 18); their vainglory prompts the remark of Pliny (N. H.
3, 42), Grai, genus in gloriam suam effusissimum; and that of the
scholiast on Juvenal 3, 121, Graeci enim soli volunt maioribus amici
esse. The "dregs of Achaea" disgust Juvenal because of the effront-
ery of Greek versatility. But it is above all the mala fides that
stamps the Hellene. Graecia mendax is echoed again and again.
Greek calliditas is emphasized by Livy and Silius Italicus. St.
Jerome, Epist. 38, 5, says outright: impostor et Graecus est. In
the famous passage in the oration pro Flacco, 9, Cicero has given,
together with his verdict on Greek superiority, his condemnation
of the vital defect in Greek character: hoc dico de toto genere
Graecorum: tribuo illis litteras, do multarum artium disciplinam,
non adimo sermonis leporem, ingeniorum acumen, dicendi copiam
. . . testimoniorum religionem et fidem nunquam ista natio coluit.
Even where it Was not a question of a superiority of the national
sense of public honor, the Greek failed to satisfy the Roman censor:
the exquisite aroma of his mythology, which the Latins assimilated
only in its crude externalities, was the basis for the criticism of
Claudius Marius Victor, Aleth. 3, 194, mendax Graecia . . . veris
falsa insinuare laborat, and of a writer in the Myihogr. Vat. 3, 9, 12:
pulchre mendax Graecia.

To the Roman, then, the Greek was keen-witted, eloquent, refined
in speech and generally in manners, but marked by levity, bad faith,
untruthfulness, vainglory, and the arts of insinuation. The national
ideal of the Romans — their gravitas, continentia, and animi mag-
nitude (Cic. Tusc. 1,1,2) — was the antithesis of the Hellenic ideal.
Deeds rather than words marked the vir fortis atque strenuus;
and Sallust voices an essential part of Roman character in saying
(Cat. 8, 5): optimus quisque facere quam dicere malebat; whereas
the greatest of the statesmen of Greece was A.ey«v TC *<u Trpao-o-civ
ovi/aTon-a-ros (Thuc. 1, 139). The modern estimate of the essential
qualities of the Greek mind and character does not deny the justice
of the Roman verdict. Indeed the Roman arraignment of the de-
fects of the Greeks is not so severe as that which Polybius, no mere
courtier of success, levels against his own countrymen (cf. 6, 56, 13;
37, 9; 38, 5). But in their analysis the moderns penetrate deeper
into the springs of intellect, feeling, and will; and they select as the
best field for the evaluation of Hellenic genius that period when
the vital qualities of the race had met with no impairment through

GREEK AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS 137

the surrender of that individual liberty in and through which Hel-
lenic nationality found its completest expression.

To us the Hellene is a unique combination of psychic forces; gifted
with the rare endowment of a high spirit united with an intellect
agile yet profound; gifted with the power to see things as they
are and in the light of their essential characteristics, with a sense of
proportion and of hostility to extravagance; inimical to all formulas; 1
animated by joyous self-confidence, a proud reliance upon his own
powers, and a consciousness of his own superiority that divided the
world into Greek and barbarian; possessed of an unerring taste
and sensitiveness to form (which plays in the refinements of expres-
sion a larger role than does the intellect) ; progressive and a creator
wherever he worked, yet conservative and bound to the past not
only through the sanctities of his faith (which found fixed form in
the earliest and the best of his books), but also by a realization of
the continuity of the development of the arts; a lover of knowledge,
not a lover of wealth; shaping his large curiosity to the purposes
of the scientific spirit, and thus impelled to discover the causes of
things and to fathom the mysteries of the world in which he lived ;
an apostle of intellectual freedom, not of mere utilitarianism; en-
dowed with a genius for clear thinking in forms of beauty; a lover
of truth in the veil of beauty; his ideal of human nature the harmoni-
ous development of man's faculties, a combination of the beautiful
in outward form with inner worth.

Equally mobile with his intellect was his emotion. His emotional
qualities were not repressed by insistence on the virtues of impass-
iveness. To lament was not unworthy of a manly nature, and
sympathy was not unattended by tears. Susceptibility to feeling
vitiated the course of justice, as it damned Phrynichus' play. When
art depicted the agony of the body, it did not fail to hold the mirror
up to nature: Philoctetes' screams filled the theatre. But at his
highest, in literature as in life, the Greek submits his emotion to
the control of his intellect; he argues while he feels; his dialectic is
discerned through the veil of his emotion. As no other people, the
Hellenes enjoy that rare possession — the union of keenness of feel-
ing with the sacred passion for science. By temperament (which is
constituted by emotion and will in their mutual relations) the
Greeks were excitable and impulsive, and thus stand nearer to those
peoples which live in and for the world about them than to those
which withdraw into themselves; yet in a higher degree than other
nations they combined the qualities resulting from the surrender
to the world and the abnegation of the world.

The intellect of the Hellene is stronger than his moral energy.

1 But in the later development of philosophy disloyalty to th» letter of Epi-
curean tenets was the equivalent of impiousness in the opinion of the faithful.

138 GREEK LANGUAGE

The diabolical ingenuity of lago would have awakened less repul-
sion in him than the avoto. of Othello. The conception of virtue as
a mean shows that at bottom the Greek is hostile to, or incredulous
of, absolute moral truth. Metaphysics rather than ethics is the
Greek sphere. It was a half-Oriental who made moral good every-
thing, the rest nothing.

Greek character is marked by lack of stability, of sustained en-
deavor, of indomitable will, of seriousness, of gravity, of patience
under discipline.1 Romanus (not Graecus) sedendo vincit. Gusts of
passion sweep the Athenian from the moorings of reason; and he
returns to his better self only when he sees the shipwreck he has
wrought. The possession of the empire of the intellect did not confer
upon the Hellene that power to withstand the blows of fortune which
in the Roman moved the admiration of Polybius. In the crises of
character he often reverts to the elemental creature whose veneer
was his delight in the art of Sophocles. The complacent Ionian was
the victim of the palsied will; indeed defective will-power lies at the
root of much of the defect of Greek character. If the senses of
the Greek gave buoyancy to the movement of his intellect and rarely
descended to the baser uses of appetite, his mobility often degenerated
into loquacity, his acumen to quibbling and disputatiousness, his
love of rhetoric to pretentious frivolity. Markedly individual in
his personality, his self-love made him belittle the success of others
and made him a stranger to the finer forms of sympathy.

Such is the normal type of the Greek. But the race is not homo-
geneous. The Dorian is almost an alien intrusion, and between
him and the other Greeks there is a discrepancy of kind (not merely
of culture) that I would explain on the ground of ethnological differ-
ence. In the northwest originally dwelt only half-Hellenic tribes that
were to become factors in the later life of the nation. The Dorian is
the Roman on Greek soil, and, like the language of the Romans,
Doric is marked by parsimony and inability to form compounds.

Diversity and individuality, a wide range of capacity, a just
balance of faculties, characterize the Hellene. Such as he was he
remained the same in his intellectual physiognomy from first to last.
If resistance to centralization stimulated his energies, it worked his
political ruin. A world-empire was indeed secured at the price of
national independence and of national ideals, the loss of which de-
stroyed the national consciousness of the possession by the Hellenic
stock of a common language, religion, and customs. Yet the essential

1 Contrast the relatively few words in Greek with the many words in Latin that
indicate the quality of persistence in effort: sedulus, assiduus, industrius, diligens.
laboriosus. strr nuns. There are comparatively few words in Greek for earnest,
grave, dignifi^ri; many for insolent (to the Latin the "unusual" man), shameless;
e. g. Bpafffa, d.at\yf)s, &$e\vp6s, lra/j.6s, av6d$ns, v&piffr-fis. The difference between the
two peoples is s n in the frequent use of virtus, consilium, ratio.

GREEK AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS 139

Hellenic qualities remain essentially unimpaired even in later periods
of Greek life, when Hellenism, in its excessive individualism, dis-
played an increasing detachment between the mass and the few who
still preserved the old ideals.

But the lineaments of a national type, be they never so well defined,
must of necessity lose the precision of their outlines when the
phenomena of language are to serve as the material of illustration.
The minuter differentiae of racial psychology resist transference to
vocabulary, syntax, and style. It is only the larger lines of Greek
speech that mark the general psychological qualities of the Greeks.
Like the people that used it, the language is characterized by elegance
and delicacy. It is marked by an indescribable air of distinction;
by facility of resource and suppleness; by transparency and lucidity
of structure; by a reconciliation of intellectual vigor and emotion.
Inexhaustible in its native power, it reproduces Greek naturalness,
vividness, mobility of temperament, plasticity of mind. Its exuber-
ance is tempered by continence; form and matter are welded to
harmony by a sense of proportion. The genius of logic is native
to it; as the mirror of the reflective processes of the mind it is both
subtle and precise; as an artistic product it combines freedom
with strength and grace. Direct and concrete, it lends itself to the
happy inventions of fancy and follows the shifting mood with dra-
matic liveliness. Like the national hero, it is marked by TroiKiAia.
It wears the folds of a royal mantle (as Lamartine said of another
language) ; and with all it's alterations it retained a certain youthful
vigor and creative energy; it did not become senile by crystallizing
into rigidity. The language of Homer remained a national possession
to the last.

An analysis of the distinctive qualities of the language in relation
to the national psychology demands a detailed study of phonetics,
word-form, vocabulary, word-meaning, syntax, and the general as-
pects of style. Such a study can at best only note the preponderance
of this or that psychological factor, and in the survey of the few
points that I can attempt here it is impossible to disengage the
operation of the intellectual from the emotional faculties: thought
and feeling are closely woven in forming the web of the inner life of
language.

Sounds

The study of sounds as an index of the difference between Greek
and other peoples is a province of investigation much neglected, not
merely by reason of the elusiveness in the doctrine of phonetic
symbolism as first enunciated by Humboldt, but also because of
absolute and inevitable gaps in our knowledge; furthermore research

140 GREEK LANGUAGE

in the modern languages has not been carried far with the help of
scientific instruments, such as Rousselot's.

The euphonic quality of language is not to be measured solely by
the proportion of vowels and consonants. It is the character of the
initial and final sounds, or rather the character and the position of
the sounds in all the parts of a word (as studied by Pott), that
marks the phonetic differentiation of one language from another.

In comparison with Latin, Greek is richer, more harmonious, but
less majestic. It has v, and £, and the aspirates, but is unfriendly to
the spirants.1 It is rich in vocalic color, the wealth of which is due
in large measure to the retention of the original sounds and, in the
case of the diphthongs, in part to the disappearance of intervocalic
spirants. The relative frequency of vowels and consonants in Greek,
as contrasted with other tongues, has not been studied with any
completeness. An examination of six consecutive hexameters from
the Iliad shows 94 vowels, 106 consonants; from the Odyssey, 96
vowels and 105 consonants; from Virgil the figures are 99 and 107;
from Horace 98 and 114; from Platen 92 and 174.2

It will be observed that while Greek has a greater variety of vowel
sounds, the absolute number necessary to carry the consonants is
not materially different in Greek and in Latin. The dialects differ,
and Ionic shows greater variety in vowel sounds than Aeolic or
Doric.

Consonantal alliteration is a mark of strength rather than of beauty,
and Latin affects such alliteration much more than does Greek;
Greek has, too, few stereotyped alliterative phrases such as paov

[Ata/j-eia-Qai r) /u/xcurdou, 77x01 Kpivov rj KoXoKvvrrjv, KO.KOV Kopa/fos KCLKOV uJov,

whereas these are common in Latin (salvus sanus, si sis sanus aut
sapias satis, purus putus), though the speech of the Romans is
much inferior to that of the moderns in the abundance of alliterative
expressions.

Studious as Greek is of euphony, it is noticeable the language
manages with ease such initial sounds as TTV, yv, rp., 8//, (3S, 78, O-T\, CTKV
and some others forbidden to Classical Latin. Initial y/t, xfr °"X^> ^XP*
o-xy, <rp it does not allow. On the other hand the os rotundum of the
Greeks is most exclusive as regards final consonants; yet it does not
shrink from o-$ty£, <£aA.ayf, ?vy£. (aA? and //.axaps have no parallels.)

The modern languages, particularly those of Germanic stock,
largely through the breakdown of the suffixal elements, are incom-
parably richer and incomparably more cacophonous as regards final
sounds. One effect of the limited range of Greek in this respect is

1 The loss of the spirants, says Bergk, gives to Greek an impression of stammer-
ing in comparison to other languages.

2 The consonants normally exceed the vowels in frequency. But in archaic
inscriptions (as those of Elis), a single consonant is often written for two con-
sonants.

GREEK AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS 141

the almost utter absence of pregnant rhyming phrases such as sing-
song, pell-mell, last not least, haste and waste, songe mensonge,
lug und trug, traume schaume. We find TraO^ara fiaO^ara and a
few other phrases. At best Greek could rhyme with two con-
sonants only in combinations of sigma; for example with ^ in oty, ^cty,
or with f.

Clashing of consonants, which marked the austere style, was
gradually avoided in literature; while the dialect inscriptions show-
ing phonetic spelling record an attention to euphony which is sur-
prising to the student of the literature. Apart from Elean and Late
Spartan with their rhotacism the dialects display no fondness for
the litter a canina that is so common in Latin. Nu is a favorite con-
sonant, yet the Greek equivalents of septem and densus avoid the
dental nasal. Sonant r is avoided as is also sonant I. The sound of s
had its detractors, such as Lasus; but his asigmatic ode was a mere
tour de force. The Marathonian oath in the Oration on the Crown
shows 50 sigmas in 67 words, and sigma is the commonest con-
sonant. The sound of iota (lo-xarov Se iravrwv TO t says Dionysius of
Halicarnassus) was much more frequent in Latin than in Greek; and
Hermogenes, who remarks that the diphthongs lend solemnity,1 adds
that this is not the case with « (that is I) and t.

To get an approximate idea of the relative frequency of the
sounds of the language I have taken about 1000 consecutive sounds
from 38 verses of the Prometheus (631-667), and from a part of Thuc.
2, 4. These sounds are distributed as follows (TJ is placed under 17,
<j> under w; a includes a and d).

Aesch. Thuc. Aesch. Thuc. Aesch. Thuc.

1 ff 129

2 a 77

3 v 73

4 « 70

5 o 66

99 11 \ 37 « 38 21 y 19 « 14

89 12 » 33 i 33 22 ei 19 0 13

87 13 5 31 n 32 23 x 17 x H

82 14 i 31 a. 30 24 <J> 10 an 8

72 15 B 28 p 30 25 «=« 6 8

6 T 62 a 71 16 v 26 ov 24 26 I 6 8

7 p 52 A 65 17 ai 25 8 22 27 $ 5 f 5

8 it 48 ir 40 18 K 24 <u 22 28 au 3 ev 2

9 -n 42 i 39 19 ov 24 t; 19 29 £ 3 ^ 2
10 M 39 K 38 20 o« 21 7 16 30 t|/ 1 C 0

Aeschylus: vowel sounds, 443, consonants, 584. Thucydides:
vowel sounds, 461, consonants, 558. The order of frequency of the
vowels is e (c and rf), o (o and o>), a, t, v; of the consonants, the
dentals greatly exceed either the palatals or the labials; the mutes
are thrice as numerous as the mediae or the aspiratae. Further
investigation is of course necessary to arrive at greater certainty.
A rough tabulation of the frequency of initial letters by the pages

1 The sound of » had a certain solemnity (Plato, Phcedrus, 244 D).

142 GREEK LANGUAGE

of Liddell and Scott's Lexicon shows the following approximate
results :

1 a 269 9 T 71 17 v 26

2 ir 249 10 t; 58 18 7 22

3 e 231 11 «> 64 19 r? 19

4 <r 152 12 x 45 20 p 16

5 K 150 13 A 43 21 « 12

6 o 83 14 0 31 22 ^ 11

7 5 79 15 i 28 23 £ 6

8 M 77 16 0 27 24 | 5

Summing up we may say that the phonetical apparatus of the
Greeks seems to stand midway between the consonantal languages
of Europe, such as Germanic and Slavic (especially Polish and Rus-
sian), and the essentially vocalic tongues, such as Italian, the mus-
ical character of which, due largely to its vocalic endings, has been
gained at the cost, as Pott has remarked, of the intellectual character
of the language. The point to which I desire to call attention in con-
nection with the question I have in hand is that in general the vocalic
languages are spoken by peoples which attach more importance
to form than to matter, and are sanguine and nervous, whereas
the consonantal languages are the property of those peoples that
emphasize matter over form and are melancholic or phlegmatic.

Accent

Accent, too, has its psychological value. Between the free play of
the accent of the Veda and the rigidity of Latin, Greek here again
has a middle range. The range of Indo-European accent has, indeed,
been restricted, but the restriction has been to the advantage of
euphony and symmetry. Thus, for bMramanas, bharamanasya
and ddiksamahi, ddiksadhvam, Greek has ^epo^evos, ^epo/xeVoio and
e'S«£a/A€0a, e8et£acr0e. The freedom of Greek accentuation goes hand
in hand with its rich vowel system and its power of semasiological
differentiation through difference of form. Cf . <£opos, <£opo? ; TcpTrfo-9ai,

TapTrrjvaL ; ^epecraK^s, cra/ce<r</>dpos ; TI/AI/, drt/xos ; r)6o<;, eury^es. It may not

be an unjustified deduction to infer that peoples whose language is
chromatic in its accent are often those which attach greater import-
ance to form; while matter is more emphasized by those which,
like Latin, stress the penult or antepenult; or the radical syllable,
as the Germanic tongues, which thereby obliterate the suffixal
elements.

The act of speaking is both physical and psychological. Only
the professional psychologist can answer the inquiry of the philologist
whether energy of emphasis is due to predominance of emotion or of
will. Certainly temperament must largely determine emphasis and

GREEK AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS 143

speed of utterance. The rate of pronunciation must be an unknown
quantity: certainly it cannot necessarily be inferred from speed of
thought; even if it is true, as Steinthal maintained, that the moderns
think quicker than the ancients, this is not a sure guide to the rate
of speed of Greek speech.1 Certain inferences point, however, to the
probability of a quick tempo: the abundance of short vowels, the
large number of short monosyllables and dissyllables, especially
particles (contrast ye with quidem, Se with autem, vero},2 the avoidance
of hiatus, of which Latin, unlike its descendant French, is careless.
We may not err in thinking Attic as spoken with ease and rapidity.
Nonnus, 37, 319, says raxvpuOos 'ArQls <£cm/iy. Latin may have been
uttered more slowly but with greater energy than Attic, though the
law of iambic shortening points to some rapidity. The Dorians
spoke with deliberation.

Form

The varied gifts of the Greeks are reflected by the varied formal
means of expression at their command. The abundance of formative
suffixes, the extent of the verbal system,3 the limitless possibilities
of composition, mark the exceeding richness of Greek on the purely
formal side. The elasticity of the language gives play to the subtler
affinities of personality. Sanskrit is equally rich, if not richer, in
form; but it stiffened into rigidity: both language and literature are
deficient in dramatic quality, in personality. A unity to which every-
thing is sacrificed is a dead uniformity. In Greek ossification was
prevented in part by the vigorous life of the dialects, many of which,
not one merely, were irradiated by the genius of poetry. The formal
resources of Greek are applied with a distinctness that is widely at
variance with the indiscriminateness of uninflected languages, such
as English, which may use the same word as noun, verb, and inter-
jection, as in the case of hollo. Regularity in Greek coexists with
wealth of form, with freedom of differentiation and of analogy.
The larger use of writing, the development of literature, restricted to

1 Rapidity of Greek thought is indicated by syntactical attraction and assimi-
lation which compress the separate members of a sentence; by the swift transition
from direct to indirect discourse and the reverse; by the frequency of ellipsis, as
of the substantive verb, or when a sentence begins with the impetuous i\\d; bv the
frequent omission of either the protasis or the apodosis; by the use of brachylogy ;
by the construction vpbs rb ainjMiv6n.tvov; by the innumerable forms of anacoluthon;
by the use of various figures of speech such as aposiopesis; by diverse locutions,

such as dlffff t> Spaaov.

2 Cf. Demosth. 18, 179, oJ/c tlirov /uiv ravra OVK £ypenj>a Se, ovS' eypa^a p^v OVK firpt*
ff&evffa 5f, ou5' tirpfffpfvffa. /u£«/ OVK faeiffa, 6i &i]0aiovs, with Quint. 9, 3, 55, non enim
dixi quidem sed non scripsi, nee scrips! quidem sed non obii legationem, nee
obii quidem sed non persuasi Thebanis.

3 In Greek 507 verbal forms are possible, in Latin 143, in Sanskrit 891 ; though
as regards the number of forms actually in constant use Sanskrit is not superior
to Greek.

144 GREEK LANGUAGE

some extent the manifold variety of the earlier language; but that
restriction too gave regularity and normality, which are apt to be
absent in languages which, like Latin, live for centuries without the
restraining and corrective influence of literary art, and thus degener-
ate into anomaly and irregularity. Some part, too, of the formal
riches of Greek were abandoned by the action of the law of least
effort and by the conscious operation of the intellect.

Allusion can be made to only a few points of interest. The multi-
plicity of the so-called irregular verbs proceeds from a nice sense
of distinction between various kinds of action (' point '-action, con-
tinuative, terminative, perfective, etc.), which is due to the difference
of the formative elements and to the meaning of the several roots
which combine into a system. Lucidity marks the formation of
derivative words, especially the compound abstracts, which, as a
rule, show at once their connection 'with the primitives; whereas in
English and the "dead Romance languages," as Fichte called them
in contrast to German, abstract words are frequently borrowed and
thus stand in no living relation with common speech.

Greek, as German, shows more color in making neuters of its di-
minutives, whereas in Latin difference in size is not marked by differ-
ence in gender. So, too, in other forms: Latin contents itself with
amans for <£iAwv, <£iAovo-a, <£iAow. Many words form plurals that are
impossible in the modern languages: in Greek such plurals often
manifest the operation of an intellectual activity, in Latin they
usually display strength of feeling.

But the originality of the language is nowhere more patent ex-
ternally than in its ability to form compounds. Here appears the
flexibility of the Greek mind, its fertility of resource, its innate artis-
tic capacity, its power of welding with pregnant force the various
characteristics of an object; here the distinctive virtues of individual-
ity have free room to make themselves felt. Take, for example, such
compounds as e^eAev^epooro/ie'to, /caTao-T£pto-/i.ds, T«Aeo//.?;i os, and the elas-
tic avroxfip- In lucidity and precision Greek may vie with Sanskrit,
but its sense of proportion rejects the sesquipedalia verba of that
tongue.1 In plasticity Greek has a possible rival in German alone.2

1 Examples of long words are kiroyvuffinaxfiffamfs. oT«jui;Aio<7ti\\«KT<£8»7y.

a Aristophanes may for the moment rear towering compounds, but normal
Greek rarely can vie with German herein. German, too, excels in the construction
of such words as " Anundfursichsein"; and outdoes even itself in " Auchnichtsein-
undauchandersseinkonnen." English reaches its maximum in " transubstantiation-
ableness" and " proantitransubstantiationist." Grimm's Worterbuch gives 617
words compounded with " kunst" and almost as many with " krieg" and " hand."
It should be observed that, though German is like Greek as regards the freedom with
which it forms compounds, the quality of German compounds is in many respects
different from that of Greek, and especially as regards sensuous epithets. The
influence of Greek in the eighteenth century is seen in the increased frequence of
such compounds as " neidgetroffen " (Goethe), " donnergesplittert " (Klopstock).
Compounds with the past participle are rare in O. H. G. and M. H. G. German
admits also the present participle, as in " liebegliihendes Herz" (Korner) and
" vdlkerwimmelnde Stadt" (Schiller).

GREEK AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS 145

Latin1 and the Romance2 languages are immeasurably inferior in
every respect. Doric alone of the dialects lacks the power to form
compounds readily.

Like German, Greek has the power of giving a peculiar shading
of expression by its substantival compounds, which have a different
value than the analytical disposition of the members of the thought.

The relative brevity of the compounds of Greek enables the poet
to view concretely an object or a quality from more points of vision
than is possible to most other Indo-European languages : extension
of the thought is not purchased by undue extension of mere word-
form. The images are, so to speak, phonetically condensed. Cf.
acTTwofioi opycu, "disposition for ordered life in cities."

No term-stone can be set to the possibility of shaping new com-
pounds in Greek, or, indeed, to the character of their formation.
Innovations, such as (jiiXairex^^v, are continually coming to view.
The poets display the same delight in the delicately chiseled work-
manship of their Topevra «n7 as Cellini took in each new creation of
his art. The lately discovered lyrics of Bacchylides showed nearly
one hundred compounds either used for the first time or unattested
in any other writer.

The study of Greek compounds has been unduly neglected from
at least one point of view. Since sense-epithets are preeminently
a mark of personality, we have need of an investigation, especially
of the compounds of a sensuous character. Such a study should
include an examination of the range of each poet from Homer on,
together with the determination of the sensuous sphere from which

1 Confessions by the Romans of the poverty of their speech in the formation of
compounds is frequent. Cf. Lucr. 1, 830, Livy 27, 11, 5, Cic. De. Fin. 3, 4, 15,
Gellius, N. A. 11, 16, 1, Latin has very few compounds with two prepositions (cf.
fva.Tro\a(i.{idt><o, 4irtKa-raftd\\ai), and the constitution of such compounds is evident
only after scrutiny (abscondo, consurgo).

2 The inability of the Romance languages to grapple with the compounds of
Greek may be illustrated by the following translations, by Desrousseaux and Da
Festa respectively, of Bacchylides, 11, 37-46:

vvv 8' "Aj>T€/us a.ypOTfpa\xpv<ra\<iKaTOS \ivapiiv \ rj/j.epa ro£6it\vTOS vinav eS
'A.fia.i>Tid5as\l3a>nbi> Kartvafffff irohv\-\ \UTTOV etiireir\oi re Kovpaf |ris 5' ^| tpa.r
irayKpar^s "Hpa jj.e\dOp<i>v\ Tlpoirov, irapa.ir\riyi <pp(i>as \ Kaprepq £et5|air' iivdyiuf.

Mais Arte'mis aujourd'hui, chasseresse au sceptre d'or, calme de"esse, illustre par
son arc, lui donne une victoire e"clatante. A Arte'mis jadis un autel ou s'empres-
sent les prieres fut bati par le fils d'Abas et ses filles au beau pe'plos, que la toute-
puissante He"ra chassa de 1'aimable palais de Prcetos, 1'esprit subjugue' par la dure
ne"cessite* de I'e'garement.

Ma ecco che ora gli ha dato una splendida vittoria la cacciatrice Artemis dalF
aurea conocchia, la mite inclita arciera. A cui un giorno eresse un molto sup-
plicato altare 1'Abantiade e le sue vergini figlie vestite di bei pepli; poichd fuori
dalle amabili case di Proitos le aveya tratte spaventate la possente Hera, con le
menti awinte da una fiera, fatale insania.

The translation of the passage by Jurenka does less violence to the native
quality of German: Doch jetzt hat die Jagerin Artemis, die goldspindlige, kundige
Schiitzin, die Sanftigerin, den glanzenden Sieg dir verliehen. Ihr siedelte einst der
Abantiade an einen vielumflehten Altar mit seinen schongewandigen Tochtern,
die aus den anmuthigen Hallen die hochmachtige Hera gescheucht des Proitos,
da den Geist in des Wahnsinns schreckliche Noth sie geschirret.

146 GREEK LANGUAGE

each epithet is drawn, and a separation of the imitations from the
fresh and living picture. Research work of this sort would prove
a valuable contribution to the study of the psychology of the Greek
people.

Word-Meaning

Words are the shorthand of thoughts. We pack into them the
total impression of the thing or the quality they denote. The etymo-
logical signification is merely the seed from which is developed the
full-grown plant. The Greeks, like other Indo-European peoples,
put their national subjective impressions into words derived from
roots equally the possession of other members of the same linguistic
family; and with results that display their individual attitude to-
wards the world of things and of ideas.

For the elucidation of the mind of a people semasiology is far
more significant than the study of external form. For the psycholo-
gist the investigation of Greek word-meaning offers, with all the limit-
ations incidental to an ancient language, the advantage of materials
of a literature enormous in extent * and admitting of a more definite
limitation than any modern literature.

Yet it is surprising how little has been done in this field of research.
Buttmann we have, and his unequal successor, Goebel. Here and
there we find work of a special character, like Bechtel's Ueber die
Bezeichnungen der sinnlichen Wahrnehmungen in den indogermani-
schen Sprachen, Schrader's Die Psychologic des dlteren griechischen
Epos ; or discussions of the subject from the general point of view,
such as Hecht's Die griechische Bedeutungslehre. Pezzi's Espressione
metaforica di concetti psicologici stands alone in its kind, and it does
not profess to be more than a register. Synonyms deal with only
a single aspect of semasiology, and of modern books there is but one.
There has been no gleaner in Greek fields like the incomparable
Grimm.

Comparative semasiology is the surest guide to national distinc-
tions of thought. <£i'A.os is rendered by friend, ami, Freund; apery
by virtus, vertu, virtue, Tugend: and yet on closer inspection
that which seems nearest akin is separated by wide gulfs of differ-
ence. 4>i\(lv and aymrav differ from " diligere," a word that well indi-
cates the cautious and prudent Roman (cf. Catullus, 72, 1), to whom
"loving" was a process of wise selection. Each tongue has its own
voice, and here Danish outdoes all other languages with its distinction
between "kjaerlighed," man's love for woman, and "elskov," the
ideal inspiration for all that is lovely which is awakened in man by
his love for woman. (See Abel, " Ueber den Begriff der Liebe in

1 If we take the period ending with the birth of Christ, there are extant about
125,000 verses and over 22, 000 (Teubner) pages of prose.

GREEK AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS 147

einigen alten und neuen Sprachen," in his Sprachwissenschaftliche
Abhandlungen, p. 47.)

Degrees of national social development are likewise indicated by
the contrast between "guest," ^os, and " hostis," in Old Latin
"stranger," in Classical Latin "foreigner."

The shifting of signification within the limits of the same language
reflects many aspects of national life, and especially national morals;
as when foul thoughts are glossed by fair words and fair words lose
thereby their innocency.

The unequaled resources at his command enabled the Greek at
will to employ synonyms at every hand; and this is nowhere more
noticeable than in the expressions for "good" and "bad."

The astonishing wealth of synonyms in Homer, one of the most
remarkable phenomena in the history of any language, denotes the
concentration of the linguistic sense upon the things of prime interest
to the Homeric man.1 With the destruction of national sentiment
synonyms are used without distinction, abstract and vague expres-
sions grow apace, the finer shading of thought is blurred in its out-
line through the adoption of general terms, or words properly ex-
pressive of delicate relations of ideas dissipate their vitality as they
enlarge the range of their signification, adjectives are "applied to
everything because they are applicable to nothing in particular"
(oXocrxe/oijs in Polybius); inanimate things and animate persons are
persecuted by the poets, who worry them with epithets.

Greek semasiology has a twofold task : to set forth, on a psycho-
logical basis, the history of words according to their content, from
Homer to the end of Greek literature; to discover the processes of
thought by which words pass from one signification to another.
The determination of the etymology and the chronology is the duty
of the philologist; the determination of the laws that operate in the
movement of signification from age to age is the task of the empirical
psychologist.

To illustrate the psychological and the chronological determin-
ation, I select a few examples, first of the development of words from
a primitive sensuous sphere to an intellectual or non-sensuous sphere,
and, secondly, of the transference of words from one kind of sensuous
meaning to another. Thus, -n-perrfiv, originally applied to the sense of
sight (though it is also used of smell and sound), passes through the
delimitation which restricts it to that which appeals favorably to
the sense of sight, and yields the common Attic meaning, irpan-eiv,
originally "to voyage through," "to pass over a space," acquires
the force of "complete" in Homer (who retains also the primitive

1 For "battle" Homer has 6 words; for "helmet" 5: for "hunter" 4; for
" sea" 7;^ for " beggar" 7. He has seven words tp mark different kinds of herds-
men, besides four words of a general character.

148 GREEK LANGUAGE

meaning), and finally that of "act," "do" without regard to the
attainment of the goal (first in Xenophanes). o-u/n/SoXXetv in Homer
still means " to bring together," in Heraclitus it means " to compare,"
in Pindar "to recognize." rep-reiv shows a tendency to differentiate
the forms with a (rapTrrjvaC) with the meaning "satisfy," "satiate "
(a meaning which disappears with the a-forms) from the forms with
e, which have the force of "rejoice."

The range of a many-sided language like Greek is enlarged by
those ideas that appeal to the wider commonalty of the conscious-
ness of the entire race. So it is with the sense of sight and the
appearance of light which awakens a train of associative images.
Image reacts upon image. o//,/xa is not only the eye but that which
is seen by the eye, the capacity of insight, the effluence of the thing
seen (cf. Plato, Meno, 76 D). Various aspects of thought are pre-
sented by many words of like character, such as avyrj, auya^eiv, Xa/xTmv,

Xa/wrpos, <£ais, <£eyyos, and their opposites. So with SeSop/ceVai = £T}V. In

the language of Greek poetry concrete sensuous images, as <£oiras
I'o'o-os, "intermittent pain," may be subtilized by the reflective
process.

An inviting field of investigation is a study of certain forms of
comparison as the expression of the mental habits of the Greeks.
How far does Greek apply a quantitative standard where the modern
languages employ other expressions of degree? TroXvs and /Aeyas have
a wide range, like multus and magnus. The Greek used TroXv? of

yeXtos, VTTVOS, atSws, avdyKr), vv£ ; //.eyas, of <£i'Xos, <£u>VT7, Xoyos, Kaipoi. The

animal world offers the standard of comparison in ITTTTOO-^LVOV, ITTTTO-
KPTJ/AVOS, /JovyXoxro-os. Diminutives are common where emotion is read-
ily or strongly expressed. Italian has many, English few, diminu-
tives; South German has more than North German. Very common
in Latin, they evince the tendency of the Romans to express their
feelings strongly when they express them at all. In Greek they play
an important r61e in popular speech and in those forms of literary
art which are nearest akin to the language of the people. Thus

Aristophanes has /JaXXavriov, yao-rpi'Siov, i/zartSiov, fjicXiTTiov, 6</>$aX/Ai8ioj'.

Epic poetry, choral lyric, and tragedy avoid the diminutive, though
in some words occurring in these classes of literature the diminu-
tive force has been lost, as in wpLov, T£IX«»V; whereas yvia. seems to1
be a primitive. The elective affinities of literature show that there
was a difference between the speech of the cultivated classes and
that of the common people, though that difference was probably less
than that which distinguishes German and French dialects from the
coyer literature.

But the investigation we desiderate has much more to do than to
open up the polarities of comparison. Above all is needed a study of
expressions for love, admiration, tenderness, hate, anger, sternness.

GREEK AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS 149

coldness, astonishment, etc., and of the utilization or rejection of
opportunities to set forth these emotions. How far is the Greek
naive, how far does he restrain himself from baring his soul, how
far does he express gradations of his psychic state?

The emotional faculties of the Greeks were keenly sensitive. Ex-
citability, intensity, passion, mark their personality. The driving
impulses of pleasure and pain express themselves in a surprising
wealth of interjections. The Roman, whose boast is "et facere et
pati fortia" (Mucius Scaevola in Livy 2, 12, 10), borrows most of his
exclamations of joy from the Greek (io, evoe, eu, euge, eia), while
his exclamations of sorrow are his own. Greek abounds in words
for joy; witness only \aipuv (with the incomparable salutation xa</>c)>

In common with the Roman, the Greek refuses in general to delin-
eate his mental state with the nicety of discrimination and accuracy
of psychological detail characterizing all languages that bear the
impress of romanticism; and in restricting the delineation of emo-
tion to the larger outlines of human feelings, the classical languages
seem pallid in contrast to the many-colored richness of modern lit-
erature. It can be shown, I believe, that the Greeks affect a certain
undifferentiated intensity of expression: thus a-riveiv is less than
"groan," Sa/cpveiv is "to be moved to tears"; al^aroev pe'0os is Deia-
neira's "flushed cheek." But this stress of emotional effect is much
less pervasive among the Greeks than the Latins, who employ ex-
pressions indicative of great strength of feeling, expressions which
do not admit (without qualification) of alternatives of lesser pathos.
The Roman constantly says "flentes, " " lacrimantes," "multis cum
lacrimis." When once moved, he had no hesitation in using the
strongest words at his command. Hence the vogue of the superlative
in Latin is more marked than in Greek. Pliny (Epist. 2, 9, 3) uses
four superlatives in immediate succession.

I have singled out a study of the expression of the emotions as an
approach to the characteristics of the national mind of the Hellenes.
But there are innumerable others of the same sort. Take, for example,
the expressions of the idea of duty: duty to God, to one's self, to our
neighbors, to our friends and foes. Only by these and similar studies
can we gain an approach to the psychology of that people whose
combination of intellect, imagination, fancy, and artistic sense we
rank so high; and this, methinks, is infinite riches, in comparison
to which much of the output of our dissertation-factories is poverty
indeed.

The student of Hellenic thought has here stretched out before
him fresh fields that are well-nigh untrodden: the olives of Athens
have not yet all been gleaned.

150 GREEK LANGUAGE

Vocabulary

It is possible to exaggerate the significance of national vocabulary.
Some, indeed, have said that were every external manifestation of
national achievement in the mechanical and other arts to be de-
stroyed, it would yet be possible to restore the entire state of a na-
tion's civilization by the aid of its vocabulary alone. But vocabulary,
though it may be called the mirror of national mind, the pulse of
national life, cannot alone reproduce the inner coloring of thought,
the subtle play of light and shadow, that resides in the combination
of words; and it is in the combination of words that the national
soul most subtly expresses itself. Vocabulary is then, after all, a
sketch, not an exact reproduction of nationality. Its wealth is
regulated by the intensity of interests that a people brings to bear
upon the outer world of things and the inner world of thought. The
national capacity of the Greeks for expression is not to be measured
along the periphery by mere wealth of words marking sensuous
or even intellectual ideas ; abundance of concrete words is not
a gauge of intellectual vitality (the fourteen words for the parts
of the Homeric ship do not in themselves differentiate the Hellene
from the Phosnician); it must be measured at the centre too, by
the definiteness with which intellectual and sensuous ideas are
expressed, by the inner significance attributed to these ideas.

The Greeks were impelled by a propension to create, and their
language responded to this impulse without hesitation. New words
were born at inventive crises. Each new thought found for itself
adequate expression in a speech of marvelous copiousness and
plasticity. Every advance of civilization enriched the language
with new conceptions and infused new life into words already in use.
ova-ia acquires the meaning of "substance" from that of "property,"
"possession"; p^w/xa, "root," in Empedocles becomes "element";
KdT-rjyopia, " accusation," becomes "category"; <£u'<ris, "natural consti-
tution," is used for "nature"; yvaXa the "convex swelling of the cui-
rass," for the "vault of heaven. " On the formal side the vitality of
the language is seen in the construction of new compounds rather
than in the formation of derivatives from single stems. It is but
seldom that two words have the same form but different meanings.

I cannot attempt to set forth the achievements of the Greeks in
the construction of technical terminology. From the chaos of mere
words Aristotle and the Stoics brought forth order and laid the foun-
dations of the language of grammar. The Hindus, indeed, possessed
a like degree of acumen in this field, but it was the fortune of Diony-
sius the Thracian and not of Panini, to compose the book which,
next to the Bible, has had (as Delbriick says) a larger influence
on the thought of Europe than any other single volume.

Every language is defective from the angle of vision of those of its
users whose range extends over other languages, and who, therefore,
borrow to supply their own deficiencies. Vocabulary has to follow
trade and an increasing acquaintance with nature. The national debt
of Greek presents a most instructive commentary on the character
of Greek thought and national consciousness, especially when com-
pared with other languages. Latin was an enormous borrower;
when the language was saturated with Hellenisms it was a mere
affectation of purism on the part of Tiberius to apologize for his
use of " monopolium. " A Chinese emperor in 1771 displaced over
5000 Chinese words in favor of a like number of Manchu origin. Of
all the tongues of Europe, which have the past as well as their con-
temporaries to draw from, French is the coyest to adopt new words.
English is said to show 13,230 Teutonic, 29,853 "classical" words;
but as English is a composite language, the preponderance of non-
Teutonic words is not altogether due to mere borrowing. Russian is
said to form new words readily from its own resources.

The pronounced hostility of Greek to borrowed words is one of the
most remarkable features of that language, and the more remarkable
because it was spoken from the Black Sea to the Pillars of Hercules,
and because Greece itself was the home of thousands of barbarian
slaves. Chauvinism in a language may seem venial when a language
like Greek is possessed of a practically inexhaustible mine from
which to quarry the materials of thought. " Lingua mater," we may
say, " nova miracula suis ex visceribus numquam emittere cessabit."
But the ability of a language to meet all demands upon it for the
expression of its ideas is not an index of national resistance to ac-
quisitions from abroad. German, with all its splendid capacity for
compounding new words, would not repudiate many of the loan-
words (said to be at least 14,000) that were acquired during the
peculiar phases of its history.

Apart from proper names, the number of borrowed words in Greek
for appellatives (for these only are borrowed) is much disputed,
but is, on any theory, small. The trend of opinion at present is that
A. Mviller, Muss-Arnolt, and Lewy have exaggerated the amount
of the debt to the Semitic languages. I hold no brief for Leo Meyer's
Worterbuch, which in many respects is a most unsatisfactory work;
but at all events it is not inclined to dogmatism about the words in
doubt. Down to the time of Aristotle, if my reading of the book is
accurate, Meyer accepts as certainly foreign only about 100 words,
while the origin of perhaps as many more which wear a foreign look
he cautiously classes as obscure. As the domain of natural science
was enlarged there was a constant increase in the vocabulary, chiefly
through the activity of the Peripatetics; and Aristotle and Theo-
phrastus (and later Dioscorides) show a considerable number of

152 GREEK LANGUAGE

foreign words for animals, minerals, and plants. Most of the loan-
words of Greek are taken from the animal, the mineral, and (chiefly)
the vegetable kingdom; besides these, there are, especially, names for
materials of wearing apparel, woven goods, arms, measures, and
musical instruments. Scientific terms and words for the arts the
Greeks created for themselves.

But I do not so much wish to call attention to the refusal of the
Greeks to adopt words of other languages as to emphasize their
attitude towards certain objects seen by them for the first time.
When an unknown object with a strange name becomes known to
most peoples the name is usually transferred mechanically (some-
times with a certain amount of resistance) into their own speech.
Sometimes the foreign word is retained for a time and later a desig-
nation of native manufacture is substituted for it. Of this latter
process there is no sure example in Greek.

It is hard to discover the source of importations because more
than any other people the Greeks regarded a new object from the
point of view of its essential characteristic and found a name for
it by recourse to their own tongue.1 Thus in many instances they
expanded or modified the current conception of a word already
existing; as in the case of Sopxas, gazelle, rpoxo's, potter's wheel, Aios
/ScLXavos, the sweet chestnut, fieyas trrpoS^os, ostrich, Hepo-i/cov (p^Xo*),
peach, KvSwviov (/x^Xov), quince, <f>a.(riav6s (opvis) pheasant. Sometimes
derivatives were formed, as uaiva, hyena (for which yAavos was
another name), Ixvevfuov, ichneumon (because it seeks out the eggs
of the crocodile) , Kpaveia, cornel-tree, Kepdna, St. John's bread. Finally
it was common to construct compounds, such as pivo*€pws, orpei/'i-

K€po)5, Tnryapyos, KaTto/JAeVajv, KepKOTTiOrjKos, and poSoSe^Spov.2 Even the

Phoenician names of the letters of the alphabet have been trans-
formed and often made to end in alpha. This capacity of the Greeks
to create names would seem to hold true in the case of objects which
they themselves saw in foreign countries; and the process thus
described may well have coexisted with the adoption of foreign
names for things actually imported, or the knowledge of which
(notably of animals, plants, and minerals) was imported by the
Phoenicians before the Greeks displaced that people as the traders
of the Mediterranean. Examples are irdvOrjp from Sanskrit pundi-

karas, irapSo? from prdakus; p:vppoi/, vapSo?, TreTrepi, a.\6rj ; cru7n£«pos,

The cases of folk-etymology are perhaps less common than in other
languages; as MetXi^os, " the mild (Zeus)" is Phoenician Melech or

1 This occurs of course in other languages; cf. French sanglier from singularis
instead of a name derived from verres or aper.

* See Weisp, Zeitschrift fur Volkerpsychologie, 13 (1881-82), 233 ff. To this
article (and the same author's Charakteristik der lateininchen Sprache) I am much
indebted.

GREEK AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS 153

Moloch; the date, Sa/crvAos, is Aramaic dikela, palm; in o-vKo'^opo?, syca-
more, we seem to hear O-VKOV and /Aopos, though the word is derived
from Hebrew schikmim.

A marked feature of the language, even its later history, is its
proud refusal to adopt Latinisms. Strabo finds Greek equivalents
for procurator, legatus, aquaeductus, sinus. Literature seems only
then to have adopted Latin words when they had been enfranchised
in the language of the people, which was not often the case. Plutarch
was weak in Latin; Libanius was ignorant of it. Not till the fourth
century was Latin better known because of the Latin rhetors in the
Eastern Empire. Cestius and Argentarius seem to have been the
first to make addresses in Latin. The influence of Latin syntax is
indeed seen in Philodemus to a considerable extent, but Philodemus
was himself Latinized.

Various other aspects of Greek vocabulary open up interesting
points of approach. The play of fancy, the poetical envisagement of
an object are seen in many of the names for animals, fishes, plants, etc.
Thus, KcpSw, fox, <f>epeou<o<;, snail, faxy, butterfly, ^x*7"7^ cicada, /Sao-t-
A.IO-KOS, golden-crested wren; /?a'/cxo9, wfiiov, are names of fishes; w^ata
is the water-lily. It is noteworthy that the same word often desig-
nates a plant and a fish, a bird and a fish. Sometimes the same ani-
mal has many names, which are due to popular recognition of diverse
qualities.

Greek names for persons are one of the finest achievements of the
genius of the Indo-European languages; and the principle of name-
giving inherited by all the Indo-European peoples nowhere attained
such splendid results as in Greece. The common names of the Greeks
have an element of distinction, an idealistic and poetic tone that
echoes the national spirit as the names of no other land. xXeos is
the most prolific single element, and its frequency recalls the remark
of Pliny ( N. H. 3, 42) : Grai, genus in gloriam suam effusissimum.
The stateliness and dignity of the names in ev-, dpwrro-, xaAAi-, KaAo-,
dyopa-, ST//XO-, -ju-a^o-, ITTTTO-, $€o-, Kparo-, etc., evince at once the national
ideals and the contrast to the lowliness and poverty of the Roman
names, which often express intellectual or physical defects (Cato,
Verres, Cicero, Catilina; Brutus; Flaccus, Plancus, Sulla, Naso).
In Latin there are at most only thirty praenomina. Success in war
was not to the Greeks a proper source of name-giving, and not till
the Macedonian age do we meet with such names as Demetrius
Poliorcetes, Seleucus Nicator; whereas the addition of designations
like Africanus and Numidicus is proper to the genius of the Roman
people. The Greek found in names for persons the nomen et omen, a
religious significance rather than an opportunity for mere word-play
or jest such as marks the attitude of Cicero in his correspondence
and even in his speeches. But the well-nigh universal refusal of the

154 GREEK LANGUAGE

Romans to name their children after their gods evinces a deeper
religious feeling than the Greek custom, which, with few exceptions,
draws on the entire pantheon (for example, 'ATroAAwvios, Iloo-eiSwvios) .
In fact, while the names of the Greeks mirror the high spirit of the
cavalier, the Roman names utterly fail to reflect the dignity of
Roman national life. , •

Another difference between Greek and Latin is the individualiz-
ation by the Greek of his mountains, springs, and other features of
natural scenery. All of these bear definite names, and some are
relics of the primitive "Carian" civilization, such as 'Epv/Aavflos,
'ApaKwflos.1 So rich is the vocabulary of Greek places that we may
almost use the words of Lucan in speaking of the district about
Troy: "nullum sine nomine saxum."

Conscious of the wealth of the vocabulary at his command, the
Greek does not scruple to repeat a word already used; while the
anxiety of the Roman to vary his words is an effort to hide by artifice
the poverty of his resources. Poetry has its own vocabulary, but the
proprieties of prose demand a limitation of the material used by
the poet; yet no such strict bounds were set by the Greeks as by the
Latins. Under the impulse of a controlling emotion the writer of
prose in Greece feels free to rise to the region of poetry and to borrow
from the loftier language of his fellow craftsmen the means to
awaken emotion in others.

The deficiencies of Greek vocabulary are also instructive. Words
for color are more numerous than in Latin, the poverty of which in
contrast to the abundance of Greek is lamented by Favorinus
(Gellius, N. A. 2, 26, 5). Their infrequency in Greek, however, in
comparison to modern languages is an indication of indifference, not
to the charm of color, but to the minutiae of shading. French is said
to have five times as many color-words as English, but we are not
therefore insensible to the play of color effects; and English differen-
tiates auburn, hazel and bay, rose and pink where German has only
braun and rosa. Greek words for color often suggest more than they
mean, as in the case of x^upavxyv used of a woman.

Both Greek and Latin have a highly developed system of names
for family relationship, but a point of difference between the two
languages may be noticed in the "conjuges liberique" of the Roman
in contrast to the TraiScs /ecu ywauces of the Greek. The relation of the
slave to his master in Greece (Trcus, OIKCT^S, avSpa-TroSov, and the color-
less 8o£Aos) is much less individualized than in Rome, where an am-
pler system of names indicates a wider aspect of the position occu-
pied by the slave in regard to the family and the state (puer, famulus,
verna, minister, ancilla, servus, mancipium).
1 Probably " Carian " are also

GREEK AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS 155

Syntax

To syntax so much attention is devoted to-day that we almost
lose sight of other aspects of the study of language. Greek syntax,
too, displays the obvious and the subtler operations of the national
mind. The Roman loves concinnity, subordination; the Greek loves
variation, independence, the largest amount of freedom under the
sovereignty of law. To fixed forms of thought, to rigidity and uni-
formity of expression, the Greek mind is hostile. The acuteness of
his logical faculty loves to unbend; — an entasis disturbs the level
line of thought only to yield a higher beauty than that of mere even-
ness. Greek speech is acutely sensitive to the psychological processes
of assimilation, attraction, and the varied forms of analogy; all of
which give evidence of liveliness and rapidity of comprehension.
A passion for precision of outline is voiced in the delight in antithesis.
Antithesis is sometimes developed within antithesis; and readily
finds expression even when it does not point a contrast in the thought.
Greek is the language of "buts": we might almost say of it what
Goethe said in another connection: "jedes gesprochene Wort
erregt den Widerspruch." Independence of the members of a sen-
tence is gained by //.eV and Se, even when syntactical subordination
is effected by conjunctions. A further testimony to the antithetical
form of thought are the many polar expressions, as when one member
of a pair is logically insignificant (H 315-316, Alcman, 4, 43-44); or
where a doublet takes the place of a general expression (Sophocles,
Antig. 1108-09; cf. a^arot re <£aToi re) ; or when opposites are asso-
ciated the latter of the two is added solely to explain a general
idea already expressed (8 719-20). I cannot pause to remark on the
many shades of finesse, on the blending of the intellectual and
artistic qualities, on the power to chase the fleeting shadows of the
associative analogies of thought, that are apparent to every observer
of the syntactical usages of the language. We think of the mental
agility demanded by the Greek of his hearers and readers; the
sudden shifts of construction, as when an independent clause takes
up a relative clause; the striking ellipses, especially in proverbs; the
power of minute distinction noticeable in the use of the subjunctive
and optative moods with or without av or *«/, or of the future and
subjunctive with or without av or K«-V; the blending of the active and
the middle with the subtle distinctions of the latter voice; the distinc-
tion between the active, reflexive, and middle; the articular infinitive,
a late addition to the resources of the language, but rich in possibil-
ities; the wide range of the adverb as an attributive (ol del apxavres),
a usage forbidden even to German and approached only by English,
as in " an out-of-the-way corner." Greek affects active, personal
constructions, is poor in impersonals in comparison with Latin;

156 GREEK LANGUAGE

Greek prefers the direct reproduction of the words of another,
whereas Latin allows greater range to oratio obliqua. The Symposium
of Plato is herein a tour de force.

The power of the participle gives variety to the sentence and reduces
to a brief compass a thought that otherwise might be expressed in
dragging subordinate clauses. (The addition of lw, <£epa>v, aywv, etc.,
that appears to us superfluous, gives vividness by sketching a situ-
ation.) Greek, Latin, and English are here nearer akin, though Greek
has a far wider range than either Latin or English; while German
lacks the use of the transitive participle, as it does that of the Greek
verbal adjective. In Greek the participle is readily substantivised,
and is sometimes petrified, as in yepwv, Gepd-n-wv. In German this is
rarely the case, as in Wind, that is, der wehende.

Greek emphasizes the character of an action within the free range
of the tense-system, but in comparison to some languages, and
especially Latin, it is often careless of some of the exact distinctions
of time-relation; nor, it may be added, though not as a corollary,
did the Greeks, until the time of Timseus and Polybius, that is, long
after the period of their most marked individualism, develop the
essential virtue of the historian, — the passion for exact chronology.

The double tense-forms are not linguistic luxuries, though an
original differentiation may be relaxed, either momentarily, or ab-
solutely, as in a later stage of the language. Ordinary cases, such as
«?£w and o-x^o-w, will occur to every one; let me call attention to the
differences of the dialects; e. g. dveyvwo-a alongside of dveyvwv, the
former having in Ionic the meaning "persuaded." From the point
of view of other languages Greek does seem to possess several lin-
guistic luxuries, as the future, /SouX^o-o/xai, with the infinitive, where
(3ovX.ofjLai would suffice. Many such delicacies of expression fell
out of use in course of time. But outworn distinctions may well
survive in a language that is subtle, as the evanescent distinction
between the present and future infinitive in the periphrastic con-
struction with /zc'AAo) as a verb of thinking.

One delicate syntactical usage that has heretofore been regarded
as the distinct property of Latin has latterly been shown to exist in
Greek. The epistolary imperfect indicating the time of the reading
of a letter by its recipient is now known to occur in a Greek letter of
the fourth century B.C., so that this use in Latin, like the word
epistula, is in all probability borrowed from Greek. See Wilhelm,
Der aelteste griechische Brief, in the Jahreshefte d. oester. arch. Inst.,
1904, pp. 94 ff.

Order of Words

A good arrangement of words marks the organic expression of
thought, and pleases the ear. The order of words in Greek illustrates

GREEK AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS 157

the spontaneity and mobility of the genius of the Hellenic race.
This is not due solely to the fact that, in proportion as the inflections
of a language are well developed, the arrangement of the words is
freer and the need of emphasis on logical relations is therefore less
pronounced. There is, too, the national quality of mind.

Thus it may not be overbold to discover in the rigid arrangement
of subject, object, and predicate in French an aspect of the Gallic
mind, which here, as elsewhere, is controlled by the centralizing
tendency of society, by convention, by linguistic etiquette, and
above all by its insistence on absolute perspicuity. " La clarte" est la
base e"ternelle de notre langue," says Rivarol; and Condillac remarks
that French is perhaps the only language which has no synonyms,
signifying thereby words absolutely identical in meaning. Above
all other tongues the Gallo-Roman demands elegance, propriety,
and mathematical exactness. This absolute precision is indeed
foreign to the Greek, who gives freer play to his fancy, to his per-
sonality, and thus reproduces the shifting charm of nature. Greek
does not recognize such rigid distinctions in meaning as appear in
Latin carmen malum and malum carmen, partus secundae and se-
cundae partus, homo urbanus and urbanus homo. Nor does the im-
periousness of logic dominate Greek as it dominates Latin.

When Greek prose had attained perfection it fell into a strange
captivity that marks the peril of supersensitiveness to form. The
moderns can have no adequate understanding of the passion to
avoid hiatus in prose and to modify thje freer movement of prose
by the rhythms of poetry. Held in check, as in Demosthenes, the
opposition to hiatus evinces the delicacy of Greek perception;
autocratic in its demands, as in Polybius, it reduced art to the bond-
age of the letter. So long as both tendencies remained under control
they indeed limited the free disposition of the members of clauses and
sentences; but that limitation the Greek was willing to accept in
order to gain a more finished utterance.

Metaphors

Metaphors are the sparks of the mind; metaphors illuminate the
recesses of feeling. The attitude of a man to life, his external activity,
his innermost thought, the attractions and repulsions of his person-
ality, are embodied in the figurative language he naturally employs.
Many metaphors are purely personal; and yet it is possible to dis-
cover affinities which pass beyond the sphere of the individual and
indicate unconsciously the national mind and character. Change
in metaphor is a capital index to change in social conditions and in
morals. Every language marks its progress by the creation of new
modes of figurative thought. Every age brings its contribution to
metaphorical expression: those of the distant past we often find

158 GREEK LANGUAGE

difficult to understand; those of recent times, drawn mostly from
trade, science, art, we comprehend, as a rule, with ease. So rapid,
however, is the change in social conditions that a metaphor less than
a century old now may need its interpreter. Who grasps at first the
meaning of "to burke a parliamentary question"? So the ancients
must have been sore distressed to comprehend reXen/cto-at " to make
empty," from the Seriphian beggar Telenicus.

Greek figurative language is not so ample a record of civilization
as are the metaphors of modern times. Invention and discovery
are infrequently a source of the metaphorical language of the Greeks,
possibly because of a difference of attitude in comparison with any
modern people, but more certainly because invention and discovery
constituted a mark of civilization less effectively in ancient times
than they do at present. Some expressions of the sort do exist,
however, as Kaivoro/xciv, "to make innovations in the state," from
opening up a new vein in mining.

It is well-nigh impossible to discover mint-marks of nationality
in the "petrified metaphor," which permeates every language and is
seen especially in the expression of intellectual conceptions. If we
confine our observation to the pure metaphor and the simile, we shall
find that they record to no slight degree national activities and
especially occupations. Latin shows at every hand the Roman
soldier, the agriculturist, the spectator at the gladiatorial games.
With the Greeks the sea is the most prolific source of metaphors that
bespeak the national thought. The figurative uses of epeWo>, dvTAe'w,

yaA>7vi£a>, o/ceAAw, di/aKporw, <raAeua>, Ko/rovpi^o), ep/xa ballast, op/xos haven,

etc., are constant. The Greek says Ai/«/v drvxi'as " a harbor of misery ";

ei? Tre'Aayos avrov e/x/JaActs yap TrpayttdYwv is the warning of Menander

(65, 6) to a man about to marry. Aristophanes says of the bride
TrAeuo-reov eVi Tov wfj.(f)iov. The sea is the type of animation (TreAayos ^
TTO'AI? eo-Tiv) , of peevishness, inconstancy; whereas we speak of the
uncertainty of the weather. The audience in the theatre is the
OaXarra KoiX-rj. The palaestra yields an abundance of figurative usages :

utpu), dTroorAeyyi^u), KAi/xaKi£a>, VTrocrKeXt^o), crKtaita^ia, Trepi crrdcrews dyaw'^oyu.ai,

may serve as common examples. The contests in court recall those

in the gymnasium, dywv, cupeco, SIWKW, <£eirya), Trapepxo/xtu, TrpOKaAeo/xat,

etc., in their figurative senses are all drawn from the same source.
Most metaphors from riding deal with racing.

Music yields TrapaTraiw, Trapa^opSt^a), TrA^/x/xcAea), etc., and auros avrov

auXci. Roman gravity reprehended dicing : impudicus et vorax et aleo,
says Catullus, 29, 2. The Greeks had easier consciences on this score.
Witness the use of Kv/Jeua> for KivBwevu. dvapptVTw KiVSwov is borrowed
from drappiTTTO) Kvfiov. From the occupation of weaving are drawn the

figurative USeS of Sixoppa^ew, eniKXwOo), a-iraOdw, the phrases d/^pvroi
Aoyoi, paTTTw £7rt/?ouAds ; fishing yields SeAea^to, tKKaAa/xao/xai ; the statll-

GREEK AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS 159

ary's art, •n-A.arro) KO.KOV, airo Kai/a/3ev//,aTa>v. The life of the farmer sup-
plied the figurative use of apovv, to "procreate," and^cWo? ypoOr) 8op(,
and of oAoaco " thresh " and " thrash." Metaphors from war are not so
common in Greek as in Latin; hence the range of the figurative uses
of TToAe/xo'w and /xaxo/xat is more restricted than is that of the cor-
responding Latin words. Comedy is far less free than tragedy in its
recourse to metaphors from arming. There are of course many
differences between Greek and modern metaphors. The ass is not
always the stupid beast, and the goose is not foolish to the Greek.
The dog is not always the faithful companion of man. If there be
virtue in heredity, the character of the modern Greek dog has not
changed from that of his classical ancestor which justified the phrase
TraXXoLKi) KWWTTIS of Aspasia.

Bliimner calls attention bo one advantage possessed by the form
of metaphor in Greek and Latin. We might say, ". Each one of you,
like the fox, gets his bribe," or " The fox gets his bribe," but we
cannot say, "Each one of you, a fox, gets his bribe"; as the Greek
does in proverbial sayings with pregnant force, vp-lav tts //,ei/
(Cratinus, 128).

Proverbs

Metaphors often find a place in proverbs, and a word may be said
of the character of the Greek proverb. The Greeks did not sharply
distinguish between va.poip.ia and yvwpq. They often included under
proverbs expressions that are merely metaphorical, as oWn? linKovpia ;
famous words of the poets or other writers, as a/x/xes TICK' ^c?, an
abbreviation of a/x/xes TTOK' ^es aA/a/toi veaviat; word-plays; com-
parisons, as 6pytXwT6po? TWV KwiStW. Many, perhaps most proverbs,
disclose no truth that is the specific property of any people. Form,
shading of expression, manner of pointing the moral, may vary with
different peoples, but the content is usually common property.
Proverbs set forth the wisdom of an age rather than of a nation as
distinct from any other nation. In Greek, in comparison to the mass
of "literary" proverbs in the collections there are relatively few
handed down orally and drawn from the mouth of the common
people ("ex vulgi faece," as Erasmus has it). Greek literature,
even Greek philosophy, stood nearer to the life of the common
people than is the case in modern times. The Greek poets and
philosophers drew on popular wisdom for their axioms of sound
sense and good morals with a frequency that would be indecorous
in their fellow craftsmen of to-day. Still much proverbial wit
smacks of the soil whence it springs. Goethe has well expressed it :

Sprichwort bezeichnet Nationen
Muss aber erst unter ihnen wohnen.

160 GREEK LANGUAGE

"Operam et oleum perdidi," says the Roman; "Da 1st Hopfen und
Malz verloren," says the German. Many Greek proverbs, especially
those in Aristophanes, take their point from Attic life or history;
others, as those drawn from the sea, epitomize national sentiment.

Such are l-n-l Svolv ayKvpaiv 6p/Aeiv, OVK eirl rfjs airnjs (dyKvpas) op/my, Bevrf-
pos TrXovs, and the less common ebro /CWTTT^S CTTI /8r)/xa, aA.as aytov Ka#ewS«s,
Trpos KotpvKov yv/j,vd£e<T&cu, dXteus TrAi/yets vow oura, 'ATTIKOS €is Xt/Aeva, KepSovs
?K(m Kay ejTi piTT-os TrAcoi. The pithy sententiae of the Spartan mark his
sturdy and homely character; the wit of the keen Sicilian is barbed

(e/c Travros £vA.ov xXwos yeVotr' dv KOL 0«ds).

So the principles that are a guide to life are set down in the homely
language of peasant and merchant. Nor are there indications lacking
that in Greece too there were those "whose whole wisdom lies in
a collection of proverbs." Innumerable are the proverbs taken from
the close intimacy of men with animals and their observation of the
life of birds.

Versification

The rhythms in which the poet's thought gains an utterance
embody the national genius. Nowhere is this the case with greater
certainty than in Greece. The versatility of the Greek mind is
expressed in the countless rhythms of their manifold lyric; their
subtle sense of the connection between form and content finds
opportunity for expression in a wealth of rhythms incomparably
superior to that possessed by any other civilized people. If \ve
regard only the dactylic hexameter as the national meter, the
spontaneity, grace, and mobility of the Hellenes is mirrored in the
movement of the verse; while the Saturnian, as has often been
pointed out, reflects the stately and dignified Roman.

National Style

If style is regulated by the movement of thought itself it may
not be hazardous to speak of a national style voicing national
endowment in poetry or prose or in both. Thus the national style of
the Romans is prose, which is suited to the gravity of the national
manners and character, to the logical character of the national mind.
With all the majesty of Virgil and the vehemence of Juvenal, the
Roman character is not essentially poetic. As the Latins came
under the influence of the Greeks they lost something of their stiff-
ness, sharpness, and homely hard sense. But in that department of
the poet's art which is most individual, in lyric, the Roman failed,
with all his dependence on his Greek models, to acquire the power of
the wing. The Romans had a distinct genius for prose, as have the
French, the creators of modern prose style. (Boccaccio and Cervantes,

GREEK AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS 161

I am told, still latinized.) French lyric that is not due to the influence
of Provengal or English lacks in power when measured in comparison
with German, English, or Greek. The intellectual and emotional
qualities of the Hellenic race endowed it equally with a genius
for poetry and for prose; though poetry rather than prose is perhaps
truly national in its scope. The sovereignty of Greek style exacted
submission in the form of imitation among all nations and at every
time. The creative quality of the Greek spirit transfused its imitat-
ors so that they gained the power of originality, of passing through
imitation to creation. Bossuet read Homer whenever he had to
compose a funeral oration.

One salient difference between the classic tongues (and especially
Greek) in comparison with modern languages is their greater pre-
cision and lucidity. We pack such an infinite deal into our words
that exactness and clearness of thinking often disappear. The Greeks
developed their thought in order to be clear. Their connectives focus
attention on the logical evolution of their thought.

Aristotle says that a foreigner could be recognized by his avoidance
of certain particles. The particles are logical; but they are also
lyric and emotional. They indicate personality, opinion, hope,
doubt; though they reproduce the Greek dialectical keenness, they
have less of that reflective character that marks our ponderous and
meticulous "I believe," "I assume," "I daresay." The intellectual
quality of Greek speech does no violence to its poetic quality. Feeling
holds its own when the reason is most at work. The language of the
Greeks is a diaphanous robe of finely spun texture which allows
each delicate contour of the thought to display its just proportions.

THE PROBLEMS OF GREEK

BY MILTON WYLIE HUMPHREYS

[Milton Wylie Humphreys, Professor of Greek, University of Virginia, since 1887.
b. Sept. 15, 1844, Greenbrier County, West Virginia. M.A. Washington and
Lee University, 1869; Ph.D. Leipzig, 1874; LL.D. Vanderbilt University, 1883;
studied at Berlin, 1872-73; Leipzig, 1873-74. Gunner in Confederate Artillery,
1861-65; Assistant Professor of Latin and Greek, Washington and Lee Univer-
sity, 1867-70; Adjunct Professor, ibid. 1872-75; Professor of Greek, Vander-
bilt University, 1875-83; Professor of Ancient Languages, University of Texas,
1883—87. Member of American Philological Association; President of American
Philological Association, 1882-83. Editor of The Clouds of Aristophanes; The
Antigone of Sophocles; also editor-general of Revues des Revues (Paris), for
North America, 1878-88; and author of numerous articles in periodicals.]

AN adequate treatment of the problems of Greek would require
the prolonged labor of many specialists, and the result would be,
not a short essay, but volumes. It is reasonable, therefore, for one
man, whose specialty is not suited for elaboration here, to hope for
lenience on the part of specialists in other branches of the subject.

Under the perplexing conditions it seems best to give a rough,
general survey of the territory, and while doing so to make as it were
a few raids through some special parts. These parts will be confined
to the language proper, and definite references to modern works
will be avoided.

This paper does not deal with the objects and tasks of Greek
philology; but a few remarks on the obstacles to the solution of
problems seem appropriate. Since many of the problems can be
solved only by means of accumulated results, it is obvious that all
errors or defects of research are obstacles. Two or three of these
will be noted by way of illustration. One is the failure to make
discriminations. I do not refer to hair-splitting distinctions, of which
we have too many, but to the confusion of wholly different things.
We find Bfiva TTOLCLV with its two meanings confounded with Savov (or
8«va) -rroiflo-Oai, apxeiv with apxfo~0ai., Ifcori and the dative with t-feo-Tt
and the accusative with the infinitive, Stl and the accusative with
Set and the dative with the infinitive, and so on; and sometimes we
are told that one of the usages is "rare," when it is rare only in the
sense in which "broadaxe" is rare in comparison with "hatchet."
Sometimes we are. told that the perfects of certain verbs are used as
presents, and find TfQvrjKa, " I am dead," cited as an example instead of
rcOvdrw, "let him die"; and we actually find the supposed confusion
of the infinitive with ^ and the subjunctive or optative after verbs
of fearing ridiculed as if the infinitive after such verbs were never
used as the equivalent of ^ with the finite verb. Then there is the

THE PROBLEMS OF GREEK 163

widespread disposition of critics to eliminate the scattering early
examples of phenomena which abound in later periods. We are
told, for example, that the second aorist passive "^yyeAr/v is fre-
quent in later Greek, and was introduced by copyists into correct
writers"; and so it has been "emended" even from Euripides; and
yet it occurs in a good Attic inscription. It should be borne in mind
that many of the seeming peculiarities of late Greek had their origin
at an early period, and sporadic examples should be expected.

One sample of defective method will now be mentioned ; the use
made of statistics, or rather the making of statistics that are of no
use. What is gained, for instance, by knowing the ratio of the aorists
to the imperfects in any given work unless we know in how many
of the examples either tense might have been used? In Xenophon's
Hellenica the ratio of the aorists to the imperfects is much greater
for the compounds of TrAew than for the simple verb. Does this show
that Xenophon had a predilection for the aorists of" the compounds as
compared with the simple verb?. Of course not. The circumstances
under which €K7rA.etv, KarairXeLv, <5ia7rA€iv, etc., are used more frequently
call for the aorist, and the same phenomenon appears in Thucydides.
Again, even if statistics have been intelligently made, they should
be used with great care. By one of the metrical tests it can be demon-
strated that the ninth and the tenth books of the JSneid are by
different authors.

The problems of Greek relate to every part of the subject: the
letters, the history of their forms in inscriptions and manuscripts
in different places; the sounds represented by the letters; the
accents; words, their forms, meanings, and origins or etymologies;
the combination of words into sentences; the modes of speaking or
reciting from the i/ftAr) Ae'fis of conversation up to the singing of
lyric poetry; the restoration of texts; the authorship, chronology,
sources, and possible revision of works; the origin and mutual
relation of dialects; the subject-matter, and so on. These subjects
bring us into contact with comparative linguistic, meters and music,
textual and higher criticism, and most branches of the so-called
sciences. The Hellenist must also deal with the results of research in
the fields of archaeology, mythology, history, and general antiquities.
We can never know when a new fact may throw light on our subject.
The antepirrhema of the knights, however much admired by some
for its exquisite humor, was sheer nonsense, until we learned from an
archaeological source that the horses on which the knights entered
the theatre, those horses that preferred crabs to clover, were two-
legged horses. How far the Hellenist must deal with the subject-
matter is a perplexing question. If he must explain mythological
and historical allusions, why not also scientific facts or theories?
Wherever the line be drawn, Greek scholars must at least aid in the

164 GREEK LANGUAGE

restoration and interpretation of Greek works of all sorts. The
Optics ascribed to Euclid, the treatise of Apollonius on Conic Sections
with the use of coordinate axes, the invention of differentiation and
integration by Archimedes, and similar works, can be interpreted
only by Greek scholars competent to understand the subject-matter,
or, less satisfactorily, in collaboration with mathematicians. So the
Hellenist must support the investigator on the slippery field of
comparative linguistic, and must avail himself of all the light shed
from that source and be able to distinguish the light from the dark-
ness.

To begin, then, at the beginning. The letters of the alphabet,
including tachygraphy, present too many problems to be so much
as named. The digamma alone presents a legion of problems. How
was Z pronounced? How the aspirated mutes, especially when two
stand together? And the diphthongs : when did the two syllables of
AeiTretv assume the same vowel sound, and what was that sound?
Was the future of 7rao-xo> identical with that of 7m'0o/Aai for Pericles?
If not, how was it for Demosthenes? When did (Andoc. Myst. 147)

ov&' rjfji,d.pTr]TaL ouSev ovre r/fjuv eis vyu.Ss ovre vfuv €is 'fjp.a1; become ov8' i/iaprtre

ouSev ovre lfj.lv is iftas OVTC Ifjuv is i//as? Such are some of the questions.
Then, it being assumed that the sounds represented by the letters are
known, numerous questions arise. There is still a question as to the
nature of accent, and there is actually a question whether the accent
was observed in reading poetry, and on the other hand the much
more reasonable question whether there was any metrical stress. The

questions relating to i]/i\r] Ae£is, KaraXoy^, irapa.KO.ra Aoyi?, TO. em;, /xe'Aos,

etc., bring us into contact with metric, music, and dance, and the
analysis and performance of plays. All these must be passed over
here. .The analysis of a tragedy, thanks to Aristotle, is fairly well
settled, and that of a comedy has entered upon a new epoch, but
still has its problems, I might say, its warfare.

Words present countless problems. The etymology and meaning
are in some instances unknown even when these seem as if they
ought to be obvious, such, for example, as the much-discussed
dp.ai[idKeTo<i and ^A.i/?aros. And even yXav/coJTri? : is it "gray-eyed," or
"of the gray water"? Or is it "owl-faced"? ("AiroXXov dTrorpoTreue ! )
The Homeric poems alone furnish a considerable vocabulary of
unexplained words. Some whole classes of words have their problems.
When does rpets ^ticpcu mean three actual days and nights, and
when does it mean one day and two nights, or can it mean this at all?
If Sia TrevTT/pi'Sos means "every five years," how is it that a festival
celebrated every four years is called a TrevTtTT/pis? (Our lexicon has
a serious error on this word.) In short, when do numerals and their
compounds, applied to units of time, denote our cardinal numerals
and when our ordinal? Also the history of numeral notation is still

THE PROBLEMS OF GREEK 165

to be written. One "specialist" says that for some unknown reason
the early Athenians used H instead of E for IKCLTOV] The history
of the transition to the later system is needed for purposes of textual
criticism. The date of the well-known couplet on the eg wpai of labor
would aid in the solution of several problems, fixing the terminus
ante quern for the new system, the use of wpa for "hour," and the
imperative ZfiOi.

The names of animals and plants are troublesome. The aiXovpos
and the yaXi/, with the later Kdrra and Karros, have a literature of
their own, and yet the cat problem remains unsolved. Despite
volumes on Greek birds, the make-up of the chorus in the Aves is
not altogether settled. And now, to pass on to plants, we are told
that the vaKwOos could not have been the hyacinth, that ^yo's was
probably not the oak, that the KWUOV with its painless death
could not have been the conium maculatum nor the dcuta virosa.
But there is scarcely any end to such questions.

The inflection of words still has its problems. It is sufficient to
refer to the controversy over the dative plural in Homer, and the
question to what extent ^v was plural and eW singular. Our gram-
mars change from year to year. Now we have the long delayed
TeOrjKa; shall we ever have -ocr#a>j/ as an alternative for -e'o-floji/?
There are still questions enough as to forms, and even as to accents,
as in the case of the so-called proclitics; but I must hasten on.

Syntax and style are closely bound together. Of style proper I
shall say as little as possible. Style relates to different ways of saying
the same thing. If a change in a sentence adds to or takes from its
sense, it is not a purely stylistic change. Publishers once, to suppress
my egotism, changed "I do not know" into "It is not known." We

Can say either CTrA^yr/v Trporepov rj eTrarafa or Trpdrepos CTrA^yrp rj €7rara£a,

but the latter says more than the former, and the difference
does not pertain to style. The delicate tints of stylistic coloring are
very elusive, and the distinctions drawn, I fear, are sometimes
illusory. Much depends on the mental characteristics, natural and
acquired, of the individual. Association particularly plays an im-
portant part. If the Greek scholars should each write down three
brief passages that are respectively most impressive, most touching,
and most beautiful to him, the list would be very interesting. Prob-
ably only one person here would select as the most impressive eW/3a\ov

ts TT/V 'ATTIKTJV, ^yeiro 8c 'Ap^t'Sa/xos 6 ZcvfiSa/tou, Aa/ceSatyioviW /3acriAevs.

Usually, as in the example cited, the subject-matter is the main fac-
tor of impressiveness; but the very sound of words may have a
powerful influence, that of some words on some people, that of others
on others.

Do not, then, judge me too severely when I confess that on me
the ^0os of the Greek cases is to a great extent lost. To my mind the

166 GREEK LANGUAGE

effect of placing the accusative at the head of a sentence is not due
to any vigor of the case itself, but to the fact that its position an-
nounces a departure from the every-day arrangement of the parts of
the sentence. As "omne ignotum pro rnirifico," so " omne inusita-
tum pro grandiloquo." The subject accusative with the infinitive in
oratio obliqua is to me nothing more than a nominative. Analog-
ously, to my mind the difference between the genitive and the dative
is purely grammatical. In 6 Tran/p p.oi TC^VT/KCV, /ioi is not possessive :
it means "I have lost my father," just as in Cicero's single mention
of his father, " Pater nobis decessit a. d. mi. Kal. Decembres," " nobis "
instead of " noster " is the one note of feeling. The Pindaric flvyoY^p
ol (if ot is dative) is due to the predication involved in apposition,
a latent predication which may become active. The possessive
dative used attributively is a solecism, or rather a Colophonism.
When the case is a predicate, the distinction between ownership
and possession is purely grammatical. 'Ei/ra£0a Kvpa> /SacnAeia fa . . .

tori 8e /cat //.eyaAov /^atriAe'cos /3a<rt'Aeia ev KeAaivats : here the predicate

dative and attributive genitive do not imply different kinds of posses-
sion. So TO. €v KeA.au/aZs /JacriAeia eon Kvpov would not allow Kupo>.

The rule, however, that if the subject has the article the genitive is
used, if not, the dative, is inadequate and does not get at the root of
the matter. A noun with the article may have the predicate dative
(Dem. 43, 52), and the genitive may be used when there is no article
with the subject. As this paper does not offer solutions of problems,
no attempt is made to state what seems to be the correct rule. The
ordinary distinction between " possession " and " ownership " is prob-
ably due to the fact that Ion Ku'p<j> may be rendered "Cyrus has."

The problems of the cases have not all been solved. As yet the
cases have usually been treated separately, and for individual
authors or works, whereas they need to be treated conjointly and
comprehensively. To one point attention is directed. The prevailing
distinction between the accusative and the dative with the infinitive
after «f£eo-Ti and Trpocn/Kei, though sadly muddled in some of our
standards, is theoretically plain enough; but what are we to make
of examples like Isocr. Paneg. 28, where it is said of a Aoyos that
has become /j-vOwS-r)? : O/AW? aur<3 Kai vvv prjOTJvai Trpoo-rJKei t Is this semi-
personification : "it deserves to be told"? A complete collection of
examples would be useful.

With the cases the prepositions are intimately associated. Not
to mention the more general problems, the simple question of differ-
ent cases with the same preposition is often misunderstood, and we
find efforts to force the idea of motion into all examples of Trapa
with the accusative, or the view that Trapa of rest must take the
dative at least of a person. Here, by the way, style has its effect to
the extent that poetry has the greater privilege of being quaint.

THE PROBLEMS OF GREEK 167

The question of the choice of prepositions has its problems. Why, for
instance, o^oXoyeiTcu irapd (or Trpos) TIVOS rather than viro TIVOS? Even o-w
still seems to need elucidation. We talk of its use in Attic prose as
being restricted to commercial language, and, in another sense, to a
few phrases; but when Stratonicus (who had in his school- room two
pupils and ten statues representing Apollo and the Muses) was asked
how many pupils he had, and answered, <rvv TOIS fools SwSeKa, he was
punning on what I believe to have been two good Attic uses of the
preposition, except that one of them is confined to a few phrases
("with the help of," "thanksto"). I do not recall an instance of //.era
in the sense "inclusive of."

The question of the simple verb with a preposition, eX0etv ets,
the compound without the preposition, eio-eX0eiv, and the com-
pound with a preposition dveXOtlv eis, needs elucidation. Here style
and meaning are both concerned, and even the latter seems to
be misconceived in some instances. In certain translations we
read " Epidamnus is a city situated on the right as you sail into the
Ionian gulf." Of course it should be, accent it as you will, " There is
a city Epidamnus"; but that by the way. The point is this: we are
told that this is the only prose example of eo-TrXeiv with the simple
accusative. If so, it is the only prose example of eo-7rX«v with an
accusative not depending on e'er- directly. As you sail by Epidamnus
on your right, you are far within the Ionian gulf of Thucydides. There
is a similar confusion of o-vorpaTeu«v TWI with auo-TpaTeueiv fj.(rd. Ttvos

(Or O"VV TtVl).

The article, with its development, its prose use and its poetical
omission, its uses with proper names, and so on, must be reluctantly
dismissed with a brief remark on one point: the use of the article
with a noun in address. Mrjrep Aopctou 17 yepcua, Hare/a i^/xcov 6 Iv TOIS

ovpavois and similar examples are familiar to all, and no one would

defend Trarep Aapei'ou 6 yepaie or 6 ev rots ovpavois irdrep', but Some

appear not to know that where there is no vocative form there is
no vocative case and the article is not excluded; but to what extent
the address affects the use of the article I have not seen discussed.
The article with a nominative following and qualifying a true voca-
tive, as just cited, is treated by some as an irregularity, as is the
predicate vocative as in w ^tXrarc perairiTrTwv ; but on what grounds?
The pronouns still have their problems. When, for instance, " I "
is used for "any one," must «yw be expressed? Certainly not in late
Greek. A study of this subject which I have published does not
pretend to be exhaustive or conclusive. Again, what is there specially
" Attic " about ri Xey«s <ru ? Has the pronoun anything to do with
it? Why was <rv in eX0c o-v, TOVTO TToirja-ov <rv, in the KOUO/ equivalent
to paKa or ^wpc, and did it have the same effect in the classic Greek?
But I cannot take time even to ask the many remaining questions.

168 GREEK LANGUAGE

In the syntax of the verb only a few isolated points will be touched
upon. First, as to tense : the dispute over the fundamental difference
between certain tenses is chiefly a battle of words, and I pass it by.
All will agree that a question between the imperfect and the aorist
is usually a question of the encroachment of the former upon the theo-
retical domain of the latter. "EAeye, "he was saying," "used to say,"
or "he said"; but eiTre only "he said." So from the durative are
developed some special tense-relations not derived from the aorist.
The ingressive aorist of a verb denoting a state is not the same as
the imperfect that leaves an act in progress. When a purpose is im-
plied we hear of a conative imperfect if the voice is active : a-n-^XXva-av
/u,e; but it is equally conative in the passive: dTrwAAv/xT/v VTT avrwv, only
the grammatical subject does not make the attempt. In eo-w^o'/x^v vv
avrwv it would be doubtful who made the attempt. But this so-called
conative is the same as we find in Andoc. Myst. 114, avros /xev avrov

avuXXvov Ti#eis rrjv iKerrjpiav, ecrw^oftT/v oe rfj rux#> where there is no

attempt. Like this is the imperfect as the future of the past, as
Antiph. Tetr. A. ft. 3, <£ave/>os yevoynevos airwXXvfjiTrjv. Andoc. Myst. 58,

(frovevs ovv avrdv eyiyvo/XT^v eya> fir) CITTWV vfj.li/ a rjKovcra. en Se Tpia/coo't'ous
' A.6ijvaiu)v ainaXXvov, /cat fj 770X15 Iv KaKots rots ju.eye'crrois eyiyvero. All these

uses, the "conative," the "ingressive," the "future from the past,"
were probably to the Greeks one and the same: at least some con-
vincing proof of the contrary would be welcome. The problematical
"conative aorist," the "conatus sine effectu," must be passed by.

Omitting also the problems relating to the present and aorist of
the subjunctive, optative, imperative, and infinitive, let us consider
the supplementary participle not in oratio obliqua. Two cases
only will be mentioned. Verbs of physical perception, practically
opav and d/covciv, we are told, normally take the present participle,
especially so opav. It is true that we can see an act only in progress ;
but then we can see it through, and in that case we should expect
the aorist. In other words, did the Greeks never distinguish between
"I saw a tree falling" and "I saw a tree fall"? I am reluctant to
admit this. When the boy Cyrus saw a deer break cover, he gave

chase : ws e?8ev eXa<£ov eKTrrjorjo-acrav . . . eSiWev. The imperfect fSiaiKev,

as it leaves him in pursuit, we should expect; and I must confess that
I should with Xenophon have written fK-n-rj^o-aa-av rather than eVTn?-
Swo-av. An exhaustive list of examples is desirable.

Analogous to opav is dve'xecrflai. To endure an act properly belongs
to the time during which the act is in progress; but as -n-cpiopav
and tyopav may take the aorist as summing up the act, there seems
to be no a priori reason why av^crOaL should not take the aorist, es-
pecially since the act may be one which, for some reason, cannot be
resisted at the moment. We may refuse to submit to something al-
ready done. The examples of the aorist participle with a.v^a-do.1 are

THE PROBLEMS OF GREEK 169

scarce. Homer's vexatious dv^Oevra veca-Qai, emended, however plaus-
ibly, into avirjOwr' dvexea-0cu, cannot be counted. Xenophon (Cyrop.
vi, 2, 18) makes the characteristic remark that a hundred horses
would not be able to stand the sight of one camel: OVK av avda-xotvTo
iSovres. Lysias (13, 8) says OVK yveo-xeo-Oe d/covVavT€s, though Xenophon
(Hell, vi, 5, 19) says of a similar situation, OVK ^VCI'XOVTO dKoiWres.
Demosthenes (41, 1) has an example of the aorist participle with
the present av^a-Bai. as in the problematical Homeric example: el

fjLaXXov -flpovp.r)v 8uca9 *ai Trpay/xar' «X«v 77 [UKpa eAarTco^eis dvex«r$ai. (The

hexameter is only apparent.) I do not recall an example of the

aorist with the Object Of avc^to-Oat, as in (W^eo-flai rty yrjv TC/AVO/XO/T/V,

though situations can be conceived in which I believe the aorist
would be required. An exhaustive list of examples of all sorts is
needed.

The mutual relations of aorist and perfect furnish some problems.
The fact that with TroAAa/as the aorist was as natural to the Greeks as
the perfect, and that with 7roAAd/as f)orj it was almost the rule, is
often ignored, and 7roAAa*is e0av//,ao-a is cited as an aorist used instead
of a wanting perfect. So the aorist subjunctive is spoken of as a less
accurate substitute for the more unwieldy perfect, whereas the per-
fect has a different function, so far as I have observed; but a thor-
ough examination I have never made nor seen. That the aorist
indicative in like manner takes the place of the more unwieldy plu-
perfect in the unreal condition seems equally erroneous. The favor-
ite illustration is owtev av a>v wvl TreTroi^/cev Z-rrpagev, where the aorist is
the proper tense. We might say ovoev &v TreTi-oo/Kev SiKatws cTrpafei', and

SO we find (Dem. 23, 178) iravr dVo> KO.L Kara) TrtTroi^KCV KCU ouSev . . .

SiKauos eirpa&v. It is not necessary to state why the aorist in such
cases seems to be the proper tense. Among the examples are some
in which the circumstances cause the aorist and pluperfect to ex-
change places as compared with the example just cited. A collection
of all the examples would be instructive.

The difference between the aorist and the perfect participles
presents some difficulties. "Being justified by faith, let us have
peace " : SiKcuwflej/res . . . exw/xev. Must this mean (as of course it does)
"let us be justified and have," or might it mean "seeing that we
are justified"; or would this latter require the perfect? Not neces-

sarily; for Xenophon (Hell. II, 2, 6) has OUTOI cr<£ayas TWV yvwpi/xcov

TToiT/o-avres, KaTctxov T^v TO\IV, and yet the (r<£aycu had occurred long
before, and Trot^o-avres is causal.

The moods, the main field of problems, can only be touched upon.
Some of these problems, such, for instance, as relate to the ideal general
condition and the prohibition, I pass by reluctantly, as some of my
published views concerning them have been misunderstood. Attention
is directed to only two or three practical cases. It has sometimes

170 GREEK LANGUAGE

been denied that the pure optative can be used interrogatively; but
airoXoifjLTjv may have the force of " I wish I may perish " as well as of
"may I perish." So the old servant (Med. 83) says oXoiro p.\v /ti/,
Seo-Tro-njs yap «rr' e^os, where the particle p.tv shows plainly that ^77 is
not an afterthought, and the meaning is "Perish, indeed, may he
not," that is, "I do not, indeed, invoke a curse upon him." There
are other similar examples. This use clearly allows the interrogative
form, and so we find (Med. 754) TL 8' O/DKO> rwSe firj 'p.p.evwv -n-dOoLs. The
extent of this usage needs investigation.

The question of av with the future (even in Homer) is still a battle-
ground, as is the question about the difference between the sub-
junctive and the optative in the future condition. Some discussions
of this latter question ignore a far-reaching phenomenon of speech,
not peculiar to Greek. When a state of affairs is, even theoretically,
assumed, it may, in the continuation, be treated as actually existent,
"If the laws were to appear before us and say" is theoretical or ideal;
but now the laws are here and we can say lav eiTroxrtv ot VO/ACH. Ana-
logously, "if a man shall steal (e'av »cXei/a?), he shall return what he
stole (a tKXei/^v)," not necessarily a av K\e^y. Again, in the condi-
tion, a very practical case may, from modesty, courtesy, or other
cause, be placed in the theoretical form, as in the case of Virtue in
the Choice of Hercules, where Vice uses the practical subjunctive.

The circumstances under which the future in protasis is abso-
lutely required in classical Greek I have never seen defined. It helps
little to say that it is really a present condition, the future being
equivalent to /xcXXo) with the infinitive (which sometimes is not
true). The future is used when the apodosis states something which
precedes in time the act of the protasis. But in later Greek the
subjunctive is sometimes so used; and I have never seen a history
of the origin and development of this usage. The extent of the totally
different use of the future in threats and warnings has been investi-
gated for some authors, but much remains to be done. I would here
note that the future is employed even with the first person when the
apodosis would be a threat or warning if it were in the second person.

In treating final clauses, the distinction between Iva as a pure
final particle and the rest as relatives overlooks the fact that to the
Greeks this fva, even if, as some have attempted to prove, it had
a different origin, was the same as the relative Iva, though Iva as a
relative was not very familiar. The rule that it never takes the future
is certainly wrong, but I have never observed *va av with the sub-
junctive, How did Tva with the future sound to the Greeks, and
did they never use av with the subjunctive after it?

The historical indicative in final clauses is confined to cases where
the unreality extends to and includes the purpose. If it is a wish,
for instance, the final clause is part — in fact the main part — of

THE PROBLEMS OF GREEK 171

the wish. But is the construction restricted to the wish impossible
of realization, the unreal condition, and the (kindred) unfulfilled
duty? Though some statements of the principle imply that this is
not the fact, the examples cited can all be reduced to these heads,
and, so far as I can recall examples, they are all of this sort from
the grammatical point of view, but sometimes their character is
veiled, and the wish or duty is expressed only by the form of the final
clause. To illustrate: Ischomachus (Xen. Oec. 8, 2) tells his wife
that he is to blame for her inability to find some article, "because,"
says he, " I did not designate a place for each thing in order that you
might know where to put it." Should we read Iva. €18775 with the
manuscripts, or Iva TjSeis ( = £j8eio-0a), as has been proposed? To my
mind the historical indicative is necessary. The neglected duty here
is like that of (Dem. 36, 47) dvrl TOV Koo-^eiv . . . Iva. e^aiWo. The
duty is not necessarily a moral obligation; it may be imposed by
consistency or appropriateness, as (Plat. Theaet. 161 c) where Socra-
tes says, " I am surprised that he did not say the hog was the meas-
ure of all things," Iva. /xeyaXoTrpeTrcos /cat TTOLVV Ka.Ta.<$>povr)TiKa)<s rjp£aro rjplv

Xe'y«v. Here XP^ might have been used in the leading clause. Iphi-
genia (7. T. 357) says that no wind has ever driven Helen and
Menelaus to her, lv avTCTi/juapyo-dp.^, where the wish is expressed only
by the final clause. A full examination of the question whether the
historical indicative and the subjunctive or optative are ever inter-
changeable without change of sense seems desirable.

The problems of the infinitive can receive here only a few illustra-
tions. The seeming prepositional use of irptv with the infinitive,
originating and enjoying its most flourishing period long before
prepositions could be construed with the infinitive, is to me a mystery.
The use of mood after -n-piv in the classical period still seems to be
a little clouded, and we find -n-plv 877 or -n-piv ye 817 spoken of as excep-
tional, with the finite verb after an affirmative clause, though, like
our " until at last." it is regularly used to introduce something that
puts an end to a situation, whether a negative, expressed or implied,
precedes or not. It is practically one word, like vvv 8rj, "just now,"

and /J.fv 877 in »<at /xev 817, a.XA.a fjikv 877, ov [j.tv 817.

The use of irX^v with the simple infinitive is taught in some of
our best works, and yet I have never observed a clear example. Those
cited in the books are no examples at all. One is ri aAAo n-A^v 1/^817

Xe'yeiv ; but the whole sentence is rl ovv /*' avwyas dAXo irXrjv if/wor) Aeyeu',

where irK^v is simply 77. When TrX^v is construed with the infinitive, as
far as I have observed, it requires TOV ; but a thorough search is needed.
The simple infinitive of so-called purpose, whatever it was with
Homer, as in 80? ay«v, is in classic prose not a purpose in the great
majority of cases, but a permission, or commission, or something
analogous. There is no more purpose in ofis fyui? ciAetrfle apx€lv /*ou

172 GREEK LANGUAGE

than in (Xen. Hell, n, 3, 35) Trpoe/xcvoi aurovs aTroXcV^at. The limit-
ations of this use of the infinitive I have never seen satisfactorily
stated.

The construction of Soxeiv, "to seem," cannot be called a problem.
I mention it only because of the surprising misstatements in some
of the best grammars. "It seems to me that they came" can never
be 8o/cet P.OL avrovs iXOtlv, but must be So/covo-i /xot IXOelv. The seeming
examples and their true nature are too familiar to mention. If there
are any real examples of the accusative with the infinitive after SOKCI,
"it seems," they should be collected.

The negative presents a mass of problems. I have already pub-
lished something on the defects of our knowledge here, and have
not space to add anything now. I will only say that recent authors
of text-books still go on using oS™ and OVTTOTC for "yet" and "ever"
in negative sentences.

There remain several departments of Greek grammar which I
must entirely omit. Indirect discourse, sometimes strangely treated
as a special department of syntax, involves all the departments,
and any treatment of the subject is defective that fails to provide
for every construction of direct discourse, even if such provision is
to say that it cannot be expressed in indirect discourse. Such a treat-
ment I have never seen, nor anything remotely approximating it.
The special problems here are many and cannot even be enumerated.

Problems of textual criticism I must also omit. Once I had occa-
sion to read a lengthy paper on the subject, pointing out what
seemed to me radical defects. Further study of the subject has
strengthened my views and I am convinced that great improvement
of method is still possible. The individual problems are of course
well-nigh endless.

Higher criticism needs only to be mentioned, and Greek scholars
see before them a wilderness to be cleared and made ready for culti-
vation, and it would be absurd to offer any remarks here.

[NOTE. — The above paper was prepared under the impression that the
author had no choice, but was expected to treat in forty-five minutes the sub-
ject prescribed, — " The Problems of Greek." He would have much preferred to
discuss some special topic, such, for instance, as meters, which he supposed
was even excluded as belonging to some other Section of the Congress. The
paper is printed exactly as it was read. — M. W. H.]

SHORT PAPERS

PROFESSOR WILLIAM ARTHUR HEIDEL, of Iowa College, presented a paper on
"The Significance of the fyeotoi/ in the Eleatic Philosophy." The speaker's argu-
ments and conclusions were based upon the statement that that which distin-
guishes the Eleatics alike from their predecessors and their successors is the fact
that they identified unity and homogeneity, the lv and the ipeotoif, and deduced
from their identity, interpreted with all strictness, the ultimate logical conclu-
sions to which the assumption must lead.

PROFESSOR MAURICE HUTTON, of the University of Toronto, presented a short
paper to the Section on "Hellenism," in which he said in part:

" It has been a familiar experience in my own life that my virtues — or what
I have been pleased to call my virtues — have been due to ignorance.

" All the more interest I find in the Socratic paradox that virtue is knowledge.
Paradox though it be, that maxim I think expresses the inner idea of Hellenism,
the inner idea of the Greek mind; and to it I add the kindred paradox that virtue
is an art, the paradox of the first book of the Republic. These paradoxes I find
in the life, the literature, and the language of the Greeks.

" In their life they are expressed in the worship of intellect, to whatever ends
addressed. The unscrupulous Antiphon is ' second to no one in virtue,' that is, in
intellectual force and astuteness. The typical heroes of Hellas are Odysseus and
Themistocles; conspicuous each for his adroitness, 'slimness,' and finesse.
Another political hero — selected by Aristotle as one of three great statesmen
of Athens — is Theramenes; the academic statesman or 'mugwump'; the fas-
tidious 'independent' who tried all parties and was satisfied with none, for none
realized his ideal of a ' scientific republic.' He also was generally considered
merely an adroit schemer; but his quest of perfection in politics was probably
disinterested enough; he was the doctrinaire hi politics. These ' intellectuals,' as
the French call them, appear at their best in the great days of Athens; at their
worst in the days of Roman domination when the Greek became the facile,
astute, domestic chaplain of his brutal, strong-willed Roman employer; when he
presented that most melancholy of spectacles, the spectacle of a man of genius
without character and self-respect; evil days are not good for men merely intel-
lectual; such men are birds of paradise, or butterflies needing the sunshine of
prosperity, if they are to discharge well their ornamental functions in the economy
of nature.

Hellenism' in literature conveys the same suggestion of the cult of know-
ledge. Their literature is over-intellectual; there is the attempt to base every-
thing, even the deepest and therefore least known instincts of human nature, upon
knowledge. Patriotism is laboriously justified alike by poets and historians as
enlightened self-interest; the citizen must be a patriot, since his life and his suc-
cess depend upon the life and success of his state; so too he must be pious, since
by piety he will earn the support of his god, who can be trusted, if fairly treated,
to support him, since he has no other natural votaries; there is a solidarity of
interest between god and worshiper; honesty again is recommended as the best
policy; a man does not serve either god or fellow men for naught; whence we
find without surprise, since no one was ever honest on these grounds (and if he
was he was not), that Greek honesty was less robust than Roman, in proportion
as it was more intellectual and less instinctive.

" The second paradox of Greece, that virtue is an art, cannot obviously be disen-

174 SHORT PAPERS

tangled from the first; but it may to some extent be treated separately. Many
people in all ages treat life as an art; and make the end of life a dexterous oppor-
tunism; but this is especially Athenian; 'connoisseurs of life, ever hankering
after novelties and contemptuous of the trite/ as Cleon calls them (Thucydides,
3, 30); impressionists, in a word. In many dialogues of Plato — in the Ion, e.g.,
or in the last book of the Republic — this assumption is so radical that it is an axiom
that the poet, if he is to be any good, must be able to throw some light on some
art or science; on medicine or government or war; and it is triumphantly shown
that he cannot do this, and therefore is an impostor; unless indeed he be an in-
spired idiot; for sometimes the poet can throw light even on these things, but he
does not understand the light he throws; he is a mouthpiece only for the truth
which utters itself by him; he is inspired, but he does not understand the truths
with which he is inspired; but the highest knowledge is conscious knowledge,
not unconscious instinct, or inspiration, or whatever we call that sort of know-
ledge. The secret of virtue and life lies in knowledge and conscious art; the poet
is therefore on this, as on other grounds, inferior even to the carpenter.

" This comparison of life to an art is surely striking and characteristic, and
involves consequences already noticed. The artist works, at least largely, for his
own hand and for some definite and brilliant result associated with his own name;
the soldier, on the contrary, so far as he is a good soldier, does not fight for his own
hand; he is only a small part of a large machine, and though the result depends
partly on his fidelity, it is not conducive necessarily to his glory or promotion;
he may easily die, as he has fought, unknown and unrewarded.

" It follows from the proposition that virtue is knowledge and is art, that Hell-
enism represents broadly reflection and thought versus action; the life of the
student versus the man of affairs; the theorist against the practical man. And
this can be illustrated by the language of Hellas and Hellenism; the third head
of my subject; vpayna is action, it is also a weariness of the flesh, a bore and
a nuisance; itdvos is labor and sorrow; conversely, TOMJT^J, the creator, maker,
and man of action, is the poet; <neai(fe is left-handed figuratively, that is, in the
sphere of the intellect and of art; the stupid man or the awkward man, the
"gauche" man, as the modern Greeks of France say; with races less artistic
and less intellectual, "sinister" means morally rather than intellectually left-
handed.

" Hellenism in language shows a deficiency in the Hellenic mind on the side of
personal character, of the emotional and moral nature, and of will: 6vfj.6s is used
for spirit, courage, the whole element of will and character; apparently it really
means 'anger' rather; and the inference is legitimate that Greek courage is
apt to be of this illegitimate kind; this inference is supported by Aristotle's
analysis of courage in the Ethics ; the ordinary courage of high spirits and love
of adventure seems absent; in the same way this 0t>/xoeiSt's, or element of anger,
or moral element of the soul, though it appears to cover for Plato all that we
mean by personal character, is at bottom, it seems, provisional and temporary;
it may survive this life and may animate a god even, such as Ares, but it is not the
true soul, and it is not immortal."

SECTION E — LATIN LANGUAGE

SECTION E— LATIN LANGUAGE

(Hall 9, September 23, 10 a. m.)

CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR MAURICE HUTTON, University of Toronto.
SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR E. A. SONNENSCHEIN, University of Birmingham.

PROFESSOR WILLIAM G. HALE, University of Chicago.
SECRETARY: PROFESSOR F. W. SHIPLEY, Washington University.

THE RELATIONS OF LATIN

BY EDWARD ADOLF SONNENSCHEIN

[Edward Adolf Sonnenschein, Professor of Latin and Greek, University of Bir-
mingham, England, b. London, 1851. M.A. Oxford, 1878'; D.Litt. 1901; M.A.
Birmingham, 1901. Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Birmingham, 1901 ; Assistant
Professor of Humanity, University of Glasgow, 1877-81; Professor of Greek
and Latin, Mason College, Birmingham, 1883-90. Examiner Classics, University
of Wales, University of Edinburgh, 1899-1902; Examiner in Greek to the Cen-
tral Welsh Board, 1905; Hon. Sec. of the Classical Association of England and
Wales, 1904. Editor of Plautus's Captivi, Mostellaria, Rudens. Author of Latin
and Greek Grammars in the Parallel Grammar Series (of which he is editor in
chief) ; Ideals of Culture; Ora Maritima; Pro Patria, etc.]

I HAVE decided to treat the subject entrusted to me to-day not
from the purely linguistic point of view, — though this would have
supplied me with a fruitful theme, — but rather from a point of view
which would, I suppose, in Germany be called " kulturhistorisch. "
What I propose to discuss is not the relation of Latin to other lan-
guages as languages, but rather the place of Latin in the history of
civilization, and the work that it has done in the world as a vehicle
of culture. The subject thus opened up is of course far too great to
be embraced in a brief paper; nor do I pretend to be able to deal com-
petently with all its aspects: but it is, perhaps, not inappropriate in
scope and magnitude to the present occasion.

The history of the Latin language, regarded as an organ of culture,
may be divided into three great periods: (1) the period in which it is
the organ of a culture moulded mainly by Greece; this period extends
from long before the third century B.C. to the latter part of the
second century A.D.: (2) the period in which Latin becomes the
organ of the Christian Church, from the end of the second century
to the end of the fifth century A.D. : (3) the period vaguely spoken of
as the "Middle Ages," from the sixth to the end of the thirteenth
century of our era.

It was a favorite idea of ancient writers to represent the course
of history as a succession of cycles, each of which was more or less
coincident with its predecessor. That history repeats itself, — even

178 LATIN LANGUAGE

that the atoms of which the universe is composed return after the
completion of some magnus annus into the precise position which
they occupied at its commencement, — this is the common assump-
tion of ancient philosophers and poets:

Magnua ab Integra saeclorum nascitur ordo.

If we compare this theory with modern philosophies of history,
the broad distinction is that, whereas we proceed on the postulate
or working hypothesis that the world is progressive, the belief in
progress was in ancient times conspicuous by its absence. Develop-
ment, indeed, they knew; but only development in the downward
direction, — degeneration, — and that only within the limits of one
cycle. Thus at bottom their philosophy of history was static. The
Eleatic conception of "Being" as against "Becoming" expresses
the deeply rooted conviction of antiquity. If Plato had been sketch-
ing the history of modern Europe he would probably have seen in
the period which followed the decline and fall of the Roman Empire
the commencement of a new cycle; he would have compared the
inroads of the barbarians to the migrations which changed the face
of Eastern Europe at the commencement of the Hellenic period ; and
he would have ended by predicting a decline and fall of the civiliz-
ation of the West, including, perhaps, that of the great Atlantis,
whose existence he seems to have divined some nineteen centuries
before the time of Columbus. Yet such a conception would have
ignored a cardinal fact in the case. It was not in utter nakedness that
modern Europe entered on her career. Much, no doubt, of the spiritual
wealth of ancient Hellas had been lost, many a "cloud of glory"
had been dispelled, at any rate for a time, but much of it lived on in
other forms, reborn in the institutions, the art, and the philosophy
of Rome. Thus it comes about that so large a part of our spiritual
inheritance is Greek. The Renaissance of Greek studies in the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries would not have been able to galvanize
into life a culture that was utterly dead; it was because part of that
culture was alive, albeit in Roman forms, that its second rebirth was
possible. And even for this second rebirth we are indebted prin-
cipally to the genius of Rome working in Italians like Petrarch,
Politian, and Poggio. When we think of these things, how to the
same Rome which one of her poets of imperialism apostrophized in
the words, —

Fecisti patriam diversis gentibus unam, —

we owe also our connection at two points with the intellectual con-
quests of Greece, we may well pause before we accept as final the
verdict which one of the greatest of living scholars has summed up in
the ungrateful phrase "das seelenmordende Rom."

THE RELATIONS OF LATIN 179

Standing some years ago in Norwich Cathedral, I had the greatness
of Rome brought forcibly home to my mind. In the aisles there
stretched out a series of groined vaults which carried one straight
back to the Colosseum; and at the extreme east end, behind the
altar, rose two stately Early English arches, once the entrance to
a Lady Chapel of the thirteenth century, but now standing isolated;
for the Lady Chapel itself was destroyed in the sixteenth century.
The groined vaults are Romanesque, but the Early English arches
are also Roman, only one degree further removed. Let two Roman
barrel vaults or two Romanesque arches intersect, and you get the
arch misnamed Gothic. A clear line of structural descent connects
the one with the other, and the genius of Rome may claim them
both as her own.

The relations of Rome to the Greek and to the modern world may
be also illustrated by the history of verse. From Greece Rome
borrowed the system of strictly quantitative meter, and discarded
in favor of it the native Saturnian. But gradually she adapted it to
the conditions of the Latin language by grafting upon it the Italian
principle of accent,1 the beginning of certain feet being marked by
the use of an accented syllable, just as in architecture she intro-
duced the feature of the arch. The effect is prominent in the verse of
the poetae novelli of the second century A.D.; but it is also visible
to some extent in much earlier forms of Latin verse. To quote
only one example, the second half of the dactylic pentameter of
Ovid is subject to the law that it must be as accentual as possible,
provided always that it does not end with a monosyllable. This
sounds like a paradox; but 1 believe I could, if not give it proof, at
any rate make it plausible. The dissyllabic ending is simply a
necessary sacrifice to secure coincidence of "ictus," as it is called,
with accent in the other places. Well, in the course of time this
accentual feature transformed the whole character of Latin verse,
yet without involving a return to the Saturnian. And just as
the pointed Gothic arch developed out of the Romanesque, so the
accentual principle received such further development in the modern
Teutonic verse based upon Latin models — accent being of course
also a Teutonic principle — as to throw the quantitative principle
completely in the shade ; so that we now employ a kind of verse which
seems at first sight comparable to Greek verse only by way of contrast.
But only at first sight. This, too, I have no time to discuss fully
to-day; but I will merely say that in my opinion the main difference
between English and Latinized Greek verse is that English is not
based upon any system of prosody, — that is, that the quantities of

1 The differentia of Latin verse as compared with Greek is that it is both quan-
titative or semi-quantitative in some cases, and at certain points accentual; nor
do I accept any purely accentual theory of the Saturnian.

180 LATIN LANGUAGE

syllables in English verse are not predetermined, as they are in Latin,
by rules representing more or less accurately the prose pronunciation.
The English poet in building his rime employs expansible and con-
tractible bricks.

Our debt to Greece was finely acknowledged by Shelley, in his
preface to Hellas, — a poem inspired by sympathy with the cause of
Greek independence. " We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature,
our religion, our arts have all their root in Greece." The truth which
lies in this statement, accompanied by some exaggeration, is becom-
ing clearer to us every day, in proportion as the achievements of an-
cient Hellas in the fields of letters, of art, of science — aye, even of
religious thought and political organization — become better known
to us and more justly appreciated. Yet it would probably be truer
to say that we are all Romans. For in the first place the Greek
influence upon the modern world is mainly indirect, coming to us
through Rome; and secondly, there are elements in our culture
which are not Greek at all : other influences have been at work —
these, too, mediated by Rome and the Latin language. As to the
former point, no truer word can be spoken than the oft-repeated
statement that just as conquered Greece led her conqueror captive,
so conquered Rome imposed on the Teutonic barbarians not only her
laws but also her culture and her civilization as a whole.

This second mission of Rome, which began with and before the fall
of the Western Empire, was continued down to the Renaissance;
and that Italy and the Eternal City might continue to hold the
position of instructors of the nations was the prayer of Marco Vida
in the sixteenth century:

Artibus emineat semper studiisque Minervae
Italia, et gentes doceat pulcherrima Roma
Quandoquidem armorum penitus fortuna recessit.1

As to my second point, the existence of non-Greek elements in our
civilization, that is a matter for which neither Vida nor Shelley could
be expected to have an open eye. But the fact that not only Greece,
but also Judaea, and at later date Arabia, stood at the back of Rome,
and that the triumph of Latin civilization was a triumph for these
also, is written large in history.

Rome was, in fact, the heir of at least two civilizations; her culture
was the common stream into which had flowed the two rills of a
universalized Hellenism and a Hellenized Judaism. But Latin was
the medium of communication; so that we may fairly describe the
complex unity of modern civilization as mainly a Latin unity. There
have also been direct influences of Greece upon the modern world,
notably at the time of the Humanistic Renaissance of the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries, and during the last hundred years;
1 Marco Vida (1489-1566), Poetica, n, 11, 63-65.

THE RELATIONS OF LATIN 181

but these have never overthrown, though they have modified, the
structure which was erected on a Latin foundation. Just as the
political institutions and the law of Rome form a large part of
the structure of every modern state, Roman roads playing the part
of modern railways in opening up new avenues for civilization, so
Roman thought is the predominating partner fti the intellectual life
of to-day.

The first period in the history of the Latin language, so regarded,
is the period of Greek influence; and its most important subdivision
falls in the middle of the second century B. c., the time First •
when Greeks like Polybius and Pansetius introduced to the Period
"Scipionic circle" at Rome an intenser form of Greek culture than
had been known there before. From this time onwards for over
three hundred years a new influence dominates Latin literature, —
the influence of Greek philosophy and especially of Stoicism. Of all
the gifts of Greece to Rome, none was fraught with such far-reaching
consequences as the philosophy of the Stoa. The fact that it caught
the ear of Rome as no other system of philosophy ever did, that it
exercised a profound influence on life and thought from the middle
of the second century B. c. till the end of the second century A. D.,
that it transformed the whole system of Roman jurisprudence
through the idea of the Rights of Man (the Jus Naturae), that it
became nothing less than the religion of the educated classes under
the early Empire, — all this is unmistakable testimony to two facts:
(1) that there was no absolute breach of continuity between the
Greek and the modern world; and (2) that Stoicism was really
congenial to the Roman temperament.

But what was Stoicism? Not purely Greek, it would seem: every
one of its men of note — such as Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus,
Aratus, and at a later date Diogenes of Babylon, Antipater, Pansetius,
Poseidonius, Athenodorus (Canaanites) — hailed from the East, and
some of them were of Semitic blood : the period at which it sprang
into existence was that of the decay of the Greek city-states; the
atmosphere it breathed was that of the Greater Greece opened up by
the conquests of Alexander; the ideals it expressed were those of an
epoch of expansion, — ideals of cosmopolitanism (the very word has
a Stoic ring),1 of the brotherhood of man, of philosophic liberalism
and imperialism. Its monism and monotheism stood in marked con-
trast to the dualistic tendencies of Greek philosophy since Anax-
agoras. Altogether, though much be explained as development on
purely Greek lines, yet the probability, both external and internal,
of an Oriental and indeed a Semitic strain in Stoicism seems too
strong to be resisted. Greece, in fact, had grown into Stoicism — but

It seems to have come to the Stoics from the Cynic Diogenes; his answer
to the question woSairbs ef, is quoted by Diogenes Laertius, VI, 63.

182 LATIN LANGUAGE

not without contact with Oriental thought. How deep the world's
debt to the East is will probably never be fully known.

Stoicism appealed strongly to the Roman character — to its
dignity, its piety, its commercial integrity, its 8euri8a.ip.ovia..1 I am
speaking, of course, of the Roman character at its best. It is
worth remark that Ifie only department of Latin literature, except
the literature of Law, which was distinctly a Roman creation was a
special kind of didactic literature, precisely the sphere in which these
Stoical qualities had a field for their exercise, though it goes by the
name of Satire. If we had adhered to the name chosen by Lucilius
and Horace, it might, perhaps, have suggested to us as an English
equivalent the word "Sermons." What are the Sermones of Horace
but lay sermons, not without a spice of humor? And though he is
fond of drawing caricatures of the Stoics, caricatures which we are
too ready to take au grand serieux, he was himself a bit of a Stoic at
heart, at any rate when in a moral mood. So were most of the great
Roman writers. Virgil seems to have given up his early Epicurean-
ism in favor of a religious view of things in which Stoicism and
Platonism were blended, if not indeed one: the doctrine of the
world-soul as expressed in the fourth Georgic (219-227) is, I think,
Stoic rather than Platonic; the famous passage in the sixth ^Eneid
(724— 751), with its doctrine of rewards and punishments in the future
state, is perhaps Platonic rather than Stoic; for the Stoics believed
in absorption in the 7rj/ev//,a rov Koo-p,ov (spiritus, or anima, mundi),
rather than any form of personal immortality.2 The coryphaei of the
Scipionic circle were, as I have said, all Stoics — Lucilius,3 Lselius
Furius Philus, Scsevola, and the rest; so too, perhaps, even Cato the
Censor, in his old age. Terence talks Stoicism in the line:

Homo sum: human! nil a me alienum puto (Heaut. 77).

Varro was half a Stoic; Cicero a good deal more than half. Even
Sallust preaches Stoicism when he wishes to be impressive. Under
the Empire we find Stoicism professed in Seneca and in Persius, as
well as in the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and the Phrygian slave
Epictetus. It commanded the respect of Lucan and Juvenal, whose
later Satires are practically Stoic tracts,4 and it would have made a

1 Polybius, vi, 56, 10.

2 The virtues that Virgil admired most were fortitude (patientia) and piety.
See the passage in Donatus's Life, ch. 18, quoted by Sellar, p. 123, and by Wick-
ham, Introduction to Horace, Ode i, 24 (p. 73).

3 In my opinion Lucilius was a Stoic; cf. especially the fragment about virtus
(= wisdom), preserved by Lactantius. The word virtus acquired a technical
philosophical sense in 'Latin, equivalent to the Stoic opBbs \6yos ; cf . Cic. Tusc.
iv, 15, 34 (=recta ratio), De Leg. i, 8, 25, De Fin. in, 4, 12; Hor. Ode n, 2, 18,
in, 2, 17; Sat. n, 1, 70, 72; Ejrist. I, 1, 17.

4 I have not forgotten the passage (13, 121) in which the Stoic is spoken of as
differing from the Cynic only in his tunic. The Stoics and the Cynics were really
akin.

THE RELATIONS OF LATIN 183

convert of Tacitus, had he not had other axes to grind. The younger
Pliny too shows Stoic leanings. Nor was its influence confined to
letters: it showed itself under the Republic in the humanistic and
socialistic radicalism of the Gracchi — pupils of C. Blossius — and
in the assassination of Julius Csesar; and under the early Empire
in the political martyrdoms of men like Musonius Rufus, Rubellius
Plautus, Thrasea Psetus, and many others, who formed the "Stoic
opposition."

This vogue of Stoicism goes, indeed, so far as to suggest a doubt
as to whether the Stoicism of Rome was not merely an expression of
the Roman character itself. And no doubt the Romans were Stoics
by nature as well as by nurture. Yet Stoicism must have helped to
develop those elements in the Roman character to which it appealed so
strongly. The old Roman virtus (manliness) came to have a wider
sense (wisdom). Nor is it easy to say how much of the later form
which Stoicism assumed in the hands of men of affairs like Cicero,
Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius is due to contact with the Roman
genius for simplification and adaptation and practical life, and
how much to later developments of Stoicism itself, as taught by
men like Pansetius and Poseidonius. One thing is certain, — that
neo-Stoicism, if I may so call it, put off something of its arrogance,
its dogmatism, its pedantry, and its paradoxes, and became a more
human thing than early Stoicism had been. And this gain more than
compensated for the losses which it suffered on the purely specu-
lative side. Neo-Stoicism as developed at Rome became a power
in the world.

There is probably no school of philosophy which has been so
hardly judged as Stoicism. Its influence upon the world has been
incalculable. The main differentiae of modern society, as compared
with ancient, are, I suppose, broadly speaking, three: the passage
from the city-state to the empire-state, the abolition of slavery, and
the creation of the church as distinct from the state. All these were
voiced, or at least anticipated in principle, by Stoicism. As to the third
point, Stoicism, like some other Greek schools of philosophy, linked
men together in a unity which was independent of the state and in
which therefore lay the germs of a church.

Again the Stoic theology led to an attitude towards nature which
was a new thing in literature, a sense of the mystery of nature, as the
dwelling-place and vesture of deity, the templum deorum immortalium
(Seneca, De Benef. vn, 7, 3). It was something like the old Greek
nature- worship minus its polytheism. To the formation of our modern
attitude towards nature no doubt other elements have contributed,
notably the Celtic, as Matthew Arnold held. But Stoicism was the
beginning of it.

The world at large is little conscious of the debt which it owes

184 LATIN LANGUAGE

to Stoicism as a religious philosophy. The high seriousness and lofty
morality taught by this school the world has passed by with a shrug
of indifference; its charities, extended to slaves and even to the
lower animals, —

ocra £a>ei TC KCU epTrct Ovrjr' 'CTTI yaiav,1 —

have been put down to "rhetoric" or inconsistency; and men have
been contented merely to "shiver at its apathy." But its apathy
was, after all, only meant as a protest against emotion in the wrong
place. The Stoics objected to basing mercy (dementia) upon mere
emotion (misericordia) . May not the reason for this indifference of
the world at large towards a noble school of thought be found partly
in the fact that Stoicism stands too near to ourselves to be seen
clearly? It is said that if you show a man his own likeness in a mir-
ror he will sometimes turn from it in disgust. Stoicism is essentially
a philosophy not of despair, but of confidence and almost defiant
optimism. Many of the fundamental ethical principles which are
generally regarded as specifically Christian had been developed inde-
pendently by the Porch. The idea of the fatherhood of God and its
corollaries, the brotherhood of man and the law of love, in a word, the
whole idea of basing morality directly upon a religious theory of the
universe, is Stoic.

The striking phrase, TOV yap /cat ye'vos eV/xeY, quoted by St. Paul, and
the use of the word irarrfp in addressing the Deity are common to the
Hymn of Cleanthes and the prologue to the ^aivop-eva of Aratus.

And this is a new note in literature; there is nothing quite like it
in Plato or Aristotle, though Greek literature of the classical age has
some analogies.2

In view of these facts it is no matter of surprise that Stoicism has
contributed to Christianity some of its cardinal terms : TTVCV/JLO. (spiritus) ,
crwei'STjo-ts (conscientid) , avrdpKfia (sufficientia) , in their special religious
senses, have come to us through the Stoics. Even Xdyos is ulti-
mately due to them.

The phrase TroXtreta TOV KOO-^OV, civitas communis hominum et dec-
rum, "city of God," is only one of many links that connect the
early Greek Stoics with Cicero and Marcus Aurelius, and Marcus
Aurelius with St. Augustine. Nor did some of the chief of the early
fathers of the church, notably St. Augustine, fail to recognize the
affinities of Christianity to earlier religious systems. Seneca saepe
noster, says Tertullian, Seneca noster, says Jerome: and the recog-
nition went so far as to lead some zealot to manufacture a corre-
spondence between Seneca and St. Paul, which was intended to

1 Hymn of Cleanthes, third century B. c.

2 Plato speaks of God as irarfip in the Timaeus, but rather in the sense of
the creator — the 9riniovpy6s — than as standing in an intimate relation to the
soul of man.

THE RELATIONS OF LATIN 185

account for their resemblance. Some passages in Seneca are indeed
startling enough to awaken a suspicion of some contact. He several
times speaks of God as parens noster, and as " within us " (prope est
a te deus, tecum est, intus est) ; he calls him sacer spiritus (Sacer intra
nos spiritus sedet — the same idea as I Corinthians in, 16, and vi, 19,
"your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost in you"). Whether
Seneca may not have come into contact with some refined form of
Judaism at Rome, it is indeed hard to say. Yet these terms are
Stoical property: the "God within" of Seneca is the same as the
dominans ille in nobis deus of Cicero, and the divinae particula aurae
of Horace. And if Seneca has some striking parallels to the ethical
teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, these are only deductions
from that fundamental ethical principle of Stoicism by which it is
linked not less with Aristotle than with Christianity: hominem
saddle animal, communi bono genitum.1 "Nur allein der Mensch
vermag das Unmogliche." The Stoics had seized the grand concep-
tion that Reason, man's prerogative, is an emanation from, or part
of, the Deity. I know of no better general exposition of this doctrine
of the " Indwelling Supreme Spirit " than Emerson's Divinity School
Address of 1838.

Let us now turn to the second period in the history of the Latin
language, the period in which Latin becomes the organ of the Christ-
ian Church. In this period, which extends from the latter second
part of the second century to the latter part of the fifth Period
century A.D., from Marcus Aurelius to the fall of the Western Empire,
Christianity was taking shape : and it brings us to the second great
element out of which the composite unity of Latin civilization was
developed. The official conversion of the Roman Empire to Christ-
ianity in the fourth century has been called " the miracle of history "; 2
but there is no need to appeal to miracles in this case. The Grseco-
Roman world was prepared for the reception of Christianity through
that shifting of the ancient landmarks which finds expression in
Stoicism. And there is also another order of facts to which I have
now to allude, avoiding as far as possible controversial matter. For
if Stoicism was a composite thing, Christianity, as it entered the
stream of Roman history, was not a simple one.

lam pridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes,

says Juvenal (3, 62) in his indiscriminate manner. But before the
Orontes flowed into the Tiber it had admitted a Greek tributary. Of
the social and intellectual life of Syria proper during the centuries
that followed Alexander's conquest, we know, alas, too little. What
would we not give to be present in one of those old lecture-rooms of

1 Seneca, De Clem, i, 3, 2.

2 Freeman.

186 LATIN LANGUAGE

Tarsus or Soli or some other centre of Stoic teaching! But of the
Hellenization of Palestine we know more: how from Alexandria, as
a centre of influence, the process went on quietly during the third
century B.C. until the violent attempt of Antiochus — ^Tu^av^s or
'ETri/xavT/s — to force the gods of Greece upon Judsea, and his insults to
the Temple and the Torah, led to a violent reaction, and Judaism
asserted itself again under the Maccabees. But not till Hellenism
had left a deep mark upon Jewish thought and Jewish literature.
All this is fully recognized by Jewish as well as by Christian histori-
ans. The Greek cities to the east of the Jordan, alluded to by Jose-
phus, cannot have been without their influence. But even if Hellen-
ism was at a low ebb in Palestine between Antiochus and the birth
of Christ, the labors of the learned in the flourishing Jewish colony at
Alexandria, though directed primarily to spreading a knowledge of
the Jewish scriptures among the heathen and reconciling the teach-
ings of the Law with Greek philosophy, were not without their re-
action on Judaism itself. A knowledge of this Hellenized and
humanized Judaism must have been spread over the world by the
dispersions and settlements of the Jews which followed the over-
throw of Jewish independence by Pompey in B.C. 63. At Rome the
Jews formed a regular colony on the west of the Tiber, and we
hear of them in Cicero and Horace.

The converging streams of thought from Greece and from Judsea
were bound to meet; and the phraseology of St. Paul can hardly
be explained except on the supposition that Christianity and Hel-
lenism had already met in him. But at Rome the effective union
came later. The old religion maintained its ground for centuries, side
by side with the new; and when Christianity triumphed, it triumphed
rather by taking its rival up into itself than by destroying it. Thus
if Stoicism prepared the way for Christianity, Christianity made
Stoicism for the first time a force capable of appealing to all sorts
and conditions of men. The earliest extant product in the Latin
language of this fusion of elements is the Octavius of Minucius Felix,
in which Christianity and Stoicism are so blended that it is sometimes
difficult to say whether the argument adduced is Christian or Stoic.
Its date is not certain; but its latest editor, Waltzing, places it at
the end of the second century. The latter part of that century had
witnessed the production of the first Latin translation of the Bible, —
the Itala, — and the beginning of the fifth century saw the completion
of Jerome's Vulgate. Boethius, " the last of the Romans whom Cato
or Tully would have recognized for their countryman," as Gibbon
calls him, closes our second period, — a period, no doubt, of de-
cadence in literature, as literature; but a period of full vitality and
efficiency in the history of the Latin language. By the close of the
fifth century Latin Christianity had taken definite shape, a body of

THE RELATIONS OF LATIN 187

doctrine formulated on the principles of Roman law and a church
organized on the lines of Roman administration.

Is it not the history of architecture and of verse over again, even
though we are not able to point to any feature quite so definitely
Roman as the arch in architecture or the accentual principle in
verse? The products of Greater Greece and of Judaea were not merely
adopted and transmitted by Rome; she made them her own; and
sent them forth, stamped by her own genius, to shape the religious
sentiment of the modern world. It was not the intention of this
paper to vindicate the originality of the Romans, but it seems to
vindicate itself.

Historians of Latin literature generally put up a notice-board at
the end of the fifth century to the effect that the " Dark Ages " have
commenced, or warning us that to the age of gold, silver, Third
and the baser metals has succeeded an age for which Period
no metal is base enough. But the reign of the Latin language was
far from coming to an end with Boethius. Nor can the attempt
to set up an entity called Modern History, as distinct from Ancient
History, be congratulated on its success. Historians are so little
agreed as to where it begins that their dates range from the first
inroad of the barbarians to the seventeenth or even the eighteenth
century.

There was no real breach of continuity; and the Latin language
of the eight centuries that lie between Boethius and Roger Bacon,
whether it be called "Dog Latin" or "Lion Latin," remained a
language which was both living and national, the organ of that
greater Roman nation or Christian commonwealth which included
the Teutons and which about the middle of this period assumed
a new form in the Holy Roman Empire. The idea that nation-
ality depends on unity of race does not appeal to a Briton, and must
seem still more eccentric to an American. The proper name for
the Latin language from the sixth to the end of the thirteenth cen-
tury is not lingua Latina, but lingua Romana. In this capacity it
achieves an even greater universality than it enjoyed before. And
it is fully alive, though there spring up side by side with it a num-
ber of daughter languages which are completely developed before
the close of this period. Moreover, this Latin, if grammatically
decadent, is capable of serving its age well as an instrument of
thought. The rule of Augustine, "Melius est reprehendant nos
grammatici quam non intellegant populi," expresses the very sens-
ible point of view adopted by his successors in their handling of the
lingua Romana.

During the first three centuries of this long period the work done
by Latin is necessarily limited; for all intellectual life had perished
except in favored places like Ireland, and among exceptional men

188 LATIN LANGUAGE

like Priscian, Bede, and Alcuin. The relations of Latin were mainly
with the monasteries; and to these centuries, if to any, may be fitly
applied the term "The Dark Age." The three centuries that follow
(A.D. 800-1100) are a period of transition to a brighter period, and
are marked by a reform of schools. But Latin is still mainly confined
to the clergy, though the works of men like Scotus Erigena and
Eginhard must not be forgotten. It is not till the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries that Latin once more becomes a great force in
the world. During this last stage of its existence as a living language
it puts off its ecclesiastical character and enters on new paths as an
organ of secular life, in philosophy, in law, and in science, especially
the science of medicine. It becomes the language of the universities
which were then springing into existence, and finds a wide field of
activity open to it in the service of that movement which has been
rightly called the Early or Scholastic Renaissance, as distinct from
that greater Humanistic Renaissance of which Petrarch was the
"morning star." The stimulus to all this new life came partly from
the Saracens. Arabic works on philosophy, mathematics, astro-
nomy, medicine, and other branches of science and pseudo-science
were translated into Latin, and Europe was thus brought for a
third time into contact with Semitic thought. But it must be re-
membered that the light of Arabia was in large measure a light bor-
rowed from Greece and the remoter East; conspicuously so in the
case of the Arabic Aristotle, which made its way hi a Latin dress
from Spain into Northern Europe at the beginning of the thirteenth
century.

After the fourteenth century Latin is no longer the universal
language of Europe, no longer a national language in the sense in
which the term has been used above, though it continued to live in
works like the Imitatio Christi of Thomas a Kempis. The reason is
that it was no longer alone in the field. And the Renaissance, from
the very fact that it was a revival of purer standards of taste and
diction, necessarily turned its back upon that well of living speech
which had supplied the needs of the preceding centuries. But what
killed Latin as a living tongue was not only purism but also the
growth of its rivals in literary capacity. English had blossomed into
literature as early as the seventh century (Csedmon, to say nothing of
Beowulf). German had produced a truly national literature in the
twelfth and thirteenth. The reign of Latin thus overlaps that of
the modern tongues as an organ of literature and science; and as
their influence waxed, hers waned.

But I have yet to ask your attention to one more phase in the life
of Lathi. For if Latin died as a universal language when the new
literatures were born, yet it died only to rise again, together with
Greek, in a new form.

THE RELATIONS OF LATIN 189

For the revival of classical literature in the fourteenth and fif-
teenth centuries turned its face in reality, not so much to the past as to
the future. And perhaps the most important fact in the history of
modern literatures is this, that all the names of first importance are
post-Renaissance.1 Chaucer had caught its spirit; and among its
most prominent representatives are to be numbered a Rabelais, a Cer-
vantes, a Shakespeare, and later on a Goethe and a Schiller. Herein,
I take it, lies the ultimate reason why we study the Greek and Latin
classics at all ; their study is in reality a study of our own past, —
our very own, — divorced from which all that is most characteristic
in the present is only half-intelligible. Were it not for this, — were
it true that the world would be exactly what it is if the Greeks
and Romans had never existed, as the late Mr. Herbert Spencer
thought and said,2 — then, I confess, I should feel that the classical
studies could be justified only as a disciplinary study — and for the
light that Latin throws upon the vocabulary arid syntax of the
mother tongue. It is because the precise opposite is true, because
modern life is soaked with Greek and still more with Latin influences,
that it will always depend for its complete interpretation on a study
of the classics — that is, so long as the landmarks of our pre-
sent culture remain unshifted. And even at the present day the
Latin language is to the Latinized classes what it was to our
Teutonic ancestors, a second tongue, to which we can apply in a
more real sense than to Greek the old saying of Cassiodorus:
"Dulcius suscipitur quod patrio sermone narratur." 3 Hence it is
that we like to speak of Plato rather than of Platon, and that the
Germans, going one step further, convert Bacon into Baco. It
is, indeed, a noteworthy phenomenon that the tongue of old
Latium should have conquered for itself the New as well as the
Old World, and should find now in America a land which not only
maintains Latin as an integral part of the school curriculum, but
has also given to the Old World some of its most scientific gram-
mars and dictionaries.

Let me illustrate the influence of Latin upon English literature
by one fact which I discovered only the other day. One of the most
famous speeches of Shakespeare is, I think, based upon what would
seem a priori a very unlikely source — the treatise of Seneca " On
Mercy," an appeal to the reigning Emperor Nero.4 The leading

1 Dante is one of the witnesses to the dawn which preceded the day.
J See his Autobiography, vol. II, p. 237.

3 Preface to his De Orthographia, quoted by Sandys, History of Classical
Scholarship, p. 254.

4 Parallels between Seneca's tragedies and Shakespeare have been quoted by
J. Churton Collins in his recent Studies in Shdkspere ; but I am not aware that
any one has hitherto adduced evidence that any prose work of Seneca was known
to Shakespeare. In the light of the De Clementia I am inclined to think that
the passage of Titus Andronicus which Mr. Collins regards as based on Cicero
Pro Ligario, xn, 32, may also come from Seneca.

190 LATIN LANGUAGE

ideas of Portia's speech are all there; it is only the inimitable form
of expression that is Shakespeare's.

Nullum dementia ex omnibus magis quam regem aut principem decet (i, 3, 3;
again i, 19, 1).

" It becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown."

Eo scilicet formosius id esse magnificentiusque fatebimur quo in maiore prae-
stabitur potestate (i, 19, 1).

" 'T is mightiest in the mightiest."

Quod si di placabiles et aequi delicta potentium non statim fulminibus per-
sequuntur, quanto aequius est hominem hominibus praepositum miti ammo
exercere imperium? (i, 7, 2.)

" But mercy is above this sceptred sway.
It is enthroned in the heart of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself."

Quid autem? Non proximum eis (dis) locum tenet is qui se ex deorum natura
gerit beneficus et largus et in melius potens? (i, 19, 9.)

" And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice."

Cogitate quanta solitude et vastitas futura sit si nihil relinquitur

nisi quod iudex severus absolverit (i, 6, 1).

" Consider this

That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation."

Compare Hamlet, n, 2: "Use every man after his desert, and
who shall 'scape whipping? "

And the story of Augustus pardoning Cinna (i, 9) probably
suggested :

"It is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes."

Lodge's translation was not published till some twenty years after
the Merchant of Venice. But that is no difficulty to those who
believe that Shakespeare had not forgotten the Latin which he had
learnt at Stratford Grammar School. And Seneca was more read in
those days than he is now: witness the enormous influence which
his tragedies exercised on the predecessors of Shakespeare. I venture
to commend the study of Seneca's prose works to Shakespearian
scholars.

A CENTURY OF METAPHYSICAL SYNTAX

BY WILLIAM GARDNER HALE

[William Gardner Hale, Professor and Head of the Department of Latin, Uni-
versity of Chicago, since 1892. b. Feb. 9, 1849. A.B. Harvard, 1870; Fellow
in Philosophy, Harvard, 1870-71; LL.D. Union; ibid. Princeton; Student at
Leipzig and Gottingen. Tutor in Latin, Harvard, 1877-80; Professor of Latin,
Cornell University, 1880-92. Member of the German Archaeological Institute of
Berlin, Athens, and Rome; American Philological Association (President, 1892-
93). Director of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome, 1905-06.
Author of The Cum-Constructions, 1888-89; The Anticipatory Subjunctive in
Greek and Latin, 1894; Did Verse-Ictus destroy Word- Accent in Roman Speech f
1896, etc.; A Latin Grammar (in collaboration with Carl D. Buck), 1903.]

WHEN the invitation to take part in this Congress came to me, the
difficulty of surveying, in the allotted forty-five minutes, all the
problems presented by the Latin language — problems in fields so
varied as those of the critical treatment of the contents of the various
authors, paleography in its more general aspects, epigraphy, gram-
mar on the side of forms, grammar on the side of syntax, grammar on
the side of meter, and the rest — seemed insuperable. I was there-
upon assured that I might deal with all the problems, ox with any of
them. But my doubts were not at an end. I felt that the situation
demanded that your speakers should discuss some phase of the
subjects in which they were most practiced, and in which they had,
accordingly, the largest measure of faith in their own judgment. This
meant that, if I were to speak at all, it must be upon conceptions
and methods in the study of Latin syntax. But it was one of the
essential articles of my creed that no man can deal successfully
with problems of Latin syntax, if, as the plan of the committee seemed
to contemplate, he sedulously confined his eyes to the ground covered
by the Latin reservation. Again I was assured that I was at liberty
to say what I chose. I plan, therefore, without regard to barriers
of language, to discuss the way in which most writers to-day look
at questions of the origins of mood-uses.

We are not aware, hi general, where our conceptions of mood-
forces came from. We do not even know whether they properly
belong together. What we have is an eclectic system. But the choices
made have for a long time not been made by a conscious process.
Each writer has in general accepted whatever seemed to him to
commend itself. I shall later show you a single sentence of three
lines, in which four radically different and mutually contradictory
schemes are combined.

A satisfactory treatment of the subject would demand a discussion
of every phase of opinion from the beginnings of syntactical studies

192 LATIN LANGUAGE

to the present day. It is obvious that I cannot present even a hun-
dredth part of this. I must, however, necessarily run briefly over
the centuries that preceded the one covered by the title of my
paper.

The first recorded thinking about the syntax of any language of
our family took place among the Greeks. The moods received names.
In the best Greek writing on the subject, that of Apollonius the Cross
(an unhappy epithet for one engaged in so charming a work) , Greek
mood-syntax reached its culmination. Apollonius defined the moods
as expressing a Si<£0e<m 1/^x1*07, which I like to translate by the
phrase, " an attitude of mind." We have not got beyond this yet, nor
ever shall. We have strayed far from it in the last century, and to it
we must return.

Apollonius uses for the moods the names inherited from his pre-
decessors. They are: opto-Tucy, the Mood of Indicating or Defining,
the Latin Indicativus; irpna-raKTi.^, the Mood of Commanding, the
Latin Imperativus; evKTiKrj, the Mood of Wishing, the Latin Opta-
tivus; and vTroraKTiKrj, the Subjoined Mood, the Latin Subiunctivus.
In giving the first three names, the Greeks were unconsciously
thinking of the moods as Apollonius did in his definition. They were
recognizing the attitudes of mind conveyed by them, the represent-
ation respectively of a fact, of a command, of a wish. The list of
forces is imperfect, but it is sound so far as it goes. Examples in
which the three moods convey precisely the attitudes of mind de-
scribed by the names occur in abundance.

In hitting upon the last name, the Subjoined Mood, the Greeks
committed a great error. They had named the other moods from
their forces; this mood, on the other hand, they named simply from
its relation, in subordinate clauses, to other parts of the sentence. It
was to them simply the mood of attachment. The mischief accom-
plished by this purely superficial treatment is not yet undone.

We have already seen, then, two entirely different ways of looking
at uses of the moods. For the second I know no apposite name,
unless it be " mechanical." For the first, the conception which looks
upon moods as expressing attitudes of mind, the proper name is
"psychological." We mean more to-day by the word psychological
than Apollonius meant by his definition. But, so far as Apollo-
nius went, we mean the same thing.

The Roman grammarians accepted the Greek conceptions of the
moods, and translated the names, as above. Naturally, then, they ap-
plied the names Subjunctive and Optative to the same set of forms
used under different circumstances. The mood in utinam amarer
they called the Optative. The mood in the second verb of prodest
ut eas they called the Subjunctive.

The scholastic grammarians did not interest themselves in the

A CENTURY OF METAPHYSICAL SYNTAX 193

moods. Interest was revived when the Renaissance grammarians
took up the task. I hope some time to tell the story in detail. It is
an exceedingly interesting and instructive one; and it has not yet
been told in a way that seems to me wholly satisfactory, — admirable
as is Golling's sketch in his recently published Introduction in vol. in
of the great German Historical Latin Grammar.

We pass at once to the eighteenth century, and to the first in-
fluences of modern philosophy. Delbriick, in his Comparative Syn-
tax, has called attention to the influence of Wolff on certain parts
of grammar, but no one, so far as I know, has called attention
to what seems to be his influence on the doctrine of the moods.
Wolff finds three notions to be fundamental in his scheme of ontology,
namely those of Possibility, of Necessity, of Contingency. Here and
there in the eighteenth century one finds a grammatical treatment
corresponding to this. Thus in Meiner's Philosophische und Allge-
meine Sprachlehre, Leipzig, 1781, the Indicative is made to fill the
category of Necessity, the Subjunctive the two categories of Pos-
sibility and Contingency. A less thorough-going use of the same
scheme is to be found in Harris's Hermes, London, 1751. Harris
identifies the Potential Mood, the Subjoined Mood, and the Mood of
Contingency, and explains the Latin Subjunctive of Purpose on the
ground that an act purposed is in human life "always a contingent,
and may never, perhaps, happen, despite all our forethought."

The philosophical system of Wolff was destined to be succeeded
by the system of Kant; and the system of Kant was destined to be
applied to the syntax of the verb. The fact that Kant influenced
mood-syntax has been pointed out frequently enough. But it has
been done by no one in detail except Koppin, in his two Beitrdge,
1877 and 1880; and Koppin seems to me not clearly to have un-
raveled the tangled threads, nor to have recognized sufficiently the
modifying influence of Matthia, Dissen, and Thiersch. Further, by
quoting Matthia in an edition published in 1825-27 instead of the
original edition of 1807 and 1808 (distinct books), and Thiersch in an
edition of 1824 instead of the original one of 1812, Koppin makes these
men to be followers, rather than shapers, of the opinion of others.
Again, no one has pointed out clearly the extraordinary manner in
which ideas laid down first for Greek were taken up for other lan-
guages of our family, or the extraordinary fact that under this or that
disguise they or their descendants rule the greater part of the gram-
matical world to-day. It is these things which I shall myself try to
do, in altogether too brief fashion, within the short time allowed me.

In 1781, Kant published the Critique of Pure Reason, the first
working-out of his complete system. In this he places all judgments
under one or another of four categories: Quantity, Quality, Relation,

1 I wish to thank Professor John Dewey for assistance in placing this influence.

194 LATIN LANGUAGE

and Modality. Each of these categories is again divided into three.
We are concerned to-day only with the use made of the categories of
Modality. The sub-categories of this are: Existence, Possibility, and
Necessity. Every recognition or conception of an act or state pos-
sible to the human mind must fall under one of these three categories.
These three conceptions, native to the mind, are the frames, so to
speak, through which the mind looks at whatever occurs in the
external world.

Eleven years after the publication of the Critique, namely in 1792,
J. G. Hasse, a schoolmaster in Kant's own town of Konigsberg,
published a Grammatology of Greek and Latin, for academic instruc-
tion and the upper classes Gymnasien. In his general treatment, he
adapted Kant's scheme to grammar, the moods being made to express
Existence, Possibility, and Necessity. In the details of his treatment,
however, strangely enough, Hasse did not apply these conceptions.

Nine years later, in 1801, Professor Gottfried Hermann of Leipzig
published a book on the reform of the theory of Greek grammar,
De emendanda ratione grammaticae Graecae. He upbraids Hasse, in the
most general terms, for having misunderstood Kant. As for himself,
he says that he shall hold himself free from taking sides in meta-
physics, but that he shall avail himself of the categories of Kant.
This is precisely what Hasse had done; and, so far as the verb is
concerned, the adaptation made by Hermann is the same as the
adaptation made by Hasse. On the whole, Hasse seems to have
been the saner and better grammarian. He is to-day, however,
almost forgotten,1 while Hermann, dogmatic, severe, strenuous, and
triumphant, fills a great place in the history of classical studies.

The moods, says Hermann, indicate whether the act referred to
actually takes place, or can take place, or must take place (the three
categories of Existence, Possibility, and Necessity). The first idea is
expressed by the Indicative. For the second, the subtile observation
of the Greeks recognized two conceptions of Possibility, namely,
Objective Possibility (possibilitas obiectiva), and Subjective Pos-
sibility (possibilitas subiectiva). The introduction of the terms
"Subjective" and "Objective," which played so large a part in
philosophy, will be noticed. These two conceptions are expressed by
two distinct moods, the Subjunctive and the Optative. The Sub-
junctive mood, or the mood of Objectivity, expresses that which in the
nature of the case in the given instance is capable of taking place.
The Optative mood, or the mood of Subjectivity, expresses that which
is capable of being thought. The third modal force, that of Necessity,
is expressed by the Imperative if the Necessity is Subjective, by the
verbal adjective TTCOS if Objective.

1 Basse's name is not even mentioned in either of the two well-known lexicons
by P6kel and Eckstein.

A CENTURY OF METAPHYSICAL SYNTAX 195

The Subjunctive is necessarily a dependent mood. For since it
expresses that which in the nature of things in the given instance is
capable of taking place, there must always be something to give
the reason why the act can take place. But this can be furnished only
in a main sentence. Hence the Subjunctive must always be de-
pendent. Where it seems independent, this appearance is due to
ellipsis. Thus ?<O/ACV, "let us go," was originally aye u/a UO/ACV, "come,
in order that we may go." Tt n-otw stands for cn^uuvov ri TTOUO, "tell
me what I shall do," or OVK oI8a ri TTOIW, "I don't know what to
do," etc.

Here we find a mixture of two influences. The one was the old
Greek error by which the Subjunctive had been made the mood of
dependency. The other was the error with regard to ellipsis, developed
especially in the period of Renaissance grammar. The actual inter-
pretation would be recognized by everybody to-day as impossible.
Yet a great deal of our prevailing syntax of the present time his-
torically goes back to precisely this reasoning of Hermann's.

The uses of the Optative are, in Hermann's treatment, all to be
deduced from the idea of the Subjectively Possible, that is, of that
which may be thought as possible. Thus the mood used in expressing
wish is the Optative, because a wish is the thought of something as
possible.

Hermann's book marked the firm establishment of a new method
in syntax, which we may call the metaphysical ; and it made syntax of
the Kantian type.

We have now to trace the modifications of this first scheme.
Matthia, in two Greek grammars, 1807 and 1808, appears to have
desired to deal with his problems without a metaphysical leaning.
Nevertheless he did not escape the influence of Hermann. For the
Imperative, he followed the older treatment, and made it the Mood
of Command, not of Necessity. For the Optative he accepted Her-
mann's theory, with a modification. Hermann had made this the
mood of Subjective Possibility, of an act thought as possible. Matthia
threw the emphasis on the side of thought rather than on the side of
possibility, and accordingly defined the Optative as the Mood of
Thought.

For the Subjunctive also he departed somewhat from Hermann's
interpretation. Hermann had made the Subjunctive express Ob-
jective Possibility, in contrast with the Optative, the mood of Sub-
jective Possibility. Matthia held that both moods expressed the
thought of an act as against reality, the difference being that the
Subjunctive expressed the act more definitely, as depending on ex-
ternal circumstances, while the Optative expressed it less definitely.

Matthia also remarks in the book of 1807 that, the terminations
of the Subjunctive being primary, and those of the Optative second-

196 LATIN LANGUAGE

ary, the former are regularly used with tenses of the present or future,
the latter with tenses of the past. The next step naturally would
be to make the difference between the two merely one of tense,
the mood being the same in both. This step was actually and
fully taken by Kiihner, in his Greek grammar, in 1833.

The effect of Matthia's hint that the Optative was only a secondary
Subjunctive has passed away in the last quarter of a century. The
effect of his shifting of the supposed ground of the Optative to make
it that of Thought, and putting the Subjunctive likewise under this
category, has not passed away. It is, as we shall presently see, the
system under which we are mostly living.

In the year 1808, Dissen, in a Habilitationsschrift, De tempor-
ibus et modis verbi Graeci, gave another twist to the doctrine of
the moods. He made the Imperative the mood of Will, — the old
conception, with a new name. The Optative he made to express a
conscious thought, that is, the recognition of something as the thought
of some one else, or of one's self at an earlier time. This was a mod-
ification of Matthia's view. For the Subjunctive, he constructed
a modification of Hermann's view. Hermann had made the Sub-
junctive the mood of Objective Possibility, of that which in the very
nature and condition of things (per ipsarum rerum condicionem) is
capable of taking place. In order that this should be shown, there
had to be a main sentence, on which the other depended. Dissen,
throwing emphasis on the side of " the very nature and condition of
things," made the Subjunctive the mood of that which hung upon
something else, in other words, the Mood of Conditionality. Natur-
ally, then, the Indicative became, in his system, the Mood of Un-
conditionality.

The particle av, according to Dissen, in itself expresses Condi-
tionality. This is the reason why all connectives compounded with

av (as CTrav,1 fTTfiBav, eav, orav, OTTOTCLV, fvr' av) take the Subjunctive. The

same holds for the conjunctions meaning "before," "so long as," or
"until" (as irplv av, €<i>s av, 5<f>pa av, la av). The same holds, further,
for all relative words with av (as 05, o<ms, otos, OTTOU, o0ev); for the
sense is the same as if, instead of the relative, one were to use an eav
or oTTorav ("if" or "when") with a demonstrative.

This combination, made by Dissen in his working-out of his
metaphysical material, remains in full force to-day, having been
taken up later by Thiersch, by Reisig, and by Hermann himself,
and then passed down from one German worker to another. In the
English-speaking world, it is to be found in the grammars of Goodwin ,
Allen-Hadley, Goodell, Babbitt, Bevier's Brief Greek Syntax, Monro's
Homeric Grammar, and even Thompson's Greek Grammar. We are
learning and teaching the doctrine, nearly a century after it was
1 I give these forms as Dissen writes them.

A CENTURY OF METAPHYSICAL SYNTAX 197

spun as a thread of a metaphysical web. It is wholly indefensible.
It is, of course, true that there are relative and temporal clauses
which are in effect conditions; but the great mass of these clauses, as
of the others referred to, are not conditions. They are mere, and
wholly simple, determinative clauses (to employ a term from my
Cum-Constructions and my Anticipatory Subjunctive in Greek and
Latin). They simply answer the question, "What man, what time,
what thing, etc., do you mean?" Thus in the sentence "happy he
at heart above all others who shall lead you home in marriage,"

/ccTvos 8'av -jrepl tajpi fio.Ka.pra.ro<: <[£o\ov aAA.wv 05 KC <r' oi/cdvS' dyay^rai, Od.

6, 159, the relative clause simply makes known to Nausicaa
who it is that the speaker pronounces happy. It is no more con-
ditional than the preterite Indicative in the corresponding "thrice
and four times happy the Danaans who perished then in broad Troy-
land," i-picr/m/capes Aavaoi KCU TcrpaKis, ot TOT' oXovTO Tpoo? ev evpet?;, said
by the same speaker in Od. 5, 306. Again in 11. 2, 33, " but keep this
in thy mind, nor let forgetfulness lay hold of thee when sweet sleep
shall leave thee," evr' av ere fj.f\i<f>p<av VTTVOS avT/r/, it is nothing short
of grotesque to explain the last clause as conditional. It is merely
a time-fixing clause, — an anticipatory determinative clause, the
thing determined being here a time.

Four years after the appearance of Dissen's dissertation, in 1812,
Thiersch published two Greek grammars. His mood-system is a
composite of those of his immediate predecessors. For the Optative,
he accepted Matthia's view. This mood expresses an act as merely
thought ("als bios gedacht"), as an idea (" Vorstellung"). A wish
is expressed by the Optative because it conveys a mere thought. A
clause of repeated action in the past takes the Optative, because
the putting together of many acts into one group is not an affair
of the things in themselves (which, as such, would be expressed by
the Indicative), but an act of the mind, and so a " Vorstellung," etc.,
etc.

For the Subjunctive, Thiersch adopts the view of Dissen, com-
bining all the phrases used about it in Dissen 's dissertation. The
Subjunctive is the mood of the dependent, the conditioned, the un-
certain. Whatever involves Dependency, Conditionality, or Uncer-
tainty must accordingly go into the Subjunctive. Thus in fw/iev
"let us go," the Subjunctive is used because there is no real going.
The going depends upon the will of the person addressed, is con-
ditioned by that will. Hence it must be expressed by the Subjunctive.
Similarly, the Subjunctive has to be used in clauses of purpose,
because a purpose presupposes a main act, and is dependent upon it.

In spite of the wildness of these fancies, Thiersch reached several
helpful conceptions. Thus he recognized the rise of the relative
pronoun out of the demonstrative in Greek, and so established,

198 LATIN LANGUAGE

though still in a very incomplete way, the existence of an earlier
stage of parataxis, out of which the later stage of hypotaxis grew.
Thiersch also saw the facts of mood-usage more justly than his
metaphysical schematizing suggests. He recognizes Will as the force
of the Subjunctive in what he calls its earliest seat, namely exhort-
ation and prohibition, and derives the Future force of the mood, as
seen in many Homeric examples, from this earlier force, on the ground
that acts lying in the future depend either upon the Will of some one
or upon the later course of things ("dem weitern Erfolg"). In the
same connection, he uses the phrase "wo dieser noch zu erwarten,"
"where this is still to be expected." Out of this has grown the use
of the technical name Erwartung, now generally used in Germany
for one of the families of meanings of the Subjunctive. We have thus
already seen, as early as 1812, the suggestion that the uses of the
Greek Subjunctive may be divided into two classes, Will and Ex-
pectation, and the suggestion of the descent of the second from the
first. This is psychological syntax, beclouded though it is by the
veil of metaphysical syntax thrown over it.

The opposite method, that which makes Expectation (Futurity)
the oldest force of the Greek Subjunctive, was adopted by Aken, in
1861.

Both these conceptions, it may be said in passing, have been
adopted for Latin. Thus in 1827, Wiillner, Bedeutung dcr Sprachlichen
Casus und Modi, endeavored to explain all the forces of the Latin
Subjunctive as containing the idea of Will, and in 1870, Greenough,
The Latin Subjunctive, endeavored to explain all the forces of the
same mood as expressing Futurity. Both these men had broken
away from the tenets of the metaphysical school; yet both continued
to hold the doctrine, which had arisen through the thinking of that
school, that every use of a given mood contained in it the original
force of that mood.

The general view of the Optative suffered no further development
in the teachings of the metaphysical school, though a variety of
names came into use. The mood was that of "Vorstellung," "des
rein Vorgestellten," "des bloss Gedachten," "der reinen Subjec-
tivitat." It expressed a thought, an idea, something abstracted from
reality. Yet various attempts, quite in the modern method, were
made to trace the evolution of one use out of another. Thus Baiim-
lein, Untersuchungen uber die griechischen Modi, 1846, says that the
Optative is the mood of the Subjective, and that, as such, it has two
functions, one to express what is merely thought, the other to express
what is wished; but he adds, " If this seems too vague, then it is better
to start with the idea of Wish as the older, since it is easier to think
that the idea of Vorstellung arose out of the idea of Wish than vice
versa." The connecting link, he adds, may be formed by the Opta-

A CENTURY OF METAPHYSICAL SYNTAX 199

tive of Concession. He does not illustrate, but probably has in mind
such a series as " may it be so," " grant that it be so," " it may be so."
Here is already the conception of the growth of one force out of
another, and of a third force out of the second. This is evolution,
a conception very different from that of the presence of some one
force in all the uses of a given mood.

So much for Greek. But the story does not end here. These same
ideas were accepted as valid for the syntax of all languages. Often
the same man wrote on both Greek and Latin, treating both in the
same way. Thus Reisig, adopting Hermann's views in substance,
wrote a monograph on av in 1820, and then, in lectures on Latin
syntax, given finally in 1826-27, and published by Hasse in 1839,
reproduced the same scheme for Latin, — three forms of being,
Reality, Possibility, and Necessity, and three corresponding moods,
Indicative, Subjunctive, and Imperative. Possibility is thought of
either objectively, as resting on the relation of things, or subjectively,
as in the mind of the speaker.

This is the Hermannian scheme, pure and simple. The majority
of Latin grammarians, on the other hand, following the modified
scheme devised by Matthia, made the Subjunctive the mood of
thought (" Vorstellung ") , and the Imperative the mood of command.
Thus Zumpt, second edition, 1820 (probably also in the first, which
I have not been able to see *), explains the Subjunctive in a clause
of Purpose as expressing a thought ("Vorstellung"), the Subjunctive
with cum causal as expressing the idea of inner dependence, which is
a matter of thought ("Vorstellung"), and the Subjunctive with
cum temporal as involving the same conception of inner dependence.
Here we recognize the greater part of our ordinary syntactical
armory of to-day. The story is henceforth largely the same. Schulz's
Latin grammar, 1825, says that the Indicative is the mood of reality,
while the Subjunctive expresses the contents of a sentence not as a
fact, but merely as an idea, a conception. Thus in indirect questions,
expressions of purpose or result, wishes, concessions, conclusions,
one is dealing, not with facts, but with conceptions, as in " I told him
that I had gone to church " (" dass ich in der Kirche gewesen sei "),
in which for the moment I regard my being in church not as a fact
("Thatsache"), but as the object of a mental activity, and so as
a conception. The treatment is the same, again, in Etzler's Erorter-
ungen, 1826, Kuhner's Latin grammar, 1840, Madvig's Latin gram-
mar, 1844, etc. Madvig says, for example, that in Titius currit ut
sudet, "Titius runs to get into a sweat," the Subjunctive is used
because the sweating is a mere conception. Holtze, in 1861-62, says
the Indicative, Subjunctive, and Imperative, as everybody knows
(notum esf), express things respectively as Actuality, as dependent

1 Golling states that he has not been able to see either of the first two editions.

200 LATIN LANGUAGE

on Thought alone, or as Command. The same doctrine is the prevail-
ing one to-day in Germany. Thus Waldeck, in his Practical Guide
to Instruction in Latin Grammar, 1892, says, pp. 146, 147: "Hierin
nun liegt ein sehr wichtiger Unterschied des Lateinischen; diese
Sprache fasst alles, was als von irgend jemandem, also auch dem Re-
denden selbst gesagt, gefragt, geglaubt, empfunden, wahrgenommen,
also gleichsam aus seiner Seele gesprochen wird, nicht als Thatsache
auf , auch wenn es an sich eine solche ist, sondern nur als die Behaupt-
ung, Frage, Meinung, Empfindung, Wahrnehmung desselben, also
als Vorstellung. " And Methner's Investigation in the Theory of the
Latin Moods and Tenses, with especial regard to use in Instruction,
makes that which the Subjunctive expresses to be everywhere
"eine gedachte, vorgestellte Handlung" (p. 152), "ein Gedanke"
(p. 149), "ein vorgestelltes Geschehen" (p. 146). Hoffmann, in
his doctrine of absolute and relative time as determining the mood
of the cwm-clause, carried the doctrine to its natural conclusion by
making the Subjunctive the mood of the non-existent, and did not
even see the humor of this reductio ad absurdum.

American Latin grammar followed German Latin grammar. The
Andrews and Stoddard's grammar, upon which most people of my
generation were brought up, taught that "the Subjunctive mood is
used to express an action or state simply as conceived by the mind ";
and again, that " relatives require the Subjunctive, when the clauses
connected by them express merely a conception; as, for example, a
consequence, an innate quality, a cause, motive, or purpose." Two
of our well-known grammars of the present day base the treatment
of the moods upon the same thing, — grammars made by two men
who have rendered distinguished service to classical studies. One of
them, that of Professor Gildersleeve, says: "The Subjunctive mood
represents the predicate as an idea, as something merely conceived in
the mind (abstractions from reality)." The other, that of Professor
West, says, " Mood is the manner of stating the action of the verb.
The action may be stated: (1) As really happening. The Mood of
Fact (Indicative). (2) As Thought of. The Mood of Will, Desire,
Possibility (Subjunctive). (3) As Demanded. The Mood of Com-
mand (Imperative)." Here is the same scheme, — Fact, Thought,
Command. Thus the metaphysical Matthia-Hermann-Kantian
scheme of 1801-1807 is being taught in America in 1904. Even the
extremest product of the methods of the metaphysical school, of
which I have just spoken, namely Hoffmann's doctrine of absolute
and relative time as determining the mood in the cwm-clause, was
imported into America in the Allen and Greenough grammar, and,
passing over into the Harkness grammar, stood in both until I
attacked it.

French Latin grammar has largely followed the same course.

A CENTURY OF METAPHYSICAL SYNTAX 201

Thus a very important French syntacticist, Ferdinand Antoine,
whose recent death all workers in classics must deplore, wrote in his
Syntaxe de la Langue Latine, Paris, 1885, p. 163, "Le subjonctif
exprime une simple conception de 1 'esprit." 1

Thus far I have been following out, for Latin, the Matthia-Hermann-
Kant theory. Another form, the Thiersch-Dissen-Hermann-Kant
theory, is to be found in Ramshorn's Latin grammar, 1824. Rams-
horn makes the Indicative the mood of Reality, the Subjunctive
the mood of the Conditioned, and the Imperative the mood of Neces-
sity. It will be seen that I do not agree with Golling's statement
that the grammars of Zumpt and Ramshorn rest upon no philo-
sophical theorems, but upon grammatically scientific foundations.

Many combinations and interadjustments of these systems have
of course appeared. Thus Schmalz, in his Latin syntax of 1885,
started with Subjectivity, and from this got Dependency, Inner
Connection, etc. In the third edition, 1900, he starts with a fictive
power (which is simply, of course, our too familiar " Vorstellung ") ,
and from this gets Subjectivity, which he then makes to account for
the various dependent uses of the Subjunctive. The oldest theory
of the Subjunctive, namely, that it is essentially a subjoined mood,
has also been revived by Krucziewicz, in the Zeitschrift fur oster-
reichischen Gymnasien, 1894, and in a printed lecture by Professor
West in the Latin Leaflet for January 18, 1904.

This must suffice for Greek and Latin grammar. It would seem
now as if my story might be at an end. But the most extraordinary
part of it still remains to tell. Metaphysical and wholly unpsycho-
logical ways of looking at mood-syntax did not stop with the gram-
mars of two languages, but spread to grammars of all languages of
the family.

The Indicative, says Becker in his Organismus, 1827, expresses an
act as "ein wirkliches," while the Subjunctive represents it as "ein
vorgestelltes," whether it be in itself real or conceived ("sei es an
sich wirklich oder vorgestellt"). Grimm adopted the system in his
German grammar, Matzner in his English grammar, etc. It is to-day
the dominant creed. Every teacher of English, German, or French
will recognize it as the system in almost universal vogue. I need
give but a couple of illustrations, one for English, and one for French.

One of the latest and best American grammars of English, that of
Professor Carpenter, says " Verbs are said to be in the Indicative,
Subjunctive, or Imperative moods, according as they represent
statements as actual facts, as thoughts, or as commands"; and again,
"the Subjunctive mood represents statements as thoughts or con-

1 Antoine did not remain satisfied with this view, as is shown both by private
letters to me, and by the fact that he has in print accepted and expounded my
views upon the constructions with antequam, priusquam, dum, donee, and the like.

202 LATIN LANGUAGE

ceptions, which may or may not have a basis in reality, or which are
obviously not conceivable as facts."

In Macmillan's French Course, Third Year, by G. Eugene Fasnacht,
we read on p. 62 the statement, "The Subjunctive Mood (is used)
if the Principal Sentence implies that the action expressed in the
dependent clause is merely conceived in the mind of the speaker."
And in a single sentence of three lines, referred to earlier in this
address, we have a mixture of four systems. It reads as follows:
"In the sentence 'son pere veut qu'il vienne,' 'his father wishes that
he should come/ the contingency (eventual fact) of his coming is in
the speaker's mind, subjoined to the will of another (his father)."
The word " contingency " belongs to the Wolffian school, the phrase
"in the speaker's mind" to the Hermannian-Kantian school, the
phrase " subjoined to " to the old Greek error about the Subjunctive,
and the word "Will" to true psychological syntax, in its simplest
form.

But, it may be said, "the English Subjunctive and the German
Subjunctive, at any rate, do express ideas, and not facts. Why not
so explain them, then, in class-room work ? " The most conclusive
single answer is as follows: "If you do this for the English Sub-
junctive, e. g., you should also explain in the same way the more
common equivalents, namely, the forms with the modal auxiliaries
will (1st person), shall, should, may, might, can, could, would." When
you ask, "Why does the writer here say shall, why does he here
say can, why does he here say would?" the student should be
taught to answer, in every case, "Mood of idea." But there could
not be a class so blind that some one in it would not ask the ques-
tion, " Do all these words express the same idea, and may any one
of them be substituted in any sentence for any other ? "

The truth is, that our first task to-day is to get rid of all this
metaphysical inheritance, which belongs to an unscientific age, and
to study language directly by and for itself.

SHORT PAPERS

PROFESSOR H. C. ELMER, of Cornell University, presented a paper to this
Section on " Some Questionable Tendencies of Modern Textual Criticism."

PROFESSOR SIDNEY G. ASHMORE, of Union College, presented a short paper on
the subject of " The Classics in Our Schools."

SECTION F— ENGLISH LANGUAGE

SECTION F — ENGLISH LANGUAGE

(Hall 3, September 23, 3 p. m.)

CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR CHARLES M. GAYLEY, University of California.
SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR OTTO JESPERSEN, University of Copenhagen.
PROFESSOR GEORGE L. KITTREDGE, Harvard University.

THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE CONSIDERED
IN ITS RELATION TO OTHER SUBJECTS

BY OTTO JESPERSEN

[Jens Otto Harry Jespersen, Professor of English Language and Literature, Uni-
versity of Copenhagen, b. Randers, Denmark, 1860. Ph.D. Copenhagen, 1891.
Member of the Royal Academy, Copenhagen, Honorary Member of the Asso-
ciation Phon^tique Internationale, Honorary Member of the Modern Language
Association of America. Author of Articulation of Speech Sounds; Progress in
Language; Lehrbuch der Phonetik; Phonetische Grundfragen; How to teach a
Foreign Language; Growth and Structure of the English Language, etc.]

No single human individual ever lived completely isolated from
his fellow beings; no nation was ever entirely cut off from other
nations ; and no contact between individuals and nations ever took
place without leaving traces in their coming lives. Language is
inconceivable without such contact, and nothing is more contagious
than modes of speech. From the manner in which a man talks, one
can always tell what sort of people he has had most intercourse with
and what sort of influences, intellectual and moral, he has been
chiefly subject to in the whole of his life. This is true of nations
too; a complete survey of the English language would, therefore,
show to the initiated the whole of the life of the English nation from
the oldest times till the present day.

Let us for a moment imagine that all human records, all books,
documents, inscriptions, letters, etc., were lost, with the single excep-
tion of a number of texts written in English at various dates, and
let us imagine a body of men buckling down to the task of writing
the history of the English language with that material only. They
would be able, of course, to find out a great many things, but how-
ever highly gifted we imagine them to be, there would always remain
to them an immense number of riddles which no amount of sagacity
would enable them to solve, and which now, to us, are no riddles at
all. In the old texts they would encounter a great many words whose
meanings could be gathered with more or less certainty from the
context; but a vast number of other words would remain unintellig-

206 ENGLISH LANGUAGE

ible to them, which are now made perfectly clear to us by their
similarity with words in cognate languages. How much should we
understand now of Beowulf, if we had not Gothic, German, Norse,
etc., to compare the words with? And then the forms of the words,
their inflections and modifications : our supposed philologists would
be at a loss to explain such phenomena as vowel-mutation (umlaut)
or to understand the use and formation of the different cases, etc.
Similarly, when they saw a great many of the old words disappear
and give way to others that were hitherto totally unknown, they
would not be in possession of the key we now have in Scandinavian,
in French, in Latin and Greek: much of what is now self-evident
would under these circumstances strike everybody with amazement,
as falling down from heaven without any apparent reason.

A scientific treatment of the English language must, then, pre-
suppose the scientific treatment of a great many other languages as
well, and the linguistic historian cannot possibly fulfill his task
without a wide outlook to other fields. Not only must he have some
acquaintance with the cognate languages, the Arian (or Indo-Euro-
pean) family and more especially the Germanic (or Teutonic) branch
of it, but the English have in course of time come into contact with
so many other nations and have been so willing to learn foreign
words from people of every clime, that it is hardly an exaggeration to
say that whoever would really and thoroughly fathom the English
language would have to study half the languages spoken on the earth.
More than to any other branch of science the investigators of
English are indebted to Arian and Germanic philology. They have
continually to consult such works as Brugmann's and Delbriick's
Vergleichende Grammatik und Syntax, Streitberg's Urgermanische
Grammatik, Kluge's, Uhlenbeck's, and Franck's etymological dic-
tionaries, not to mention the other dictionaries' of German, Dutch,
etc., in which etymology plays only a subordinate part; further
periodicals like Beitrage zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Liter-
atur, Journal of Germanic Philology, Indogermanische Forschungen,
Kuhn's Zeitschrift, — it would be an easy thing to lengthen the list.
In classes of Old English recourse must continually be had to Verner's
law in order to explain the relation between wees (Mod. E. was) and
wceron (Mod. were), or between risan (Mod. rise) and rceran (Mod.
rear). To understand the rudimentary passive in hatte ("is called,"
cf. Spenser's hight),vfe must go to Gothic, Sanskrit, and Greek, as
indeed we must to comprehend the whole of the inflectional system.
The force of the prefix ge- in gehieran, gewinnan, gedon, and innumer-
able other verbs is made intelligible by a reference to Latin con- in
conficio, etc., and to the different tense aspects (aktionsarten) of
Slavonic and other cognate languages. All this is too obvious to call
for further comment or illustration.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE 207

I must, however, mention here especially one language of para-
mount importance for the study of Oldest English, namely Frisian.
The Frisians were the neighbors on the Continent of the tribes that
invaded Britannia; so much the more must we regret that no very
old monuments exist to show us the state of the Frisian language at
the time of the invasion or shortly afterwards. But even those
monuments we have, from the thirteenth century on, have not been
studied by philologists with the care we might expect, considering
their importance for the history of English. In fact, Frisian has been
the stepchild among Germanic tongues. Now, however, this seems to
be in a fair way of becoming otherwise, and Anglists — to borrow that
very convenient name for " students of English " — should heartily
welcome the endeavors of Dr. Wilhelm Heuser, who has in a very
handy little volume made the Old Frisian language readily accessible
to everybody, and who has there and elsewhere called attention to
some very important conclusions that can be drawn from Frisian
phonology with regard to Old English dialects.1 It is to be hoped that
this line of research will in future receive all the attention it deserves.

As already hinted above, English philology has to deal very largely
with loan-words from various sources. Celtic philology, however,
is not so important to the Anglist as might appear likely at first,
because there are really very few Celtic words in English, a fact
which is easily accounted for by the theory of speech-mixtures put
forward lately by the eminent Celtologist Windisch.2 This question
is largely mixed up with another question which has been much
discussed of late years, namely, what language did the Angles and
Saxons find generally spoken on their arrival in England? Had Latin
supplanted Celtic, totally or partially? This, however, need not occupy
us long here, as it really falls outside of the history of English proper.3

In whatever direction it may be finally settled, the fact remains
that Latin loan-words are extremely numerous and important in the
English language. All educated people are well acquainted with
those innumerable scientific, technical, and other Latin words which
have been adopted during the last five centuries and which have
stamped the English vocabulary in so peculiar a way. But this class
of words, together with the Greek words, which are inseparable from
them, offer no serious difficulties to the philologist. They are book-
words, taken over through the medium of writing in the form cor-
responding with that of the golden age of classical literature, and

1 Wilhelm Heuser, A Ufriesisches Lesebuch. Heidelberg, 1903. — Indo-german-
ische Forschungen, Anzeiger xrv, p. 29.

2 E. Windisch, Zur theorie der mischsprachen und lehnw&rter. Berichte uber die
verhandlungen der sacks, gesellschaft der wissenschaften, XLIX (1897), p. 101 ff.

3 A. Pogatscher, Zur lautlehre der griechischen, lateinischen und romanischen
lehnworte im Atienglischen. Strassburg, 1888. — J. Loth, Les mots latins dans les
langues brittoniques. Paris, 1892. — Pogatscher, Angelsachsen und Romanen,
Englische Studien, xix (1894), p. 329 ff.

208 ENGLISH LANGUAGE

only a minority of them have in English cast off the literary im-
print.

Much more philological interest is attached to the older strata of
Latin loan-words, the oldest of which were adopted before the
Angles and Saxons left the Continent. Here we have to do with an
oral influence, and the forms of these words therefore reflect the
pronunciation of the Latin-speaking communities with which the
various Germanic tribes came into contact. The deviations from the
classical forms found in the English shapes of these early loans must
therefore be due partly to changes in the language from which they
were borrowed, partly to the subsequent alterations they have
undergone in the borrowing language. Rightly interpreted, they
consequently shed light on the development of Latin into Romance
as well as on that of Germanic into English, and inversely, in order
to be rightly interpreted, they require familiarity with both languages
on the part of the investigator. As contemporary monuments are
totally wanting, at any rate for the borrowing language, the subject
is extremely difficult of treatment; but most of the phonological
difficulties have been surmounted in an important work by A.
Pogatscher.1 The cultural side of these early loans as well as of the
somewhat younger loans due chiefly to the conversion to Christian-
ity has been treated of by Kluge and others, especially MacGilli-
vray.2

The Danish and Norwegian vikings and especially those Scandi-
navians who settled in England for good, left a deeper mark on the
English language than is very often supposed. It is evident, therefore,
that the student of English should not neglect the Scandinavian
languages, the less so as their close relationship with English and the
early development in them of a literary style enable the scholar to
clear up a great many points in English, even apart from those points
where the protracted contact between the two nations has left its
marks on either nation's language and civilization generally. Hitherto
it has chiefly been Scandinavian scholars who have grappled with
the numerous problems connected with this contact. The Dane
Johannes Steenstrup has traced much of juridical importance back
to Scandinavian institutions, his chief criterion being the loan-word
test.3 The Swede Erik Brate gave us the first account of the fates
of Scandinavian sounds in Early Middle English,4 and lately his
countryman Erik Bjorkman has given us a very full and extremely

1 Pogatscher, Zur lautlehre der griechischen, etc., lehnworte im AUenglischen.
Strassburg, 1888.

1 F. Kluge, in Paul's Grundriss der germanischen philologie, i, 2d ed. Strass-
burg, 1899. — MacGillivray, The Influence of Christianity on the Vocabulary of Old
English. Halle, 1902.

3 Job. Steenstrup, Danelag. Normanneme, vol. rv. Copenhagen, 1882.

4 Erik Brate, Nordische khnworter im Orrmulum. Paul und Braune's Beitrage zur
geschichte der deutschen sprache, x (1884).

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE 209

able treatment of the whole of the subject, in which both lexical and
phonological points of view are done full justice to.1

The Scandinavians had scarcely had time to establish themselves,
still less to complete their social and linguistic fusion with the native
race, when the Norman Conquest brought in another element, which
was to play a still greater part in the development of English life
and English language — at any rate as far as outward appearance
is concerned, for if we were able to look beneath the surface and to
take everything into consideration, it is not improbable that the
Scandinavian influence would turn out to be the more important one
of the two. As it is, French loan-words are more conspicuous than
Scandinavian ones, just as the political revolution brought about
by the Conquest is more in view than the subtler modifications of
the social structure that may be due to the Danes and Norwegians.
Among the historians who have written of the Conquest and its
consequences and who have incidentally paid attention to linguistic
facts and unearthed documents illustrative of the conflict of languages,
Freeman deserves of course the foremost place, although he is per-
haps a little apt to underrate the role played by French. Some of his
assertions have been put right in Johan Vising 's excellent survey
of the history of the French language in England.2

As for the French loan-words themselves, more attention has been
paid by English scholars to their place in the economy of the lan-
guage, their intellectual power or emotional value as compared with
the native synonyms, than to the relation to their French originals,
although that side too offers no small interest. Their phonology is
rather complicated on account of their coming from various dialects
and being taken over at various dates, so that sometimes the same
French word appears in English in two widely different forms, for
instance catch and chase. The first scholar who treated French loans
in English from this point of view with perfect knowledge of French
as well as of English sound-history was Henry Nichol, whose article
on the French language in the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica gives much attention to English and is still well worth read-
ing. Since then, 'the question has been treated in various places by
that indefatigable veteran worker in all branches of English etymology,
Walter William Skeat,3 and in Germany by Dietrich Behrens.4

With regard to the other languages, from which English has
borrowed freely at various times, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, etc., it is

1 Erik Bjorkman, Scandinavian Loan-Wards in Middle English, i-n. Halle,
1900-1902.

2 Johan Vising, Franska sprdket i England, i-ni. Goteborg, 1900-1902.

3 W. W. Skeat, Principles of English Etymology. Second series. Oxford, 1891.
— Notes on English Etymology. Oxford, 1901.

* Dietrich Behrens, Beitrage zur geschichte der franzosischen sprache in England.
(Franzosische Studien, v, Band 2. heft.) Heilbronn, 1886. — Franzosische ele-
mente im Englischen, in Paul's Grundriss, as above.

210 ENGLISH LANGUAGE

to be regretted that no specialists have made these several influences
subjects of monographs, as the very able chapters devoted to them
in Skeat's Principles of English Etymology cannot be said to have
' exhausted the subject.

I have spoken hitherto of the direct use obtainable from the study
of other languages for the history of English. But it is clear that
indirectly, too, the scientific study of any subject, and more especially
the scientific study of any language, may be of value for the student
of English. The wider his outlook and the greater the number of
languages he is able to compare with English, the more light will he
be able to throw on his special study. His ideas ought not to be
narrowed down to one particular type of linguistic structure. A
broad horizon is the more necessary because the development of the
English idiom has in a great many respects diverged very widely
from the structural type characteristic of the older languages of the
same family. The grammarian should be on his guard against apply-
ing indiscriminately the same categories and the same points of view
to all languages, for no language can be rightly measured by the
yard of any other language. This, however, is just what has been
done to a very great extent, not only with regard to English, but
more or less in describing and in judging all languages. Latin gram-
mar was studied earlier than, and more extensively than, any other
grammar; Latin was considered the language, and any deviation in
other languages from its rules was considered a deterioration. Even
if this manner of looking at things grammatical has now been largely
superseded, because an ever-increasing number of different languages
have been scientifically investigated, there still remain not a few
survivals of the Latin superstition, which it will be the work of future
grammarians to root out completely. Grammatical terminology is still
in the main based on Latin grammar. The student of English will
find in his grammatical vocabulary expressions for whatever English
has in common with Latin, but those grammatical categories and
phenomena which are not found in Latin have either no names at
all or else each author has his own names. The combination found
in "he is reading" is by some called simply the periphrastic conjug-
ation, by others the progressive form, or the present continuous, or
the descriptive present, or the definite present. Now, of course,
names are not everything, and we may have very definite notions
without definite names, or, at any rate, without definite names
accepted by everybody. Still, the want of a fixed technical nomen-
clature is decidedly a drawback.

But there is another, and much more serious, drawback derived
from the preponderance of Latin grammar. It is, in fact, a very
difficult thing for anybody that has been from his earliest youth
thoroughly drilled in that particular set of grammatical ideas, to

211

liberate his mind from their vitiating influence when dealing with
another language. His grammatical vision is too apt to be colored
by the Latin spectacles he has worn so long. He will look in English
for the same cases, the same tenses and moods as he is familiar with in
Latin, and it is surprising how often he finds them in places where a
man coming fresh to a grammatical investigation of English without
a previous training in Latin would probably have described the
actual phenomena in a totally different manner. I open one of the
best-known English grammars and find the following statement,
namely, "The name of Cases is given to different forms which a
noun (or pronoun) assumes to denote its relations to other words in
a sentence. Five Cases may be distinguished in English, the Nomin-
ative, Objective, Dative, Possessive, Vocative." The author does
not appear to have seen his own want of logic in making form the
distinguishing feature of cases and yet establishing five cases in
English, for in a note he goes on to add, quite unconcernedly, that
"with the exception of the Possessive all these have long since
lost their characteristic endings, but the use of the Case-names
serves to mark the relations formerly indicated by them." In the
grammar I quote, as well as in some other modern ones, such dis-
tinctions are referred not to Latin, but to Old English, but I think I
am right when maintaining that they are really made in deference to
Latin syntax rather than to Old English, as shown by the inclusion
of the vocative on the one hand and by the exclusion of the instru-
mental on the other. Such grammars also classify as accusatives of
description or of time, space, measure, or manner, a great many
instances where Old English and other cognate languages have the
dative or some other case. We should accustom ourselves in dealing
with such questions to take each language, and each stage of each
language — Modern English for instance — entirely on its own merits
and look the real facts in the face, without any regard to how other
languages express the same meanings. In a very able book on the
absolute participle in English, the author says that it is right to
parse the so-called nominative absolute as " a dative absolute in dis-
guise." Now this amounts to very much the same thing as saying
that a locomotive is a horse in disguise or — to remain within the
sphere of language — to say that in "he likes pears " he is a dative in
disguise, likes a plural in disguise, and pears the subject in disguise,
because in Old English the sentence would run "him liciaj? peran."
It is unhistorical to treat Modern English as Latin or Old English or
any other language in disguise.

It is often urged that we should hi English distinguish a dative
from an accusative on the strength of meaning only, but then we
might with equal right say that the adjective is in three different
cases in the sentences "my father is old; my father has grown old;

212 ENGLISH LANGUAGE

my father is sick," for there is really a logical foundation for the dis-
tinction made here by Finnish: isdni on vanha (nominative); isdni
on jo tullut vanhaksi (translative, indicating the state into which
any one or anything passes); isdni on sairaana (essive, indicating
the state in which anybody or anything is). The distinction is a real
one in Finnish, because it is shown externally; but it is not a real
one in English. In the same manner we should be justified in speak-
ing of a dative case in English, if it had either a distinct form or
manifested itself outwardly in some other manner, for example, by
a fixed position. If the dative preceded invariably the accusative,
we might recognize a positional dative, but it does not. In " I gave
it him" there is nothing grammatical to show us which of the two
words is the indirect object. It is true that when the direct object
is a noun (not a pronoun) the indirect object is always placed before
the direct object; but that is not enough to establish a separate case,
unless, indeed, we should be willing to apply the same designation of
" dative case " to all the nouns placed first in each one of the follow-
ing sentences :

I told the boy some stories.

I asked the boy a few questions.

I heard the boy his lessons.

I took the boy long walks.

I kissed the boy good-night.

[I painted the wall a different color.]

I called the boy bad names.

I called the boy a scoundrel.1

If we are to speak of separate datives and accusatives in English,
I for one do not know where in this list the dative goes out and the
accusative comes in. (Note that in the second sentence Old English
would have had two accusatives.) In the same manner I think it
perfectly idle to inquire what case is employed in " he was tied hand
and foot," "they were now face to face," "we shall go down Harrow
way this day week," "I saw a man the age of my grandmother," etc.
We have here various employments of the " kernel " or " crude form "
of a noun, and nothing else. It is even more wrong to speak of phrases
with to and of as datives and genitives, as is done, for instance, in
articles on " Die Trennung eines Genitivs von seinem regierenden
Worte durch andere Satzteile." What is meant is the order of two
prepositional (or adverbial) adjuncts, as in " the arrival at Cowes of
the German Emperor." Of the Emperor is no more a genitive than at
Cowes is an accusative or from Cowes an ablative. Whoever takes an
interest in the purification of English grammar from such sham
classifications as I have here instanced, will find great help in an

1 Some of these combinations may not be very frequent, but they all occur and
all have to be analyzed.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE 213

excellent book by H. G. Wiwel,1 in which the same kind of work has
been done with regard to Danish and in which the growth of the
traditional grammatical system is, moreover, elucidated in a masterly
manner. As Danish resembles English more than any other language
in grammatical structure we have here another instance of a research
in one language being useful to students of a cognate tongue. But
it should not be forgotten that in England one of the foremost scholars
of our day has done excellent work in this respect, for Henry Sweet's
ingenious essay Words, Logic, and Grammar of 1873 2 really not
only anticipates such works as Wiwel's, but on some points even goes
further in doing away radically with traditional notions and gram-
matical prejudices.

The exaggerated importance attached to Latin is also injurious to
the study of English if it causes forms and constructions to be valued
according to a Latin standard. Some authors, Milton and Dryden
among them, have impaired their English prose by thinking too much
of Latin syntax instead of trusting to their natural linguistic instinct,
and similarly some grammarians are apt to despise such English
idioms as are contrary to Latin rules. The omission of relative
pronouns, a preposition placed at the end of a question or of a relative
clause, the passive construction with a so-called dative turned into
the subject, all these eminently English idioms have not been valued
according to their merits. That the ordinary schoolmaster should
persecute these things is perhaps only what might be expected so
long as a rational course of modern linguistic science as applied to
English does not enter into the ordinary school curriculum, but what
concerns us more here is that the same underrating of a great number
of pithy and expressive constructions is found even in works dealing
with historical English grammar. In the same manner, instead of
examining impartially the rise and spreading of the past indicative
in conditional clauses ("if he was caught, he would be punished")
and after such a verb as wish (" I wish he was dead ") , many gram-
marians dispose of the use by simply branding it as careless or slip-
shod English, precluding themselves from the correct point of view
by considering came in "if he came" as necessarily subjunctive. If
people would not blink the fact that in modern English " if he came "
and "if we were" and "if I do" and a thousand other sentences are
no longer either in the indicative or in the subjunctive, they would
see how natural it is that the indicative should come to be used in
the comparatively very rare instances in which the indicative and
subjunctive forms are still distinct, and then we should, probably,
soon see an investigation, which is now nowhere found, of the ques-

1 H. G. Wiwel, Synspunkter for dansk sproglcere. Copenhagen, 1901.

2 Henry Sweet, Words, Logic, and Grammar, in Transactions of the Philological
Society. London, 1873.

214 ENGLISH LANGUAGE

tion, where does unsophisticated usage retain the subjunctive and
where is the indicative employed naturally by everybody in England
and America?

This leads up to another consideration. Up to quite recent times,
the history of any language was chiefly studied through the means
of written literature. But now it is more and more recognized that,
indispensable as are written documents for the study of the older
periods, they can never give everything, and that they will remain dead
until vivified by the help of the study of the language as actually
spoken nowadays by living men, women, and children. The study
of language should always begin, like charity, at home; everybody
should be trained in the investigation of his own, his family's, and his
friend's e very-day speech, before going on to deal with dead lan-
guages— and I take here the word "dead" in its strictest sense,
including the language of Carlyle and of Emerson just as well as that
of Chaucer or of Cynewulf, for they are all accessible to us through
written and printed books only. The tendency towards a living
language-study is strong everywhere, and the student of English
should keep thoroughly abreast of the best work done in that direc-
tion with regard to other languages, German, French, Scandinavian,
and so on. This is true of all branches of philology, not only of
phonetics, where it has been recognized by everybody in theory
if not always in practice, but also of such branches as syntax and
semantics, where there is now in many countries a growing tend-
ency to take as a basis the observation of the actually spoken
language.

The study of other languages will assist the Anglist in more ways
than those enumerated hitherto. Let me finish this lecture by draw-
ing attention to one of the most fundamental problems in the evolu-
tion of language. English is characterized by its large admixture
of foreign words, and the history of the English-speaking race is in
a large measure the history of its mixture with alien races. Now,
English has gone farther than most cognate languages in simplifying
its hereditary flexional system and wearing off most of the old endings.
The problem naturally arises: what is the relation, or is there any
relation, between these two things, race- or speech-mixture and
simplification of structure?

The general assumption seems to be that foreign influence is the
cause of that simplification, and this assumption is always stated in
a purely dogmatic manner, no attempt being ever made to prove
the assertion. Nor is it possible, so far as I see, either to prove or to
disprove it on the strength of English alone, as the direct evidence
afforded by contemporary documents is so scarce. The foreign in-
fluence to which the breaking down of the old grammatical system
is ascribed is nearly always taken to be that due to the Norman

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE 215

Conquest. But as I have shown elsewhere l it is probable that the
Scandinavian immigration exercised a much stronger influence on
English grammar than the French. Both the mutual relations of the
two languages, Scandinavian and English, and the greater rapidity
of the structural change in the North, where Scandinavians settled in
the greatest number, point decidedly in that direction, if we are to
think of foreign influence at all. On the other hand, the chronology
of some changes, for instance the early confusion of the old system
of genders in some Northern monuments, as well as the gradual
manner in which the leveling took place on many points, where we
seem able to account phonologically and morphologically for each
little step in a development which it took centuries to accomplish —
all this makes it not unwarrantable to speak of the whole process as
one which would have taken place in the same, or nearly the same
manner, even had no foreign mixture entered into play.

As we are thus left unable to answer the question decidedly one
way or the other from what we know about English itself, the idea
naturally presents itself that an examination of parallel processes
in other languages might perhaps assist us materially. For if we
find everywhere else in other languages the two things, mixture of
speech or of race and simplification of grammatical structure, going
together, and if, on the other hand, pure languages are always con-
servative in their structure, the conclusion apparently is a safe one
that the two phenomena are interdependent. The limited time at
my disposal, and still more my limited knowledge, prevent me from
doing here more than throwing out a few hints.

Among the Germanic languages, Danish is one of the simplest, as
far as Sectional structure is concerned, — and Danish ha& undergone
a very strong foreign influence, a considerable part of its vocabulary
being made up of Low German words. If we compare the different
Danish dialects with one another, we see some differences in regard
to the degree in which the simplification has been carried out, the
dialect of West Jutland going farthest in that respect. There, for
instance, the three grammatical genders have been merged together,
final -e has disappeared, the definite article is one invariable prefixed
(e, while in other dialects it is postfixed and varies according to num-
ber and according to the two or, in other places, three genders still
distinguished. Now, there does not seem to be a scrap of evidence
to show that this part of the country has witnessed any stronger
race-mixture than the others. It is worth noting that in the district
nearest to German-speaking communities two genders are preserved.
It is my impression that the most simplified dialect has no greater
admixture of loan-words than the more conservative ones, and this
impression has been endorsed by the greatest authority on Jutland

1 Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, p. 173. London, 1894.

216 ENGLISH LANGUAGE

dialects, the Rev. Dr. H. F. Feilberg. The structural contrast to West
Jutlandish among the Scandinavian languages is Icelandic, which
has preserved the old endings and inflections with wonderful fidelity;
this conservatism is combined with an extremely small number of
loan-words, and no race-mixture has ever taken place.

We proceed to South Africa, where we find a language which has
perhaps thrown off more of the old fiectional complexity than any
other Germanic language, English not even excepted, namely Cape
Dutch or " Afrikaansch," " de Taal." The total absence of distinction
of gender, the dropping of a great many endings, an extremely
simple declension and conjugation, which has given up, for instance,
any marks of different persons and numbers in the verbs, and other
similar traits, distinguish this extremely interesting language from
European Dutch. As for loan-words, the number of English words,
which is now very considerable, can have nothing to do with the
simplification, for the English did not come to the Cape till after
the grammatical structure had undergone most of its changes.
French loan-words are not so plentiful as might be expected from
the number of Huguenots among the original stock of immigrants,
but Malayo-Portuguese has contributed quite a considerable number
of words. In the latest book on Cape Dutch the simplification 'is
attributed, not to any particular foreign tongue, but to the fact that
the language has been largely spoken by people having originally
had a different mother tongue, no matter what that tongue was in
each individual case.1

Among the Romance languages, Roumanian evidently is the one
which has undergone the strongest foreign influence; it has a great
many loan-words from various sources, and the people also is largely
mixed with alien populations. But here, the structure of the lan-
guage is rather less simple than that of the sister tongues ; Roumanian
has, for instance, preserved more of the old declension than other
Romance languages. Its neighbor, Bulgarian, has in some respects
the same position among Slavonic languages as Roumanian among
Romance. The same causes have been at work among both popula-
tions and have produced race-mixture as well as a large proportion of
loan-words from Turkish and other languages. But with regard to
simplification, Bulgarian stands on a different footing from Rou-
manian, as it has given up very much of the old Slavonic complexity;
the case-system has nearly disappeared, and prepositions are used
very extensively instead of the old endings.

In the Balkans we meet with still another language which has to
be considered here, namely, Modern Greek. The extremely artificial
form in which this language is written does not concern us here,

1 H. Meyer, Die sprache der Buren. Gottingen, 1901. — Compare also D. C.
Hesseling, Het Afrikaansch. Leiden, 1899.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE 217

as it is an outcome of an entirely unnatural tendency to conceal the
history and development of some two thousand years. Spoken
Modern Greek presents a combination of the two phenomena, sim-
plification of grammar and a great influx of foreign words.1 So does
Modern Persian too; its accidence is extremely simple and in so
many respects resembles English that Misteli consecrates the last
sections of his great work to a comparison of the two languages in
their present shapes.2 Persian also in that respect resembles English,
that it is full of loan-words, nearly all expressions for philosophical,
abstract, and technical ideas being Arabic words. But just as most
of the philosophical, abstract, and technical Latin and Greek words
were adopted into English after the process of grammatical simplifi-
cation had been carried very far, in the same manner Arabic influence
in Persian follows, instead of preceding, the doing away with most
of the old complexity of grammar. Pehlevi, or the language of the
Sassanid period, before the Arabic conquest, is far simpler than Old
Persian. If, then, the Persian simplicity is a consequence of speech-
mixture, it must be one of earlier date, and perhaps the Aramaic
influence on Pehlevi is strong enough to account for everything;
that, however, must be left for specialists to decide.

In India, the old system of inflections has broken down in the
modern languages, which are all more or less analytic in their struc-
ture. Hindi seems to have gained much in simplicity as early as the
thirteenth century, although the modern system of auxiliary verbs
and of postpositions was not then fully established, but the strong
influx of Persian (with Arabic and Turkish) words did not begin till
some centuries later. Hindustani is practically the same language
as Hindi with still more foreignisms in it. Gujarati has preserved
more of the old inflections than Hindi, but the Persian elements are
rather more numerous here than in Hindi.

We should not leave the Arian (Indo-European) languages without
mentioning the numerous varieties of Creole languages that have
sprung up in all those parts of the globe where Europeans have been
in constant communication with native populations of different
races. Grammatical simplicity has in all these languages been carried
extremely far, and though the actual admixture of exotic words is very
unequal and inconstant, varying as it does, according to circumstances
and individuals, still it is always pretty considerable.3

Outside the Indo-European languages, the nearest in kin are
probably the Finno-Ugrian group. The absence of old documents

1 See on the relation between the two things especially K. Krumbacher, Das
problem der neugriechischen schriftsprache. Festrede in der kgl. bayr. akademie der
wissenschaften in Miinchen. 1902.

2 F. Misteli, Charakteristik der hauptsachlichsten typen des sprachbaues. Berlin,
1893.

8 See H. Schuchardt, Kreolische studien, Wiener akademie, 1883 ff.

218 ENGLISH LANGUAGE

makes it a difficult matter to speak of the history of these languages;
still, we may say that Esthonian, which has undergone a strong
German influence, shows a more worn-down state of the old grammar
than Finnish, and that the same is the case with Livonian, which has
been so strongly influenced by Lettic that nearly half of the vocab-
ulary is borrowed from that language. As for Magyar, or Hungarian,
its vocabulary presents a highly variegated appearance: Persian,
Turkish, Slavonic, Latin, and German elements are freely mixed with
the original stock. Phonetic development has worn down the forms
of the words to a considerable extent, and many of the old gram-
matical forms have disappeared. The case-endings now used are
quite modern developments and are joined to the words in a much
looser way and also much more regularly than those of Finnish, for
example; in fact, they can hardly be termed anything but post-
positions. On the whole its grammatical structure seems to be really
simpler than that of the other languages of the same group.1

In the Semitic group, Hebrew even in the oldest period known to
us is much simpler in its grammatical structure than Arabic. Whether
this is due to speech-mixture or not is a question which I must leave
to others to decide; but I am told that scholars are now beginning
to recognize more and more Assyrian loan-words in Hebrew. Ara-
maic is still simpler, and here foreign influences seem to be much
easier to trace.

Outside the three great families of languages which I have here
spoken about, very little is known to me that might serve to clear
up our question. Malayan has a very simple grammatical structure
and a very great number of foreign words. Chinese is still less com-
plicated in its structure, but is its vocabulary to any great extent
made up of loan-words ? On the other hand, are the American Indian
languages, with their intricacies of grammar, completely free from
foreign mixtures ? It is surely permissible to entertain some doubt
on both of these heads.

I am painfully conscious that what I have been able to do here is
only a very imperfect sketch. I dare draw no definite conclusion
from the somewhat conflicting evidence I have been able to adduce,
but I have thought it might be well to throw out a few suggestions
for a future work, which ought certainly to be done by some one
possessed of a deeper knowledge of the languages I have mentioned,
and, if possible, of all the other languages that might throw light on
the subject. This scholar of a, let us hope, not too remote future,
I should venture to recommend to pay especial attention to chrono-
logy* — for it is not enough to state mixture and simplicity, but it

1 With regard to the Finno-Ugrian languages, I am largely indebted to the
lectures and writings of Vilhelm Tnomsen.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE 219

must be shown also for each individual case that the latter is sub-
sequent in time to the former, if we are to believe in a cause and
effect relation between them. And then he must, wherever possible,
distinguish between speech-mixture and race-mixture and determine
in each case whether one or the other or both have taken place. He
will find some very useful generalizations on the relation between
the two kinds of mixture in a paper by the American scholar George
Hempl,1 whom I am happy to quote here at the close of my paper,
for it would scarcely be possible to find a more apposite place than
America in which to investigate the question I have alluded to. Here
in America you have race-mixtures and speech-mixtures of every
kind going on and readily accessible to observation every day. Here
you see the greatest amalgamation that the world has ever witnessed
of human beings into one great nation. The future of the English
language is to a great extent in the hands of the Americans. It is
gratifying, therefore, to see that the study of its'past and of its present
is taken up with such zeal and such energy by a great number of
extremely able American scholars that we cannot fail to entertain
the very best hopes for the future of English philology.

1 G. Hempl, Language-Rivalry and Speech-Differentiation in the case of Race-
Mixture. Transactions of the American Philological Association, xxix (1898),
p. 35.

PRESENT PROBLEMS IN THE STUDY OF THE ENGLISH

LANGUAGE

BY GEOEGE LYMAN KITTREDGE
(Professor of English in Harvard University)

MY theme is Present Problems with regard to the English Lan-
guage. I did not choose this theme myself, nor was it, I suppose,
assigned me by a committee of philologists or linguistic students.
Indeed, it is manifestly not altogether appropriate to the nature of
the general subject, to the character of the material with which one
deals in linguistic investigations, or to the present state of science in
the department of learning which we are met to discuss. In natural
science, in philosophy, in social questions, the specialist may no doubt
survey the field at any given moment and pronounce categorically
that this or that question (or group of questions) presses with peculiar
insistence for solution, and that when the solution is arrived at, it
will point the way to large discoveries, or. to momentous advances in
knowledge or enlightenment. In the investigation of a particular
language, however, the case is different. There are problems enough,
no doubt, and difficult problems; but who shall venture to say that
we are now grappling with principles or theories on which depends
either the whole future of our science or the amelioration of the
human race?

Pray do not misunderstand me. It is by no means my -purpose to
criticise adversely the managers of this intellectual enterprise. Nor
do I intend to belittle the subject which calls us together, and to the
study of which we are, each in his own way, so ardently devoted.
Least of all would I be taken to mean that there is nothing to talk
about. As I have already suggested, we have problems in abundance,
— an abundance, indeed, which is fairly embarrassing. All I desire is
to account for the omissions which you will severally detect in my
discussion this afternoon. It is not to be expected that any brief
treatment of so complicated a business should not overlook or ignore
the pet puzzle of many an individual among this audience. For we are
very multifarious in our interests. Look into your hearts, gentlemen,
and judge. Some of us are worrying over "w-umlaut"; others pass
sleepless nights in meditating on the Kenticisms in Chaucer; to
not a few the dog's letter, the snarling littera canina of the old
grammarians, is a perpetual stimulus or an ever-puncturing thorn
in the flesh. A select number find their refreshment (or dissipation)
in unriddling runic puzzles. Others the Middle English dative charms

PROBLEMS IN STUDY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE 221

elusively, — fleeing to the woods, but desirous first to be seen. For
myself, I must confess that I give much thought to certain idioms
containing (as I think) for and an adjective, but reducible, in the
opinion of many, to compounds with the "intensive prefix," — and
that I should die happier if I felt sure of ever knowing the whole
truth about the kankedort in which Troilus found himself when he
heard Pandarus and Cressida whispering at the door.

These, then, and thousands like them, are all present problems with
regard to the English language, and I might easily fill my allotted five
and forty minutes by cataloguing them, and still leave the most im-
mediate interests of some of you untouched. Because these are little
things, the scoffer talks of pedantry, and the mousing philologist is
ridiculed as an operose trifler — a cavalier of empty thoughts. But we
may leave the scoffer out of account. Our revenge on him is lordly
and complete. As a learned friend of mine once said to some of his
fellow students who were inclined to think that literary criticism
was the whole of life, — it is exhilarating to observe the hungry
eagerness with which the supercilious outsider picks up the crumbs
that fall from the philologist's table. A correct analysis of if you
please, or you are welcome, or willy nitty, or a demonstration of the com-
mon trick of substituting a glottal catch for a guttural, will hold an
audience of literary enthusiasts as surely as the finest analysis of the
sesthetician or the boldest flight of the critical aeronaut.

The minuter questions of English philology, such as those to which
I have already adverted, are of course being settled one by one, and
their solutions are gradually, though very slowly, finding their place
in collective treatises. One of the larger problems that confronts us
is the difficulty of getting collective treatises written in a competent
way. To be sure, there is no reason for discouragement. As we com-
pare the array of trustworthy manuals that the tyro now has at his
disposal with the scanty and incorrect apparatus of the greatest
scholars fifty years ago, we have much to be thankful for; but no
one can deny that there is still an enormous amount of sifting and
codification to be done, even in those departments of our subject
which have received the most earnest and fruitful attention from
philologists.

The earliest period of our language (call it Anglo-Saxon or Old
English as you please; for this petty question of mere nomenclature
I refuse to regard as a problem, though much ink has been shed in
debating it) has been more minutely and successfully studied than
any other. The reasons are obvious, and need not be recapitulated.
One of the most potent has been, of course, the fact that Anglo-Saxon
is of vital importance to every Germanic philologist, to a degree that
is not true of any later period of English. Hence we have enjoyed,
in this field, the active cooperation of scholars of different nationalities

222 ENGLISH LANGUAGE

well trained in philological method, some of whom have only a slight
interest in the English language in its later, and much more significant,
developments.

Yet our shelf of Anglo-Saxon works of reference is far from full,
and some of the gaps occur in places to which we should oftenest have
recourse if we did not know they were empty. The state of Anglo-
Saxon lexicography, for example, is a disgrace to English-speaking
scholars. Who will give us a halfway satisfactory Anglo-Saxon dic-
tionary and free us from the thralldom of Bos worth-Toller? Grein's
Poetical Lexicon is so marvelous a piece of work that, old as it is,
one hesitates to suggest its revision. Yet everybody knows that a new
Grein is a need that is sorely felt. A distinguished American scholar
has long been giving his leisure hours to making collectanea for an
exhaustive Anglo-Saxon dictionary; but I doubt if he has much
expectation of finding a publisher. There are understood to be large
materials at Oxford; but one despairs of ever seeing them put forth.
Is there any hope except in international cooperation among a large
number of scholars, financed by some institution of inexhaustible
resources that feels no regard for profits, and directed by a specialist
characterized by equal breadth and fineness of knowledge and by
exceptional skill in the organization of materials and the management
of collaborators? Instances of similar lexicographical enterprises
now proceeding to a successful issue will at once occur to you. I need
not mention them by name. Should we not all keep in mind as one of
our first duties the furtherance of this great undertaking in every
way in our power?

I will not dwell on the other deficiencies in our Anglo-Saxon
equipment. On the whole, the material is so compact and manageable,
the various desiderata are so well defined, and the number of trained
workers is so great, that, without being unduly sanguine, we may
hope to see most of our needs supplied as time goes on, — the great
task of the dictionary excepted. There is still much to do hi Anglo-
Saxon dialectology; but the main lines of distinction are well recog-
nized, and there are a number of distinguished monographs. Syntax,
to be sure, is an almost untilled field ; but to that subject we must
recur in a moment. As to meter, there are still wide differences of
opinion, and of late there has been manifested a tendency to question
the soundness of some of the best-accredited results, or, at all events,
to deny their utility for purposes of textual criticism. One thing,
however, is clear: There are a large number of facts about the
structure and movement of Anglo-Saxon verse that have been ascer-
tained beyond the possibility of a doubt and that have been shown to
admit of orderly classification. In all our discussions on points of
theory, it is well to remember that these facts are facts, not opinions.
The verses do actually contain such and such syllables, arranged thus

PROBLEMS IN STUDY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE 223

and so, and with certain quantities and accents in reasonably fixed
positions. All of these facts may be significant with regard to the
meter; many of them must be significant. How far all or any part
of them suffice to pluck out the heart of the mystery is a debatable
question. The objection that an ancient scop cannot have had all
these types and sub-types in his head when he took harp in hand is
merely ludicrous. It is much as if one were to contend that the
musician's crotchets and semiquavers are perverse nonentities because
a boy can whistle a tune without ever having heard of them. It is
about on a level with the child's inquiry as to how Adam found out
the animals' names. There may be — there probably is — a good
deal about Anglo-Saxon meter that is not yet discovered ; but that is no
reason for rejecting the information which we have already acquired.

While this particular subject is under our eyes, and before you
have had time to describe me in your own minds as either a philistine,
or a partisan, or a shuffler, it may be well to say a word on the history
of English meter in general, — of what we may call Modern English
meter in distinction from that of pre-Conquest times. Here there are
certainly problems enough. The whole matter is one enormous
puzzle. We do not really know how far English meter is Germanic ,
how far it is Latin, and how far it is French. Individuals know: there
are theorists in plenty who feel certain about the influence exerted
on the native versification by the hymns of the church and the
secular poetry of the foreign invader. But I am not speaking of the
views of those who know because they have made up their minds,
but of what can actually be proved to the satisfaction of an unbiased
scholar. Again, the whole subject of quantity in modern English
meter is as good as terra incognita. Of course quantity plays its
part as well as accent. Our ears tell us that, and our common sense.
Besides, we have the testimony of the poets themselves. But how
great is the quantitative function, and what are its relations to
accentual rhythm? Further, we are in no sort of agreement as
to pauses in metrical writing. Most metricians tell us, for instance,
that in Shakespeare's blank verse a pause may take the place of an
unaccented syllable, — some even assert that it may stand for one
that is accented. To me, however, such statements appear to have
no meaning. They seem to belong to mathematics, not to poetry.

Again, we are at sword's points about ictus and rhetorical accent.
Everybody knows that the same verse may often be singsonged
with five accents and read with three or four, and that it satisfies the
ear when uttered in either way, though it appeals to the intellect
in only one of its two renditions. What are we to make of this
phenomenon? And what of pitch-accent and stress-accent? What
of feet or measures? How far are they real divisions and how far
mere fetches of scansion?

224 ENGLISH LANGUAGE

These are elementary questions. But no scholar in the world has
yet answered them to anything like general assent. Heaven knows
there are answers enough before the public ! About once a year some-
body puts forth a brand-new system of English meter, with novel
symbols and a fresh nomenclature; and it is impossible even to con-
jecture the number of eager young spirits in our universities who are
at this moment beginning to glow with the hope that they have at
last put their fingers on the strings in the long-sought way. For my
own part, I am not sanguine. We know the rough facts, and we can
feel the finer ones as we read or chant the verses of the great poets.
But whether we shall ever do much more is a question. The phonet-
icians are active, and if help comes from any quarter it must come
from them. But — if one dare say it — some of the most advanced
phoneticians have become so subtle and hair-splitting, and seem to
have so little notion of what is worth doing and what is not, that
they appear to an outsider (as well as to not a few of their more
conservative brethren) to be doing little more than piling up rubbish.
Some day there may be born a great psychologist with an innate
feeling for verse as verse. When he has exhausted the subject of
psychology, he may apply himself to literature, and when he is
sufficiently at home in that field, he may perhaps find time to become
an expert phonetician. He may then solace his declining years by
explaining for good and all the intricacies of English meter. I hardly
expect to live to see the man. Let me add, by the way, two more
qualifications: he should be modest, and a person of unusual
common sense.

There are problems in plenty with regard to the history of English
as a literary language, this side of the Anglo-Saxon period, — and
many of them are of great moment to students of literature as well
as to the special devotees of linguistic science. To some of the ques-
tions there is a generally accepted answer, — generally accepted, but
not quite amply demonstrated. As to others, scholars take sides
(and hold them) with commendable stiffness. Nearly all of the
questions are pretty generally misconceived, in this or that way,
by the educated public, including most writers of literary histories.

First among the problems that I have now in mind is the general
question of French influence upon English. In its main outlines
this matter is pretty well settled. We know (though it seems impos-
sible for historians of literature to find out the facts) that the Norman
dialect was familiar at the English court before the Conquest, so
that it is conceivable that, even without the Battle of Hastings, it
might have come to occupy a position similar to that of French at the
Prussian court in the reign of Frederick the Great, or German at the
Danish court in the eighteenth century. We know also that the
prevalence of Norman French as a court dialect after the Conquest

PROBLEMS IN STUDY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE 225

had very little direct influence on English; that the dialect from
which most of the Old French words came that made their way into
the language of the island was Central French; that most of these
words came in after 1300 (say between 1300 and 1400), and that
many of them were in the first instance literary or society borrowings,
like prestige or fiancee in modern times. But nobody has yet grappled
victoriously with the details. The complicated linguistic situation
in England in the early fourteenth century — the critical moment in
this concern — is, in fact, appreciated by very few persons, if one
may judge from what one hears or reads. One of the best of Middle
English scholars — one of the small number to whom the English of
that period is a living language — has gone so far as to declare that
the French of Stratford-atte-Bowe was the language of the English
court in Chaucer's time, and that that great poet and accomplished
courtier thought as highly of it as of the French of Paris. Another
good scholar appears to believe that the French of Gower came
straight down from Anglo-Norman times. It is seldom recognized
that there were in the fourteenth century, as there are now, great
differences among the gentry and nobility of England in the purity
with which they spoke the language of the polite nation, and that
a Parisian accent was then, as now, a highly valued accomplishment.
We shall never get these tangles straightened out until some Ro-
mance scholar whose native language is English and who has a philo-
logical as well as a practical command of it, gives us an authoritative
book in which all the needed distinctions are made and the evidence
that establishes them is marshaled. At present it cannot be denied
that everything that has been written on the subject is superficial,
or fragmentary, or honeycombed with error. I know — you all
know — a philologist of the first rank, equally versed in Romance
and in Germanic philology, who has such a book as we want in his
head at this moment, and who merely needs to overcome his modesty,
to lay aside the self-sacrificing work which he is constantly doing for
others, and to abandon for the moment a modicum of his com-
mendable caution, to perform an inestimable service to the history
of the English language.

Another point of great importance is the role which is to be
ascribed to Chaucer in the development of our standard idiom. Here
one would think there might be agreement; but there is none. The
old view that Chaucer made literary English by mixing French
with corrupt Anglo-Saxon, throwing in final e's at will, and polishing
the conglomerate, was so absurd (though it is far from being exploded
in outside circles) that it has, by a revulsion of feeling, prompted
some to reduce his services to an infinitesimal quantity. These
revolutionists seem to believe that Chaucer found the literary lan-
guage ready made in the dialect of educated Londoners, and that

226 ENGLISH LANGUAGE

the history of that literary language would have been the same if
he had never lived. Between these extremes it is not hard to find the
truth; but it is hard to prove it, hard even to get it accepted as a
working hypothesis. What we should be careful to remember is that
there is a vast amount of work still to be done before we can know
exactly what happened in England, linguistically speaking, between
1350 and 1450. That work, too, does not consist merely in writing
dissertations of the statutory length on the basis of a conventionally
orthodox scheme of Middle English dialectology. For (may one dare
to whisper it?) Middle English dialectology is not by any means
reducible, in the present state of our knowledge, to any such hard and
fast scheme as one might think from the confident little treatises
that appear from time to time from aspirants for academic honors.
There has been too much cocksureness in assigning this, that, or
the other-document to the southwest corner of the northeast Midland
district, or in declaring that a writer must have been born five or
six miles from Lichfield and passed some of his maturer years in the
outskirts of Warwick, occasionally passing through Coleshill as he
returned to his native town on a visit to his kinsfolk. Here again I
would not be misunderstood. Far be it from me to refuse recognition
to the painstaking labors of those (great scholars and small) who have
toiled in this field, whether in gathering materials or in ordering them
and drawing inferences. What is meant is merely that there is
a fictitious air of completeness and scientific certainty about the
dialectology of Middle English as at present understood which will
not stand the test of scrutiny on the part of one who asks for evidence
and requires sometimes more than a medieval subservience to au-
thority. What is purely an inductive inquiry has come to be too
much a matter of deduction. It is incumbent on the younger gener-
ation of English scholars to reopen the case, — not in a hostile spirit,
but with a determination to prove all things and hold fast only that
which is good.

Hitherto, study of the Middle English dialects has been too much
confined to their phonology, — partly, no doubt, because of its im-
portance as a criterion, but partly also because of the somewhat
disproportionate attention which this branch of linguistic science has
received for so many years, and partly (alas !) from inertia. Here were
certain schemes already drawn to fill up; here was a diagram; here
was the line of least resistance. Many an American, in recent years,
has become intensely interested in his own ancestors because he
had come into possession of a genealogical chart and took a fancy
for filling the blanks. Now, though admittedly there can be no inves-
tigation of dialects that is not based on sound phonology, it ought
to be equally evident (though it seems not to have been found so)
that, when the sound-chart of a dialect has been properly drawn up,

PROBLEMS IN STUDY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE 227

our study is not at an end. We know very little about any dialect
when all we know is its vocalic and consonantal behavior, and, indeed,
when we add to that an acquaintance with some of its inflectional
habits. With reference to the great Middle English dialects, — each
of which has an abundant literature and may lay claim to have been
at some time a literary language of some pretensions, — we need to
know its characteristic vocabulary, the special idiomatic phrases
which distinguish it, its metrical system, and its syntax. If we are
asked how far our present codified knowledge of the dialects in
question meets these requirements, we shall have to hang our heads.
This is a matter of some concern to the literary historian as well as to
the linguist. It has been much the fashion to talk about "schools"
or " groups " of Middle English poetry. The terms may be misleading,
but we will not pause to quarrel with them. In the present state of
our ignorance about some of the things just mentioned, there is
constant danger of our confusing what belongs to' a dialect with what
belongs to a school. Nor is that all. Different works are not infre-
quently ascribed to the same writer on the ground of resemblances in
style and language which, if they prove anything, prove only that
the documents are written in the same dialect and employ a common
stock of catchwords and catchphrases. The abuse of the argument
from so-called parallel passages is largely due to our ignorance or
neglect of all dialectic phenomena except those of sounds and forms.
It is safe to say that arguments for identity of authorship in the
Middle English field are every day based on collections of parallel
passages of a kind that would call down Homeric laughter on the
heads of their accumulators if they were dealing with documents
and writers of our own day. Now much of this abuse comes from
pure neglect of logic; but by far the larger part of it must be charged
to ignorance, excusable and even unavoidable ignorance, perhaps,
but still ignorance, pure and simple. The investigator simply does
not know that the phrase or sentence or verse that he copies down
on his card is not the property of A or B or C, but of everybody who
spoke or wrote that dialect, and that, accordingly, it was the in-
evitable form of words when that idea (itself a commonplace of
experience or reflection) had to be expressed.

The "vocabulary test" is pretty nearly discredited by this time,
so fantastic are the pranks which it has been forced to play in the
face of an astonished world. But the "parallel passage test" is still
in high favor. Yet we all know, it is to be presumed, that, for some
purposes, the unit of expression is not the word, but the set group of
words, — the phrase or sentence; and that consequently the test
from parallel passages is often in no way distinguishable from that
from community of vocabulary.

All this suggests one of the most serious desiderata of our science.

228 ENGLISH LANGUAGE

We need to pass from the study and collection of words to the study
and collection of phrases. Lexicographers deserve all honor. In the
Middle English field, to be sure, we are still pretty badly off, but
we ought to be thankful for what we have. Yet how little has been
done towards the history of idioms and phrases in comparison with
the labor that has been devoted to tracing the history of individual
words! What I say applies as well to Modern as to Middle English.
We need investigations of phraseology. There is no more fascinating
pursuit for the linguist, none that will repay him more immediately
or more abundantly for his time and trouble. The bearings of the
subject are multifarious. Take the purely historical point of view.
We know that a certain poem contains twenty per cent, of French
and Latin words. Are we to infer that this measures the Romance
element in its language? By no means. How far are the phrases
French or Latin in their relations, even when the words are Ger-
manic? Our habit of translating foreign phrases literally and making
them a part of our speech is well known and of very long standing.
Many of our commonest idioms are naturalized citizens that have
adopted the speech of their new country. It is notorious that the
genealogist has much trouble when he gets into a region where
immigrants have been in the way of translating their family names.
We must remember, too, that there are what may be called literary
idioms as well as popular idioms, and in these Middle English writers
reveled with all the unrestraint of authors who wished to produce
largely and rapidly and who had never conceived that it is a virtue
to be original.

For some time we have been trembling on the verge of another
huge group of problems, which I have mentioned two or three times,
but without dwelling upon them. I refer, of course, to syntax.

The study of English syntax is in its infancy. The neglect of this
department of philology has, indeed, been often commented on with
reference to all the modern languages. It stands in the most startling
contrast to the minute and almost passionate attention which has
been devoted to the history of sounds and forms. Yet English syntax
has the bad eminence of being perhaps more neglected than that of
any other great language. A few brilliant scholars have coquetted
with the subject. Several heavy and unilluminated persons have
made unwieldy collections of material, usually overlooking the vital
matters or stopping short as soon as they had reached a point at
which they were in sight of something either difficult or significant.
There are two or three manuals of substantial worth, and a number of
distinguished monographs. But in general it must be admitted that
English syntax has hardly been studied at all, except for practical
purposes. I have learned, since these sessions began, that a thoroughly
equipped and uncommonly keen-sighted scholar has in hand a large

work on this subject, from which we are justified in expecting the
happiest results.

Perhaps it is worth while to survey the field for a moment, — to
specify what one would like to have if wishes were horses, — to
sketch, however tentatively, a kind of programme.

In the first place we desire to know thoroughly the Germanic
foundations. For this, of course, a complete Anglo-Saxon syntax
is necessary: not a mere list of verbs with the cases they govern,
or an array of the different ways in which the numerals may be
arranged, or a set of statistics comprehending the relative frequency
of the weak adjective and the strong. These things are well enough,
and we cannot get along without them. But what we must look
forward to is something far less mechanical, a system of Anglo-Saxon
constructions such as we already have for the classical tongues,
discriminated as finely as the nature of the idiom will admit, arranged
both logically and historically, complete both for the poetry and the
prose, and supported at every point by exhaustive material. This,
of course, is not the task of one. man, or perhaps of one generation;
but we are not talking about what can be accomplished to-morrow or
next day. We are trying to face the problem of English syntax as
it stands, probably the most stupendous problem of all those with
which it is oilr business to grapple.

This ideal system of Anglo-Saxon syntax is needed, as we have
seen, as a foundation for our whole structure. We must know how
the syntax of our language stood when English was a purely Germanic
speech, before we can reason with certainty as to what took place
when our idiom was subjected to those extraordinarily complex
forces which have made it unique among the languages of articulate-
speaking men.

Here, at the very threshold, we are confronted by a difficulty of no
small proportions. Since most of our Anglo-Saxon prose is translated
from the Latin, we cannot trust its syntactic evidence without
careful scrutiny. At every step, therefore, the possibility of foreign
literary influence must be borne in mind. We must compare the
constructions of poetry, and we must appeal constantly to the
testimony of the other Germanic languages. Nor must we forget, in
examining the poetical texts, the archaizing tendency of all expres-
sion in verse. Finally, we must bear in mind the probability of
syntactic differences coincident with differences of dialect, and we
must remember the special complications that have resulted from
the partial transference of a large body of Anglo-Saxon poetry from
one dialect, more or less completely, into another.

If we can do all this, — and we shall be forced to do it somehow and
sometime, — we shall be in a position to study with intelligence the
bewildering syntax of the Middle English period.

230 ENGLISH LANGUAGE

The most obvious question about Middle English syntax is:
What did French do to it? This is not the only question; but it is so
insistent that to many persons it plays the part of Aaron's rod with
the other serpents: it swallows up all the rest. Very little has been
accomplished in the investigation of Middle English syntax, and in
part for this very reason. Some scholars appear to think that all one
has to do is to discover a French construction (or a French phrase)
that is identical with one hi the English of this period, and then to
infer that we have an example of the gradual Gallicizing of our
language. The inference is far too easy. Take for example, the
matter of prepositions and cases. One often hears that the substitu-
tion of prepositional phrases for the inflected cases of nouns comes
from unconscious imitation of the French. But we must be cautious.
As inflections decay, what is to replace them but prepositions?
Imagine for the moment that there had been no Norman Conquest,
but that inflectional decay had taken place in English as it has in
Dutch and Danish, for example. Would not the spread of preposi-
tional phrases have taken place then? There were already con-
structions enough of this kind in Anglo-Saxon to give the impulse to
any number of analogies, — to any amount of growth. I am not
taking sides. I am merely asking for a suspension of judgment until
we have more facts in order; and this suggests a second article in
our programme: We need to study carefully and exhaustively the
syntax of the Transition Period, comparing it on the one hand with
Anglo-Saxon and on the other with contemporary French, and
checking all our conclusions by means of the development of the
Germanic languages in general. Such a study, devoted to a period
of English during which the direct influence of French in other re-
spects (on the vocabulary, for instance) was almost nil, ought to give
us some idea of the native tendencies which our language was bound
tto follow. A priori, it might reasonably be maintained that foreign
syntax is not likely to be intensely operative so long as a language
shows such an independence of outside influences as to keep its
vocabulary pure. May it not be that, after all, the direct effect of
French in modifying our syntax has been greatly exaggerated?
We must all admit the possibility, but there is not a living scholar
who has the right to dogmatize on the subject. For myself, I am
inclined to think that we shall find out some day that in syntax, as
in other respects, the chief linguistic result of the Norman Conquest
for a couple of centuries was indirect, and came from breaking down
the literary tradition of Anglo-Saxon, and so allowing our language
to disintegrate (let us say rather, to advance) with more rapidity
than would otherwise have been the case. At all events, we must
have a study of Transition syntax, and it must take especial heed
of Late West Saxon, and in particular of those texts which are

PROBLEMS IN STUDY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE 231

admittedly written in an artificial literary dialect, maintained with
an effort long after it had ceased to accord with the speech of common
life.

For the period of fully established Middle English, — in particular
the fourteenth century, — we must a priori admit a great deal of
French influence on our syntax. Here, however, the amount of work
to be done is so great that it may well stagger the most sanguine.
We must give steady heed to the great dialects, for what is true of one
is not necessarily true of another. The poets of the so-called Chaucer-
ian School — say from 1350 to 1450 — will require and repay most
careful scrutiny, since they are in the direct line which leads down to
the standard syntax of our own day.

Next come the dark ages — dark, that is to say, to the philologist
because scandalously neglected, with two or three brilliant excep-
tions. It is not in the matter of syntax alone that the long stretch
from 1450 to 1550 is a No Man's Land. In almost every respect
this vastly important lapse of time has been ignored by the lin-
guistic scholar. The ordinary outfit of the Anglicist may be de-
scribed as consisting of a knowledge of Anglo-Saxon, of the language
of Chaucer, of Elizabethan English, and of the speech of the present
day; and too often, especially in the case of foreigners, the last two
items are omitted from the account. We take a leap from Chaucer
to Queen Elizabeth. Yet the dark period from 1450 to 1550 is full
of instruction. Many a phrase or idiom that one thinks of as Middle
English turns up in the obscure writers of the sixteenth century, and
we have also, in this period, the privilege of inspecting the beginnings
of that great outburst of linguistic splendor which characterizes the
Elizabethan Age. And the middle period presents phenomena of its
own. We see the French influence giving way to a tendency to that
excessive Latinization which crowded the vocabulary of England
with barbarous sesquipedalian words, not destined to maintain
themselves. The neatness and simplicity of Chaucerian diction dis-
appear, and the gorgeous licenses of Elizabethanism do not yet exist.
In some writers, too, there is a good fund of colloquialisms, — of
incalculable value to the investigator of our modern syntax. A for-
bidding period this to the sesthetician, — but full of lessons for the
historical student of letters, as well as for the philologist. For the
syntactician it abounds in prizes; some day he may awake to their
whereabouts; at present, he seems hardly aware that they exist at all.
Let it be added that a knowledge of Middle English by no means
fits a man to read the works of this period intelligently. There is,
unfortunately, a prevalent misconception on this point.

Of Elizabethan syntax — the next article in our programme —
something has already been said by anticipation. We need not
dwell upon it; for everybody knows the significance of the period.

232 ENGLISH LANGUAGE

More or less work has been done here, but mostly on Shakespeare,
and none of it in any way final.

We have now reached the Modern Period, in which, if we have
few scientific investigations, we have at all events our own know-
ledge of the rules. Our programme, however, will be heinously
incomplete if we pass over the eighteenth century — the age of prose
and reason. For this time there are, of course, no treatises whatever
(I mean, by modern investigators) ; for it has been tacitly assumed
that there is nothing to treat. Since, however, there must be some
means of getting from the license of the Elizabethans to the prim
positiveness of the lore that our children learn at school, it behooves
us to trace the establishment of the somewhat rigid dogmas that hold
sway nowadays, and we may expect to find what we are after in the
age whose shibboleths were correctness and urbanity. Once more we
shall recognize the potency of French and Latin, this time as regu-
lating forces rather than as temptations to innovate.

Thus I have drawn up, roughly, to be sure, but with exactness
enough for our purpose, a programme for that series of Syntactical
Studies the lack of which is the greatest desideratum in the whole
circle of English linguistics.

I forewarned you that three quarters of an hour would not be
long enough even to enumerate all the problems with regard to the
English language which we and our philological progeny may hope
to settle within the next hundred years, and all the desiderata which
we and they may undertake to supply. I have said nothing, for
example, of the modern dialects, which, after serving as a parade-
ground for harmless and sometimes useful amateurishness for a cen-
tury or two, have just begun to attract scientific attention. Few of
us have had the fortitude to spend our days and nights over the
masterpiece of the chalchenteric Ellis, but everybody can consult
the Dialect Dictionary, and there is hope for the years to come.
It is, to be sure, a bit depressing to find that the author of a very
recent article in a journal of the highest class has apparently never
heard of this conspicuous and indispensable book, and depends for
his English material on the flimsy complications of Wright and
Halliwell. But we are used to this kind of thing, and must not let
our hearts be troubled overmuch. The dialects of our own country,
too, are receiving some notice, and light is gradually being shed on
the interesting and delicate subject of the English language in
America. Unfortunately much energy is still wasted in polemics
with regard to alleged Americanisms and counter-irritating Briticisms.
But the fray is less noisy than it used to be.

To phonetics pure and simple I have referred only by the way —

PROBLEMS IN STUDY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE 233

since the subject is apart, and presents its own set of problems,
not specifically confined to the English language.

Word-order, formal stylistics, the limits of prose rhythm, the
aesthetic value of vowel and consonant combinations, minor foreign
influences, slang and technical jargon, the comparative vocabularies
of different writers or schools or periods, sexual and social distinc-
tions in phraseology, the complicated and delicate syntax of vulgar
English as opposed to the idiom of the polite, artificial influences of
every kind, the speech of children, the rise and spread of individual-
isms, brogues and broken English of all sorts, — such are some of
the problems on which one would like to dwell, but which I must pass
by with a bare mention.

It is impossible, however, to close without adverting to one or two
questions of immediate practical interest. We are always tempted
to regard philology as a thing apart, and we are" of course quite justi-
fied in taking this attitude among ourselves. Linguistics as an inde-
pendent discipline — philology for philology's sake — needs no
defense or assertion in an assembly like the present. But we must
not forget that, in one of its aspects, linguistic study may — nay
must — be pursued as ancillary to the study and practice of litera-
ture and artistic expression. Applied Philology is not, strictly
speaking, a part of my theme. Still, the interests of Pure Philology
are too closely bound up with this to allow us to shut our eyes to
the facts. If the student of literature, or the student of style, or the
aspirant to the honors of writing or speaking, cannot command
the services of good philology, he will have recourse to bad, — and
the world is full of false brethren and redolent of science falsely
so called. The study of language and the study of literature must
go hand in hand. No doubt every one of us will lean more or less in
this or that direction; but it is vitally necessary that every linguist
should cultivate the study of literature, and equally essential that
the professional literary scholar should build upon a sound and
stable foundation of philology. To divorce the two disciplines,
and still more to set one up in opposition to the other, will be
disastrous to both. These are commonplaces, no doubt, but, in this
country at all events, they are truisms which it is our duty to
proclaim till the rising generation in our universities shall cease
to regard them as paradoxes.

SECTION G — ROMANCE LANGUAGES

SECTION G — ROMANCE LANGUAGES

(Hall 5, September 24, 10 a. m.)

SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR PAUL MEYER, College de France, Paris.
PROFESSOR HENRY A. TODD, Columbia University.
SECRETARY: PROFESSOR E. E. BRANDON, Miami University.

BEGINNINGS AND PROGRESS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY

BY PAUL MEYER
(Translated from the French by Prof. T. Atkinson Jenkins, University of Chicago)

[Paul Meyer, Member of the Institute of France, Director of the Ecole des Chartes
and Professor of Romance Philology in the same, Professor in the College de
France, b. Paris, 1840. Archiviste-paleographe, 1860; D.C.L. Oxford, 1893;
clerk in the National Library, Paris, Dep't of manuscripts, 1863-65; assistant
in the Archives de PEmpire, afterwards Archives Nationales, 1866-72. Mem-
ber of the Academic des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, 1883, and of many
foreign academies.]

THE first Universal Exposition of which I have any recollection
is that of Paris, in 1855. It was called an Exposition universelle de
I'Industrie et des Beaux Arts, and the building constructed for it in
the Champs-Ely s^es was named the Palais de I'Industrie, In those
days only tangible and visible things were exhibited. As the pro-
ducts of the mind could not be set forth in material forms, no oppor-
tunity was given them of appearing among the exhibits.

In 1878, at the third universal exposition at Paris, the idea of
providing for purely intellectual productions was carried out. The
method, commonly adopted since, was that of congresses and con-
ferences, and those of 1878, while not including all branches of
knowledge, comprised some widely different fields of thought. This
innovation was at first not very successful: the congresses of 1878
were few in number and poorly attended. I confess that I for one did
not even know of their existence. But in 1889 the germ had de-
veloped. At the exposition of that year there were no less than
sixty-nine congresses; at that of 1900 they numbered one hundred
and twenty-seven. Among these, however, there was none for philo-
logy nor for the history of literatures. I remember that several
persons expressed to me their surprise that no one at Paris had
thought of forming a congress which should bring together the
many scholars of all nations who were pursuing the scientific study
of the Romance languages. I can hardly claim to have offered these

238 ROMANCE LANGUAGES

persons a very satisfactory explanation. The real reason was that
the congresses were to be held, as at St. Louis, during the vacation
period, and the gentlemen upon whom the duty would have fallen
of planning a meeting of " Romanists " had the weakness to prefer,
at that time of year, the country or the seaside to all the congresses
in the world. Now, however, I cannot help regretting our indolence.
A congress for Romance philology in all probability would have
been presided over by the man who was then rightly looked upon
as the foremost of French Romance scholars, Gaston Paris, and we
should have expected from him an address full of ideas and facts
concerning the history and the future of the science to whose advance-
ment he had so liberally contributed.

Forty years ago, when G. Paris and I were merely hopeful young
men, it was still possible for a single person to cover the whole range
of Romance studies, but to-day the field has become so extended that
such an achievement is no longer a possibility. Nevertheless, I shall
endeavor to sketch in outline the progress of a science whose limits
seem to recede in proportion as one attempts to attain them.

If I were asked who was the first in the Latin world to take an
interest in the languages of Latin origin, I should not hesitate
to reply, Dante. The great Florentine in fact possessed a fairly
correct knowledge of French and of Provengal — of the Langue
d'Oil and the Langue d'Oc, to use his own expressions. He had
carefully considered the linguistic variety of Italy, and had proposed
for the dialects of the peninsula a system of classification which is
yet in a large measure acceptable. But the object he had in view,
which was the creation of a general language which should receive
contributions from all the Italian dialects, was chimerical, and several
centuries were to elapse before linguists began to study languages
as they are, with no other idea than to describe them accurately and
to write the history of their inevitable changes.

The Italian philologists, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth
centuries, devoted a good deal of labor to the study of their lan-
guage. Among these, a few had enough of the historical sense to be
curious as to its origins, and some of them by intuition even reached
the truth on some important points. Maffei, for example, saw in
Italian the continuation of the Vulgar Latin of the Romans. But
none of them embraced in one view all the Latin idioms, or made
any effort to point out the relations which connect them with each
other and with their common source. Still more remote in the minds
of these scholars was the idea that it would be interesting to include
in their researches idioms which had not been made illustrious by
literary achievements.

A somewhat wider conception of the science of language appeared
in 1821, when Raynouard published his Grammaire compare des

PROGRESS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 239

langues de I'Europe latine dans leurs rapports avec la langue des
troubadours. But the very title of this book shows that the work was
intended to be the demonstration of a preconceived idea; all its
conclusions were necessarily vitiated because they were subordinated
to an erroneous theory. In fact, Raynouard's leading idea was that
between Latin and the various Neo-Latin tongues there had existed
an intermediate stage; this he called, using the term in a special
sense, the langue romane. According to his theory, this language had
developed in close succession to Latin all over Latin Europe; but,
while it was preserved by a miraculous exception in the south of
France, everywhere else it had undergone the special modifications
which led to the formation of French, Italian, Spanish, etc.

The point of departure for this conception, which after all is not
so radically false as it may seem, is an unfortunate interpretation
of the expression Romana lingua, which, in Latin writings of the
ninth and tenth centuries and even later, is used to designate a
language quite different from the Classic Latin, but one whose
relationship to the ancient Roman idiom was clearly understood at
the time. By lingua romana, or lingua rustica romana, people under-
stood in every Romance country nothing more nor less than the
vulgar speech as opposed to literary or grammatical Latin. The use
of the same expression in different countries did not in the least
imply that the lingua romana was everywhere the same. People
of that time cared little for such a question. Raynouard, finding
that the poets of the south of France often gave the name romanz,
or lenga romana, to the language they employed, argued that the
name being the same, the language must be the same, and persuaded
himself that during a period of some length the people of the Latin
West had spoken the language of Provence, his native region.

Herein lay his error. On the other hand, we cannot doubt that
there was a stage between the Classic Latin and the Romance lan-
guages: this is a fact long since recognized. But the intermediate
stage, generally designated as Vulgar Latin, had no closer connection
with the Romance of South France than with that of other regions.
A good many years were to elapse before the study of Vulgar Latin
— I mean of that small part of it that we can ever really know —
was undertaken in a methodical way.

Nevertheless, Raynouard's work, in spite of its fundamental error
and in spite of a thousand mistakes and confusions in matters of
detail, was by no means useless, for its author may be termed in a
certain sense the precursor of Diez, and to Diez belongs incontestably
the honor of having founded the comparative grammar of the
Romance languages.

Diez, as one may conclude from his writings, and as he appeared to
me forty years ago when I visited him in Bonn, was a modest and

240 ROMANCE LANGUAGES

cautious man not given to generalities, a sagacious observer attent-
ive to details, a linguist skilled in grouping facts and in deducing
their consequences, carefully avoiding hazardous theories, and
preferring to treat only those problems whose solution he believed
he had found. His Grammatik der Romanischen Sprachen, first
published in 1836-43, thoroughly revised in the second edition (1856-
60), and again improved in the third (1869-72), has been the found-
ation both of the general and of the special study of the Romance
languages. Standing at the entrance of the main avenues of Romance
philology, this work has been, to all those who have aimed to deal
thoroughly with any part of this science, the reliable guide who
starts you upon the right path, and who, if he does not accompany
you to the end of your journey, at least travels long enough at your
side to prevent you from going astray. Of course one cannot say
that Diez found a guide of this sort in Raynouard, but it is not a bold
supposition that the idea of a grammar of the Romance languages
was suggested to Diez by the essay — imperfect as it is — of his
predecessor. This conjecture finds additional support in the fact that
Diez's earlier works dealt chiefly with Provengal literature, and, in
those days, the almost unique source of Provencal studies was the
Choix des poesies originates des troubadours, the sixth and last volume
of which contained the Grammaire comparee des langues de I'Europe
latine. Moreover, Diez took pleasure in saying that he considered
himself the pupil of Raynouard. This was putting it rather strongly,
for to write successfully a grammar of the Romance languages, as
Diez understood the task, the author must needs be familiar with
ideas and methods which as yet were unknown outside of the small
circle of German philologists in which they had originated. In this
case other influences than those of Raynouard were needed, and,
although the subject was of special interest to the Latin peoples, it
was only in Germany that a work of this kind could have been
planned and executed. Comparative grammar is a science of German
origin, and one which remained for a long time the property of
German scholars. It was in 1816 that Bopp had given us the first
sketch of a work of this kind in his treatise on the Sanskrit con-
jugation system as compared with that of the Greek, Latin, Persian
and Germanic languages. The first edition of the Comparative
Grammar of the Indo-European languages, upon which in a way
Diez's work depended, had begun to appear hi 1833. Grimm's
German grammar, in which, for the first time, the phonology of
a group of related idioms was treated, dates from 1819.

These works were little known outside of Germany. In France
there had been created in 1852, at the Paris Faculty of Letters, a
course in comparative grammar which was placed in charge of an
elderly Hellenist of German extraction. This course, which I myself

PROGRESS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 241

followed in 1858 and 1859, was indeed wretchedly poor. It consisted
in a treatment of general grammar as the subject was understood
in the eighteenth century. It was only in 1865 that comparative
grammar was properly taught at Paris. In that year, Minister
Duruy transferred to the College de France the chair which had
existed, more in name than in fact, at the Sorbonne, and intrusted
it to Mr. Breal, who had studied in Germany under Bopp and under
Albrecht Weber, and who still occupies this chair.1 In England and
in Italy, the teaching of comparative grammar dates from about
the same time, being inaugurated in those countries by two men
equally eminent, but widely different in qualities and methods, —
Max Miiller and Prof. Ascoli.

Diez seems to have felt Bopp's influence only indirectly, but
Grimm's grammar acted upon his ideas in a decisive way. He was in
fact a "Germanist" before becoming a "Romanist." At .the Univer-
sity of Bonn he taught mostly Germanic philology. His courses in
Romance philology were slimly attended and were subordinate. The
general principles which he was to apply to the comparative study
of the Latin tongues were ready to hand in the grammar of the
Germanic languages, which was already founded upon a scientific
basis. The statement of this fact in no way operates to diminish
Diez's merit. The difficulties which he had to overcome were enor-
mous. The laws of phonology and of inflections are much more
complicated and less apparent in the Romance languages than in
the Germanic languages, and, on the other hand, the materials which
Diez had to make use of in his work were far more defective and less
reliable than those upon which Jakob Grimm had worked. In the case
of Old French and Old Provengal, whose monuments go back to the
ninth and tenth centuries, he was compelled to compose his gram-
mar from texts few in number and in a majority of cases poorly
edited. For the popular idioms, the patois, texts were in most cases
not to be had. It need occasion no surprise, therefore, if at this
distance we discover numerous gaps in his work; we must rather
admire the sagacity which enabled him to use to such wonderful
advantage the defective materials with which he was forced to be
satisfied.

The first edition of Diez's grammar was little known outside of
Germany. In France, a man of keen intelligence and unusual breadth
of view, but a man of letters rather than a linguist, J. J. Ampere,
was the first to use it, in 1841. In writing a rather superficial book
on the history of the formation of the French language,2 he condensed

1 He has just resigned. His successor is Prof. Meillet, well known for his various
essays on Slavonian and Armenian languages. (Dec. 1905.)

2 Histoire de la formation de la langtie frangaise, 8vo, 1 vol. In 1869 appeared
a second edition, to which I was persuaded to add a number of footnotes in
which I endeavored to correct the more obvious mistakes.

242 ROMANCE LANGUAGES

into one chapter all that he found concerning the French language
in the first volume of Diez's grammar. The result was far from
satisfactory. Ampere knew very little about Old French, and took
no pains to assimilate the rigorous method of his model. The personal
observations which he inserted here and there in his often inaccurate
abridgment of Diez's doctrine were well calculated to deter his
readers from referring to the original. Under such circumstances
we can hardly be surprised that the value of the grammar was
underestimated in France. French scholars continued, therefore,
to publish books on the origins and history of the French language
in which the same general questions were brought up time after
time, — no one apparently having an inkling of the right way to
approach such questions, — and works in which a learning, in some
cases very sound but ill directed, exerted its energies without leading
to any definite results. Among these were the Essai philosophique
sur la formation de la langue frangaise by Ede*lestand du Me"ril (1852),
and the three volumes on the Origines et formation de la langue
fran$aise (1853-57) by Albin de Chevallet, books which were still-
born, little read in their day, and without influence. At the same
time the only two chairs of French philology that existed in France
— those of the College de France (founded 1852) and of the Ecole des
Chartes (1847) — were held by professors who knew no German. Littr^
himself, who contributed so much by his articles in the Journal des
Savants and by his dictionary to the progress of French philology,
and who had not the excuse of not knowing German, as he translated
several German books into French, — even Littre" seems never to have
used Diez's grammar. He had some acquaintance with the Etymo-
logisches Worterbuch der Romanischen Sprachen, which he drew
upon liberally for his dictionary, as the Belgian scholar, Auguste
Scheler, had done before him in a Dictionnaire etymologique du
fran$ais (first edition, 1862). The methodical study of the Romance
languages in France was destined not to begin until after the public-
ation of the second edition of Diez's grammar, about 1860. The
appearance in 1862 of Gaston Paris's book,«Swr le role de I'accent latin
dans la langue fran$aise (his thesis at the Ecole des Chartes), marks
the beginning of a new epoch.

In Italy, the application of the methods received from Germany
was made a little later than in France; the first works of Professor
Ascoli employed them with signal success. In Portugal, F. A. Coelho
introduced the same methods in the study of his native tongue (1872).
Spain also entered the same path, only much later.

We must not imagine that even in Germany the movement toward
the scientific study of the Romance languages, so brilliantly begun
by Diez, made rapid progress immediately. For many years Diez was
the sole representative not only of Romance philology as a whole but

PROGRESS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 243

also of that branch of it which he had specially studied, — Provencal
philology. One by one, however, professors of Germanic languages —
Adalbert von Keller, W. L. Holland, Konrad Hofmann, Karl Bartsch
— offered courses in Old French and Old Provencal. On the other
hand, the teaching of English philology was often coupled with that
of Romance philology, with the result that in 1859 a magazine
was founded by Ferdinand Wolf and Adolf Ebert " fur englische und
romanische Litteratur."

It may be noted further that in Germany the study of litera-
ture was decidedly more popular than the study of language. The
example of Diez was followed rather slowly. As regards Old French
literature, for example, an influential initiative was that of L.
Uhland, who, in 1812, in an essay now famous, directed attention
to the French epic poems (chansons de geste).1 Acquaintance with
the Old French epics and with the romances of the Round Table
was soon recognized as indispensable to any one who intended to
study thoroughly German medieval poetry.

The second edition of Diez's grammar showed that great progress
had been made since the first, but it owed little to works published
after the date of this edition. The various changes and additions
made by the author were the fruits of his own researches: what
others had discovered was comparatively little. The third edition,
which appeared from 1869 to 1872, is less personal. In the period
between 1860 and 1870, centres for Romance studies had been formed
in Germany and elsewhere; works of value had appeared, and the
utmost the master could do, enfeebled as he was by age, was to
introduce into this third edition a portion of the results obtained
by his successors, all of whom might have called themselves his
pupils, although few of them had been actually present at his lec-
tures.

If, in the year 1904, nearly half a century after the second edition
and thirty-five years after the third, we examine Diez's grammar
from the heights now reached in our knowledge of the Romance
languages, there are two facts which will strike every impartial
observer. The first is that the rules established by Diez are still for
the most part valid; his doctrine remains practically whole and
sound. The second is that there are serious deficiencies in the work.
Certain very important questions of a general character are not
dealt with at all; various Romance territories are incompletely
explored; the geographical extension of linguistic phenomena is
not indicated with precision; the notation of sounds is often too
vague, and the history of their changes is at times neglected.

To pass these deficiencies in review is to realize the fact that the
greater part of them could hardly have been avoided half a century
1 In Fouqu6's Musen, first year.

244 ROMANCE LANGUAGES

ago, and also to appreciate the immense progress which has been
accomplished in the last thirty or forty years in working the domain
which the master had so brilliantly explored.

The Romance languages are nothing else than Latin modified
differently according to times and places. But to what Latin do we
refer? To the Vulgar Latin, assuredly, to Raynouard's langue romane,
which was at first almost homogeneous throughout the Roman
Empire. Diez was convinced of this fact, and all that he says on the
subject in the first part of his grammar is very sensible; it is evident,
however, that he had the lexicographical elements more in view than
matters of grammatical structure. But he deliberately refrained
from any attempt to tell us how and under what circumstances
the local changes occurred which have transformed Vulgar Latin into
the infinite variety of the Romance idioms. Here was a question
which had been much debated, and one to which various solutions
had already been proposed. Some believed that Latin had under-
gone profound changes through contact with Germanic or Slavic
languages at the period of the invasions in the fifth century, and
comparisons with chemical compounds were made which conveniently
veiled the weakness of the historical and linguistic arguments in-
voked. This was the opinion put forward by Muratori and upheld
by Littre", forty or fifty years ago. Others held, with greater prob-
ability, that the local variations of Latin must have existed in an
even more remote period, and that we must attribute the first
changes to the linguistic habits of the Celts, Iberians, Ligurians, etc.,
of Gaul, Spain, and Italy, — habits of which these populations had
not been able to rid themselves in learning to speak Latin. This is
the theory once defended, with more energy than weight of proof,
by Fauriel. It has since been revived and supported with more
definite arguments by eminent linguists, among whom it is sufficient
to name Prof. Ascoli. But Diez was concerned with facts that could
be proved; he had no great liking for questions whose answers
involved too large a proportion of the hypothetical. Rather than
to continue debating these doubtful questions, what was needed,
if the historical method was to be employed, was to reduce as
much as possible the space still vacant between Latin as it was
known in the classic authors — that is, written Latin, which had not
greatly changed since the first century — and the Romance languages,
which did not make their appearance before the ninth or tenth
centuries. In this vacant space there was the Vulgar Latin, about
which very little was known.

On still other subjects Diez had left work for his successors.
History and geography touch philology on several sides; these
sciences mutually aid and support one another. At first this was
not well understood. To what boundaries did the Roman conquest

PROGRESS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 245

carry with it the use of Latin as the e very-day speech? And, within
these limits, in which countries was the language of the conquerors
the only language in use at the fall of the Empire? In what regions
did the aboriginal language persist, and to what extent?

Again, taking our stand at the present day, let us draw a map of
the Romance world of Europe. Let us determine the frontiers which
separate it from Germanic, Slavic, and other languages. This can
certainly be done, as we are working with living idioms. But when
these limits are once drawn, in which countries may we say that
Latin has developed there in situ? In which territories has Romance
gained ground, and what circumstances have determined this gain?
What ground outside of these boundaries has been lost? For certain
territories, notably for those of the Roumanian language, these
investigations meet with serious difficulties; thanks to recent works,
however, these obstacles are in process of removal.

These are some of the questions which Diez's grammar left un-
settled and which have been studied during the last forty years,
usually with success. We shall now take up these problems and see
what has been accomplished toward their solution.

A knowledge of Vulgar Latin, the common source of the Romance
idioms, is of the greatest importance for Romance studies. But how
difficult it is to get together any certain facts about this unsettled
language, which differed less according to locality than according
to the persons speaking it ! We are compelled to scrutinize the testi-
mony — often obscure — of the Latin grammarians, of the inscrip-
tions, and of the writings of the early Middle Ages — public and
private records, written laws of the Germanic invaders, formularies,
etc. There is no doubt that these texts contain numerous traces of
the vulgar tongue, but it is not an easy task to disentangle them.
Among the frequent barbarisms and solecisms met with, there are
many which are due only to the ignorance or inattention of the
copyists, and from which we can conclude nothing as to the vulgar
tongue of the period. The criterion by which we distinguish among
these errors those which are to be attributed to vulgar usage is of
course furnished us, on the one hand, by our knowledge of Classic
Latin, and, on the other, by what we know of Romance from the
early texts (and they are few!) of the ninth and tenth centuries.
But when we have assembled all that such documents can tell us
about Vulgar Latin, we note many gaps (for example, as to the
conjugation system), and these we are powerless to fill with anything
but more or less probable conjectures.

This difficult study was first prosecuted with signal success by
a scholar then very young, but who more than any one else was
qualified to undertake it both by his scientific training (he was
a pupil of Diez and of Ritschl) and by the rare sagacity with which

246 ROMANCE LANGUAGES

he was endowed. The work of Hugo Schuchardt on the Vokalismus
des Vulgdrlateins (1866-68) is perhaps the work most original in plan
and most fruitful in results that has appeared since Diez's grammar.
The extent of the author's researches was far greater than the title
promises, for one may find in these three volumes not a few facts
and views which deal not only with the vowels but also with the con-
sonants, and even with certain general characteristics of the Romance
languages. This is not apparent at first, for the work is extremely
rich in content and the exposition is at times intricate. The result
is that more than once ideas have been put forward as new that one
may find presented at some length in this work. The necessity of
referring constantly to the third volume, which is the complement
of the first two, is burdensome. These unimportant defects might
easily be removed in a second edition, a revision which has been
awaited for a long time, but which the author, absorbed in linguistic
explorations of the widest range, seems very little inclined to give
us. Since the publication of the Vokalismus, various essays on
Vulgar Latin have appeared, and the materials which enable us to
study this intermediate phase between Classic Latin and the Romance
languages have accumulated. It is a question, however, whether
many well-demonstrated facts have been added to those which Prof.
Schuchardt collected some forty years ago.

Our present knowledge enables us to be clear on at least one point,
namely, that we find in rudiment in Vulgar Latin most of the main
features which distinguish the Romance languages from the Classic
Latin: the simplification of the declensions and conjugations, the
almost complete suppression of the neuter gender, the tendency to
drop the first post-tonic vowel in certain proparoxytones, the exten-
sion of various forms by analogy, the generalization of several suf-
fixes, various new combinations of words, the simplification of the
syntax, the impoverishment of the vocabulary, the development of
new sounds, etc. One result of these facts is that the hypothesis
according to which the greatest changes occurred at the time of the
invasions of the fifth century falls to the ground. We may readily
concede that changes are oftenest observable at that period, but they
were in existence long before. In fact, many years before Schuch-
ardt, August Fuchs, a philologist who died prematurely in 1867,
had demonstrated in the clearest manner that the formation of the
Romance languages was in no way the result of accident, but that
between them and Latin there was no solution of continuity, and
that the transition was supplied by the Vulgar Latin of which they
are the continuation. These ideas are now of course commonplace.
It has been known for a long time that while the barbarian invasion
introduced into the Romance vocabulary a large number of foreign
terms, it exercised no appreciable influence on Romance grammar.

PROGRESS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 247

It was only by notably weakening classic culture that the invasions
hastened the arrival of the vulgar idioms to the dignity of written
languages.

The question as to within what limits and to what degree the
Roman Empire was Latinized probably will never be answered in a
complete and entirely satisfactory way. The fact itself, which we must
needs accept as certain, is apparently paradoxical. Peoples who were
by no means uncivilized, the Celts, for example, and especially the
Etruscans, were brought in three or four centuries to the point of
giving up their own language and adopting that of their conquerors.
How is this to be explained? In our day, the substitution of one
language for another seems not to take place so rapidly. But the
fact is undeniable nevertheless. The problem attracted the atten-
tion of various scholars, among whom we may note Budinszky l and
Jung,2 who examined and arranged the all too scanty evidence handed
down to us by the ancient authors. But another question immediately
arises. It is beyond doubt that the barbarian invasions greatly re-
duced the Latin-speaking territory, notably in northern Africa, on
the eastern and northern shores of the Adriatic, in Switzerland,
along the Rhine, and perhaps in England. But in other directions
Romance — for it would no longer be correct to say Latin — re-
covered a part of the lost territory, and even spread over regions
where Latin had never before penetrated. During this period of
propagation and differentiation of the Romance idioms, numerous
events occurred, both in medieval and in modern times, whose
investigation offers many difficulties to the philologist and to the
historian.

On the other hand, it is relatively easy to determine the boundaries
of the present Romance-speaking world. For the past thirty years,
various scholars have devoted themselves to this task, and, thanks
to the researches of Messrs. Kurth,3 Kiepert,4 This,5 Horning,6 Zim-
merli,7 and Ascoli,8 the boundaries of the large Romance group of
Western Europe have been accurately fixed. In some cases, these
investigators have discovered varieties of Romance speech in process
of extinction, and even some which are but recently extinct. An

1 Die Ausbreitung der lateinischen Sprache uber Italien und die Provinzen des
romischen Reiches. Berlin, 1881.

2 Die romanischen Landschaften des romischen Reiches. Innspruck, 1881. See
G. Paris's review of Budinszky 's and Jung's books, in Romania, xi, 599.

* La frontiere linguistique en-Belgique et dans le nord de la France. Bruxelles,
1895.

4 Vdlker-und-Sprachenkarte von Deutschland und den Nochbarldndern im Jahre
1866. Berlin, 1866. (Reprinted several times.) Special-Karte der deutsch-franzo-
sischen Sprachgrenze. Berlin, 1871.

8 Die Deutsch-franzosische Sprachgrenze in Lothringen. Strassburg, 1887-88.

* Die ostfranzosischen Grenzaialekte zwischen Metz und Belfort, in Franzosische
Studien, vol. V.

7 Die Deutsch-Franzosische Sprachgrenze in der Schweiz. Bale, 1891-99.

8 Archivio glottologico italiano, vol. I. 1873.

248 ROMANCE LANGUAGES

instance in point is the Ladin, or Friulan, a former prolongation
of which has been noted in Istria and the neighboring territory, in
localities where at present the vernacular is Italian or a Slavic dia-
lect.1 A few years ago, M. Bartoli, an Austrian subject, revealed the
former existence in northern Dalmatia of an idiom, now quite extinct,
which seems to have been the connecting link between the Friulan
and the Roumanian.2 For the Roumanian groups north and south
of the Danube, the search for linguistic boundaries, like that for
ethnic origins, is complicated and obstructed by political prejudice.
But even in this case precise information is accumulating, thanks to
the zeal of learned explorers, among whom we should mention in the
first rank G. Weigand, editor of the Jahresbericht des Institute fur
rumdnische Sprache.

Thus on various subjects relating to the history if not to the
formation of the Romance languages — subjects which Diez had
scarcely touched upon — the works of scholars continue to multiply.
The time has come now to ask how and in what spirit the labors of
the master have been taken up and continued. But the laborers have
been so numerous that it is hardly possible in this place to give each
one his proper mention.

It was during the period from 1860 to 1870 that were formed
the principal university centres where the new doctrine was to be
sifted and completed. Germany, with its elastic university organiza-
tion, soon took the lead as to the number of chairs. In 1870 Romance
philology was taught in Germany by perhaps a dozen professors or
privatrdocenten. Quite a number of these, to be sure, were required
to give a part of their time to teaching English or Germanic lan-
guages and literatures. Since then, all the universities one by one
have been provided with special professors for the Romance group.
In France, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, founded in 1867 by Minister
Duruy, had from the beginning a chair of Romance philology, which
was entrusted to Gaston Paris. Soon after this (1869), G. Paris, at
first temporarily and then permanently (1872), replaced his father
in the chair of Early French language and literature at the College de
France. The teaching of G. Paris in these two institutions attained
from the start a high degree of efficiency, and exercised a most
favorable influence on the progress of Romance studies. Many
teachers of Romance languages and literatures in France, Germany,
Belgium, Holland, the Scandinavian countries, Roumania, and even
in the United States, are proud to be counted among his pupils.
G. Paris, while guiding the history of literature into new channels,
had at the same time assigned himself the task of rewriting, in the

1 See Ascoli, in Archivio glottologico, x, 447; Cavalli, ibid, xu, 255.
* Ueber eine Studienreise zur Erforschung des AUromanischen Dalmatiens. Wien,
1899.

PROGRESS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 249

greatest detail, the historical phonology of the French language.
The edition of the French versions of the Vie de Saint-Alexis (1872),
the essential parts of which are his personal work, shows how far
he was then in advance of his contemporaries in his knowledge of
Old French. But he was never satisfied with this work of his youth.
For many years he treated in great detail the subject of French
phonology at the College de France. The fragments of these lectures
which he published in Romania and elsewhere (on the " close " o in
French, on the development of Latin c, etc.), are sufficient evidence
as to the depth of his researches on this difficult subject. I know that
certain portions of the great work that he planned on Old French
grammar were ready to print at the time of his death (1903); per-
haps it will be possible some day to publish them. We recognize the
impress of the master's method in the works of several of his pupils.
I shall only cite, because they are among the earliest, the book
of Charles Joret on Latin c in the Romance languages (1874), and
that of Arsene Darmesteter, a scholar prematurely lost to science,
on the formation of compound words in the French language (1875).
These are works which completely replace the corresponding chapters
of Diez's grammar, but which nevertheless cannot be considered
definitive, so abundant is the material ready to the hand of him
who has eyes to see it. When M. Joret's book appeared, with more
than four hundred pages of close print devoted to a subject which
in Diez's work occupies a few pages, it might have been supposed
that the material was exhausted. Not so; more recent researches
have developed and completed in various directions the work of
M. Joret.

In Italy, the establishment of Romance studies on a scientific
basis dates from the foundation of Prof. Ascoli's Archivio glottologico
italiano (1873). It was a rare piece of good fortune that these studies
were then undertaken by a scholar who was a veteran in linguistic
research, who was entirely at home in the various fields of Indo-
European philology, and who moreover was endowed with a breadth
of view and a power of expression which would have placed him in
the first rank in any other field of human knowledge. Prof. Ascoli's
Saggi ladini, which occupy the first volume of the Archivio glotto-
logico and overflow into later volumes, are a model description of
an idiom whose infinite varieties cover a considerable territory and
which has left traces in regions where to-day it is extinct. It may be
said that in this section of Romance philology, aside from a few
useful remarks by Diez, nothing had been done. The limits of the
language spoken to-day by the populations of the southern parts of
the Grisons, of the Tyrol, and of northeastern Italy, had not been
determined; still less was there any suspicion of the existence of a
former wider extension of these dialects, whose territory is now greatly

250 ROMANCE LANGUAGES

contracted by the pressure of German from the north and of Italian
from the south. Printed texts exist for only a part of this Ladin
territory; for other regions it was necessary to obtain specimens
and to outline the grammar of each valley, so to speak, before pro-
ceeding to a general account. This great work was the starting-point
for a whole series of special studies of smaller scope, local grammars,
texts, etc., with the result that the Ladin dialects are now among
the best known in the whole field of the Romance languages. In
Prof. Ascoli's severe school have been trained a Pleiades of philo-
logists, among whom it is enough to name Count Nigra, Messrs.
D* Ovidio, Rajna, Ive, De Lollis, Guarnerio, Parodi, Salvioni, and
Pieri, scholars who will soon complete for us the work of describing
in detail the various spoken dialects of Italy.

If time permitted, I might show how the study of the literary
language of Italy, the Tuscan, has been revived and renewed by the
introduction of the new methods. But as I am forced to confine
myself to indicating the salient features of the successive phases in
the history of Romance philology, I shall now review in a few words
what the generation which followed Diez has accomplished for the
study of the folk-idioms, the patois. What I have just said about the
Archivio glottologico brings me naturally to this subject.

The first philologists who made the Romance languages their
study gave their attention almost exclusively to the languages
which we may term official, to those which now serve as the organs
of literature and of government. Raynouard, for example, treated
only Old Provencal, the language of the troubadours. It does not
seem to have occurred to him that the folk-speech of southern France,
or, in particular, the patois of Provence, which was the every-day
language of his youth, might be worthy of study. Even in Diez's
grammar the treatment of the patois is superficial and incomplete.
And yet there is no reason why the grammatical peculiarities of a
literary language should possess more interest than those of an
unwritten one. Time brought a change of attitude on this subject,
as was to be expected, and for some thirty years past several experi-
enced linguists have turned their attention to the once-neglected
patois. The study of a living tongue has one notable advantage
over that of a written language — the possibility of a greater degree
of precision. Only in a living tongue is it possible to distinguish
those fine shades of sounds of which writing gives us no hint. We
are all aware that the Latin alphabet, even when improved by
additional signs, is powerless to represent the vast variety of sounds
used in Romance speech. We know that most of the letters of the
alphabet have, as we say, several pronunciations — they often ex-
press very different sounds. As long ago as the thirteenth century,
a Provencal grammarian attributed to the e, a, and o two distinct

PROGRESS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 251

sounds, for which he used the terms "wide," or "open" (larc) and
"narrow," or "close" (estreit). The same differences are found in
nearly all the Romance idioms; they are distinguished with more
or less uniformity in modern orthography, but not so in the ancient
documents. Diez, who had studied phonology from the written texts,
paid little attention to these differences. He always speaks of the
letters as if the signs which we employ to represent pronunciation,
unsatisfactory as they are, oftener than not, had a constant and
well-determined value. The study of patois has accustomed philolo-
gists to trust to the ear more than to the eye, and to note variations
which formerly were passed over. To this new method of investiga-
tion and to the study of the patois themselves we owe an immense
progress in the study of languages in their early periods. We have be-
come more exacting in the definition of phonological facts. We are
no longer satisfied with the often vague and uncertain information
furnished by the spelling, but try to determine as accurately as
possible the sounds that the spelling aimed to represent. Very
frequently the answers to such inquiries are to be found in the patois,
while as to the vocabulary, it is the patois alone which enable us to
fix the meaning of a great many words. Moreover, we have gained
from this method a more correct estimate of the enormous variety of
Romance speech. In many regions the local idiom has never been
written down, or, at least, it is inaccessible in its earlier forms be-
cause of lack of documents. This statement applies to a large part
of Romance Switzerland and to important regions in Italy, France,
and the Spanish peninsula, without mentioning the Roumanians of
Macedonia. In a word, the specimens of ancient Romance supplied
us by the texts are few and far between. The stages intermediate
between different varieties are missing, and, as a whole, the older
forms of Romance are accessible to us in only a fragmentary way.
The patois alone enable us to fill these gaps. Of course some discre-
tion is needed here, and we must not imagine, as some philologists
of our day have fancied, that all the phonetic facts observed in the
patois are of equally ancient date. Quite to the contrary, a large
number of these phenomena are modern: new facts appear with
each generation, and it is the function of criticism to distinguish the
old from the new. Here is a great field of research in need of explor-
ation, and the need is all the more urgent in the case of the patois
because they are subject to rapid change and are gradually disap-
pearing under the pressure of the official languages.

In Italy this branch of study has been pushed farther than else-
where, not only because, for historical reasons, the Italian patois
have shown a remarkable vitality, and hence lend themselves
more readily to investigation, but also because there was at Milan
a scholar who gave this kind of linguistic research a vigorous impulse

252 ROMANCE LANGUAGES

— I mean Prof. Ascoli. I need not repeat what I have already said
of him. In Switzerland — that is, in Romance Switzerland, for in
German Switzerland the work is already nearly completed — the
exploration of the local dialects is going on methodically and per-
sistently under the direction of competent men.1 In Belgium the same
labor is well under way.2 In Spain, and especially in Portugal, there
are some active workers, but they are few in number.3 In France
laborers are not wanting: it has been a long time since we began to
collect information on the folk-dialects. The earliest patois diction-
aries date from the eighteenth century, but many of these works
exhibit more zeal than method. Too much time was lost in etymo-
logical researches which were premature, and in the pursuit of imag-
inary dialectic boundaries, instead of concentrating effort upon the
collection and exact notation of linguistic facts. However, progress
has been made in the last twelve years. Some excellent works have
been published, among which it will be sufficient to cite those
of M. Joret on the Norman patois, of Abbe" Devaux on those of
northern Dauphine", of Abbe Rousselot on a patois of the Charente,
of M. Gillie'ron on the patois of France in general.4 This branch
of Romance studies has grown some offshoots even beyond the
Atlantic: we have not forgotten the work of Prof. A. Marshall
Elliott, of Johns Hopkins University, on Canadian French. Only
recently a society was founded at Quebec to promote the same
studies.

Sciences originally foreign to each other often have unforeseen
points of contact, and may at times exercise a mutually favorable
influence by lending each other their particular methods. Thus it
is that the branch of Romance philology which deals with the patois
has greatly profited, and will profit still more in the future, by the
; progress made in a science somewhat new, — general phonology or
general phonetics, — a science which in America as well as in Europe
has zealous advocates. Here it will be enough to mention the names
of A. Melville Bell in America, Prof. Sweet in England, Profs.
Sievers and Victor in Germany, Abbe* Rousselot and M. Paul Passy
in France. The phonologist or phonetician differs from the linguist in
that he does not concern himself either with the origin of languages
or with their history : he works with the idiom spoken at the present

1 See the annual reports (1899 and following years) of the committee appointed
to compile a glossary of the patois of Romance-speaking Switzerland, and the
Bulletin du glossaire des patois de la Suisse romande, edited by the members
(Messrs. Gauchat, Jeanjaquet, Tappolet) of that committee.

2 The Soctete licgeoise de litterature wallonne is preparing a dictionary of the
Wallonian dialect.

3 Gongalves Vianna, author of several essays on Portuguese phonetics, and
Leite de Vasconcellos, the editor of the Revista Lusitana, deserve special men-
tion.

4 See the Bibliographie des patois gallo-romans, by D. Behrens, 2d ed. Berlin,
1893.

PROGRESS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 253

day. He borrows processes of investigation from physiology and
from acoustics and examines closely the mechanism of the voice;
he analyzes sounds and determines the conditions under which they
are produced; also, he inquires into the best ways of denoting these
sounds to the eye. Wherever it proves useful, he takes advantage
of the phonograph, and he will use this instrument more and more
as it is brought nearer perfection. Thanks to the researches of the
phoneticians, we may learn how one sound passes over into another,
changes which the linguist observes but does not explain. In par-
ticular, we see that in the transmission of language from one indi-
vidual to another — for example, from parents to children — the
likelihood of change is very great, for we know that it is only after
innumerable corrections that children finally are taught to speak like
those with whom they are in daily contact; and this observation
throws a clear light upon the origin of the present variety in Romance
speech. More and more, linguists must train themselves to utilize
the delicate and ingenious methods of the phonetician.

Real scholars are disinterested persons. As a rule, they pursue no
purely practical ends, and consider themselves sufficiently paid for
their pains when they have succeeded in increasing the sum of acquired
knowledge. They act upon the axiom which is found at the beginning
of Aristotle's Metaphysics : "All men have a natural desire for
knowledge." I am quite sure that most of those who carried Romance
philology to the heights it has now attained never thought that their
discoveries would have practical applications for the modern lan-
guages; and yet there is no doubt that many of the results obtained
through the efforts of the philologists will not remain mere scientific
curiosities, but will have some influence on the teaching of the
Romance languages and upon the way these languages are written.
As to teaching, we can easily understand that the introduction of
historical matter into grammars, even those of elementary grade,
will supply the explanation of many an apparent anomaly, and will
make the subject less dry. Grammar will become more interesting,
because an appeal will be made to the intelligence rather than to the
memory. As to orthography, the benefit will be no less real. Every-
body has been struck by the irregularities which are so numerous
in the most widespread languages, in French as well as in English.
The fact is that the official spelling is a mixture of notations intro-
duced at very different periods and in an absolutely unsystematic
way. Some spellings aim to represent the prevailing pronunciation;
others — and these are in the majority — reproduce an antiquated
pronunciation; finally, some pretend to indicate the etymology.
Many propositions have been made to do away with these inconsist-
encies, or, at least, to reduce their number by means of a general
revision, but the advocates of change have always encountered the

254 ROMANCE LANGUAGES

same time-honored objections from those who held sway, or thought
they held sway, over these matters of language. But the opposition
is weakening, and will weaken more and more in proportion as sane
ideas on the relations of the spoken tongue to the written language
shall become familiar to the public, and it is to be hoped that some
day each of what we may call the national languages will be pro-
vided with an improved system of spelling. I do not say that these
systems need be strictly phonetic, like that proposed for English
by A. Melville Bell, in which each sound, simple or compound, is
denoted by a single symbol: this is neither practicable nor really
useful. But the improved spelling should be logical, the same sound
should not be expressed in three or four different ways, and the
same symbol should not be applied to different sounds. When that
time comes it will be possible, thanks to a branch of teaching which
at present does not exist, — orthoepy, — it will then be possible I do
not say to fix the language once for all, but at least to retard its
tendencies to change. Philologists have in fact ceased to look upon
language as a living being which develops according to its own
laws. We must not be deceived by metaphors which at times
may be used to clothe an idea with an outward form. It is now
perceived that the will of man often interferes, intentionally and
arbitrarily, with the transmission of language, especially in those
countries and periods where literary culture has become a common
possession. The complete knowledge of a language, whether we are
speaking of the vocabulary, the forms, the syntax, or the sound-
system, is no longer gained solely by unconscious imitation of others
speaking, as is true in the case of languages which are not cultivated :
this knowledge is obtained through the instruction given in the schools,
and as regards the sound-system (that is, the pronunciation) this
instruction up to this time has not had a solid foundation, because
an irregular and inconsistent notation of sounds cannot serve as
a guide for pronunciation. I might cite a large number of French
words in which the pronunciation has been vitiated by the ambigu-
ity of the spelling. For example, some pronounce anguille, camo-
mille, and often oscille, sdntille, vocille, with the palatal I as in file,
while the true pronunciation is anguile, camomile, oscile, scintile,
vocile, with the ordinary I as in file. These are mistakes due to
the double value of the group ille in the French official spelling:
not having been corrected by school-teachers, they have become, or
threaten to become general. This is one example out of a thou-
sand which show that the teaching of pronunciation is possible only
in countries which possess a perfectly regular and definite system of
orthography.

Nothing is born from nothing, nihil ex nihilo, said the ancient
sage. The sciences fructify each other and furnish the elements of

PROGRESS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 255

new sciences which in this age of world-wide activities come into
existence, one may almost say, every day. Romance philology came
into being under the influence of the works of Bopp and of Grimm,
who gave comparatively little thought to the Romance languages;
in its turn, Romance philology aids in the formation of new branches
of science and helps to satisfy new needs.

PRESENT PROBLEMS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY

BY HENRY ALFRED TODD

[Henry Alfred Todd, Professor of Romance Philology, Columbia University, b.
Woodstock, Illinois, 1854. A.B. Princeton, 1876; Ph.D. Johns Hopkins, 1885;
Post-graduate Universities of Paris, Berlin, Rome, and Madrid, 1880-83;
Fellow Instructor and Associate, Johns Hopkins University, 1883-91; Pro-
fessor of Romance Languages, Leland Stanford University, 1891-93. Member
of Modern Language Association, American Philological Association, American
Oriental Society, American Dante Society, New York Academy of Sciences,
Membre perp&uel de la Soci&e' des Anciens Textes Francais, Paris. Author of
Guillame de Dole ; Pantheres d'Ammun ; Naissance du Chevalier au Cygne. Asso-
ciate Editor, Modern Language Notes.]

IN undertaking to discuss, in accordance with the programme of the
Congress of Arts and Science, the present problems of the Romance
languages in their linguistic as distinguished from their literary
aspects, it will be proper to consider briefly at the outset the province
of philology in its relations on the one hand to linguistics and on
the other to literature.

It is well understood that the term philology is commonly used
on the continent of Europe with a wider application than among
speakers of English. Like the history of all the other disciplines,
the process of adjustment between the development of the science
of philology and its corresponding nomenclature has been a slow and
somewhat tardy one. Without delaying to pass in review the various
learned endeavors that have been made to define the place and
function of philology in the domain of the humanities, — some have
even argued that the range of philology is coextensive with this
broad domain, — it will be sufficient here to emphasize the existence"
of a tendency at the present time which, so far as I am aware,
has not before been specifically pointed out — to understand and
deal with philology as the mediatory science which, being con-
cerned at once with speech as the vehicle of human thought and
with literature as the embodiment of human speech, applies the data
of linguistics to the elucidation of literature. Thus the philologist
is interested in the phenomena of human speech only incidentally
as natural phenomena; primarily and ultimately he is concerned
with these phenomena as manifestations, either linguistic or literary,
of human thought. The scholar who investigates the sounds of the
human voice as physical and physiological products is a phonetician;
he becomes a philologist only when, as phonologist, he applies the
data of phonetics to the study of the historical development of the
sounds of human speech. Similarly, in the prosecution of distinctively
literary study, the work of the philologist begins precisely where the
process of linguistic elucidation, in its broadest sense, becomes

PRESENT PROBLEMS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 257

requisite. Provided no such elucidation is required, as is the case
for the most part in the study of modern literature, the work of
investigation and appreciation may safely be relegated to the literary
historian; while, on the other hand, a discussion of the literary
origins and relations of an Old French epic poem, for example,
is so conditioned by the inherent and antecedent problems and
obscurities of its linguistic form, and depends so largely upon the
correct apprehension and solution of such difficulties, that a literary
investigation of this order is rightly regarded as belonging, to a large
extent, in the domain of philology proper. Thus it may be seen how
it happens that no practical difficulty arises in the delimitation of
the functions of a chair of Romance Philology from those of a chair
of Romance literatures, where both are so fortunate as to exist side
by side in the same university; and how it comes about that the
line of demarcation is substantially the chronological line that divides
the literature requiring, by reason of its archaism, linguistic inter-
pretation and elucidation, from that embodied in forms current
and familiar, and that this chronological line of demarcation will
vary from literature to literature with the varying stage of archaism
exhibited in the respective languages concerned. The poetry of
Dante, to use a conspicuous illustration, will thus belong predominat-
ingly to the chair of literature, while the authors of the corresponding
period of French literature will as naturally fall distinctly to the
province of philology. If so much may serve to suggest the mutual
relations of philology and literature, a few words will suffice to indi-
cate the nature of the service it is incumbent on philology to render
in the practical teaching of language. Here it is interesting to observe
that the function of philology is far more constant and pervasive
than in the literary field, inasmuch as it concerns itself with the
entire doctrine of language as the vehicle of thought. On the side of
language as what may be called an artificial acquisition, the philo-
logist finds himself at every point the coadjutor of the Sprachmeister
or language-master. In the popular mind, indeed, there exists no
very clear distinction between philologist and language-master, while
even in the curriculum of the higher education there is sometimes
found an unfortunate confusion of ideas as to the proper function
of sprachmeisterschaft and philology, each in its relation to the other;
especially when, as often happens, both orders of instruction must
be united in the person of one and the same professor. Let us use
an illustration. Given the problem of explaining the French construc-
tion II fait cher vivre a Paris. The language-master will proceed by
expounding this locution as equivalent to Vivre a Paris fait cher,
while the philologist will maintain that, so far as construction is
concerned, II fait cher vivre a Paris, historically considered, is the
precise analogue of II fait beau temps a Paris, cher vivre being, like

258 ROMANCE LANGUAGES

beau temps, the object of the transitive verb fait. As between lan-
guage-master and philologist, where lies, pedagogically, the truth?
Primarily with the language-master, and only remotely with the
philologist, whose complicated and unpractical business it will be
to explain the psychological process by which the historical truth
ceases to be the grammatical truth and an illogical transformation
occurs by which things are (instead of are not) what they seem; or,
otherwise expressed, it is not pedagogically sound for the philologist
to expect the language-master to begin his doctrine of the French
negation, for example, by setting forth the historic fact that je n'irai
pas means / shall not go a step. It is, on the contrary, no unimportant
task of the philologist to warn his incipient doctors of philosophy
against confusing the legitimate functions of language-teaching with
the historical elucidations of philology.

Passing to the specific subject of the present paper — the present
problems of Romance philology — it is proper to premise that the
word problems used to indicate' the objects still to be accomplished
by Romance scholarship, after the extensive progress that has just
been so ably set forth by our honored guest, Professor Meyer, will
here be understood not so much in its philosophical as in its current
meaning. The philosophical problems of the study of language —
the ultimate problem of the origin of human speech, together with
the various subsidiary problems affecting, for example, the relations
of language to thought or the burning question whether the laws
of speech-development are irrefragable — the question of the Jung-
grammatiker — belong to the domain of general linguistic science,
while the problems pertaining distinctively to the domain of Ro-
mance studies, and still remaining to be solved, are rather of the
nature of what the Germans call Aufgaben — tasks to be accom-
plished by patient research and skilled investigation. Such a view
of the situation naturally takes for granted that the fundamental
problem of Romance linguistics, that of the origin of the Romance
languages, has already been conclusively resolved. However persist-
ent and elaborate may be the endeavors of sciolists — continued
down even to our own days — to prove that, in their origin and
make-up the Romance languages are predominatingly Celtic, or
Greek, or Basque, or Heaven-knows- what, and however skeptical,
antecedently, may be the natural attitude of the serious beginner
in Romance philology whose preliminary studies have been conducted
by over-credulous and incredible etymologizers, no demonstration
of linguistic origins has ever been more complete and beautiful than
that of the unbroken development of the Romance idioms from the
Latin folk-speech.

From this starting-point of the Latin folk-speech it is natural
to begin the survey of those practical problems of Romance philology

PRESENT PROBLEMS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 259

which it is our object to consider. Without making the fruitless
attempt to define with precision the point at which Latin philology
ends and Romance philology begins, and without stopping to
emphasize the exceeding importance to the Romance scholar of
keeping in touch with the methods and results of the older science
and of bearing constantly in mind the unity and continuity of the
Roman tradition, it must be said that notwithstanding the great
amount of careful work bestowed on it alike by Latinists and Ro-
mance investigators, the underlying question of quantity and quality
in the folk-Latin vowel-system still presents a number of baffling
enigmas. It is true that the prevailing belief at present is that
differences of quantity in the Latin vowels were primitive and in-
herent, and that only later did qualitative differences so develop
in the folk-speech that the long vowels became close and the short
vowels open. But various modifications of this conservative opinion
are conceivably correct, such for example as that the vowels of the
Latin system had become very anciently open and close without
appreciable or characteristic quantitative distinction, and that the
Latin poets and prosodists, in order to conform their versification
to the quantitative system of their Greek models and masters,
conventionally treated and came to regard their close vowels as long
and their open vowels as short ; while the folk-speech, being unaffected
by the tenets and practice of the grammarians, continued the pre-
vious conditions of the Latin vocalism. At least a curious sidelight
on such a possibility, as exhibited in the influence of the Greek on
the Latin grammarians, is thrown by the fact, which has long been
known to the initiated, that the practice of the Latin grammarians
of calling a vowel followed by two consonants "long by position,"
was due to their misapprehension of the Greek nomenclature, which,
inasmuch as the syllable was long in which stood a vowel so situated,
naturally designated its doubtful vowel as long foo-et, that is, "by
hypothesis," or, in the equivalent Latin phraseology, "by suppos-
ition." Thus the early Roman grammarians, by their misunder-
standing and mistranslation of a Greek technical term, introduced an
erroneous conception* of Latin quantity, for the correction of which
the Latin grammarians of the present generation are chiefly indebted
to the new science of Romance philology, — a science which, by
demonstrating that the number of consonants following a Latin
vowel affected not its actual but only its "supposititious" quantity,
effected for Latin scholarship the signal service of setting on its feet
the highly important and zealously cultivated doctrine of "hidden
quantities."

Whether or not it will be possible for the future to establish with
certainty the chronology and the mutual relations of quantity and
quality in early Romanic speech, may be doubted. Indeed, our

260 ROMANCE LANGUAGES

entire knowledge of the Latin folk-speech rests on facts so meagrely
forthcoming or on inferences so subject to revision that it is no
wonder the contingent of scholars who are active in their investiga-
tion of it are divided into opposing camps, — those who minimize
and those who tend to magnify the degree of difference between
what it is convenient to call book-Latin and the language of the
unlettered people; — those, on the one hand, who are ready in gen-
eral to accept as sufficiently established well-nigh the entire series of
forms and phenomena deduced inferentially from the testimony
of the Romance languages, and those, on the other, who strenuously
object to this somewhat presumptuous procedure, alleging that the
only trustworthy data are those afforded by documentary evidence
of Latin origin. As to the degree of divergence between book-Latin
and folk-Latin, it would appear that thus far the point of view
has been too prevailingly that of the investigator who would fain
discover, boldly confronting one another, two strongly characterized
idioms; whereas the truer view, to be made more clear, I believe, by
scholars of the future, is manifestly that of a fundamental and
substantial unity underlying a diversity of phenomena characteristic,
not of two opposing modes of speech, but of a multiplicity of in-
fluences interacting with varying intensity among all classes of the
people.

By the side of the problems of the Latin folk-speech should be
placed the question of the survival in the Romance languages of
traces of the speech of those pre-Latin races on whom the Latin was
imposed by conquest and colonization. Here the interesting task of
discovering possible indications of pre-Roman influences is rendered
peculiarly difficult by the tenuity of our real knowledge of the lan-
guages concerned; so that whether we seek for Oscan and Umbrian
traces in central and southern Italy, for Gallic traces in north Italy
and France, or for Iberian influences in the Spanish peninsula, we
find ourselves thrown back for the most part on scanty inferences
and surmises. Accordingly, notwithstanding the profound and in-
genious disquisitions on this subject, conducted chiefly by Ascoli
and by Meyer-Liibke, it still remains delightfully problematical
whether even so generally supposed a Celtic trait as the li-sound
for Latin long u prevailing throughout north and south France,
Piedmont, Genoa, and Lombardy, and in the direction of the Grisons
and the Tyrol, is certainly to be attributed to such a source. For
the nasal vowels, which appear over approximately the same territory
with the addition of Portugal, the probability of primitive Celtic
influence is perhaps somewhat more assured. As to the possible
traces of Oscan and Umbrian in Italian, two or three consonantal
developments are all that in the present state of knowledge can
be referred to those dialects; while for the Iberian influence on the

PRESENT PROBLEMS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 261

ml

Spanish probably the only plausible instance is the partial disap-
pearance of the labials, as in humo < fumus, hembra < femina.

Quite another question than this of the traces of the pre-Latin influ-
ences in Romance speech is that of the very obvious infiltration into
the Romance languages of stocks of words chiefly from Celtic,
Germanic, and Greek sources, in regard to individual examples of
which more or less uncertainty prevails. For the somewhat numerous
Greek examples the list drawn up by Diez in the first volume of his
grammar has long since been subjected to revision and excision. For
the identification of the astonishingly few Celtic words that survive
in Romance speech the problem consists in determining, if possible,
the presumable forms which would theoretically correspond, for the
period of their adoption, with the Romance forms deducible for
the same period; while for the immense stock of Germanic words
naturalized on Romance soil, the task of the present, as admirably
begun by Th. Braune in a series of elaborate articles in the Zeit-
schrift fur romanische Philologie, and by W. Bruckner, in his Charak-
teristik der germanische Elements im Italienischen, is to assign these
each to its proper Germanic dialect and to the period of its introduc-
tion into Romance speech.

Of still more pressing urgency for the student of Romance philology
is the question of the origin, delimitation, and influence of the Ro-
mance dialects and patois. Here it is essential to start from the
fundamental notion that the patois is not a side degeneration from
a central norm, not a corruption of a form of speech more perfect
than itself because spoken by compatriots more favorably situated
and hence linguistically more fortunate. On the contrary, it is
precisely because each patois is for the most part the natural and
undistorted evolution of its own local antecedents, that the patois
assumes, at least theoretically, to the philologist the place of primary
importance in the scale of speech-development. Not till a compre-
hension of the natural processes of evolution as exhibited in the
local patois has enabled the philologist to form a just opinion of
the groundwork of the language he would study is he in a position
to estimate correctly the effects of the interplay of social and polit-
ical forces which result in lifting a patois to the literary plane
of a dialect, and the dialect, in turn, through a gradual, pro-
longed, and infinitely complex process of development, to the con-
sciously exalted status of a highly cultured and national language
of civilization.

If such, expressed in the most general terms, be the process up-
ward of patois and dialect, what are the distinctive problems con-
fronting the Romance scholar as to the discrimination and delimita-
tion of patois ? Within the broad domain of a national speech it must
be accepted as true that no indigenous inhabitant is unable to com-

262 ROMANCE LANGUAGES

t

municate by word of mouth with any of the permanent neighbors
surrounding him. From this point of view there is no delimitation
of patois, and accordingly, from this point of view, the only logical
method of procedure in determining the characters of a given speech
is either to signalize all the phenomena appearing collectively at a
certain point of territory, or else to follow out and designate the
expansion of a given single phenomenon throughout its territorial
extent. But considered in the light of actual conditions the facts are
not so certain nor the problem so simple, since, in the domain of
dialectology, the question "Who is my neighbor?" exhibits pre-
cisely the complexity set forth in the parable, and, as a matter
of fact, the existence is discovered of more or less clearly denned
speech-barriers, determined by political, social, industrial, and com-
mercial conditions, as well as by topographical conditions, which
insist that account be taken of them. However, it is rather the
nature than the delimitation of speech-phenomena that signifies in
philology, and the problems of the present for the student of Ro-
mance dialects have to do with the analysis and coordination of such
phenomena more urgently than with their distribution.

In the investigation of the Romance dialects and patois, the
present march of progress is led by the gigantic undertaking of
Gillie'ron and Edmont, entitled the Atlas linguistique de la France,
launched a few years since in response to the programme set forth
by Gaston Paris in the following words:

"II faudroit que chaque commune, d'un c6te", chaque forme,
chaque mot, de Pautre, eut sa monographic, purement descriptive,
faite de premiere main, et traite"e avec toute la rigueur d 'observa-
tion qu'exigent les sciences naturelles."

To any one unacquainted with the plan of this monumental work
a word of explanation here will be welcome. Including in its scope
the entire Romance-speaking portion of France, together with the
outlying speech-territories properly belonging to it, the promoters
of the Atlas linguistique have established at approximately equal
distances from each other six hundred and thirty-nine stations,
at each one of which M. Edmont has collected and recorded pho-
netically, with the utmost possible accuracy, the linguistic facts,
that is to say, the patois equivalents of words and phrases, cor-
responding to a uniform series of questions prepared by M. Gillie'ron.
These results are systematically exhibited in a succession of charts,
of which something less than four hundred have already appeared,
while it is estimated that the completed work will require a total
of some eighteen hundred charts to set forth the material collected
by M. Edmont in an itinerary of four years devoted to this work.
To indicate by a single illustration the class of material afforded, we
may choose the record of the patois equivalents of the word honey-

PRESENT PROBLEMS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 263

bee. Here we find graphically presented, so as easily to be included at
a glance, not only the rare survivals of the Latin apis, and the abun-
dant modifications of its regular diminutive apicula, but also such
other diminutives as avette for*apitta, and such periphrases as mouche
a miel, with the various diminutives mouchette, mouchatte, mouchotte.
The advantage of having such series of facts as these, systematically
grouped and presented with so great a degree of richness and fullness,
needs no comment. Moreover, it can never be foreseen in what new
directions the immense array of material can be judiciously utilized.
Who, for example, would be likely to look to such a source as this
for light upon the vexed question of the position of the tonic accent
in French? Yet, the indications of this atlas would appear to lend
support to the theory of some distinguished scholars that in French
the tonic accent has been to a large extent transferred to the initial
syllable. Apropos of such a problem it may be remarked here, by
way of transition to the consideration of phonetics in their relation
to Romance philology, that Gaston Paris, in his later years, was
accustomed to relegate the question of the French tonic accent to the
query-box of the future, when the testimony of the mechanically
perfected phonograph and of other scientific appliances may pre-
sumably be relied upon to furnish a trustworthy answer. If, per-
chance, the experimental appliances of the future shall corroborate
in this regard the apparent results of the Atlas linguistique, then
it will remain for the Romance philologist to compare these results
with those of Gaston Paris's epoch-marking Role de V Accent Latin,
with a view to determining the significance of so astonishing a break
in the historic continuity of development. In any case, the deference
of Paris for the applications of modern physical science in the do-
main of phonetics, and his recognition of the existing need of the
most rigorous accuracy in applying the physical science of phonetics
to the historical problems of phonology, is characteristic of the
growing consciousness on the part of scholars that the methods of
the historical sciences must continue wherever possible to be brought
into even closer correlation with those of the experimental sciences,
if results worthy of the present period are to be attained. At the
same time it gives occasion for emphasizing the fact that, as at
present understood, the science of phonetics has already become so
highly specialized a department of linguistics, and requires aptitudes,
gifts, and training so unusual on the part of its devotees, that the
day cannot be far distant when individual chairs and laboratories
of phonetics, in emulation of the provision made for the Abbe"
Rousselot at the College de France, will require to be established in
our universities in order to maintain the standards of university
work on a level with the needs of the situation. Surely the recent
brilliant work of Rousselot and his school in throwing light on the

264 ROMANCE LANGUAGES

most recondite problems of speech-enunciation by the skillful mani-
pulation of ingenious mechanical appliances, and the interpretation
of their data, has abundantly demonstrated the unforeseen practical
and theoretical possibilities of development in what was not long
since an inconspicuous branch of knowledge. So that it has now
become the task of the experimental phonetician not only to register
accurately the length, pitch, intensity, and rhythm of speech-sounds,
but also to analyze those motions of the organs of speech which are
invisible to the eye and to determine scientifically those physiolog-
ical and phonetic changes which are imperceptible to the ear. It
has thus become possible on the one hand to clear up many theo-
retical uncertainties, and on the other to introduce a remarkably
successful corrective treatment for those suffering from peculiar
difficulties, defects, and abnormalities of speech, not to mention the
aid afforded in the ordinary acquisition of foreign sounds.

The important subject of morphology — which should naturally
next engage our attention — must be slighted here, with the remark
that its problems, in the last analysis, are in the main to be solved
by tracing the effects of the operation of analogy; and that, inasmuch
as the verb, with its multifarious forms and categories, affords the
richest opportunities for the exercise of this potent and far-reaching
influence, it is in the doctrine of the verb-forms that most still
remains to be accomplished in the way of morphological investiga-
tion in the Romance languages; and that the same statement is
likewise largely true of the problems of word-formation may be
strikingly illustrated by calling attention to the great number of
enigmas that a few years ago were satisfactorily elucidated by
Gustav Cohn in his treatise on the Substitution of Suffixes in Old
French.

In approaching the topic of Romance syntax, — syntax! long
accounted the dryest and most forbidding of subjects by reason of
the woodenness and artificiality with which it has commonly been
treated in the past, — how shall we be able in brief space sufficiently
to set forth the wealth and delightsomeness of interest that attaches
to the elucidation of the manifold delicate problems of this domain?
Just as the field of Greek syntax has been made to blossom as the
rose by a Gildersleeve, and that of Latin syntax by a Hale, so that of
the Romance languages has been not only most successfully, but also
most delightfully, cultivated by a Tobler. Here Diez, to be sure
(more truly than in his already antiquated Phonology and Morpho-
logy) , still continues to be the guide, philosopher, and friend of
the neophyte in Romance syntax. But for an introduction to the
lofty avenues and difficult byways that open invitingly to the more
fully initiated, unfailing recourse must be had to the subtle and
erudite professor of Berlin. For many years, from the cathedra of his

PRESENT PROBLEMS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 265

renowned university, Tobler has continued to give forth a series of

contributions to the learned literature of Romance syntax such as

have transformed the whole complexion of many of the procedures and

methods of this study. From being too often a field for the arbitrary

or inherited dicta of observers who delight in the formulation of

purely metaphysical distinctions, Tobler has made of Romance

syntax a richly cultivated demesne in which the application of the

comparative method and the substitution of psychological for

metaphysical data, have combined to produce a body of sound

doctrine suited to command the admiration and gratitude of the

entire race of philologists. Yet such is the boundless extent of the

domain included in Romance syntax that, far from exhausting any

department of the subject, Tobler's greatest merit, perhaps, consists

in having pointed the way to the solution of manifold problems that

still await the application of his methods and the utilization of the

data so abundantly furnished by him. It cannot, however, be said

that the force of his teaching and the stimulus of his example have

yet borne the fruit that might have been hoped for, in equipping a

body of young disciples for the continuance and spread of his peculiar

work. Much less have the results of his investigations found sufficient

recognition in the more popular treatises on the subject intended

for practical instruction; and there is perhaps no field of philological

research in which there is so urgent a call for promising recruits

equipped with the historical spirit and fitted by training in historical

methods, to carry on the tradition of the highest and best scholarship.

Fortunately, the recently completed third volume of Meyer-Liibke's

comprehensive grammar of the Romance languages presents in

systematic form, in connection with much that is original, the best

and most significant results of Tobler's teaching in this field.

When we arrive at the branch of lexicology, with its practical
embodiment in the work of lexicography, we find ourselves face to
face with an enormous output, the material of which it will be
largely the task of the future to correct, to amplify, and to recast.
Without adverting to the monumental Dictionarium mediae et infimae
Latinitatis of Du Cange, dating, like the etymological dictionary of
Manage, from the seventeenth century, it will be interesting to us to
see how the great Etymologisches Worterbuch of Diez was virtually
recast in the Lateinisch-romanisches Worterbuch of Korting. While
the profoundest of scholars, Diez was the most unpractical of men,
and this latter fact is strikingly exemplified in the disposition and
arrangement of his Etymological Dictionary. Nothing, indeed, could
well have been more inconvenient and vexatious. The work was
divided into two volumes, the first containing the words common
to at least two of the three leading groups of the Romance languages,
while the second volume was divided into three parts, under which

266 ROMANCE LANGUAGES

were ranged respectively the words found in only one of the three
groups. The intended method of consulting the dictionary would
appear almost ludicrous were it not so cumbrous and exasperating,
for in view of the provokingly slow and difficult process of finding
what was wanted, the balked and baffled inquirer might well have
been reminded, in his extremity, of the famous culinary recipe for
preparing jugged hare, which begins, "First catch your hare." In-
deed, "First catch your word," might appropriately have been the
motto on the title-page of this indispensable thesaurus.

The mode of procedure was as follows: For any Romance word
the etymology of which was to be sought, the inquirer must first
determine, if possible, the etymological equivalent, in Italian,
because the Italian form was the one given preference in the alpha-
betical arrangement. In case, however, there were no Italian equi-
valent, the word might perhaps be found ranged under its own
proper form. This recourse failing, the word in question must be
sought in the second volume, under the group to which it belonged;
if, for example, it chanced to be Roumanian, it was to be looked for
in the Italian group; if it were Provencal, in the French group; if
Portuguese, in the Spanish group. If at this point the quest again
failed, recourse was to be had to a very meagre index of words
treated out of their alphabetical order in the body of the work. Not
until all these resources had failed was the unsophisticated seeker
brought face to face with the etymological dilemma which inevitably
forced him to determine, as to him seemed best, to which of the two
great classes of words systematically omitted by Diez the missing
vocable belonged, — whether to the class of words accounted by
Diez, in his etymological wisdom, to be of altogether obvious etymo-
logy and hence not worth the trouble of elucidation, or on the
other hand to that very different class of words whose etymology
was unknown to Diez, and which were accordingly incapable of
elucidation. And even so the luckless wight was still left in uncer-
tainty whether the object of his quest was not after all treated by
Diez, because the great dictionary was well known to contain, hidden
in one or another of its many out-of-the-way corners, a generous
store of etymologies that defied all the succession of appliances so
uningeniously devised for their discovery. As successive editions of
the work were called for, Diez was naturally expostulated with as to
the disposition of its material, but to no avail. And it was not until
a despairing admirer, Jarnik of Prague, produced in a separate
volume, and under a single alphabet, an absolutely complete index
to the Etymologisches Worterbuch, that the incomparable wealth of
this great monument was placed adequately at the disposal of
scholars.

Only a few years later the true and final solution of the question

PRESENT PROBLEMS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 267

as to the best disposition of material for an etymological Romance
dictionary was given by Gustav Korting, in his Lateinisch-romanisches
Worterbuch, which, considering the fact that no one had ever before
utilized such a disposition, was, in spite of, or rather indeed because
of, its extreme simplicity and convenience, and notwithstanding the
defects of its execution, an innovation of the utmost advantage to
etymological scholarship.

This disposition consists in making a lemma of the Latin or other
etymon, under which are ranged all its Romance representatives,
with such discussion of each as circumstances call for. All the etyma,
of whatever source, are ranged under a single alphabet, and every
word treated, in whatever place and under whatever form, is indexed
for immediate reference to its etymon. The first and greatest utility
of this arrangement is that it gives the inquirer instantaneous
information as to whether the word in question is treated at all
in the work, and, if so, gives him immediate reference to its etymon
and the accompanying discussion.

The present task, then, of Romance etymology is to evolve and
coordinate the material for an immense expansion and extension
of the idea of Korting 's Worterbuch, with application of the widest
and most accurate scholarship to the formidable, nay, inexhaustible
task. Instead of being limited to the literary languages, the dialects
and the patois should be subjected to similar treatment, until, in the
course of time and with the progress of scholarship and the accu-
mulation of its results, the foundations may be laid for a magnum
opus, which may be brought out under auspices in some respects
similar to those of the great European academies which cooperate in
the production of the stupendous Thesaurus Linguae Latinae.

But such a work would still represent only one of the phases of
Romance lexicography. The time is already ripe for the complete
overhauling of the great national defining dictionaries of the various
Romance languages, such as Littre^s dictionary of the French
language, to mention only the one that stands foremost and best.
The type of the work here to be done is admirably indicated in the
Dictionnaire general of Darmesteter, Hatzfeld, and Thomas. An-
other monumental undertaking necessarily calling for mention
here is the Old French dictionary of Godefroy very recently com-
pleted in ten quarto volumes under the auspices of the French Gov-
ernment. Notwithstanding its immense value, probably no great
dictionary was ever published that fell so far short of the ideals of
such a work. This fact constitutes a pressing incentive to the goodly
company of Old French scholars throughout the world to labor
consciously and constantly for the amelioration of a work to which
they are already so deeply indebted and which only the combined
efforts of all who are in a position to contribute to it can bring to a

268 ROMANCE LANGUAGES

state of approximate perfection. Its counterpart for the Old Proven-
gal, the early Lexique Roman of Raynouard, in six octavo volumes,
is now undergoing revision and expansion at the hands of a most
competent lexicographer, E. LeVy, but here again, it should be the
common aim of all Provencal scholars to furnish helpful contribu-
tions. Such an appeal as this is all the more appropriate since in
connection with the undertakings here enumerated there unfor-
tunately exists no organized corps of readers and helpers such as
does such important service for the Oxford Dictionary of English.
Particularly should attention be given in all such work to the
importance of semantics, to which so great an impulse has been im-
parted by the stimulating work of Michel Bre"al. Probably no note
of caution is necessary here against the repetition of the subversive
and astonishing procedure of a recent extensive dictionary of the
English language which consisted in throwing overboard all recog-
nition of the logical and historical development of meanings for the
purpose, I was about to say of establishing, but must rather say of
setting up, an arbitrary arrangement of meanings in the presumed or
the imagined order of their prevalence in the language at the present
moment.

Of the culminating function and office of philology in applying
the data of linguistics to the elucidation of literature, it remains to say
what may appropriately be said in the few allotted moments. I refer
to the crowning application of all the results of philological knowledge
to the classification of manuscripts and the constitution of texts
in accordance with the approved criteria of scientific criticism, and
to the adequate presentation, interpretation, and elucidation in
published form of the literary production of the past deemed worthy
of preservation. Some conception may be formed of the extent of the
field when it is pointed out that in Old French manuscripts alone,
not to speak of the wealth of Provengal, Italian, and Spanish, there
is preserved a greater amount of material than the entire surviving
body of Greek and Latin literature combined. While it is not denied
that the intrinsic value of much of this material is scarcely demon-
strable, it remains true that a considerable part both of that which
has been already published, and of that which still awaits public-
ation, has a very decided significance either as pure literature or as
a manifestation of the development of human thought and of human
culture. Some of it, indeed, is destined as pure literature — epic,
lyric, dramatic, imaginative, narrative — to maintain forever a high
place in the records of the race. To Romance philology belongs the
custodianship and exploitation of this rich heritage. Much that is
of permanent value has already been accomplished. Without the
faintest soupgon of adulation, but only as a simple statement of the
fact, it deserves to be said that the work of Paul Meyer in unearthing,

PRESENT PROBLEMS IN ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 269

exploring, analyzing, comparing, classifying, describing, abstracting,
and appraising the unknown wealth of Romance manuscript litera-
ture in the libraries, monasteries, and chateaux of France, Italy, and
England, and in publishing the results of his investigations in scien-
tific form for the benefit of scholars, not to speak of much accom-
plished in other directions, has far surpassed the similar work of any
other man. Much of the vast store of data thus made available to
the philologist and the literary historian still remains to be utilized,
and will furnish the rising generation of Romance scholars with an
almost inexhaustible supply of information for the further prosecution
of their researches.

Concerning the great body of Italian, French, Provencal, Spanish,
Portuguese medieval literature that has already seen the light of day,
the point of fact that must here be emphasized is that only a com-
paratively small part of it, namely, that which has been published
in the past twenty-five years or so, has been edited in accordance
with the critical standards of modern scholarship, especially as em-
bodied in the canons of textual criticism involved in the classifica-
tion of manuscripts and the scientific constitution of texts. There
is, by way of example, no critically constituted text of so important
a poem as the Old French Roman de la Rose, and even the preliminary
work of paving the way, amid the multiplicity of widely scattered
manuscripts, for the preparation of such an edition has, if under-
taken, never been carried out. In this direction lies an immense
amount of useful work for the scholars of the present and the future.

But still another phase of the work to be done in this direction is
becoming one of the most interesting and characteristic manifest-
ations of present-day philological scholarship. This consists of the
successive reworkings by the original editor, aided by the critical
acumen contributed by the world's best scholars, of texts critically
constituted at the outset. The most notable recent examples of this
are to be seen in Foerster's successive editions of the works of Chretien
de Troyes, in which through a long series of years the editor has
brought to bear, stroke upon stroke, the resources of his almost
incomparable critical scholarship upon the problem of perfecting to
the utmost possible degree the condition of his chosen texts. Yet so
highly developed has become the critical training of a number of his
colleagues that the contributions of the latter to these ameliorations,
through the learned periodicals, have become scarcely less numerous
and important than those of the editor himself. So that what may
be called, at least in degree, a new manifestation of critical scholar-
ship — that of the cooperative amelioration of philological work —
has become a recognized condition of the times.

Of that domain of philology which covers the investigation of
obscure literary sources, and the tracing of literary influences through

270 ROMANCE LANGUAGES

channels not directly open to the literary historian as such, this is
not the place nor is there now the time, to speak. It remains in
conclusion — not because either the students of language or the
students of literature need to be reminded of it, but only to satisfy
the consuming sense of the fitness of things — to signalize what has
been announced as the ruling idea of this entire Congress of Arts
and Science, namely, the ultimate unity of knowledge in all fields,
and especially, as corning home with peculiar force to the philologist,
the underlying unity that binds together in indissoluble significance
the phenomena of speech as the vehicle of human thought and of
literature as the embodiment of human speech.

SECTION H — GERMANIC LANGUAGES

SECTION H— GERMANIC LANGUAGES

(Hall 3, September 24, 3 p. TO.)

CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR GUSTAF E. KARSTEN, Cornell University.
SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR EDUARD SIEVERS, University of Leipzig.
PROFESSOR HERMANN COLLITZ, Bryn Mawr College.
SECRETARY: PROFESSOR OTTO HELLER, Washington University.

THE RELATION OF GERMAN LINGUISTICS TO INDO-
GERMANIC LINGUISTICS AND TO GERMAN PHILOLOGY

BY EDUARD SIEVERS

(Translated from the German by Rudolph Tombo, Jr., Columbia University)

[Eduard Sievers, Professor of German Literature, University of Leipzig, since 1892.
b. Lippoldsberg, Prussia, 1850. Studied, Leipzig and Berlin. Professor Extra-
ordinary of Germanic and Romance Philology, University of Jena, 1871-76;
Professor of Germanic Philology, ibid. 1876-83; Professor, University of
Tubingen, 1883-87; Professor, University of Halle, 1887-92; Rector, Univer-
sity of Leipzig, 1901-02. Author of Tatian; Murbadier Hymnen; Heliand ;
Die AUhochdeutschen Glossen ; Oxf order Benediktinerregel ; Der Heliand und die
angelsachsische Genesis; Angelsdchsische Grammatik ; Zum angelsachsischen
Vokalismus ; Altgermanische Metrik ; Grundzuge der Phonetik; and editor of
several noted compilations.]

IF we wish to understand and estimate properly the present and
future problems with which a given scientific discipline may at
any time be confronted, it is advisable to turn at the very outset
from the present to the past, for a correct estimate of what has been
accomplished in a certain field and proper directions for future
efforts can be acquired only by means of a critical examination of the
historical development of the science in question. Moreover, this
historical method seems to be demanded especially where we have
to deal with the determination of the reciprocal relations of two or
more branches of science, which, in spite of possible differences in
problem, viewpoint, and method, are nevertheless in the very nature
of things constrained to aid each other, according as one is at any
given time in advance of the other.

German linguistic science, which we are to consider to-day, main-
tains such reciprocal relations more particularly in two directions.
In the same way that the German language is a member of the Ger-
manic family and also of the great Indo-Germanic group of languages,
so. too, German or Germanic linguistic science constitutes an integral
part of comparative Indo-Germanic linguistics. On the other hand.
German linguistics is none the less closely interwoven with German

274 GERMANIC LANGUAGES

philology, — using the word in the customary German sense, —
whether we lay the chief stress upon the criticism of form or that of
matter. German linguistics is intimately associated with still other
fields of knowledge, but the limited time at my disposal will not
allow me to discuss such wider relations.

The sciences of Indo-Germanic linguistics, German philology, and
Germanic linguistics arose practically at the same time, leaving
out of consideration, of course, early sporadic and uncertain efforts
that were more or less amateurish. In the year 1816, Franz Bopp,
with his System of Conjugation in Sanscrit compared with those in
Greek, Latin, Persian, and Germanic, laid the foundation for the
science of Indo-Germanic linguistics, which since then has assumed
such splendid proportions. In the same year appeared Karl Lach-
mann's famous treatise on The Original Form of the Poem of the
Fall of the Nibelungs, which was followed in rapid succession by
his editions of the Nibelungenlied, of Hartmann's von Aue Iwein of
the poems of Walther von der Vogelweide and of the works of
Wolfram von Eschenbach, editions that were to serve for many
years as unexcelled models for the critical treatment of Middle
High German works of poetry. And finally, in 1819 and 1822,
respectively, there were published the first and second editions of
the first volume of Jakob Grimm's immortal German grammar, the
monumental work upon which all Germanic linguistics cience rests,
and whose rich treasures, in spite of the most zealous efforts, have
not been exhausted even at the present day.

The intellectual talents of the three scholars mentioned were as
dissimilar as the fields in which they labored. Of the three, Jakob
Grimm and Franz Bopp possess the greatest similarity. In both we
admire an equal wealth of fancy and native intuition, which enabled
them to make use of even the most minute details and to discover
an intellectual or historical bond for facts apparently unrelated.
On the other hand, Lachmann appears as the incarnation of a care-
fully discriminating critic, and as the master of restrained and
methodical thought. These qualities he exhibited in his efforts to
reconstruct a poorly preserved text by supplying all the delicate
touches of the author, as well as in attempts to establish literary-
historical relations or to clear up the historical genesis of the text
and its contents.

From both the positive and the negative standpoints, Jakob
Grimm's activity and personal position were for a long time repre-
sentative and authoritative on the question of the relation of Ger-
man linguistic science to Indo-Germanic linguistics, on one hand,
and to German philology on the other. The older grammar of the
East in accordance with its "philological" leanings had pursued
linguistics only as a means to an end. In the pursuit of semi-anti-

RELATIONS OF GERMAN LINGUISTICS 275

quarian interests it had concerned itself with the collection and
publication of linguistic peculiarities and eccentricities, while it
endeavored at the same time to establish a standard of usage for
literature and the conversation of the educated classes. With the
advent of Bopp and Grimm, however, investigations of the linguistic
elements were conducted for their own sake. Henceforth the question
no longer turned solely on the "Is" and the "Shall," but new and
more important questions arose, as for example, "How are we to
apprehend existing forms, where are we to seek their origin, and how
has the individual element been developed from the original forms
which we must establish? " It was this new range of questions that
raised the old descriptive "grammar" with its normalizing tendencies
to the rank of a "science of language."

This series of questions also contains the germ of the elements
which constitute the similarity as well as the dissimilarity between
Grimm and Bopp. The latter, from the first, boldly attacked the
ultimate questions which linguistic science felt permitted to put.
First, he turned his attention to the explanation of Indo-Germanic
linguistic forms and sought to establish these by the comparative-
speculative method on the basis of the great variety of forms found
in individual dialects. Jakob Grimm, however, advanced with
greater caution and more distinctly along the lines of historical
development. To be sure, he also occasionally grappled with general
glottological problems, yet his main interest was directed to the
narrower field of Germanic, and accordingly he concerned himself
more directly with the accurate determination of linguistic resem-
blances and differences and their historical development. In Grimm's
work, too, considerable prominence is given to the philological ele-
ment, as is clearly demonstrated by his extensive collection of
authentic and historically arranged material taken directly from the
preserved linguistic sources. Bopp had turned his attention first
to the Indo-Germanic system of conjugation, and when, in 1819,
Grimm appeared on the scene with the first part of his German
grammar, he also dealt only with inflections, although he approached
the question from an essentially different standpoint. Only three
years later, however, in 1822, he adopted a new course, which
brought in its train far-reaching results, for in the new edition of the
first volume of his grammar he prefaced the consideration of Ger-
manic inflections with a complete and systematic investigation of
the conditions of Germanic phonetics. This, indeed, was the first
systematic attempt in the history of grammar and of the science
of language to introduce the new discipline of historical-comparative
phonetics, which is now the basis for all formal studies in comparative
linguistics, since without its aid a systematic comparison of inflectional
forms is impossible.

276 GERMANIC LANGUAGES

The science of comparative linguistics has been drawing steadily
away from Bopp's goal and from his method of explaining what he
termed the "organism of the Indo-Germanic languages," for it has
come to recognize in ever-increasing measure the futility of attempt-
ing to solve the problem with the insufficient means at its disposal.
To be sure, we owe Bopp an everlasting debt of gratitude for having
by his comparisons established definitely and for all time the rela-
tionship of the individual Indo-Germanic languages, which had
previously been only darkly suspected. And yet if we consider the
actual mode of comparison, we shall find the historical method as
applied by Grimm to be of far greater significance for future research
than Bopp's divinatory mode of procedure, which caused him to
advance by leaps and bounds. To whatever extent Grimm's method
may have been displaced by stricter present-day requirements in
individual instances, we must not forget that it was preeminently
he who gave the initial impulse in a number of important points.
It was Jakob Grimm who first insisted upon the strictest historical
control of all related material, and upon the most complete induction
as prerequisite for the comparison of less intimately associated lin-
guistic forms and for the consequent reconstruction of primitive
Indo-Germanic forms, which is indispensable even at the present
day. It is to him we owe the conviction that no material should be
compared in a wider circle, unless its history within the individual
languages and families of languages has been carefully and un-
questionably determined beforehand. It is to him, again, that we are
indebted for the gradual development of Indo-Germanic linguistics
into a history of the individual families of languages and their sub-
divisions.

For a long time the influence of Indo-Germanic linguistics upon
Germanic linguistics was not so prominent as the impulse given by
Jakob Grimm to the development of Indo-Germanic linguistics itself,
an impulse that in reality goes back to Bopp. In those days, as in
the case of Jakob Grimm, Germanic linguistics contributed more than
it received in return. To be sure, Grimm was familiar with the in-
vestigations of Bopp and his successors in the general Indo-Germanic
field, yet he employed their results with a certain reserve, which
ended by isolating Germanic grammar, as it were, from comparative
Indo-Germanic linguistics. The first generation of Germanic scholars
after Grimm and Lachmann seldom overstepped the narrow bounds
of their limited subject. This may be attributed, in part at least, to
the circumstance that the structure of Germanic grammar as erected
by Jakob Grimm seemed to be so firmly established that no necessity
was felt for securing additional support from a great distance. The
most important consideration, however, was that the pupils of both
Grimm and Lachmann were interested in philology rather than in the

RELATIONS OF GERMAN LINGUISTICS 277

actual science of grammar or linguistics, their attitude being influenced
partly by personal inclination and endowment and partly by the
strict discipline of Lachmann's school.

The earliest attempt to establish an entente cordiale between the
fields of linguistics and philology dates from the end of the seventh
decade of the nineteenth century. On the literary side the movement
was introduced in Germany by Wilhelm Scherer in his History of
the German Language (Zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache — 1868),
with its wealth of ideas and imagination. The book was hailed with
outspoken admiration by some, and met with determined opposition
by others. This latter attitude may be attributed in part to the fact
that in the field of comparative linguistics — particularly under the
leadership of August Schleicher and Georg Curtius, who were joined
as far as methodology is concerned by William Dwight Whitney — a
more sober mode of observation had begun to make itself felt, which
left less room for the kind of free speculation to which Scherer was so
partial. On the other hand, it was not without significance that
the interest in linguistic matters in general, which was spreading
rapidly at that time, had attracted a number of rising Germanic
scholars, especially at Leipzig, to the school of comparative linguistics,
scholars who had not yet fallen under the influence of Scherer's
book and his mode of thought, but who, like those of their contem-
poraries that devoted themselves more exclusively to linguistics, were
guided rather by the cool and clear precision of their teacher Curtius.

Through the common labors of this Leipzig group of young
linguists and Germanic scholars, there arose during the seventies
the school of Young Grammarians (Junggrammatiker) , so-called from
a casual jest made by Zarncke. The most pronounced characteristic
of this school is the strong emphasis it lays upon methodology and
the doctrine of principles, thus furnishing a striking contrast to the
often desultory method adopted by Scherer. It is hardly fair to the
Young Grammarians to look upon their efforts, in the light of the
many heated controversies into which they were drawn, as being
expended mainly in outside disputes. The real characteristics of this
circle, on the contrary, must be sought in their attempts to free
themselves from a certain narrowness of doctrine represented in their
own teacher, Georg Curtius. It was this identical circumstance that
led finally to a scientific estrangement between Curtius and his pupils
— an estrangement really no less remarkable than the contrast be-
tween the tendencies of the Young Grammarians and those of the
newly arising linguistic science, which were, almost simultaneously,
connected with Johannes Schmidt and August Fick.

If from the generally accepted standpoint of to-day we look back
at the linguistic methods of research more or less universally current
in the sixties and early seventies, we must admit the existence of

278 GERMANIC LANGUAGES

certain pedantry in the field at that time. A considerable number
of old doctrines — of which some had been established a priori in
a period when language-research tended to be philosophical and spec-
ulative, and of which others can be traced back to exaggerated con-
ceptions of the antiquity of the Aryan languages, especially of San-
skrit, and to the uncritical acceptance of doctrines of the old Indian
grammarians — were accepted at their face-value and transmitted
without investigation from generation to generation. (As examples
I need only cite the doctrine of the priority of the o-sounds over the
e- and o-sounds, or of all explosives over spirants; the doctrine of
guna; or the theory of the distribution of the Indo-Germanic lan-
guages on the basis of a genealogical tree, etc.) Above everything else,
however, these investigations were based solely on the written word,
which was duly " analyzed " and with the aid of all manner of little
strokes divided and subdivided into roots and the most varied forms
of derivative and inflectional suffixes, etc. But no attention whatever
was paid to the psychology of language, which unites the smaller
particles into the finished word, nor to the psychic processes which
control the transmission and transformation of human speech.
Moreover, no one attempted seriously to throw light on the phonetic
aspects of linguistic changes established on paper by calling into
requisition an aid of the utmost importance, that is, the comparative
study of the phonetic phenomena of living languages.

It was naturally not to be expected that a sudden improvement
could be made in these conditions. Long conflicts have been neces-
sary before the new ideas and methods, which have been so widely
promulgated, especially since the seventies, could become adjusted
and secure more universal recognition. But at the present time
scarcely any essential difference in methods exists, and it is probable
that all language-investigators to-day employ in practice the methods
first adopted by the Young Grammarians, even though a certain
antipathy may be felt here and there for the name of the movement
and although in theory opposition against certain of their principles
still exists.

To this transformation in linguistic conceptions and methods
Germanic linguistics, as we should expect, has contributed its due
share. While the older science of language had concerned itself
primarily with the written forms of the earlier and most ancient
language-periods, the Germanists, like the Romanists and Slavists,
by reason of the fact that their linguistic sources reach directly
into the present, have from the very beginning been concerned also
with the study of living languages and dialects. Hence, necessarily,
their attention has also been directed to the psychological side of
language-structure and language-development, which can be inves-
tigated successfully only on the basis of the living language. We

RELATIONS OF GERMAN LINGUISTICS 279

cannot, accordingly, attribute to mere chance the circumstance that
the two most important principles in modern linguistics as opposed
to the older science were first emphatically announced by those
scholars who were investigating living dialects. I refer in the first
place to the doctrine of the regularity of sound-correspondence and
sound-development in that portion of language the transmission of
which is purely mnemonic, in other words, to what has been called
— the choice of terms is not a particularly happy one — the doctrine
of the absolute constancy of sound-laws. In the second place I refer
to the doctrine of the complete equality of those new linguistic
forms which are created in the absence of purely mnemonic trans-
mission by means of definite psychological processes of assimilation,
that is, what we call formation by analogy, or through association,
or explain as form-transferences, leveling, etc. Nor should we forget
that the demand for a strictly phonetic treatment of problems of
sound-development was first made and carried out in practice by the
Germanists. Comparative linguistics is indebted especially to the
Germanic and Slavic scholar Karl Verner for his important incor-
poration of the doctrine of accent in the history of sound-develop-
ment. And finally, comparative language-study is indebted to Ger-
manic linguistics for the one systematic treatise on the methodology
of language-investigation which is recognized as the complete expres-
sion of the ideas now generally accepted. I speak of the methods
proclaimed by Hermann Paul in his Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte,
and it is these methods which, unconscious as the act may be, in
practice helped to regulate the research even of those language-inves-
tigators, who, opposed to the theoretical discussion of general prin-
ciples, prefer to base their methods, as it were, on the foundation of
individual instances.

From all that has been said, we see that the history of comparative
and Germanic linguistics furnishes an excellent illustration of a
mutual borrowing of methods and ideas, and the more active this
interchange became, the more bountiful was the harvest of the joint
intellectual labors.

If we next turn our attention to the relation between Germanic
linguistics and critical German philology, we shall find that the con-
ditions are very similar, except that the mutual diffusion of the two
sets of ideas has not been so complete and productive as in the case
of German linguistics and comparative linguistics. This circumstance
is readily explained on general as well as on historical grounds.

The representatives of Germanic and of comparative linguistics
are inherently brought into more intimate contact by the common
tendency and the common goal of their labors: the only difference
lies in the breadth, the number, and the peculiar character of the
subjects treated. Both strive to throw light on the history of Ian-

280 GERMANIC LANGUAGES

guage, and both employ the historical-comparative method. Lan-
guage-history on the whole is really synonymous with language
differentiation, and it is furthermore characteristic of this language
differentiation that only a limited portion of common language
property resting on the older basis of greater unity is ever handed
down to the younger, more strongly specialized linguistic divisions.
Again, it is self-evident that conditions possessed in common,
even in later periods, are prerequisite for drawing conclusions about
earlier forms. The language-investigator conducting his researches
along historical lines must from the nature of things begin in every
case with the common element and determine its originality. Not
until this preliminary investigation has been completed can he turn
with the expectation of ultimate reward to the comparative examin-
ation of differences in form and structure and their history. The fact
that both activities must frequently be combined in practical detail
work, the more so the more delicate and detailed the form the pro-
blems take, has nothing to do with the matter in hand. Moreover,
the student of language seeks to recognize common elements in forms
which have been proved not to be original, and to differ from one
another, by drawing conclusions from the similarity of changes
about the similarity of the processes — mainly psychical — that have
produced the changes. Going still another step further, from the
similarity of those processes he can draw conclusions as to the
normalcy of the changes under consideration — a matter which
depends upon the similarity of the psychical organization of the
various peoples and speakers. It is this latter similarity, finally,
which alone can give to the investigator of linguistic conditions
the necessary faith in the correctness of his views and explanations.
This much is therefore established, that the scholar who approaches
the study of language from the historical-comparative standpoint
is compelled to work chiefly with that portion of the language which
we may designate as the collective attainment, or, at least, as the
collective possession of the speaking masses. It is entirely different
with the critical philologist, for whom language represents primarily
only that fraction of the general conception of language which has
been preserved as literature — literature in the widest sense of the
term. In one respect, therefore, he conceives of language as the
means of expression for certain thoughts and contents which he
investigates. On the other hand, so far as he takes any interest
whatever in form, he regards language partly as the foundation upon
which the various artistic forms of human speech are erected, partly
as a means of differentiation between individuals or between stages
of art. Disregarding the question of content, this is equivalent to
the statement that the philologist must be attracted in language
primarily by the production of the individual, just as the student of

RELATIONS OF GERMAN LINGUISTICS 281

language should be attracted by the collective production of the
masses.

Of course the philologist must also occasionally resort to compar-
isons, at least whenever he wishes to individualize artistically; and
if his comparisons are to be correct, he, too, must follow the historical
method. But the historical conclusions drawn from his sources and
the differences established, no matter whether they be differences
of individuals or groups, do not, as in the case of the student of lan-
guage, serve him primarily in the determination of connections, —
even if only in the general psychology of language-change, — but,
conversely, they aid him in his separation of elements, and in de-
taching the individual from the general. Or if he be attracted more
directly to the general, he will turn rather to fields of language-
aesthetics than to those of language-psychology.

An exaggerated conception of this tendency is of course fraught
with manifold dangers. The one-sided philologist, particularly,
who does not know how to profit by the viewpoint and the methods
of the language-investigator, will neglect a series of methods which
would aid him in his researches, and moreover he will be apt to
regard observed facts in a false light, because they appear to him as
unconnected dots and not as links in a definite chain of development.

The corresponding dangers which confront the one-sided linguist
lie in the opposite direction. Without the necessary philological
control, he is apt to regard separate elements as too closely related
and to see connections and possibilities, the acceptance of which
would be absolutely prohibited by philological determinations.
Moreover, inasmuch as his whole method of investigation leads him
first of all to the search for direct courses of development, such as
are furnished in rich measure by the natural speech of every-day
life, it will not always be easy for him to follow the zigzag path of
development produced by the influence of individual forces and by
the intentionally artistic development of the written language.

It has been amply demonstrated that a mutual rapprochement
and an interchange of ideas and methods is absolutely essential to the
satisfactory progress of both philology and linguistics. While the
philologist needs the science of language for the broadening of his
horizon in general linguistic matters, the linguist, conversely, can-
not get along without philological criticism in the arrangement and
accurate determination of his material of comparison.

The general recognition of the necessity for this union, evident
as it would seem to be in theory, has been slow to gain ground in
practice. The linguists have made the earliest and most vigorous
efforts in this direction. To be sure many sins may still be committed
here by the individual; in principle, however, the modern science
of language does demand that all its representatives be philologists

282 GERMANIC LANGUAGES

at least to the extent of employing only such material as can endure
the test of philological criticism. Philology, the older and prouder
sister-science, has on the whole been less eager to comply with the
demands which linguistic investigation was forced to establish, and
even at this day the number of philologists who, to their own detri-
ment, renounce the employment of linguistic aids, or who on general
principles — regarding it as incompatible with their dignity — re-
fuse to come to an agreement with the science of language, is not
insignificant. Yet in this respect, also, the last few years have
witnessed a decided improvement, especially in the field of German
philology.

As we know, German philology rests on the shoulders of Karl
Lachmann just as German linguistics rests upon those of Jakob Grimm.
For the former, therefore, so far at least as Lachmann 's influence
reaches, his conceptions of linguistic matters have remained authori-
tative. This is more particularly true of the estimate of the German
language and its development from the Middle High German period to
the present day, that is, of those very periods of the German language
which by reason of their youth and the secondary character of their
idioms were of relatively less interest for linguistics.

Having begun as a disciple of the school of classical philology,
Lachmann naturally took It for granted that in the classical works
of Middle High German poetry we have an artistic language, which,
produced as it was for a definite purpose in a limited circle of the
highly cultured, differed essentially from the ordinary language
of the common people. Interested in this higher artistic language
alone, Lachmann applied the whole force of his incomparable
sagacity to its restoration in its original purity and to giving each
and every individual Middle High German poet his due. The dialects
of the common people had no attraction for him nor for many others :
they were regarded as ordinary and crude, and wherever they cropped
out occasionally in literature, they were looked upon as disturbing
intruders.

It is scarcely astonishing that in the light of such an attitude the
scientific study of German dialects of the middle as well as of the
modern period should have been neglected so long, in spite of the
brilliant labors with which Johann Andreas Schmeller inaugurated
this discipline at an early time. The reaction, however, was bound to
come, and it did come, even before Lachmann 's death, from the
philological side. For it was discovered that in the poetic literature
from Middle German territory, to which but little attention had
formerly been paid, dialectical material plays an entirely different role
from the one it plays in the classical poetic productions of Upper Ger-
many upon which Lachmann based his theories. His doctrine of the
unity of the Middle High German language, at least in its strict inter-

RELATIONS OF GERMAN LINGUISTICS 283

pretation, thereby received its deathblow, and it could be saved only
in somewhat modified form for a portion of Middle High German
literature, to be sure, however, the most valuable part. But here
again contradiction soon set in, plainly influenced by the higher
value that linguistics ascribed to the dialects as such, since these
very dialects furnished more suitable and accordingly more valuable
material for their special purposes of investigation. Thus Hermann
Paul taught that in the middle period of German there was no artistic
language of poetry differing in principle from the dialects. He stated
that no poet hesitated to make use of his own dialect, and claimed
that the small number of differentiated dialectical forms to be found
in the classical poetry of Upper Germany, or more especially in the
rimes of the poets, was due to the fact that the separation into dia-
lects in Upper Germany had not at that time advanced far enough
to leave plain traces behind in the technique of rime. ;.

Thus another extreme view was established and occasion furnished
for a lively and protracted controversy between the two camps, of
which one exaggerated the philological and the other the linguistic
elements.

In the end neither of the extreme views was accepted in its en-
tirety, but, as in so many other cases, the truth was found on middle
ground. The partial agreement that has been secured in this import-
ant question is the happy consummation of the satisfactory settle-
ment reached between philology and linguistics, especially through
the model labors of Carl Kraus and Konrad Zwierzina. Both of these
investigators proceeded, to be sure, from the strictly philological
side, but, on the other hand, in explaining complicated conditions,
they have not disdained the aid given by modern dialectology. We
may, therefore, now regard it as certain, that the Middle High
German poets of the classical period were really no mere naturalists
so far as their language was concerned. Their idioms were real artistic
dialects, only in a different sense from that of Lachmann. Nor can
we any longer speak of a ruling unity, but only of more or less strik-
ing resemblances; and the degree of these resemblances depends
primarily upon the relationship of those dialects to which the various
poets belong. The languages employed by the poets, accordingly,
also rest upon the dialects, but the poets do not present these dialects
in their entire purity, inasmuch as they are prone to omit all forms
that would appear too strange to the auditor speaking another
dialect. The artistic character of the languages employed by the
various Middle High German poets is therefore mainly negative,
consisting rather in the avoidance of what is not regarded as gen-
erally accepted than in the inclusion of linguistic forms from an-
other dialect for the sake of unity. It cannot, of course, be denied that
there is a certain tendency toward generalization even under these

284 GERMANIC LANGUAGES

conditions, which beside the knowledge of neighboring idioms pre-
supposes also a conscious regard for the linguistic sense of foreign
individualities. Indeed, in some respects a positive departure from
the every-day speech of the home must be admitted especially in the
regulation of the vowels of unaccented syllables, upon the study of
which sufficient stress has not been laid in the past. At all events,
we are dealing not with a definitely established attempt at adjust-
ment, but rather with one that was actively at work in Middle
High German times and that has not ceased even in our day, although
for centuries, in conscious struggle against the constantly outcropping
dialects, unceasing efforts have been directed towards the real uni-
fication of the new artistic language, which we have come to call the
New High German literary language.

My present task does not call for a more detailed description of
this infinitely complicated process. I must content myself with
having indicated, by the aid of an example selected at random, how
philology and linguistics have had to learn, one from the other, in
order to clear up the historical development of a considerable pro-
vince of the German language, namely, the subsidiary forms employed
in literature. On the whole, the philological viewpoint has unques-
tionably vindicated itself, as is readily understood if we recollect that
we are dealing with the history of more or less artificially developed
idioms. But there are reasonable grounds for doubting whether
without the opposition of German linguistics — which demanded a
new and thorough investigation of the entire problem — German
philology would have succeeded in freeing itself so quickly and so
completely from the ban of the old inherited doctrines that were
accepted without the slightest attempt to establish their correctness.
In this regard German philology, therefore, owes a debt of gratitude
to German linguistics, just as the latter is indebted to the former
for the impulse given in the struggle to correct its conceptions about
language-development in general.

We may admit that the service which linguistics has rendered
philology in the solution of the problem of the literary language has
been in part rather indirect or negative in character. Nevertheless,
positive assistance has been rendered at this point just as it has in
the influence of linguistics in other places, which I cannot discuss
here, and we may anticipate a continuation of this attitude in the
future. Indeed, unless I am greatly mistaken, linguistics will be called
upon to place at the disposal of philology in one of its most special
fields of activity, that of critical separation, new aids of fairly sweep-
ing importance.

The assimilation of the ideas which Karl Verner's pioneer investi-
gations of Germanic word-accent had brought to linguistics, has
claimed the attention of students of language for a considerable

RELATIONS OF GERMAN LINGUISTICS 285

period, and thereby turned their attention more or less away from
a similarly energetic investigation of sentence-accent, which is no less-
important. Only in recent times have more determined efforts been
made to solve the problems of sentence-rhythm and of sentence-
melody, or, to be even more general, of language-rhythm and lan-
guage-melody. Although we may not have advanced beyond the
initial stages in this particular field, it at least seems certain that
the key to the understanding of these language-phenomena has been
discovered.

All this, to be sure, most directly concerns linguistics. Yet these
more recent investigations of accent assume added significance
when we recall that the individual speaker — especially if he be an
author, and no matter whether he be writing in verse or prose — is
under the ban of certain rhythmic-melodic conceptions, which un-
consciously influence his choice of expressions. This influence is so
strong that an author's individual production, often even his entire
work, assumes a more or less plain, yet easily recognizable character-
istic rhythmic-melodic impress. In language-melody especially, the
personal peculiarity of the individual author usually finds clear and
definite expression, and it therefore becomes an important factor
in the separation of unrelated portions of a preserved text. Per-
sonal observation conducted along these lines for several years con-
vinces me that there is no phase of philological criticism which may
not receive new light from this source, whether we are dealing with the
selection of different versions of a text and the accurate determin-
ation of linguistic and metrical forms or with the most complicated
problems of higher criticism. The methods to be employed in the
investigation and application of the individual rhythmic-melodic
standards are difficult indeed and have been determined only in
small measure. Years will no doubt pass by before empirical proof
of the validity of this thesis can be established in detail. Yet even at
this day we may express the fond hope that the evidence will be forth-
coming, thus proving anew that philology and linguistics will attain
the best results only if they advance faithfully hand in hand towards
the solution of common problems.

PROBLEMS IN COMPARATIVE GERMANIC PHILOLOGY

BY HERMANN COLLITZ

[Hermann Collitz, Professor of Comparative Philology and German, Bryn Mawr
College, b. February 4, 1855, Bleckede, Hannover, Germany. Graduated from
the Gymnasium Johanneum at Luneburg, 1875; Post-graduate, University of
Gottingen, 1875-79; University of Berlin, 1879-82; A.M. and Ph.D. University
of Gottingen, 1879. Privat-docent in Sanskrit and Comparative Philology,
University of Halle, 1885-86; Associate Professor, Bryn Mawr, 1886-97.
Member of American Dialect Society, Goethe Gesellschaft, American Oriental
Society, Litauische Literarische Gesellschaft, and many others. Author of
numerous articles and books in German and English. Associate Editor of Modem
Language Notes.]

LIKE other branches of philology, and in fact almost every line of
human knowledge, the study of the so-called " Modern Languages "
has arisen from humble beginnings, and has originally served purely
practical purposes. A characteristic feature, however, of the study of
modern languages lies in the fact that it seems to experience greater
difficulty than any other branch of philology in outgrowing the ele-
mentary stage. It derives its origin from the desire to acquire a living
language for the sake of conversation or correspondence, or in order
to be able to peruse literary works written in that language. The aim
of the study, accordingly, was the practical command of the language
in question, and to this very day it seems to be the prevalent opinion
in England and the United States that, as regards the study of French
and German, our colleges and universities have done their duty, if
they convey to their students a practical command of these two
languages.

Under these circumstances stress must be laid on the fact that
this popular view entirely misses the real object of modern philology.
We shall have to say that a modern language, no less than any other
language, becomes an object of scientific research only after the
practical acquirement of the language has been accomplished, and
that, on the other hand, for the purpose of research work in case of
a modern language, no greater amount of practical knowledge is
required than, for example, in case of Latin, or Greek, or Sanskrit.
There is, for instance, no reason why a scholar who has little or no
practice in German conversation should not furnish valuable con-
tributions to the history of the German language.

I am making this statement, not in order to recommend a super-
ficial acquisition of German, — for a thorough practical knowledge
of the language certainly remains desirable, — but in order to empha-
size the necessity not to lose sight of the higher aims of the study
of living languages. From this point of view I should say that it is

PROBLEMS IN GERMANIC PHILOLOGY 287

essential to regard every modern language as a product of historical
growth, or, in other words, of evolution; to investigate the relation
which exists between the "modern" shape of a language, and its
earlier stages, and to trace the connection, if it can be traced, bet ween
the development of the language (in its various stages) and the his-
tory of the people by whom the language is spoken. From Modern
German we have to turn to Middle High German and Old High
German and further to the Primitive Germanic and the Indo-
European period. We ask what changes the German language has
undergone from one epoch to another and try to explain the evolution
of the language in connection with the changes which have occurred
in the literary, social, and political life of the German people.

Needless to say that from our standpoint the traditional distinction
between "modern" and "ancient" languages is of little consequence.
For languages like Middle High German, Old High German, Anglo-
Saxon, etc., are dead languages, just as much, or even more than
Latin and Greek. And yet the study of these languages cannot be
separated from that of Modern German, English, or Norse, any
more than it is possible to understand (scientifically) the modern
Romance languages without reference to Latin. Nor are we justified
in calling, for example, Latin as contrasted with German an " ancient "
language. German, if traced back to the Indo-European parent
speech and regarded as a language gradually transformed from what
it was at that early period, is scarcely less ancient than Latin. The
customary distinction between ancient and modern languages is
simply a remnant from the elementary stage of modern philology.
But I am spending perhaps too much time in trying to refute popular
misconceptions, which are not shared by representative scholars in
philology. Let us, therefore, take up some questions, which cannot
be said to lie so much in the beaten path as the preceding remarks.

Historical grammar cannot expect to accomplish its task suffi-
ciently by paying attention to the earlier stages of the present lan-
guages, only so far as these stages have been handed down in literary
works. In the case, for example, of Modern German it is true that we
are able to trace its history back more than one thousand years by
the aid of Middle and Old High German. But we must not overlook
the fact that our records of Old and Middle High German are incom-
plete. Not all of the dialects existing at those periods are represented
in what remains of Old and Middle High German literature, and
it would be erroneous to believe that even in the most favorable
instances (say, for example, in the case of Otfried's language in Old
High German or that of the Swabian poets in Middle High German)
we possessed the vocabulary or the grammar of a single dialect
completely. Difficulties increase when we attempt to throw light on
the history of the German language in the period preceding the Old

288 GERMANIC LANGUAGES

High German time. Here direct tradition abandons us almost
entirely. For the Gothic language, the first Germanic language to
receive — by the translation of the Bible — a written literature, is
obviously not the direct ancestor of Old High German. It is at this
point that the comparative study of the Germanic languages has
come to our aid.

The close relationship existing between the various Germanic
languages and dialects necessarily presupposes an epoch in which
there was found, instead of the various dialects, only one more or less
uniform language. This is the language which we designate by terms
like "Early Germanic" or "Early Teutonic," or "Primitive Teu-
tonic." I have said that this language was "more or less" uniform.
It is a well-known fact that dialectical variation is inseparable from
the life of languages, and it would be erroneous to imagine that there
had ever existed in the history of the Teutonic languages a period of
absolute uniformity. But it is also a fact that, the further we follow
the development of the Teutonic dialects back into the past, the
more we notice the dialectic varieties, on which their difference at
present rests, diminishing. We therefore arrive, almost necessarily,
at a period when every one of these dialectic varieties is reduced to
uniformity. How then can we reconcile this apparent contradiction?

In addition to dialectic variation we find in the life of languages
a process which we may call dialectic convergence. We find, in other
words, that certain changes, which at first are individual or local,
gradually spread over a larger area and finally are universally adopted.
It is possible, therefore, that dialectic variations may have existed in
cases in which we now find in all of the Germanic languages a uniform
transformation of certain Indo-European sounds, while we naturally
would ascribe to Early Germanic the uniform sound found at present
(or at the beginning of our direct historical tradition).

The fact that dialectic changes always spread gradually must
account for another line of differences that we neglect in reconstruct-
ing a uniform Germanic period. There are many instances where the
Old Germanic dialects differ in this way, that one or some of them
preserve a sound in its oldest form, while in others the sound has been
altered. We take it for granted that Early Teutonic possessed in most
cases the sound in its oldest form, while of course the possibility
always exists that the dialectic variation reaches back in its begin-
nings into the Primitive Teutonic period.

We may have to admit then that the uniform " Early Germanic "
period which we reconstruct has probably never existed precisely in
this form. Yet we shall maintain that there was in the life of the
Germanic languages a period exhibiting very nearly the form of
speech which we call Early Germanic, and that our mistake consists
at the utmost in ascribing to one and the same age the features which

PROBLEMS IN GERMANIC PHILOLOGY 289

actually belonged to consecutive periods, periods, however, not far
distant in time.

The attempts systematically to restore the Early Germanic period
are of rather recent date. However valuable the services are which
Jakob Grimm in his Deutsche .Grammatik (that is, "Germanic"
Grammar, not "German" Grammar) has rendered to Germanic
philology, there was no attempt on Grimm's part to restore the Early
Germanic period or any other of the lost periods in the history of the
Germanic languages. He has been satisfied in his great work with
giving parallel grammars of the principal Germanic languages,
especially those which have served as literary languages. And
nothing more could we expect at Grimm's time, since at that period,
even in comparative Indo-European philology, no attempt had been
made to reconstruct the Indo-European parent speech. It was
reserved for August Schleicher to urge for the first time the necessity
of reducing the various Indo-European languages to a common
basis which he called the " Indogermanische Grundsprache." Now
Schleicher might have been expected to apply this point of view
to the Germanic languages, and to try to reconstruct in his Com-
pendium l the Primitive Teutonic grammar. Schleicher indeed men-
tions here and there the " Deutsche Grundsprache." Actually, how-
ever, with him as with his predecessors, the Gothic language has to
serve as representative of the earliest period of the Germanic languages.

Yet the course taken by Schleicher for the Indo-European natur-
ally led to attempting the same for the Germanic languages, and
when in 1870 in his preface to a reprint of Grimm's grammar,2
Wilhelm Scherer stated that to adapt Grimm's work to the needs of
our time would mean first to reconstruct the Germanic parent
speech, he probably voiced an opinion which was gradually becoming
' more general among philologists.

There followed, a year afterwards, an attempt to reconstruct the
Early Germanic vocabulary, by a scholar whose work in Indo-
European lexicology forms a counterpart of Schleicher's work in
Indo-European grammar. I am referring to August Fick's Compar-
ative Dictionary of the Indo-European Languages, which in the second
edition (Gottingen, 1871) contains a comprehensive chapter on the
Germanic vocabulary.3 It is not a mere accident that the recon-

1 Schleicher's Compendium der Vergleichenden Grammatik der Indogermanischen
Sprachen was first published (in two volumes) in 1861 and 1862.

3 Deutsche Grammatik, von Jakob Grimm. Erster Teil. Neuer vennehrter
Abdruck. Berlin, 1870. The reference is to p. xxvii.

3 Vergleichendes Worterbuch der indogermanischen Sprachen, von Aug. Tick.
2 Aufl., Gottingen, 1871. ("Zum Wortschatz der germanischen Spracheinheit,"
pp. 685-924.) As regards the progress made in Fick's dictionary in the method
of reconstruction I may refer to my review of the fourth edition in American
Journal of Philology, vol. xn (1891), pp. 293-309. This subject as well as similar
historical and methodological questions has also been touched upon in my review
of Paul's Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, in the Modern Languages Notes,
vol. vni (1893), nos. 2, 3, and 4.

290 GERMANIC LANGUAGES

struction began with the vocabulary. For it is obvious that the
vocabulary of the Gothic language, consisting, as it does, almost
exclusively of words contained in our fragments of the translation of
the Gothic Bible, must contain more gaps than the Gothic grammar,
and cannot therefore be regarded as representative of the Early
Germanic period. In the third edition of Fick's Comparative Diction-
ary (in 1874), the Germanic vocabulary appeared in enlarged form as
a separate volume. The author this time availed himself of the assist-
ance of Adalbert Bezzenberger, who in an appendix to the volume
also contributed a discussion of some phonetic problems of the
"Germanische Grundsprache." Many other contributions towards
restoring this "Grundsprache" have since followed, of which it may
suffice to mention here the systematic works by Kluge (in Paul's
Grundriss),1 Noreen,2 Streitberg,3 and Bethge (in Dieter's Laut-und
Formenlehre) .*

While Jakob Grimm and his immediate successors were inclined to
judge the Early Germanic period almost exclusively by the standard
of Gothic, there has been during the last thirty years an increasing
tendency to discredit in this respect the reliability of Gothic and to
lay stress on alleged earlier features preserved in Old Norse, Anglo-
Saxon, Old High German, and other Old Germanic dialects. No
doubt formerly the authority of the Gothic language was in some
respects overrated. An obvious instance of this kind is found,
for example, in the phonetic changes which go under the name of
" Verner's Law." For it has been proved by Verner 5 that the so-
called " grammatical change " between spirant and media was found
in the Germanic parent speech and has been preserved in most of the
older Germanic dialects, while in Gothic its traces have been, at least
in the verb-system, almost entirely obliterated. In other cases, how-
ever, the testimony of the Gothic language has been, in my opinion,
rejected without sufficient reason. I am referring especially to two
phenomena; first, the alleged Early Germanic vowels e and o, in
whose place we find in Gothic (except before r and h) the vowels i and
u ; secondly, the instances in which Old Norse and the West Germanic
languages are supposed to have preserved final vowels which are not
found in Gothic.

1 Vorgeschichte der altgermanischen Diakkte, von Friedrich Kluge. Sonderabdr.
aus der 2. Aufl. von Paul's Grundriss der germanischen Philologie. Strassburg,
1897. The first edition had been published in 1889.

J Utkast till Foreldsningar i Urgermansk Judldra, av Adolf Noreen. Upsala,
1890. A German translation (with additional material), entitled Abriss der
Urgermanischen Lautlehre, has appeared, Strassburg, 1894.

* Urgermanische Grammatik, von W. Streitberg. Heidelberg, 1896.

4 Laut- und Formenlehre der Altgermanischen Dialekte, herausgegeben von Ferd.
Dieter. Leipzig, 1900. (The first half volume, containing the phonology, was
issued in 1898.)

' Zeitschr. f. vergl. Sprachf. vol. 23, p. 108 (reprinted in Karl Verner, Afhandlinger
og Breve, Copenhagen, 1903, p. 16).

PROBLEMS IN GERMANIC PHILOLOGY 291

Since both questions have a bearing on the reconstruction of the
Early Teutonic language, and since, as far as I can see, all Germanic
philologists at present agree in not admitting the primary claim of
the Gothic language, it may be worth our while to enter upon a more
detailed investigation.

Let us consider first the case of West Germanic (and Norse) e and
o. We are concerned here with the phenomena which Jakob Grimm
designated as " Vokalbrechung " (that is, vowel-fraction), namely,
with the fact that the Gothic vowels i and u are frequently repre-
sented by e and o in the other Germanic languages, as,

Goth, niman, nimi]>, nimam.

O. H. G. neman, nimit, nemam; or,

Goth, hulpun, hulpans.

O. H. G. hulfun, gi-holfan.

Jakob Grimm took it for granted that Gothic in these cases
exhibited the older forms and that the vowels e and o, found in Old
High German and the other Germanic dialects, were of a more recent
date. He was unable, however, to say why in some cases i and u
were retained and in other cases altered in West Germanic and Old
Norse. The credit of furnishing a satisfactory explanation of the
" Brechung " belongs to Adolf Holtzmann, who in 1841 l explained the
change as a form of " Umlaut," depending on the vowel of the next
syllable. Gothic i and u remain unchanged before syllables containing
the vowel i or u, but they are changed to e and o before syllables
containing a or o or one of the diphthongs ai and au. Therefore Goth.
nimfy, filu, budun, hulpun = O. H. G. nimit, filu, butun, hulfun; but
Goth, niman, budans, hulpans — O. H. G. neman, gi-botan, gi-holfan.
Only before n + Cons., the Gothic vowels remain unchanged also
in the other Germanic languages, e. g. Goth, bindan, bundun, bundans
= O. H. G. bintan, buntun, gi-buntan.

This simple rule explains the change between i and e and between
u and o in the verb completely, with the exception of one case which
I shall mention later on. As regards the declension, the rule cannot
be applied without assuming a number of secondary changes due
to analogy. Yet the number of exceptions is not greater than with
the other theories that have been advanced in order to explain the
phenomena of "Brechung."

This "a-Umlaut" is, in Holtzmann's opinion, the oldest kind of
"Umlaut" (i. e. mutation) found in the Germanic languages. He
further remarks that the a after liquids in final syllables does not
affect the stem-vowel. The o in O. H. G. fogal is not due to the

1 Holtzmann's article Ueber den Umlaut appeared first in the Heidelberger
Jahrbilcher, and was later on published as a separate pamphlet. His views are
more easily accessible in his Audeutsche Grammatik, Leipzig, 1870.

292 GERMANIC LANGUAGES

following a of the O. H. G. word, but it is derived from forms which
have also in Gothic the vowel a or o in the final syllable, e. g. Gothic
fuglos = O. H. G. fogala.

Holtzmann's theory had been almost universally accepted when
towards the end of the sixties the discovery of the "European e"1
put a sudden stop to it. Holtzmann as well as Grimm — and, in
fact, philologists of their time generally — were of the opinion that
the Germanic languages possessed originally, like the Sanskrit, only
three short vowels a, i, and u, and had remained, as regards their
vowel-system, in an earlier stage of development than, e. g. Greek
and Latin. But now it was shown that, e. g. the i in Goth, niman,
was not directly derived from the a of Sanskr. namdmi, but corre-
sponded more nearly to the e in Greek vefjua, and that the i in Goth.
itan had passed through the stage of the e, as seen in Greek ISa>, Lat.
edo, etc. Nothing more natural than to assume that the forms to be
presupposed for Goth, niman or itan had been retained in O. H. G.
neman and ezzan.

The latter opinion has remained to the present day the current
view in Germanic philology, and hence the Gothic vowel-system is
generally believed to be in many respects more recent than that of
the other Germanic languages. For we should have to infer that, e. g.
Modern German words like nehmen, essen, would still exhibit earlier
vowels than the corresponding verbs in Gothic. A theory leading to
such consequences could not have attempted to rival Holtzmann's
view, were it not that the latter has failed to explain an important
exception, in which apparently i is found as a regular vowel of
"ablaut" before a following a. In attempting to prove, there-
fore, that Holtzmann's hypothesis is correct and preferable to the
current view, it will not suffice to show that this hypothesis is not
necessarily in conflict with the " European e," but we shall have to
account also for the exception which Holtzmann has left unexplained.

As regards the European e, the inference on our part of course is
that forms like Goth, niman, itan, have passed through the stage of
* neman, *etan. The transition, however, from e to i has taken place
in the Primitive Teutonic period. Old High German itself, as well as
the other Old Germanic languages, presupposes forms like niman,
itan. This is shown by the fact that under favorable conditions, i. e.
without a following vowel or when followed by one of the two vowels
i or u, the i appears also in Old High German (e.g. nimis, nimit) . Only
in case the next syllable contained an a or o, or one of the diphthongs
ai or em, this i became e through a-Umlaut.

Parallel to the relation of i to e is in the Germanic languages that
of u to o. In some respects, however, the matter is somewhat simpler

1 As regards the discovery of the European e, compare especially F. Bechtol, Die
Hauptprobleme der indogermanischen Lautlehre seit Schleicher, Gottingen, 1892.

PROBLEMS IN GERMANIC PHILOLOGY 293

in the case of the latter vowels, and I consider it therefore advisable
first to examine the relation between u and o before proceeding
further with the i and e. Germanic u is of twofold origin, because it
corresponds (1) to Indo-European u, e. g. in the preterite plural and
past participle of the second ablaut-series, i. e. in forms like Goth.
budun, budans. Also in words like juk "yoke," ufar "over," etc.
(2) Another u is developed before or after syllabic liquids or corre-
sponds to an Indo-European weak vowel. Here belong the u found
in the third and fourth ablaut-series, e. g. Goth, hulpun, hulpans,
O. H. G. wirtun (= Mod. Ger. wurderi), Goth, numans ; and the u
of nouns like Goth, wulfs "wolf," hund "hundred," guma "man,"
and many others.

Both varieties are treated in the Germanic languages in exactly
the same manner. In Gothic they both remain u, except before
r and h, where they are changed (or "broken" according to Grimm's
terminology) to a vowel which was probably pronounced o, but,
curiously enough, is spelled au, e. g. Goth, waur^un (=Mod. Ger.
ivurderi), tauhun (=Mod. Ger. zogen). In Old High German both
are treated in accordance with Holtzmann's rule, e. g. zugun, gi-
zogan; wurtun, gi-wortan.

The twofold origin then of the Germanic u stands in no connection
with its twofold form (u and o) in the Germanic languages. And
there is no reason why we should not regard the u of Goth, juk as
identical with that of Lat. jugum, Greek £vyov, Sanskr., yugam.
The o, therefore, of O. H. G. joch must be regarded as a later sub-
stitute for the Gothic vowel.

As regards the relation between u and o in Germanic, the opinion
advocated here is probably the one which is at present shared by
the majority of scholars. It is true that here and there we still meet
with the doctrine of an Early Germanic o, preserved in West Germanic
and changed in Gothic to u. This doctrine, however, finds no support
in the u- and o- vowels themselves, but is based on the parallelism
of the i- and e- vowels; the supposition being that if 0. H. G.
e is older than Goth, i, it would seem rational to regard O. H. G.

0 as older than Goth. u. I am for my part willing to admit that
the vowels e and o in West Germanic are strictly parallel. But the
conclusion I would draw from this fact is a different one. If it is
possible to regard West Germanic o as a more recent vowel than the
Goth, u, the problem may be solved by regarding West Germanic
e as more recent than the Goth. i. Let us return then to the vowels

1 and e, in order to see whether the latter theory can be sustained.

Like Goth, u, Goth, i also has a double origin; for it corresponds
(1) to Indo-Eur. i in the preterite plural and past participle of
the first ablaut-series, e. g. Goth, bitun, bitans, and in words like
i-s "he" = Lat. is, fisks = Lat. piscis, widuwo — Lat. vidua; (2) to

294 GERMANIC LANGUAGES

Indo-Eur. e in the infinitive and present of the third, fourth, and fifth
ablaut-series, as well as in the past participle of the fifth ablaut-series,
e. g. Goth, bindan, niman, ga-nisan, binda, nima, ga-nisa, ga-nisans.
Also in words like ifc=Lat. ego, /iw/=Gr. WI/TC, and many others.

As far as Gothic alone is concerned, no difference is perceptible
between the two varieties. They are treated exactly alike and are,
e. g. both changed to ai (probably a peculiar spelling for e, suggested
by the later Greek pronunciation of the diphthong at) before r and
h; e. g. taihun, preterite plural, and taihans, past participle of teihan
"to declare," bairan "to bear," faihu = Ger. Vieh, etc.

So far, then, the vowels i and u would appear to be parallel. There
remains, however, in Old High German and in other Old Germanic
dialects one peculiar instance, — the one I have had to mention
above as an unexplained exception from Holtzmann's rule, — in
which the distinction between Indo-Eur. i and e appears to have
been preserved. We find in Old High German in the past participle
of the fifth ablaut-series the vowel e instead of Goth, i, e. g. gi-
nesan = Goth, ga-nisans. This e is regular and in accordance with
Holtzmann's rule. In the past participle of the first ablaut-series,
however, Goth, i remains unchanged in Old High German, con-
trary to Holtzmann's rule; e. g. gi-bizzan = Goth, bitans. Since in
the former case we find in the cognate Indo-European languages
the vowel e ( = Sanskr. a) , e. g. Greek vfo^ai, Sanskr. nasate, and
in the latter case the vowel i, e. g. Lat. findo, Sanskr. bhid, it looks,
indeed, as if here an Indo-European distinction had been preserved.

Let us grant for a moment that Old Norse and the West Germanic
languages, as whose representative we have selected Old High German ,
are sensitive enough to distinguish before an a of the following
syllable between Gothic i = Indo-Eur. e and Goth, i = Indo-Eur.
i. How shall we account for the fact that the same disinction is in
other, and, it would seem, quite similar cases utterly lacking? The
preterite present verb O. H. G. weiz = Goth, wait follows the first
ablaut-series in forming the past participle, gi-wizzan, and retains
the vowel i also in the infinitive, wizzan, and the present participle,
wizzaidi. The preterite, however, shows in addition to wissa (also
wista) the form wessa (and westa). Nouns like O. H. G. nest = Lat.
nidus (Indo Eur. ni-sdo-s), O. H. G. wer = Lat. vir (Sanskr.
vira-s), furnish additional proof that Holtzmann's rule applies to
Indo-Eur. i no less than to Indo-Eur. e.

It follows that the exception from Holtzmann's rule, found informs
like gi-bizzan, gi-wizzan, etc., must be explained without regard to
the Indo-European distinction between i and e. The line, moreover,
on which the explanation is to be sought is clearly indicated by
other Old High German forms. Of the preterite present verb bi-darf
we find in Old High German the infinitive bi-durfan, whose irregular

PROBLEMS IN GERMANIC PHILOLOGY 295

u (instead of o) is clearly due to the plural bi-durfun and the subjunc-
tive bi-durfi. The i, therefore, of the infinitive wizzan may be ex-
plained as due to the plural wizzun and the subjunctive wizzi, an
explanation which we shall naturally also apply to the participles
wizzanti and gi-wizzan. Granted that gi-wizzan is due to the analogy
of the plural wizzun and the subjunctive wizzi, the explanation of the
participle gi-bizzan can no longer be doubtful. Its i is due to the
analogy of the plural bizzun and the subjunctive bizzi.

But why should in the first ablaut-series the participle gi-bizzan
adopt the vowel of the preterite plural bizzun, while in the second
ablaut-series the participle gi-wortan is not influenced by the plural
wurtun? I believe that I am able to give a satisfactory answer to this
question, and I think that the answer, if it be correct, will prove to
be of some interest, as it would lead to the result that to a certain
extent analogical changes depend on definite laws just as much as
phonetic changes.

We are concerned in the case under discussion with a law which
regulates the ablaut in West Germanic (or more precisely in Norse
and West Germanic) in such a way as to require a harmony or an
equal balance between the grade of the infinitive or the present tense
and that of the past participle. We may say in a general way that
Holtzmann's rule does not affect the past participle, unless it can
affect also the infinitive and certain forms of the present tense. To
be sure, if we adopt this wording we shall have to except the cases
in which the infinitive and present are formed with the suffix -/-
(e. g. O. H. G. sitzan, "to sit"), since these particular presents
have no effect on the past participle. We have to remember, how-
ever, that the suffix j is found only with verbs whose preterite
plural has the vowel e or o, so that an analogical influence of this
vowel on that of the past participle would be out of question. But
in order to avoid exceptions of this kind it is preferable to restrict
our law to those ablaut-series in which we have in Gothic (and in
Primitive Teutonic) one and the same vowel in the preterite plural
and the past participle, i. e. to the first, second f and third series.
The law then may be formulated thus: (t Wherever the preterite
plural and the past participle had originally one and the same vowel
admitting of the application of Holtzmann's rule, this rule has taken
effect only when it could also affect the infinitive and the plural of
the present tense. If, however, the present tense shows in the plural
the same vowel as in the singular and in the infinitive, the past
participle will retain the vowel of the preterite plural and not be
modified by Holtzmann's rule."

From our point of view, then, we shall divide the first three ablaut-
series into two groups, which may be distinguished as simple and
complex forms of ablaut.

296 GERMANIC LANGUAGES

To the former belong: (1) the first ablaut-series, e. g. O. H. G.
infinitive, bizzan, present singular, bizzu, plural, bizzum; preterite
singular, beiz, plural, bizzum, participle, gi-bizzan. (2) The verbs
with nasal + cons, of the third ablaut series, e. g. O. H. G. bintan,
bintu, bintam, bant, buntum, gibuntan. The verbs of this class are
of course excepted from Holtzmann's rule for the reason that this
rule does not apply to vowels followed by nasal cons. They belong,
however, in this connection, since they would naturally affect ana-
logical tendencies in the general system of the ablaut.

The second group consists of (1) the second ablaut-series, e. g.
O. H. G. infinitive, ziohan, present singular, ziuhu, plural, zioham,
preterite singular, zoch, plural, zugum, participle, gi-zogan. (2) The
verbs with liquid + cons, of the third ablaut-series, e. g, O. H. G.
werdan, wirdu, werdam, ward, wurtum, giwortan.

If I have succeeded in removing the obstacles which seemed to be
in the path of Holtzmann's rule concerning the West Germanic e,
we are entitled to maintain that in regard to the vowels of radical
syllables the Gothic vocalism may on the whole be regarded as re-
presentative of the Primitive Teutonic period. I venture to believe
that many of my colleagues will share with me a feeling of relief on
account of the fact that we are no longer obliged to regard the simple
and perspicuous vowel-system of the Gothic language as a second-
ary outgrowth of the complicated vocalism of the West Germanic
languages.

Our attempt to sustain, with regard to radical syllables, the pri-
mary claim of the Gothic language, will find an appropriate supple-
ment in the contention that with final syllables matters are similar in
that here, too, the Gothic language deserves to be reinstated in the
position which it formerly held.

It is little more now than half a century ago that Rudolph West-
phal 1 succeeded in discovering the laws on which in Gothic the treat-
ment of vowels and consonants in final syllables depends. As regards
the vowels his opinion may briefly be stated thus, that in final syllables
original short a and short i are lost, while short u remains. For ex-
ample, in the a-declension Goth, wulfs =Sanskr. vrka-s, Gr. XV'KO-S, and
in the t-declension, Goth. goste=Lat. hostis; but in the w-declension
Goth. swrms=Sanskr. sunu-s. It is scarcely necessary to add that,
in Westphal's opinion, Gothic was the oldest representative of the
Germanic languages, and that the vowels lost in Gothic were lost also
in the other Old Germanic dialects. For about twenty years these
views remained unchallenged. *They were shared, e. g. by Wilhelm
Scherer in his well known Zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache

1 Das Auslautsgesetz des Gothischen, Zeitschr. fur vergl. Sprachforschung, vol. n
(1853), pp. 161-190.

PROBLEMS IN GERMANIC PHILOLOGY 297

(Berlin, 1869). Soon afterwards, however, we meet with a growing
tendency to find the vowels which are lost in Gothic still preserved
in other Old Germanic dialects, — especially Old Norse and Anglo-
Saxon, — and in the most recent works on Germanic philology the
statement is made that the original vowels of final syllables are to
a large extent preserved in the oldest Norse inscriptions, and here
and there in the old West Germanic dialects, so that Westphal's law
would be valid only for Gothic and not for the Primitive Teutonic
period.

This modern view may impress us as if it was not intended to be
taken seriously. For every one who is accustomed to look at the
various Germanic languages from a comparative point of view must
recognize that the two languages supposed to have retained most of
the original vowels are the ones in which, as a rule, final vowels are
treated more recklessly than in the other Old Germanic dialects. For
it is especially in Old Norse and in Anglo-Saxon that we observe in
final syllables the dropping of Gothic short vowels, the shortening
of Gothic long vowels, and the contraction, followed by shortening of
Gothic diphthongs. Is it credible, then, that these languages should
have retained short vowels which had been dropped in Gothic?

To be sure, the contention is that the alleged pre-Gothie vowels are
found not in regular Old Norse, but in the oldest Norse Runic inscrip-
tions, those which are supposed to exhibit the so-called "Primitive
Norse" language.1 But let us not be misled by the term " Primitive
Norse " with its suggestion of the Primitive Teutonic language. It is
true that in the oldest Runic inscriptions Old Norse appears in a more
ancient form than in the regular literary language, and the difference
in age may amount to several centuries. Yet it is hardly probable that
the language of the oldest inscriptions can be claimed to be as a whole
more ancient than, e. g. Old High German. The language of the
inscriptions points to a period when the Norse languages were no
longer in contact with Gothic, but were undergoing or rather had
undergone the same phonetic and inflectional alterations which we
are accustomed to designate as "West Germanic." We find, e. g. that
Goth, i and u have been changed before a following a (in accordance
with Holtzmann's rule) to e and o, and that the diphthongs au and ai
have been contracted to e and o respectively.

The majority of the alleged pre-Gothic vowels in "Primitive
Norse " can be divided into two groups. On the one hand, we have
the vowels which appear before the final R of the nominative, and
which are claimed as old thematic vowels. It seems to me that these

1 The more important ones of these inscriptions are given — with references —
in the Appendix of Ad. Noreen's Altisldndische u. Altnorwegische Grammatik, 2d
edition, Halle, 1892. Compare also the articles by Moebius, Zur Kenntniss der
altesten Runen, in the Zeitschr. f. vergl. Sprachf. vol. xviu (1869), and xix (1870),
and F. Burg, Die altesten nordischen Runeninschriften, Berlin, 1885.

298 GERMANIC LANGUAGES

vowels, especially the short a, which is frequently found, compare
with the secondary a of O. H. G. forms like acchar = Goth, akrs,
fogal=Goih. fugls, or e6an=Goth. ibns. The existence, in the Runic
inscriptions, of a secondary or pleonastic a must be admitted even
by the most ardent champions of their antiquity in cases like warait
(instead of wrait) "wrote," or -wolafa (instead of -wolfa) "wolf."
I trust we may be permitted to extend this theory to forms like
HoltingaR, Dagan, etc.

A second group of vowels, claimed to represent Early Teutonic
conditions, is found in final position without following R. We are
concerned here partly with a short a, supposed to have been lost in
Gothic, and partly with a long o, supposed to have been shortened
in Gothic to a. In neither case have I been able to convince myself
that the claim is justified. As it would be impossible in this place to
discuss the whole question at length, I will at least briefly examine,
with regard to final vowels, one of the oldest and most important
Runic inscriptions, namely, that of the golden horn of Gallehus or
Tondern. This inscription, I trust, will suffice for our purposes, con-
taining, as it does, examples for the various categories indicated
above. The inscription reads:

Ek HlewagastiR HoltingaR horna tawido, i. e. " I Liugast the Holt-
ing have made the horns."

In Holtingas " the Holting " (i. e. either the son of Holt, or coming
from a place called Holt) , we have a typical example of the alleged
thematic a. I prefer, as I have said before, to regard the a as a second-
ary vowel, developed from the voice of the sonant R. It would amount
to nearly the same if we said that the a serves as a glide from the con-
sonant group ng to the final R.

It is hardly possible to make so definite a statement in regard to the
i in HlewagastiR. Our first impression, no doubt, is that here and in
the form SaligastiR, found in another Runic inscription, the form
-gastiR corresponds exactly to Lat. hostis, and preserves in its final
syllable the vowel lost in Goth, gasts. This naturally was the opinion
of the Norse scholars, to whom we are indebted for the theory of pre-
Gothic vowels on the Norse Runic inscriptions, a theory which in the
first place was based on the form -gastiR, of the golden horn. When
many years ago, through my late friend, Hoffory, I became first
acquainted with the oldest Norse inscriptions, it was again the form
-gastiR which appeared to me to form the most convincing proof for
his contention that the language of some of the Runic inscriptions
was more ancient (if not in date, at least in its grammatical condition)
than Gothic. In the mean time, I have often had an opportunity to
study the Runic inscriptions again, and the more I have become
familiar with them, the more I have lost my faith in their alleged pre-
Gothic character. One after the other the forms which were claimed

PROBLEMS IN GERMANIC PHILOLOGY 299

to be remnants from the Primitive Teutonic period appeared to yield
more naturally to a different explanation, until -gastiR remained as the
only instance in which there is at least the semblance of greater
antiquity than in the corresponding Gothic form. I have no doubt,
then, that in this case, too, appearances are deceptive; and whether
or not we are able to explain the -4- with certainty: we are hardly
warranted in ascribing, on account of this form, a Primitive Teutonic
character to the language of the Runic inscriptions.

For the present I would suggest the following explanation. It is
perhaps not necessary to identify -gastiR with Goth, gasts. We must
remember that -gastiR only occurs as the second member of com-
pounds, and that compounds belonging to i-stems sometimes follow
the ja-declension. To be sure, Gothic has no compounds in -gasteis,
but it has, e. g. the adjectives af-haimeis and ana-haimeis belonging
to the t-stem haims. If this explanation be correct, Runic -gastiR
would be in Latin not hostis, but * -hostius.

The next form to claim our attention is the accusative horna, which
I have translated by the plural "horns," while it is generally regarded
as a singular, corresponding to Gothic haurn. But we must remember
that near Gallehus not one, but two, golden horns were found. Both
were adorned with figures in the same style, and evidently belonged
together, but only one of them had an inscription. Hence the inscrip-
tion was probably meant for both horns. There may have been three
horns originally, intended perhaps to decorate the wall of a festival
hall in such a way that the larger one — with the inscription — hung
in the middle, and a slightly smaller one on each side. But even if the
number amounted from the outset to not more than two, the artist
might have spoken of them as " the horns." There is no reason, then,
to regard horna as a pre-Gothic form, since the nominative-accusative
plural of haurn in Gothic is haurna.

Finally we have to examine the preterite tawido, a form which in my
opinion sheds a clearer light on the language of these inscriptions than
any one of the words with which we have concerned ourselves so far.
The current interpretation is that the form tawido, which finds a
parallel in faihido and similar Runic preterites, appears as a very old
form, not only as compared with the Old Norse weak preterites in -8a,
but also as compared with the corresponding Gothic forms. As the
ending of the first person singular of the Gothic weak preterite is -da
(or in other cases -\>a and -to) , this view may seem at the first glance
unobjectionable. And yet it betrays clearly its origin from a time
when the comparative study of the Germanic languages stood in its
first tentative stages. For the ending -8a of Literary Old Norse cannot
be identified with the Gothic ending -da, because the latter would
have to appear in Old Norse as -3i. This may not only be inferred
from cases like Goth. hana=O. N. hani, Goth. fadar=*0. N. fatir,

300 GERMANIC LANGUAGES

Gothic. haitans=O. N. heitinn, but is obviously seen in the third
person singular of the weak preterite, which actually has the ending
-Hi, corresponding regularly to the Goth, third person in -da.

A better explanation both of the Runic and the literary forms of
the Norse preterite has been advanced some thirty-five years ago
by the late Professor Konr. Gislason.1 In his opinion the ending -&a
of the Old Norse preterite is to be explained from an earlier form
-dau whose diphthong finds a parallel in that of the Gothic first
person subjunctive -dedjau. The mutual relation of the vowels is
exactly the same as in the case of the numeral 8, O. N. atta =
Goth, ahtau. The ending -do of Runic forms like tawido stands
midway between the Gothic and the regular Old Norse form in that
it shows the diphthong au contracted to o, but not yet shortened to a.
The ending is in accordance, therefore, with the general character of
the language of the " Primitive Norse " inscriptions, which occupies
a position intermediate between Gothic and the language of Old
Norse literature, but at the same time shares all the characteristic
peculiarities of the Norse branch.

I have, for my part, no doubt that Gislason's theory is correct,
and have stated this many years ago.2 Finding, however, that the
authors of Old Norse and Germanic grammars and handbooks
continue to disregard Gislason's view, I may be allowed briefly to
review the points which seem to me to furnish an almost mathematical
proof of his theory.

First. The inflection in Old Norse of the weak preterite is peculiar
in that here the first person singular indicative and the third person
singular indicative have a different ending, while in Gothic, Old
High German, and, in fact, in almost every Germanic dialect (except
Old Norse) the ending of the first and third persons is the same.

Secondly. The inflection in Old Norse of the weak preterite is
further more peculiar in that the ending of the first person singular
indicative agrees with that of the first person singular subjunctive,
and the ending of the third person singular indicative with that of
the third person singular subjunctive, while in Gothic (and more or
less so in the other Germanic languages) the endings of the indicative
and the subjunctive differ both in the first and in the third person.

Thirdly. If we compare the endings of the first and third person of
the Norse preterite with those of the first and third person (indicative
and subjunctive) in Gothic, we experience no difficulty in identifying

— in accordance with the laws governing the change of final vowels

— these endings in the first person singular subjunctive and in the
third person singular indicative and subjunctive.

1 Aarboger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historic, 1869, pp. 126-130.

2 Compare my article on the origin of the weak preterite, American Journal of
Philology, vol ix (1888), p. 56.

PROBLEMS IN GERMANIC PHILOLOGY 301

If we combine these three points it follows that in the first and third
person singular the Old Norse preterite presents a mixture of indic-
ative and subjunctive endings, in such a way that in the third person
the two endings have become identical by regular phonetic trans-
formation, while in the first person the ending of the subjunctive has
been adopted for both moods.

A word remains to be said about the pre-Gothic vowels supposed
to have been retained in Anglo-Saxon. We are concerned here with
a theory advanced in an important article in the fifth volume of
Paul and Braune's Beitrdge 1 by a well-known scholar whom we are
fortunate enough to have with us at this meeting. His contention
is that original i in final syllables, which is regularly dropped in
Gothic, has been retained in Anglo-Saxon after a short stem-syllable,
while it was lost after a long stem-syllable. For example, A. S. wini,
"friend" = Goth. ga-wins, and A. S. stedi, " place "=Goth. sta^s ;
but A. S. wyrm=Goth. waurms, and A. S. giest = Goih. gasts.

1 have no objection to the fact that in Anglo-Saxon the appearance
of final i depends on the quantity of the stem-syllable. But I am not
convinced that the i contained in forms like wini, stedi, can be traced
back to the Primitive Teutonic and Indo-European periods. I rather
believe that we have here a new ending of recent date, due to the
analogy of the /a-stems. This seems apparent from the fact that the
final i of the above and of similar forms goes hand in hand with the
loss of the old i-declension and with the confusion of i- and /a-stems.
Not even to the Gothic language is this confusion entirely unknown;
but there the process is seen only in its very beginning and in the
inflection of adjectives rather than of nouns. Old High German is
less conservative than Gothic, but has kept the i- and /a-declensions
separate, at least in the case of nouns, and has accordingly introduced
forms like wini, stedi, only sparingly. Frequently, however, do forms
of this description appear in Old Saxon, where the old i-declension
is becoming extinct. In Anglo-Saxon, finally, where the last trace
of the i-declension has disappeared, the apparent preservation of
the final i has become a definite rule.

We observe in several instances that inflectional differences which
at first had nothing to do with quantity are at a later date made to
depend on the quantity of the stem-syllable. In Gothic grammar
we have, e. g. the rule that feminine /a-stems with a short stem-
syllable (like sunja, halja) have in the nominative singular the ending
-/a, while /a-stems with a long stem-syllable (like bandjd) form their
nominative in i. Yet actually we are in this case concerned with two

2 Ed. Sievers, Zur Accent- und Lautlehre der germamschen Sprachen. m Zum
vocalischen Auslautsgesetz : Beitrage zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und
Literatur, vol. v (Halle, 1878), pp. 109-163.

302 GERMANIC LANGUAGES

different inflectional classes (the ya- and the i-declension of Sanskrit
grammar), and it is obvious that the difference could not have origin-
ally depended on the quantity of the stem-syllable. I am inclined
to believe that in the West Germanic languages, especially in Anglo-
Saxon, the difference between the old i-declension and the old ja-
declension has been regulated in a similar way.

I cannot help feeling that most of the problems on which I have
touched here ought to have been discussed at greater length and
with more detail. I shall feel satisfied, however, if my remarks have
left the impression that it is worth while to examine further these
and similar questions. The comparative grammar of the Germanic
languages is still a field in which an earnest and painstaking worker
may count on a rich harvest, and I venture to hope that work in this
field will be pursued with growing interest and lasting results in the
United States.

REFERENCE WORKS ON INDO-EUROPEAN COMPAR-
ATIVE PHILOLOGY

(Prepared through the courtesy of Professor Carl D. Buck of Chicago University)

A brief list of the most important general works for the study of Indo-European
Comparative Philology in general and of the historical grammar of the several
Indo-European languages. (See also the bibliographies under the other language
sections; here are cited mainly historical grammars, etymological dictionaries,
etc.) Only the works of a more general character are mentioned, no attempt being
made to cite the countless important books and articles dealing with special
problems.

BECHTEL. Hauptprobleme der indogennanischen Lautlehre seit Schleicher.
Gottingen, 1892.

BENFEY, Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft. Munich, 1869.

BREAL, Essai de Semantique. Paris, 1897.

Semantics. Studies in the Science of Meaning. New York, 1900.

BRUGMANN-DELBRUCK, Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der indoger-
manischen Spraohen, 5 vols. Strassburg, 1886-1900. i-n (Phonology and
Morphology), by K. Brugmann; m-v (Syntax), by B. Delbriick (= Del-
briick, Vergl. Syntax, i-iu).

BRUGMANN, Kurze vergleichende Grammatik der indogennanischen Sprachen.
Strassburg, 1902-04.

DELBRUCK, Einleitung in das Studium der indogermanischen Sprachen. 4th ed.
Strassburg, 1904.

FICK, Vergleichendes Worterbuch der indogermanischen Sprachen. 4th ed. Gottin-
gen, 1890.

MEILLET, Introduction a 1'Etude Comparative des Langues Indo-Europe"ennes.
Paris, 1904.

SCHRADER, Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte. 2d ed. Jena, 1890.

Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde. Strassburg, 1901.

INDO-IRANIAN

INDIC

Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde ( = Cyclopaedia of
Indo-Aryan Research), ed. by Biihler and Kielhorn, i, Allgemeines und
Sprache. Strassburg, 1896.

DELBRUCK, Altindische Syntax. Halle, 1888.

SPEIJER, Sanskrit Syntax. Leiden, 1886.

THUMB, Handbuch des Sanskrit, i, Grammatik. Heidelberg, 1905.

UHLENBECK, Kurzgefasstes etymologisches Worterbuch der altindischen
Sprache. Amsterdam, 1898-99.

WACKERNAGEL, Altindische Grammatik. GQttingen, i, 1896, n,1905.

WHITNEY, Sanskrit Grammar. 3d ed. Leipzig, 1896.

IRANIAN

BARTHOLOMAE, Altiranisches Worterbuch. Strassburg, 1905.
Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, ed. by Geiger and Kuhn. i, Sprachge-
schichte. Strassburg, 1895-1901.

304 BIBLIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF LANGUAGES

GELDNER, Avesta, Die heiligen Biicher der Parsen. Stuttgart, 1886-95.
JACKSON, An Avesta Grammar. Part i, Stuttgart, 1892.

An Avesta Reader, First Series. Stuttgart, 1893.

ARMENIAN

HUBSCHMANN, Armenische Grammatik. Part i, Leipzig, 1897.
MEILLET, Esquisse d'une grammaire compared de 1'Arme'nien classique. Vienna,
1903.

ALBANIAN

MEYER, G., Kurzgefasste albanische Grammatik. Leipzig, 1888.

Etymologisches Worterbuch der albanesischen Sprache. Strassburg, 1891.

THE MINOR INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES OF ASIA MINOR AND
SOUTHERN EUROPE (PHRYGIAN, THRACIAN, ETC.).

KRETSCHMER, Einleitung in die Geschichte der griechischen Sprache. Gottingen,
1896.

GREEK AND LATIN

GILES, A Short Manual of Comparative Philology for Classical Students, 2d ed.

London, 1901.

HENRY, Pre'cis de grammaire compared du grec et du latin. 6th ed. Paris.
RIEMANN et GOELZER, Grammaire comparer du grec et du latin. 2 vols. Paris,

1897-1901.

GREEK

BRUGMANN, Griechische Grammatik. 3d ed. Munich, 1900.

HIRT, Handbuch der griechischen Laut und Formenlehre. Heidelberg. 1902.

MEYER, GTJSTAV, Griechische Grammatik. 3d ed. Leipzig, 1896.

BOISACQ, Dictionnaire e'tymologique du grec, Louvain [announced, but not

yet out].
KTJHNER, Ausfuhrliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache. 3d ed. Part i, 2

vols. by Blass, Part n, 2 vols. by Gerth. Hannover, 1890-1904.
JANNARIS, An historical Greek grammar. London, 1897.
PRELLWITZ, Etymologisches Worterbuch der griechischen sprache. Gottingen,

1892 [2d ed. announced].

GREEK DIALECTS

HOFFMANN, Die griechischen Dialekte, i-ui. Gottingen, 1891-1898.

MEISTER, Die griechischen Dialekte. Gottingen, 1882-89.

SMYTH, The Sounds and Inflections of the Greek Dialects. Ionic. Oxford, 1899.

COLLITZ-BECHTEL, Sammlung der griechischen Dialektinschriften. Gottingen,

1884-1905.
SOLMSEN, Inscriptiones Graecae ad inlustrandas dialectos. Leipzig, 1903.

LATIN

LINDSAY, The Latin Language. Oxford, 1894.

SOMMER, Handbuch der lateinischen Laut- und Formenlehre. Heidelberg, 1902.

STOLZ, Lateinische Grammatik. 3d ed. Munich.

Historische Grammatik der lateinischen Sprache, I. Leipzig, 1894.
BREAL ET BAILT/Y, Dictionnaire e'tymologique latin. 4th ed. Paris, 1898.
WAU>E, Lateinisches etymologisches Wdrterbuch. Heidelberg, 1905-.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF LANGUAGES 305

ITALIC DIALECTS

BUCK, A Grammar of Oscan and Umbrian. Boston, 1904.
CONWAY, The Italic Dialects. 2 vols. Cambridge, 1897.

VON PLANTA, Grammatik der oskisch-umbrischen Dialekte, 2 vols. Strassburg,
1892-97.

CELTIC

WINDISCH, Kurzgefasste irische Grammatik. Leipzig, 1879.

HOLDER, Altceltischer Sprachschatz. Leipzig, 1891-.

STOKES and STRACHAN, Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus. 2 vols. Cambridge, 1901-03.

D'ARBOIS DE JUBAINVILLE, Elements de la gratamaire celtique. Paris, 1903.

GERMANIC

Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, i, part v, Sprachgeschichte. 2d ed.

Strassburg.

STREITBERG, Urgermanische Grammatik. Heidelberg, 1895.
DIETER, Laut- und Formenlehre der altgermanischen Dialekte. Leipzig, 1900.
UHLENBECK, Kurzgefasstes etymologisches Worterbuch der gotischen Sprache.

2d ed. Amsterdam, 1900.

(For grammars of the various Germanic languages see under Sections of the
Germanic Languages, English Languages.)

BALTO-SLAVIC
BALTIC (LITHUANIAN, LETTIC, OLD PRUSSIAN)

KURSCHAT, Grammatik der littanischen Sprache. Halle, 1876.

Littanisch-deutsches Worterbuch. Halle, 1883.
SCHLEICHER, Litauische Grammatik. Prague, 1876.
WIEDERMANN, Handbuch der litauischen Sprache. Strassburg, 1897.
BIELENSTEIN, Die lettische Sprache. 2 vols. Berlin, 1863.
BERNEKER, Die preussische Sprache. Strassburg, 1896.

SLAVIC

MIKLOSICH, Vergleichende Grammatik der slavischen Sprachen. 4 vols. i and in in

2d ed. Vienna, 1874-79.

Etymologisches Worterbuch der slavischen Sprachen. Vienna, 1886.
LESKIEN, Handbuch der altbulgarischen (altkirchenslavischen) Sprache. 4th ed.

Weimar, 1905.
VONDRAK, Altkirchenslavische Grammatik. Berlin, 1900.

SPECIAL WORKS OF REFERENCE ON THE SECTION
OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES

(Prepared by the courtesy of Prof. Crawford H. Toy of Harvard University)

ARABIA

DE GOEJE, Het Vaterland d. Semiet Volken, 1882.

DE MORGAN, Recherches sur les Origines de 1'Egypte, n, pp. 219-228, 1897.

ERMAN, Flexion d. Aegypt. Verbums, in Sitzungsberichte d. Konigl. Akad. d.

Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1900, p. 350 ff.
SCHRADER, Article in Zeitschr. d. Deutschen Morgenland Gesellschaft, xxvn

(1873).
SPRENGER, Leben des Mohammad, 1861.

Alte Geographic Arabiens, 1875.
WIEDEMANN, Aegypt, Geschichte, i, p. 22.
WRIGHT, W., Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages, pp 5-9, 1890.

THE TIGRIS-EUPHRATES VALLEY

GUIDI, I., Delia sede Prim, del Popoli Semitic, 1879.
HOMMEL, F., Beitrage z. Assyriologie, n, 1891-92.

In Transactions of the International Congress of Orientalists, 1892.
VON KREMER, in Das Ausland, 1875.

AFRICA

BARTON, G. A., Sketch of Semitic Origins, 1902.

BERTIN, G., In Journ. Anth. Institute, xi.

BRINTON, Cradle of the Semites, 1890.

KEANE, Ethnology, 1896.

NOELDEKE, Article "Semitic Languages," in Encycl. Britannica, 9th ed.

PALGRAVE, Article "Arabia," in Encycl. Britannica, 9th ed.

RIPLEY, Races of Europe, 1899.

SEMITIC PERFECT AND IMPFRFECT

BERTIN, G., Studies in the Compar. Gram, of the Semitic Languages, in Journ.

Royal Asiatic Soc. xrv.
DELITZSCH, Assyrian Grammar.
HAUPT, P., Studies in the Compar. Gram, of the Semitic Languages, in Journ.

Royal Asiatic Society, x.

WRIGHT, W., Compar. Gram, of the Semitic Languages, 1890.
Hebrew Grammars of Bickell (Eng. transl. by Curtiss, 1877), Stade and Olshausen.

SPECIAL WORKS OF REFERENCE ON THE SECTION OF
INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

(Prepared through the courtesy of Prof. A. A. Macdonnell, Oxford)

DAVIDS, T. W. RHYS, Buddhism, its History and Literature. 2d ed. New York,

G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1901.
Buddhist India. London and New York, 1903.
GRIERSON, G. A., The Languages of India. Calcutta, 1903.

Linguistic Survey of India.
MACDONNELL, A. A., A History of Sanskrit Literature. London, 1900. Especially

chapters i and xvr, with the bibliography appended to these chapters.
RISLEY, H. H. and GAIT, E. A., Census of India, 1901. Vol. i, part 1, Report and

Ethnographic Appendix (part 2, Tables). Calcutta, 1903. See especially

chapter vn on Language (pp. 247-348).
TAKAKTTSTJ, J., A Record of the Buddhist Religion as practised in India and the

Malay Archipelago (A.D. 67-695). With a letter from the Right Hon. Prof. F.

Max Miiller, Oxford, 1896.
WACKERNAGEL, J., Altindische Grammatik. Gottingen, 1896. Part I, Phonology,

Introduction, pp. ix-lxiv.

WORKS OF REFERENCE ON THE SECTION OF GREEK

LANGUAGE

(Prepared through the courtesy of Prof. Herbert Weir Smyth of Harvard University).

GRAMMAR (INCLUDING GENERAL WORKS AND WORKS ON THE

DIALECTS)

AHRENS, De Graecae linguae dialectis. Gottingen, 1839-43.

BOISACQ, Les Dialectes doriens. Paris-Liege, 1891.

CURTIUS, Das Verbum der griechischen Sprache. 2d ed. Leipzig, 1877-80.
(Translated by Wilkins and England, 2d ed., London, 1883.)

HOFFMANN, Die griechischen Dialekte. 3 vols. Gottingen, 1891-98.

KRfjGER, Griechische Sprachlehre. 5th ed. Leipzig, 1862-75.

KUHNER, Ausfiihrliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache. 3d ed, by Blass
and Gerth, Hannover, 1890-1904.

MEISTER, Die griechischen Dialekte. 2 vols. Gottingen, 1882-89.

MEISTERHANS, Grammatik der attischen Inschriften. 3d ed. Berlin, 1900.

MONRO, A Grammar of the Homeric Dialect. 2d ed. Oxford, 1891.

MULLACH, Griechische Sprache und Dialekte (in Ersch und Griiber's Encyclo-
paedia).

PEZZI, La lingua greca antica. Torino, 1888.

Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt-Inschriften. Herausgegeben von Collitz und
Bechtel. Gottingen, 1884 ff.

SCHTJLZE, Quaestiones epicae. Guetersloh, 1892.

SCHWEIZER, Grammatik der pergamenischen Inschriften. Berlin, 1898.

SMYTH, The Sounds and Inflections of the Greek Dialects (Ionic). Oxford, 1894.

STEINTHAL, Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft bei den Griechen und Romern.
Berlin, 1863.

VAN LEEUWEN, Enchiridium dictionis epicae. Lugduni Batavorum, 1892-94.

GRAMMAR (FROM THE COMPARATIVE POINT OF VIEW)

BRUGMANN, Griechische Grammatik. 3d ed. Miinchen, 1900.

BRUGMANN and DELBRUCK, Grundziige der vergleichenden Grammatik der

indogermanischen Sprachen. 5 vols. Strassburg, 1890-97.
BRUGMANN, Kurze vergleichende Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen.

Strassburg, 1904.
HENRY, Pre'cis de Grammaire compare'e du Grec et du Latin. 5th ed. Paris,

1894.

HIRT, Handbuch der Griechischen Laut- und Formenlehre. Heidelberg, 1902.
MEYER, G., Griechische Grammatik. 3d ed. Leipzig, 1896.
RIEMANN and GOELZER, Grammaire compare'e du Grec et du Latin. 2 vols. Paris,

1897-1901.

G'RAMMAR (OF THE LATER LANGUAGE)

BLASS, Grammar of New Testament Greek. 2d ed. (Translated by Thackeray.)

London, 1905.

DEISSMANN, Die sprachliche Erforschung der griechischen Bibel. Giessen, 1898.
DIETERICH, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der griechischen Sprache. Leipzig,

1898.

HATZIDAKIS, Einleitung in die neugriechische Grammatik. Leipzig, 1892.
JANNARIS, An Historical Greek Grammar. London, 1897.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: HISTORY OF LANGUAGES 309

KRUMBACHER, Das Problem der neugriechischen Schriftsprache. Mtinchen, 1903.
MULLACH, Grammatik der griechischen Vulgarsprache. Berlin, 1856.
PSICHARI, Essais de Grammaire historique neo-grecque, 2 parts. Paris, 1886-89.
SCHMID, Der Atticismus. 3 vols. Stuttgart, 1887-93.
THUMB, Handbuch der neugriechischen Volkssprache. Strassburg, 1895.
WINER, Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Sprachidioms. 8th ed. by Schmicdel.
Gottingen, 1894.

ACCENT AND PRONUNCIATION

BLASS, Pronunciation of Ancient Greek. (Translated from the third German

edition by Purton.) Cambridge, Eng., 1890.
CHANDLER, Greek Accentuation. 2d ed. Oxford, 1881.

ETYMOLOGY

BOISACQ, Lexique Etymologique. Bruxelles, 1906.

CURTIUS, Grundziige der griechischen Etymologie. 5th ed. Leipzig, 1879. (Trans-
lated by Wilkins, London, 1875-76.)

MEYER, L., Handbuch der griechischen Etymologie. 4 vols. Leipzig, 1901.

PRELLWITZ, Etymologisches Worterbuch der griechischen Sprache. 2d ed.
Gottingen, 1905.

FOREIGN ELEMENTS

LEWY, Die semitischen Fremdworter im Griechischen. Berlin, 1895.

MULLER, Semitische Lehnworte im alteren Griechisch (Bezzenberger's Beitrage,
vol. 1). 1877.

MUSS-ARNOLT, Semitic Words in Greek and Latin (in Transactions of the Ameri-
can Philological Association, vol. 23).

HISTORY

KRETSCHMER, Einleitung in die Geschichte der griechischen Sprache. Gottin-
gen, 1896.

THUMB, Die griechische Sprache im Zeitalter des Hellenismus. Strassburg, 1901.

SCHWYZER, Die Weltsprachen des Altertums in ihrer geschichtlichen Stellung.
Berlin, 1902.

SOPHOCLES, In the introduction to his Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine
periods. Memorial edition. Cambridge, 1887.

ZARNCKE, Die Entstehung der griechischen Literatur-sprachen. Leipzig, 1890.

SEMASIOLOGY

HECHT, Die griechische Bedeutungslehre. Leipzig, 1888.

PEZZI, Espressione metaforica di concetti psicologici (esempe tratti dalla lingua

greca). Torino, 1896.
SCHMIDT, Synonymik der griechischen Sprache. 4 vols. Leipzig, 1876.

SYNTAX

GILDERSLEEVE and MILLER, Syntax of Classical Greek from Homer to Demos-
thenes. Part I. New York, 1900.

GOODWIN, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb. Boston, 1890.

HUBNER, Grundriss zu Vorlesungen iiber die griechische Syntax. Berlin, 1883.

SCHANZ, Beitrage zur historischen Syntax der griechischen Sprache. Herausge-
geben von M. Schanz. Wurzburg, 1882 ff.

SPECIAL WORKS OF REFERENCE ON THE SECTION
OF LATIN LANGUAGE

(Prepared through the courtesy of Prof. E. A. Sonnenschein of Birmingham.)

BAUMGARTNER, Alexander, Die Lateinische und griechische der Litteratur Christ-
lichen Volker. 1900.

BERNHAKDT, G., Grundriss der Romischer Litteratur. 1872.

CAIRD, EDWARD, The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers. 1904.

Cambridge Modern History.

CRUTTWELL, CHARLES THOMAS, A Literary History of Early Christianity. 1893.

DILL, S., Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire. 1899.

FREEMAN, EDWARD A., The Chief Periods of European History. 1886.

GRAETZ, History of the Jewish Nation.

GLOVER, TERROT REAVELY, Life and Letters in the Fourth Century. 1901.

HATCH, EDWIN, The influences of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian
Church. Edited by Fairbairn. 1890. (The Hibbert Lectures, 1888.)

LIGHTFOOT, St. Paul and Seneca (Appendix to Epistle of the Ephesians).

MAHAFFY, J. P., Greek Life and Thought from Alexander to the Roman Con-
quest. 1896.

RENDALL, GERALD H., Transl. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself. (With an
Introduction, 1898.)

RASHDALL, HASTINGS, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages. 1895.

SANDYS, JOHN EDWIN, A History of Classical Scholarship from the 6th Century
B.C. to the End of the Middle Ages. 1903.

SPENCE, H. DONALD M., Early Christianity and Paganism. 1904.

SEDGWICK, HENRY, The Development of European Polity. 1903.

WiLAMOwiTz-MoELLENDORF, ULRiCH VON, Reden und Vortrage. 2d. ed. 1902.

WORKS OF REFERENCE ON ROMANCE PHILOLOGY

(Prepared through courtesy of Professor Henry A . Todd)

FOR the scholar already well versed in philological methods, the best survey of
the present problems of Romance philology is given in W. Meyer-Ltibke's Ein-
filhrung in das Studium der romanischen Sprachivissenschaft, Heidelberg, 1901,
12mo, pp. 214. This brief treatise contains classified bibliographical lists of the
most important works and periodical publications, and a certain amount of
elementary discussion, but, despite its title, is in the main too advanced and
abstruse to be used with advantage by the uninitiated. Much the same must
be said of G. Grober's monumental Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, Strass-
burg, 1888, and following years, large 8vo, 2 vols., in parts. (A new and thoroughly
revised edition of volume I was begun in 1905.) This strictly scientific work is
published with the cooperation of some twenty-five of the most competent
specialists, and for the trained scholar is the most valuable presentation, at once
systematic and collective, of the fundamentals of the subject.

More available for the beginner, though of a different scientific value, is G.
Korting's Encyclopddie und Methodologie der romanischen Philologie, Heilbronn,
1884-88, 3 vols. 8vo., and the same author's Handbuch der romanischen Philologie,
Leipzig, 1896, 1 vol. 8vo. Although a "gekiirzte Neubearbeitung " of the Encyclo-
pddie, the Handbuch is largely a distinct work. Apart from its more recent
bibliographical information, it is scarcely to be compared with its prototype for
general usefulness.

Important as are the bibliographies contained in all the above-mentioned works,
they by no means meet the needs of the student who is undertaking to make
original contributions to Romance scholarship. The task of discovering what, if
anything, has already been published on a given subject of investigation calls
for careful and patient search. A brief indication of the mode of procedure may
here be given. Without considering the earlier bibliographical sources, it will be
sufficient for the present purpose to call the learner's attention to the classified
and, as far as possible, complete bibliography, undertaken as a regular annual
supplement to the Zeitschrift fur romanische Philologie, edited by G. Grober,
since 1877. To determine what has been published throughout the world on any
specific subject since that date, the student's best recourse is to follow year by
year, under the appropriate classified rubric, the list of titles and references,
down to the latest published supplement. Unfortunately, owing to the vast labor
involved in the compilation, indexing, and publication of these supplements (in
recent years the number of entries averages between three and four thousand),
the Zeitschrift bibliography is several years in arrears. For the most recent period,
accordingly, the best recourse is to the very full but unclassified monthly lists of
the Litteraturblatt fur germanische und romanische Philologie, edited by O. Behag-
hel and F. Neumann, since 1880. Of the numerous other current bibliographical
aids the most important is the Kritischer Jahresbericht uber die Fortschritte der
romanischen Philologie, edited since 1890, by K. Vollmoller, aided by a large
number of special contributors. The Jahresbericht is also considerably in arrears.

DEPARTMENT VI
HISTORY OF LITERATURE

HISTORY OF LITERATURE

(Hall 6, September 20, 4.15 p. m.)

SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR JAMES A. HARRISON, University of Virginia.
PROFESSOR CHARLES M. GAYLEY, University of California.

LITERARY VITALITIES

BY JAMES ALBERT HARRISON

[James Albert Harrison, Professor of Teutonic Languages, University of Virginia,
since 1895. b. August 21, 1848, Pass Christian, Mississippi. L.H.D. Columbia
University, 1886; LL.D. Washington and Lee University, 1896; LL.D. Tulane
University, 1904. Professor of Latin and Modern Languages, Randolph Macon
College, Virginia, 1871-76; Professor of English at Washington and Lee Uni-
versity, 1876-95; Associate Editor of the Century Dictionary, Standard Dic-
tionary, and Handy Political Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Member of the American
Philological Association, Modern Language Association, American Historical
Association. Author of A Group of Poets and their Haunts ; History of Spain ;
The Virginia Edition of Edgar Allan Poe's Works ; Life and Letters of Edgar
Allan Poe ; Life of George Washington; and other works.]

Licht, Liebe, Leben.

— HERDER'S Epitaph.

IN the land of Goethe the feet of the pilgrim traveler do not often
wander to a more charming spot than Weimar, still, as in Goethe's
day, the capital of an intellectual grand-duchy, nestling among the
green Gotha hills where the frolicsome Ilm shoots in and out of its bed
of silver and makes music in the ears of the poetic traveler; and in
this quaint and charming Old German town, redolent of Goethe and
Schiller and Wieland and Herder and Liszt, no spot is encircled with
pleasanter associations than the ancient Stadt-Kirche where Herder,
the teacher, friend, and pastor of Goethe, officiated for forty (?) years
and spoke forth his beautiful German to crowds of intelligent citizens,
eager to catch light from his illumined lips.

One day the great thinker, speaker, author, the noble friend, the
eloquent interpreter of Die Stimmen der Volker, the venerable figure
beloved of the Weimar school-boys and girls, did not appear as usual
in the Kanzel at the right-hand end of the church.

All over Weimar it was whispered, " Herder is dead! "

Outside the church, in the modest Platz surrounding the house of
God, arose in after years a stately figure of the poet-critic holding in
his hand a scroll on which three words only were inscribed:

Licht, Liebe, Leben.

316 HISTORY OF LITERATURE

When I first saw these words on the slab covering Herder's tomb,
inside the church, they seemed to me, like bits of that wondrous
chemical, radium, to become positively luminous in the twilight dim-
ness of the old church; and they have shone in my memory as self-
luminous bodies ever since.

When I was called upon by the Committee of the International
Congress of Arts and Science to prepare a short paper on the vital
principles, ideas, and methods underlying modern literature and all
literature, I could not get these words out of my mind; they lay
phosphorescent there, unquenched by any substitute I could devise
to take their place.

LIGHT, LOVE, LIFE, rang in the writer's ear with incessant and
insistent murmur as the characteristic, the indispensable, the abso-
lutely essential key-words of the theme.

In the city of Weimar itself " light " had been the last word of the
expiring Goethe: may it not have slipped into the august sufferer's
memory at this supreme hour from the scroll of Herder, and thence
into the heart of the civilized world as its literary bequest and watch-
word, gathered from the lips of two of its finest representatives?

The vitality of all literature is supremely dependent upon the mass
of light in it. Without light it is mere darkness. A moment's contem-
plation of the great historic literatures — Oriental, Greek, Germanic
— will settle this beyond a perad venture : each is a well of light from
which, on lonely heights of Himalaya, of Judaea, of Parnassus, of
Apennines, of Saxon hills and Anglo-Saxon uplands, the forebears
and forerunners of the Indo-Aryan and Semitic races have kindled
their fires and lighted their lamps and started on their torch-bearing
Panathenaic Procession down the ages.

The light crystallized in a literature may be as manifold as that into
which a prism of clear glass dissects the blended ray that pierces the
eye-hole of the heliostat — the one indispensable thing being that it
be light: moral, intellectual, aesthetic. It is a significant fact that the
basic beginnings of all the greater modern literatures go back to some
fountain-source of moral light — some Bible — some divine or semi-
divine book recognized as the supreme logos of some Divine Being.
The Vedas, the cosmic theogonies, St. Jerome, Ulfilas, Cyril, Luther,
the King James Version mark moral milestones all along the literary
highways; and each is a mittiarium aureum.

The mass of this moral light permeating the literatures of civiliz-
ation has been very great and has proved to be the antiseptic, the
anti-toxin, that has kept them from rotting. The intense vitality of
the Hebrew Scriptures, of the mighty words of Luther, of the creed
and catechisms drawn from Christian, Confucian, or Buddhistic
sources, reveals a root-principle that has sunk deep into the sub-soil
of human nature, and draws from it exhaustless stores of strength and

LITERARY VITALITIES 317

breath and life laid up in these moral springs. The history of literature
teaches that the moral fountain-sources of the mental civilization of
the race are the richest, the deepest, the strongest, the most enduring
of all — the Albert and Victoria Nyanza of this mighty flood-tide of
the Nile that pours its streams in fertilizing currents down through
the intellectual Abyssinias and Egypts of the race, and turns them
from deserts into gardens of beauty. In the same sense in which, in
Herodotean phrase, ancient Egypt was "the gift of the Nile," is the
germ, the dawn, the early daylight of the literatures of humanity the
" gift " of the moral nature. Nations sloughed up in superstition or in
sensualism too dense to transmit the piercing ray of the moral intelli-
gence, have never developed even the beginnings of a literature.
Nations on the contrary that slumbered out and through their sen-
sualism, nations in whom the moral sense was active, alert, alive,
restless, nations of conscience, of awakened moral intelligence, among
whom " Seekers after God " arose early and labored late, whether they
labored under the starlit dome of Mesopotamia, among the Judsean
hills, in the stoa of Zeno or the Academy of Plato, earliest developed
both literary substance and literary form : their crude imaginings and
cruder yearnings assumed gradually imperishable forms, and wrought
themselves into hymns, dramas, idylls, "wisdom" literature, classic-
ally expressed codes or utterances that have come on down from the
remotest ages, and remind us of the unquiet search after the Invisible,
the Intangible, the Ideal, the wonder-working Blue Flower of the
infinite distances.

In the vital trilogy of Herder's epitaph the second word is Liebe ;
out of this word — Love — flashes the second fundamental of all
literature. Without fancifully or fantastically twisting the word, it
pours its hidden and yet obvious meaning into the ear, as heat, even
as the first word signified light in all its limitless connotation.

Heat is the condition that renders all animal, all intellectual life
possible, enduring, immortal. After the life is withdrawn, after the
heat is gone, no embalming process can keep the mummy alive: it is,
and remains, a mummy, a mass of bitumenized dust, pulseless, inar-
ticulate, dead.

A literature that has no heat, no heart (only the r differentiates
the one word from the other), is a literature that has already been
reduced to the state of a mummy, motionless, staring, petrified, a bit
of bitumen, a handful of salts. Tons of life-symbolizing scarabs hung
about its neck would not recall one vital pulsation.

All the literatures that possess this ineffable charm of heat, of
Love, live, as the divine Eros lives, in the act of hovering over the lips
of the earthly Psyche. Why is it that those chance couplets and
stanzas and epigrams of the anonymous Greek Anthology live, when
massy epics and long-drawn-out tragedies uncoil their unwieldy

318

lengths before the literary paleontologist, fossilized, calcareous, dead?
It is because these immortal cries of Ancient Hellas glow with inex-
tinguishable fire, gleam like burning coals, are surcharged with human
heat and passion and yearning, as the opal is surcharged with radi-
ancy. Instantly such lines, such meters, such epigrams yield up their
prismatic glory to the sympathetic soul that feels in them the heat
still glowing, the soul still fired with immortal youth, the deathless
pang, the eternal music. Sappho, Simonides, the imprisoned Danae
still speak from unperishing palimpsest or papyrus because of the Love
that was in them, mystic, inexplicable, beyond the definition of
philologer or rhetorician, simply alive, and just as much so to-day as
in that measureless yesterday when Herodotus read his great prose-
poem to assembled thousands at the Grecian games.

The essential characteristics indeed of this great literature on which
I have just touched are the mass of Light, and the mass of Love, of
Heat, of heart in it; it could never have lived these three thousand
years and have been /cr^a es d«' which it is, without this supreme
central vitalizing principle. And men dip into it again and again as
they dip their faces into a clear pool of crystal water, for refreshment,
for sustenance, for regeneration, for the divine restfulness that flows
from contact with any living thing that has ozone in it.

What living thing can grow without the light? What living thing
can grow without heat? What living thing can grow without — Life?

Herder's passionate devotion to his contemporaries, to the young
Goethe, to the wide fields of many literatures in which he was versed,
to the many-fountained well-springs of young vigor and national
strength which he found in the ballad-poetry of the nations, shows
that the word Leben was even more essential to his trilogy, as ex-
pressing the concentrated essence of his creed, than the other two,
fundamental as they, too, were.

And of Life what better definition is there than the simple word
Shakespeare?

At this magic word there springs into being a world shading down
from superhuman to infinitesimal, filled with creatures that laugh and
sing and breathe and play, so full of life that Life itself might be
deceived, creatures breaking spontaneously into smiles or tears, crea-
tures from whom the life's blood starts at the prick of a needle, gay,
sad, pungent, witty, argumentative, deathless clowns or dying gladia-
tors, men and women and children torn from palace and hut, from
throne and cobbler's stool, from field and Fairyland, chattering,
suffering, loving, hating, the incarnate imagery of Life itself. All this
busy multitude streaming in endless panorama from the quartos and
folios as out of prison-gates, an airy infinitude of souls new-born into
the tumultuous century of Tudor and Stuart, but belonging to all
time, the children of Shakespeare : how they stream, and dance, and

LITERARY VITALITIES 319

flash, and live and die before us, men of the twinkling eye, women
whimsical as the wind, deep, true, tender, comical as Vanity Fair
itself! Shakespeare is Life.

Simplest of biographies is his: lived, wandered, acted, wrote, mar-
ried, — died; almost anonymous, living and dying only three hundred
years ago, almost before our faces, yet little or nothing known of him
after all the laborious research of a "Century of Praise"; like all the
greater things of nature herself — mountains, oceans, sky; like many
of the greater things of the spirit, nameless — the first chapters of
Genesis, the Book of Job, Ruth and Esther, the Beowulf, the Nibe-
lungen Lied, the Edda, the Roland Song, the Cid Campeador. More
puissant than the magicians of the Pharaoh himself, a waft of Shake-
speare's wand evokes the charmed idyll of Rosalind and Arden Wood,
Titania and her train, Miranda's fairy isle, the deep things of Ham-
let and Macbeth, and the ancient worlds of Caesar, Coriolanus, and
Cleopatra: Lear with his wild hair, or that gorgeous picture of
Old Venice rising like an exhalation from the sea fantastically bright :
this man, of many men and women and children compact, with much
of Homer and Dante in him, with more of Aristophanes and Moliere,
a bit of Cervantes; here and there, the smile of Chaucer on his lips,
the tear of Boccaccio jeweling his eye — this man Shakespeare, was
all this encyclopedically. And yet more: he was himself, the unique,
" der Einzige." By reason of the life that was in him he lives as that
wondrous Panathenaic Procession in its triumphal march around the
frieze of the Parthenon lives, as the mighty battle sculptures of
Pergamon and ./Egina live, as those great splashes of deathless color
live that writhe into shape and humanize themselves in the vaulted
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, among the cosmic scenes pictured on the
walls of Parma, Florence, the Doge's Palace.

Contrast the definitions of Life and of Existence : the one is found
in the vivid ruins of Rome and Athens, so full of life to-day that one
can instantly reconstruct out of them great fragments of two remote
worlds and fill the spaces of Colosseum and Acropolis with worship-
ing, or with spectacle-loving multitudes; the other is found in those
tragically silent, sad, speechless temples and pyramids and obelisks
and sphinxes of hundred-gated Thebes, of Luxor, and Karnak, and
Memphis, and Ghizeh.

The one lives even in its death; the other is death, even in its
gigantic, in its immeasurable existence.

Herder's watchword therefore covers the third indispensable ele-
ment in any literature or literary work — Electricity. The Pygmalion
myth comes to life in every true literary masterpiece. " Speak ! " said
Michael Angelo as he stood before Donatello's statue of Saint Mark
outside the old church in Florence.

What does not speak in literature, and speak from age to age and

320 HISTORY OF LITERATURE

from one generation to another, must be mute, still, speechless, dead :
there is no life in it.

II

In a recently printed essay, equally characterized by brilliant
gifts of exposition and sound common sense, the lamented John Fiske
points out suggestively the differences between the old and the
new method of writing history. He passes in review a number of cele-
brated names — Herodotus and Thucydides, Curtius and Mommsen.
Hume and Gibbon, John Richard Green and Freeman — and touches
graphically on the methods, the environment, the capabilities of
each — Herodotus the historian, traveler, geographer, kindled with
the poetic sense that an Orientalized Greek could hardly escape,
anticipating Gibbon and Freeman in studying on the spot the scenes
he was depicting; Thucydides, the historian of institutions, filling
the mouths of Pericles and the Athenian generals with golden sen-
tences such as Shakespeare ventured upon in his psychological
dramas; Curtius and Mommsen, born and reared in an environment
unsympathetic to the perfect mastery of such subjects as Athenian
democracy and Roman institutions; Hume, the narrow, though
luminous Scotch specialist, viewing history from the heights of
Edinburgh Castle; Gibbon, the all-grasping, the all-comprehending,
hyphening together the new and the old method with hooks of steel ;
Freeman, with his vast sweep yet limited vision, utterly unmindful
of anything but geography and politics; Green, the masterful, the
many-sided, instinct with life, and viewing History as Life itself in
all its phases and mazes and colors and complexities, dwelling as
lovingly on a literary or a social episode, a bit of landscape, the
discussions of a club, the effects of a great Whig or Tory dinner-
party, or the architecture of a quaint old English town, as on a great
election, a burning political question, a night in the House of Com-
mons, or the fatal obstinacy of George III: all drawn within his
encyclopedic gaze as parts of an organic whole no part of which he
could afford to neglect.

Needless to say to which of these men Fiske awards the palm:
Gibbon and Green are the men whom he reverences with fondest
admiration, the men whom he sets up before the new historical
student as his exemplars.

The methods of the New History are those of the New Literature.

Georg Brandes, the Scandinavian critic, in his remarkable work
on Literary Tendencies in the Nineteenth Century, has philosophically
grasped one side of the subject: the angler after "tendencies,"
fishing in the muddy and obscure waters of many contemporaneous
European literatures, finds interesting "drifts," "currents," "eddies,"
setting in here and there, slowly drawing the intellectual forces of con-

LITERARY VITALITIES 321

temporary England, France, and Germany in a certain defined direc-
tion as astronomers tell us the Milky Way is being drawn across the
heavens to some unknown immeasurably distant pole-star or central
sun. Streams and currents of Classicism and Romanticism and
Euphuism and Symbolism, and what not, criss-cross each other in this
many-colored sea; intermingle, blend, separate, start afresh on new
voyages of elective affinity, cohere, dissolve, vanish.

All this is wonderfully fertile in suggestiveness : the true student
will enter the labyrinth with the proper clue, will seize or select " a
tendency," saturate himself with its phenomena, study, analyze,
microscopically examine, completely master it if possible.

How interesting, for instance, to collect and study the Prefaces to
celebrated works as they lie before us in early and late editions of
English masterpieces; revealing the authors' most intimate thoughts
about their work. A Preface is the authors' card of introduction to
the master of the household. Seen through spectacles of such clear
glass, Dryden or Wordsworth take on a new aspect.

Or the study of the Great Odes, the monumental Elegies, the
conversational or the psychological Drama, the. soul of Shakespeare
concrete in his works, this or that movement in Elizabethan literature,
the lyric of the Stuarts, the insweep and outsweep of the complex,
mutually interacting currents (which are to the literary historian
what Demosthenes' action! — action! — action! is to the orator).

The beginning and the end of the last hundred years have seen
a remarkable advance — indeed, a revolution — in the "method"
of studying literature. Bits of actual research such as Johnson's
Lives of the Poets were rare indeed in the eighteenth century, but they
exerted a powerful if silent influence in bringing about this revolution.
How charmingly original and instrumental in reestablishing cordial
relations between France and Germany was Mme. de StaeTs De
I'Allemagne!

One fancies Herodotus talking with the priests of Memphis as the
eloquent Frenchwoman stands beside Goethe and Schiller and inter-
rogates them on the mysteries of German transcendentalism.

" Institutions are the lengthened shadows of men," said Emerson.
Literatures are the personal expression of nationality. A nation is
a musical instrument — a harp, a viol, a pipe-organ — whose
musicians are its great writers or speakers. When it has refined
itself into some exquisite speaking-tube, into some vox humana of
a thousand strings and subtleties, it utters itself in Euripides, in
Lope or Calderon, in Schiller or Milton, and the quality of its music
is as distinguishable as the voice of Jacob.

Therefore it is, that nations must be conceived, from a literary
point of view, as huge ethnic documents, to be studied all around, in-
side and out, intensively and extensively, magnified units as sharply

322 HISTORY OF LITERATURE

individualized as crystals of star, or rhomb, or diamond structure.
Ignorance of this fundamental fact evoked the absurd sentimentaliz-
ing of Chateaubriand over the American Indians, the Voltairean
criticism of Shakespeare, the maunderings of Rousseau over "the
state of nature," the powdered and periwigged Greeks and Romans of
Racine. Knowledge of its essentiality has given us Matthew Arnold,
analyzing the delicate spiritualities of French wit and style, Carlyle,
Germanized to the finger-tips in the deep sea of Teutonic transcend-
entalism, poetry, history, Ruskin, a cinque-cento Italian born out
of his time, expressing in pigment-like English the radiant thing that
Raphael's cherubs see, Sainte-Beuve thrilling with an almost orches-
tral fullness of knowledge of the literatures he discusses, FitzGerald
and his Persians, Max Miiller and his multifarious Orientalism.

Contrast these living items of the Newer Criticism snatched from
a hasty resume of the nineteenth century, with the dead items, the dead
methods, the dark and inarticulate gropings that went before and
did duty for literary criticism. It is like comparing crisp sentences
out of the Laokoon, or the charming interpretations of Winckelmann
on Greek art, with the over-emphatic archaeology of The Last Days of
Pompeii. No true lover of either Boccaccio or Longfellow, of either
Wagner or Wolfram, would place the Decamerone and The Tales of
a Wayside Inn, or Parsifal and his interpreter alongside of each other.

Set in its larger framework of ethnic environment, therefore,
each human, each literary document must be studied as the gem in
the rough and in the bezel, as well, — on the finger of the wearer, as
well as blazing on the outstretched forefinger of Time, one of the
world's masterpieces.

The vast psychology of Egypt lies momentarily dreamlike, en-
chanted, subterranean, entombed — hundreds of feet under the
shovel or the scalpel of excavator or psychologist : no plummet has
yet reached these frozen depths or unlocked their deep-sea recesses :
the 500,000,000 of mummies answer not. But will it remain so
forever? The fixed stare of pyramid and sphinx, and obelisk and
pylon, monumentally calm, the glazed eyeball of King and Queen
and Pharaoh, will one day fill with light and life and love; to these,
too, Herder's beautiful words will become applicable and change to
three beautiful worlds teeming with motion, radiance, and vitality.
Egypt will speak as Greece has spoken and its speech will become
a thing of joy.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY STUDIES DURING
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

BY CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY

[Charles Mills Gayley, Professor of the English Language and Literature, University
of California, b. February 22, 1858, Shanghai, China. B.A. University of Mich-
igan, 1878; Litt.D. Kenyon, 1900; LL.D. Glasgow, 1901; LL.D. Michigan,
1904; Post-graduate, Universities of Giessen and Halle, 1886-87. Assistant Pro-
fessor of Latin, University of Michigan, 1884-86; Assistant Professor of Eng-
lish, University of Michigan, 1887-89. Member, American Philological Associa-
tion, Modern Language Association, Senior Common Room, Lincoln College,
Oxford. Author of several books on Poetics and the History of Literature; also
contributor to the New York Evening Post; The Nation; The Atlantic; and The
International Quarterly.]

THIS inquiry demands a review, in the several countries concerned,
of the materials and methods of the science : first, of the development
of the disciplines contributory to it, viz., the theory of art in general,
and the history of art-criticism; the theory of that branch of art
called literature, and the history of applied poetics; the advance
of philology, material and historical, — especially as affecting the
literary expression of individual and society; second, of the concep-
tions successively springing from the development of these disciplines
— conceptions to which correspond the successive canons of literary
judgment; and third, of the efforts after a scientific mode of critical
procedure, which have empirically issued in the canons of literary
method. The inquiry demands also an historical treatment. The
order should preferably be by national divisions, not only because
such arrangement is obviously most simple, but because it involves
in the process the interrelation of critical tendencies, and leads in the
result, at the close of the century, to a discipline both cosmopolitan
and comparative, but independent, which subsumes disciplines
precedent and canons aesthetic or instrumental, which fortifies itself
with materials and methods of approach supplied by other sciences
social, biological, and psychological, and which itself may properly
be called literary philology. It will, from this order of research, ap-
pear that while at the end of the eighteenth century philology was
gathered from the ends of the earth and established as encyclopedic;
and the criticism of art systematized as historical, — by the middle
of the nineteenth century, encyclopedic philology has borne lin-
guistic, and by the end literary philology, both of them historical in
aim after the tendency of Wolf and Winckelmann, but both also
comparative in method after the ideal of Herder.

Since it will be impossible for us in the brief time at my disposal
to present the whole substance of this inquiry, I shall first outline
for you the stages of development which appear to be common to

324 HISTORY OF LITERATURE

the nations most significant in the history of literary science, and
indicate a few of the leaders of each period of advance; I shall then
read in detail some portion of the treatment of individual countries ;
and finally, I shall attempt to characterize the literary science which
they have together assisted to construct.

I. THE GENERAL STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT

While chronological limits can never be definitely assigned to
literary movements, and while the movements in cross-section of
Germany, England, and France do not exactly jibe (since often one
is, in some degree, the resultant of conditions precedent beyond the
national border), it appears that in general the Preparatory Period
of the present tendency of literary study ended about 1795-1800,
and was reconstructive of the contributory disciplines; that the
Second Period embraced the first thirty years of the nineteenth
century, and was romantic in theory, encyclopedic in method; that
the Third Period, the historico-philosophical, is still existent; but its
representatives have, on the one hand, wandered temporarily into
non-social, and therefore unreal by-paths and magic woods, heights
Parnassian, hyper-aesthetic, hedonistic; they have, on the other
hand, availed themselves more or less of the genetic, dynamic, eido-
graphic methods of modern science, and so developed in all the
countries under review a system of comparative inquiry by means
of which a science of literature, or literary philology, bids fair to be
established.

In the reconstructive period, Winckelmann, Kant, Herder and
Lessing, Goethe and Schiller led in Germany; -Bentley (as far back
as 1697), Burke, Hogarth, Lord Kaimes, Hume, the Wartons, Kurd,
Cowper, Goldsmith, Tyrwhitt and Pye, Macpherson and Percy were
among the pioneers in England; in France the prophets were Per-
rault (1668), Diderot, Rousseau, Buff on.

The romantic and encyclopedic period in German criticism was
stamped by the genius of Wolf, Boeckh, Solger, the Schlegels, and
others of whom I shall speak; the English period was that of Words-
worth and Coleridge, Bowles, Leigh Hunt, Lamb, Hazlitt, and
Shelley; the fates of France were in the hands of Mme. de Stae'l and
Chateaubriand, Baour-Lormian, Stendhal, Hugo, Cousin, Michelet,
and others.

The historico-philosophical period in Germany I shall describe in
detail; the Grimms, von Humboldt, and Bopp are in the lead, Hegel,
Carriere, and others; in England, there is the age of Henry Hallam,
of Carlyle, De Quincey, and Macaulay (later of Morris, Ruskin, and
Arnold, from whom by combination and permutation are descended
Pater and Symonds) ; in France we find Villemain, St. Marc Girardin,

LITERARY STUDIES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY 325

the liberal and Saxon-minded Sainte-Beuve, and the leactionary
Nisard; also Taine with his entrancing, but no longer convincing,
literary biology.

In connection with the present or comparative stage of study, names
will later be passed in review. Since I have already in certain chapters
of a volume entitled Methods and Materials of Literary Criticism
(Gayley and Scott, Boston, 1899) described the movement of poetics
during the earlier part of the century, I may be pardoned if I fre-
quently avail myself of the treatment there accorded to that portion
of the subject.

II. IN REPRESENTATIVE COUNTRIES

A . Germany

1. From 1760 to 1795, literary study in Germany was undergoing
a process of reconstruction preparatory to the labors of the romantic
school. In that country, the art aspect of modern literary criticism
proceeds from Winckelmann. He, in his early treatise on the Im-
itation of Greek Works of Painting and Sculpture, shows himself
a disciple of the Swiss school of Bodmer and Breitinger, who were
themselves influenced by the nature poetry of Thomson (1739) and
undoubtedly by the battles between moderns and ancients in France
and England (1688-1700). Winckelmann's Geschichte der Kunst des
Altertvms, published in 1764-65, is the earliest of its kind worthy
of mention, for such treatises as Winckelmann himself knew of,
Monier's History of Art, for instance, and TurnbulPs Ancient Painting,
lack breadth of knowledge and artistic acumen. Winckelmann's
especial merit is that he was the first to apply the historic method
to the study of the fine arts. His revelations concerning the prin-
ciples of Greek art had an influence that did not stop with Lessing
and Goethe; it has extended even to our time. We should, of course,
remember that Winckelmann's conclusions are drawn rather from
the study of Greek art — and even with that his acquaintance was
limited — than from the study of art in general. Still, Hegel is
justified in saying of him: "Winckelmann was inspired by the con-
templation of the ideals of the ancients to such a degree that he has
awakened a new sense for the appreciation of art, has removed such
appreciation from the point of view of common aims and a mere
imitation of nature, and has set us to seeking the idea of art in the
works and history of art. Winckelmann is to be regarded as one of
the men who have been able in the realm of art to open for the spirit
a new organ and entirely new fashions of contemplation." Upon
succeeding conceptions of literature, his doctrines have had a direct
bearing. Like our English Bacon one hundred and fifty years before,
Winckelmann drew his conclusions from actual contact with the

326 HISTORY OF LITERATURE

facts; also like Bacon, who is the founder of literary history, this
founder of the history of art calls for the genetic method of critical
study, — by cause and effect, movement, social or other, external
influence, relation, change, decay, and revival. He recognizes, too,
as Mr. Bosanquet has pointed out, the various phases of express-
iveness within the beauty of plastic art, — the conflicting claims of
beauty and expression, and their partial reconciliation.

Much that is most practical in the aesthetic theories of Hegel and
Schelling, of whom we shall later treat, derives from Winckelmann.
What Winckelmann did for the criticism of art during the period of
reconstruction, Lessing was doing for German literary criticism. He
formulated a system theoretical and historical, and applied it. Even
though the first part of Laocoon (1766) was written to contest
Winckelmann 's assertion of the spiritual composure of Greek statuary
and of the possibility of making the limits of painting as wide as those
of poetry, Lessing himself derives to some extent from Winckelmann.
But even more than by him, Lessing was influenced on the one hand
.by Burke, Hogarth, and Lord Kaimes, on the other by the father of
aesthetics himself, Baumgarten. The premises of Lessing 's dramatic
theory, as well as those of his aesthetics, may be called into question,
but for all that, his Hamburgische Dramaturgic and his Jjoocoon have
influenced succeeding criticism more than any works since that time.

In the year 1764 appeared Kant's first contribution to aesthetics,
Observations on the Feeling of the Sublime and Beautiful, not at all
influenced by Winckelmann 's past work of the same year, and, of
course, not by the Laocoon, which was still on the desk of its
writer. Kant, like Lessing, turns here to Burke for his inspiration.
:So also in his Critique of Judgment (1790), a work which is epoch-
making in the history of poetics. Three streams of theory converge
in this critique: the English and German aesthetico-critical, — Burke,
Kaimes, Reynolds, Hogarth, Baumgarten, Lessing, Winckelmann;
the English abstract-sensationalist and individualist, — Bacon,
Locke, Shaftesbury, Berkeley, Hume; and the continental abstract-
rationalist, — Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, and the Baron von
Wolff. Kant's aesthetic doctrines were made concrete and popularized
by Schiller, especially those of the aesthetic semblance, and the rela-
tive effects of sublimity and beauty upon the beholder. Bearing the
impress of Schiller and Goethe (who also adapted and modified
Kant), the Kantian aesthetic has passed not only into popular
poetic theory, but into the dialectic of Schelling and Hegel.

Space prohibits more than a passing mention of the sources of
Goethe and Schiller. While the first of these in no place systematically
develops a theory of poetry, the genesis of his theory and the course
of his opinions are not difficult to discover. His aesthetic descent is
not, as Mr. Bosanquet thinks, from Lessing, Winckelmann, and Kant,

LITERARY STUDIES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY 327

by way of Schiller, but rather from Lessing and Winckelmann by
way of Herder. For though Goethe was profoundly influenced by
Schiller's interpretation of Kant's doctrine of the harmony of the
moral and the natural orders in the realm of the aesthetic, he was
rather confirmed in the course of his own development than con-
verted to any alien way of thinking. As to his utterances on poetics,
while his Deutsche Baukunst (1773), his contributions to Die Horen
(1795-96), and his Der Sammler und die Seinigen (1798), are in
general restricted to the plastic arts, the conclusions there reached
concerning the characteristic (typical or significant) and the individ-
ual apply as well to music as to poetry. It is in his Conversations, in
his Letters, his Wahrheit und Dichtung, his Spriiche, and occasional
poems, that the course of his theory and its relation to details are
especially to be sought. Schiller's service to poetics is performed in
his Brief e uber die JEsthetische Erziehung der Menschheit, Anmuth und
Wiirde, and Ueber naive und sentimentale Dichtung (1795-96). His
ordering of the aesthetic feelings, his theory of the play-impulse, his
contrast between the poetry of simplicity and that of reflection,
while they derive in one way or another from Lessing, Winckelmann,
and Kant, possess the color and vitality of their poetic exponent.

The theories of Schiller and Goethe, enriched by reciprocal sug-
gestion and criticism, have a direct bearing not only upon the poetics
of the philosophers who succeeded them, — Schelling, Fichte, Hegel,
— but upon the poetry of Germany, and indirectly (through Coleridge,
Wordsworth, Herbert Spencer, Arnold, and Ruskin) upon the poetics
and the poetry of England. Since the appearance of Schiller's Ueber
naive und sentimentale Dichtung and Goethe's Deutsche Baukunst,
the dogmatic strife between ancient and modern poetics has given
place to an inquiry into the development of the aesthetic conscious-
ness and its relation to the history of artistic creation.

The part of Herder in this movement toward a broader correlation
of literature and art, especially in the way of developing the genetic or
historical idea, cannot be overestimated. His writings abound in
suggestions of laws of literary growth, as might be expected in the
case of one in whom the historical sense was so highly developed, —
who was indeed the pioneer, though under the influence of Rousseau,
of the doctrine of evolution. He carried the idea into "the regions
of poetry, art, religion, and finally into human culture as a whole.
... By his work on language, Ueber den Ur sprung der Sprache, he
may be said to have laid the first rude foundations of the science
of comparative philology and that deeper science of the ultimate
nature and origin of language." As for the field of poetics, in 1768
he called for a scientist who should do what Winckelmann had
done for classical art. And he himself helped in no insignificant
way to found the historical or comparative science of literature.

328 HISTORY OF LITERATURE

which is even now reaping the fruition of the long labors of the
nineteenth century.

To the dawning period of romantic poetry and poetics, Jean Paul
Richter also rendered service. His contribution proceeded from a
combination of idealism and naturalism, — the latter an outgrowth of
his unaffected love of beauty, color, and radiance in the real world.
His Vorschule der dEsthetik appeared in 1804, the year after Herder's
death.

The period of reconstruction reached its climax during the decade
1790-1800. The theory and history of art had advanced in content
from the formal to the significant; and in method from the pro-
vincial and traditional to the inductive. Poetics and literary criticism
had abandoned in theory the particular judgment for the universal;
and in practice the conventional for the natural and expedient. In
linguistic philology and literary history the comparative method
had at least found its prophet, Johann Gottfried von Herder.

2. The Period of Romanticism and Allerleiwissenschaft. Exactly
in the middle of the decade 1790-1800 fell the publication of a work
that was to vivify philology with the spirit of science as well as of
romance. This was the famous Prolegomena to Homer. The author,
F. A. Wolf, had earlier still, in 1786, asserted the independence,
totality, and relativity of philology, as a study in its own right, cov-
ering not alone the languages of the Greeks and Latins, but their
literatures, and all else that might serve as the exponent of their
human nature, their life, philosophy, and law, their history, religion,
and art. But by proving, or trying to prove, in 1795, that Homer was
not a single poet, writing according to art and rule, but a name which
stood for a golden age of the true spontaneous poetry of genius and
nature, Wolf furthered even more vitally the interest of mankind
in popular poetry, in the beginnings of art and institutions. In his
Geschichte der romischen Literatur and his Prolegomena to Homer,
all histories of literature since his time have their roots of method,
cultur-geschichtlich, and generic, and interpretative. It is interesting
to note here that as the aesthetics of Lessing and Kant drew their
inspiration from English sources, so also the philological conception
and method of Wolf. They are anticipated and undoubtedly sug-
gested by Bentley's Dissertation upon the Letters of Phalaris, 1698.
And this, as Professor Jebb has said, is the earliest model of the new
criticism which by a scientific method was to bring accurate philo-
logical knowledge into relation with historical research.

From 1795 to about 1850 the Alterthumsunssenschaft of Friedrich
August Wolf reigns in philology, and in the literature affected by
philology, I mean literary criticism, and literary history as well. In
1807 the Olympian Boeckh began to lecture at Heidelberg, in 1811
he was in Berlin; and from then on proceeded the Spiritual Recon-

LITERARY STUDIES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY 329

struction of the Past, over the shades of which our own Professor
Gildersleeve in his Oscillations and Nutations sheds a melodious
tear. Boeckh lived and lectured until 1867; and not until ten years
after his death was his famous Encyclopaedia and Methodology pub-
lished. It may be said by the specialists of the later portion of the
century that there is no science of antiquity, no unity of studies —
but at the bottom of our hearts we still believe that there is such
a science, there is such unity: we say that they are not, because in
the more modest and necessary zeal for a little we have fallen away
from the whole ideal. We do not see the forest for the trees. Few
may handle the Encyclopaedia of Boeckh to-day; but no literary
historian can traverse the methods of Boeckh, and of his master,
Wolf, — can be complacently topographical, or rigidly synchronistic,
or garrulously biographical, or flatly magisterial, — without falling
foul of every critic — encyclopedic or not — to whom there is a drop
of method in the quill.

History by movements, by types, and only then by countries,
lives, or schools, — that is our legacy from the science of antiquity
and the methodology of all the sciences. Bernhardy, Teuffel, Karl
Otfried Miiller, Ribbeck, Ebert, Nicolai, Susemihl, Schanz, Christ,
Urlichs, Blass, Krumbacher, — and in more modern literary history,
ten Brink, Wackernagel, Carriere, Scherer, Menzel, Diez, Tobler,
— they have all followed such strands of the comprehensive method
as they could, and in so far as they have followed, have achieved
fulfillment.

In poetics and literary criticism the movement which succeeded
the reconstruction of Lessing, Herder, and Schiller was in no slight
degree indebted for its origin to Solger's Vorlesungen uber Aesthetik.
This philosopher took as his central theme Fichte's principle of
^Esthetic Irony: the mood of the artist, that impels him to represent
things eternal in terms of the phenomenal and evanescent. This is
the keynote of romanticism in literature — the individual mood, the
urgency of impulse, the spirit ideal and universal, — the poem piti-
fully inadequate, actual, particular, the creation of man's hands,
through which spirit escapes, but in escaping endows the mortal with
the nimbus of immortality. Construing this principle — the inevit-
ableness and still the irony of the artistic struggle — as dependent
upon the caprice of the artist, Wilhelm von Schlegel, in his Brief e
uber Poesie, 1795, in the periodical named Athendum, founded, in com-
pany with his brother Friedrich, 1798, and especially in his Lectures
on Dramatic Literature, 1809-1811, established in Germany the
Romantic School of Poetics. To this movement, Ludwig Tieck and
others contributed; and from France there came by way of Mme.
de Stael's intimacy with Wilhelm von Schlegel a confluent stream
of Rousseauism and the cosmopolitan ideal. The Oriental studies of

330 HISTORY OF LITERATURE

Wilhelm and the publications of his brother, the Sprache und
Weisheit der Indier, 1808, and the lectures on the History of Oriental
and Modern Literature, 1815, enriched not only the romantic charac-
ter, but the alterthumswissenschaftlich method or aspiration of the
period. By the aesthetic teachings of the Romantiker, Germany was
cultivated to a taste for Spanish and English drama as opposed to
the formal and so-called classical productions of France and Italy.
Hence the admirable Shakespearian criticism which, beginning in
the earlier part of the century, continued well into the latter half; the
impulse imparted by Tieck and Wilhelm von Schlegel abode in
Gervinus, Kreyssig, Elze, Ulrici, and Delius, and still lives in the
Jahrbucher der deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft.

During this period of scientific expansion, the philosophical
aesthetic movement is represented, in addition to Solger, by Schelling
and Hegel. Mr. Bosanquet, in his History of Esthetic, tells us that
Goethe and Schiller had developed the Kantian aesthetic, "limited
by abstraction and subjectivity into an objective, concrete content,
which grows with the life and mind of man." Hegel tells us that the
true line of succession ran from Schiller to Schelling. "Science," he
says, " attained its absolute standpoint in Schelling's philosophy, and
although art had previously begun to assert its particular nature and
dignity in relation to the highest interests of humanity, yet it was
now that the actual notion of art, and its place in scientific theory,
were discovered." Schelling treats of beauty as the objective and
necessarily historical expression of divinity as uttering itself through
man. Hegel begins with the human side of this utterance, and shows
how in the stages of symbolism, classicism, and romanticism, man's
subjectivity tries to express itself in proper content and form, vaguely
striving to suggest the thought by crude and uncouth shapes in prim-
itive symbolic art, uniting the thought and the objective form in
classical art, and in romantic breaking the bonds of actual necessity
and yearning toward a spiritual manifestation. Hegel's aesthetic is
subjective-objective, both philosophical and historical. His ideal-
ism has influenced, positively or negatively, all sestheticians and
critics from his time down. His arraignment of the theory which
would limit the scope and aim of art to imitation is of the utmost
importance in the history of criticism as well as of art itself. By an
utter misapprehension of Aristotle's theory of imitation, which care-
fully distinguished between the useful arts (or handicrafts) and the
fine arts, saying that art imitates the processes of nature in the
former, and an idealized or glorified nature in the latter, nearly all
writers on aesthetics from Lord Kaimes down, — Batteux, Diderot,
Baumgarten, Moritz, — even to the time of Winckelmann, had
apprehended art as a more or less exact copy of the face of things: so
that nature being considered perfect, art could be but an apologetic

LITERARY STUDIES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY 331

duplicate; or nature being regarded as imperfect, art could but repro-
duce the imperfection of actuality. From this misconception Winckel-
mann and Lessing had broken away, — and Herder, by identifying
the Beautiful with the True and the Good, had extended the scope
of the artist even when imitating natural beauty. Kant, Goethe,
Schiller, and Schelling had carried forward the theory of art as a
selective and idealizing process; but it remained for Hegel to lift the
discussion altogether out of the realm of the dubious, by demon-
strating that art is nature, to be sure, but nature carried to a degree
where the object of imitation becomes ideal, the imitator an exponent
of the spiritual, and the process creative; the material, therefore,
though actual, and consequently limited in possibility, supplements
by suggestion that which it fails to express. The one-sidedness of the
romantic school, the insufficiency of the principle of Artistic Irony
or Caprice, became evident under the flood of light poured upon aes-
thetics by Hegel. Round Hegel's theory of art in general, and of its
evolution, discussion still centres. And round his Die Poesie most
subsequent German writers on poetry, accordant or divergent, revolve.
This is true even of such anti-Hegelians as Schopenhauer, who either
borrow their ideas from Hegel, or owe their virility to the intensity
of their antagonism.

During this romantic and encyclopedic term, aesthetic criticism
passes, then, from the view of art as abstractly objective to that of art
as both subjective and objective in its nature; not an incidental or
capricious but a necessary exponent of nature and of thought, and an
indispensable factor in the history of civilization. The critical method
derived from philology has passed from the empirical to the scientific;
philology itself is no longer instrumental merely to other disciplines,
but independent both in material and discipline. Poetics and literary
history have passed from the inspirational to the social and national
point of view, and from the magisterial to the dynamic and generic or
eidographic method of approach and arrangement.

3. The third period may be called the Historical-Philosophical:
it is characterized by a series of movements corrective of the extremes
that had preceded.

With Jakob Grimm in 1829, philology leaves the void of Aller-
leiwissenschajt, and, discovering German grammar, centralizes, then
radiates, and last irradiates: becomes, in fact, a comparative science
with a definite subject and a well-defined aim. Bopp, likewise,
between 1833 and 1852 makes of grammar a comparative science;
and is followed by Schleicher in 1862, and others in the comparative
study of the Indo-Germanic languages. W. von Humboldt died in
1835, but his researches into the influence of language construction
upon intellectual development (published 1836-40) add a wonderful
significance to this decade of comparative philology. In the history

332 HISTORY OF LITERATURE

of literature, too, the corrective movement finds its leaders. Be-
tween 1812 and 1835 the brothers Grimm labor to collect German
myths and folk-lore, and by that road to penetrate to the origins
of poetry. From their day literary history has been a comparative
science, and its methods at least genetic. What Bacon had forecast,
and Herder dreamed, was now a fact.

In poetics, the philological and theoretical streams, the former
represented by such men as Boeckh, Paul, Elze, Steinthal, and the
latter by men like Hegel and F. T. Vischer, unite; and the result
in the middle of the century is such a work as Carriere's .Das Wesen
und die Formen der Poesie ; in the latter part such works as Gerber's
Die Sprache als Kunst, and the treatises of Wackernagel, Scherer, von
Gottschall, as well as of Grober, Tobler, Korting, and the lions of later
methodology.

In all forms of literary scholarship, the principle of specialization
begins to obtain. Hence the revival of Latin studies under Lachmann
and Ritschl, the revision of special texts, and the systematization of
epigraphy. Hence following in the wake of Boeckh 's Meters of Pindar,
the metrical studies of Rossbach, Westphal, J. H. H. Schmidt, and
others to the present day; and in modern versification the investi-
gations of Schaffer, Sievers, Kluge, Koberstein, Diez, Zarncke, and
many more. Hence the flood of commentaries on Plato's theory of
art and Aristotle's Poetics; on the former the well-known treatises
of Ed. Miiller, and Riige, Justi, Reber, Raabe, and von Jan; on the
latter, the editions and monographs of Ueberweg, Bernays, Biese,
Boring, Reinkens, Teichmuller, Bekker, Vahlen, Susemihl, and half
a hundred others — each sharpening his teeth, and tantalizing his
appetite with the /AI/X^O-IS, and /caflapcris and the TOVTWV or TOIOVTW
iraBrjfj.a.Twv. Hence in like manner the seminars, the doctor's disser-
tations, and the journals of archeology and every kind of philology,
— of art and every kind of literary study, — every shade or shadow
or shred of substance or of ghost. Hence, too, the schools of arch-
aeology at Athens and Rome — living monuments to the prophetic
soul of Winckelmann.

In Germany, as in other countries of Europe and in America, the
upshot of the literary tendencies and the disciplines so far maintained
has been a comparative science of literature, — or, as I have elsewhere
called it, literary, as distinguished from linguistic, philology. Of
this when I have carried to its threshold, in some such manner as
with Germany, the literary provenience of one or two other countries,
I shall more especially speak.

B. In England

1. The Preparatory Period. To trace the modern movement of
literary studies in England we must on the philological side turn

back to Bentley's reply to Boyle concerning the genuineness of the
so-called Letters of Phalaris. This is the forerunner of all antiquar-
ian and medieval researches contributory to the development of
historical method during the last one hundred and fifty years.

On the poetic side we must go back at least as far as 1739. With
Thomson's poem, Edward and Leonora, in that year, and Joseph
Warton's Enthusiast, or The Love of Nature, 1740, the romantic
movement began to gather strength. Warton called for a return to
sincerity of observation and sanity of description. What may be
called the literary courage of the emotions received a beneficial
impetus from Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays, published in 1744, —
and again in 1746, from Joseph Warton's Preface to Odes on Several
Subjects. Poetry was now fairly embarked on the romantic stream.
In criticism, too, the Wartons, Goldsmith, Young, .Gray, Collins,
Cowper, and Hurd are regarded by all as representatives of the
eighteenth century transition from the romanticism of Sidney and
Bacon to that of Wordsworth. But it must be remembered that not
only in these writers, but in Dryden and Dennis, as well, and differ-
ently in Addison, were present the germs of our present critical prin-
ciples and methods. Be that as it may, Kurd's Letters on Chivalry and
Romance, 1762, Blair's Critical Dissertation on Ossian, 1763, Thomas
Warton's History of English Poetry, 1774—81 (in which he acknow-
ledges the receipt of Gray's outline for the history), in 1781 the second
volume of Joseph Warton's Life and Genius of Pope, and in 1797 his
edition of that poet's works, — these productions completed the
preliminaries of the attack upon the school of "correctness." In 1798
followed the brief and telling Preface to the first edition of the Lyrical
Ballads, and in 1800 the famous Preface to the second edition. In
the latter Wordsworth, save where he exploited untenable theories of
his own, succeeded in setting clearly before the world the strength
and the claims of the romantic return to imagination and nature;
a return that was to affect the principles and methods of poetics as
emphatically as it had already affected those of poetry.

We must not fail to estimate the reconstructive influence exercised
meanwhile by the writers of treatises upon aesthetics. Of these the
first was Burke, whose Sublime and Beautiful, 1756, told not only
directly upon sesthetic speculation in England, but also indirectly
through the influence of Lessing and Kant, and their successors in
sesthetic criticism: the Schiller of the dUsthetische Brief e, and the
Goethe of the Sammler and the Deutsche Baukunst. For to Burke,
Lessing was indebted in the Laocoon, 1766, and Kant in the Kritik der
Urteilskraft, 1790. Other English sestheticians were Kaimes (Elements
of Criticism, 1762), Hogarth (Analysis of Beauty, 1753), Hume (Later
Dissertations, 1757), and Reynolds (Papers on the Idler, Discourses on
Beauty, 1758-59); and these likewise influenced Lessing, Kant, Schil-

334 HISTORY OF LITERATURE

ler, and Goethe. Also to be considered is the effect of the impetus
given to historical and comparative research by Winckelmann's Ge-
schichte der Kunst des Altertums, 1764, by Stuart's Antiquities of Athens
(two years earlier), and by other works on the archaeology, literature,
and art of the northern as well as the southern nationalities of
Europe. Nor should the return wave of romantic interest from Ger-
many be ignored. The outward movement proceeded from the early
work of the Wartons, 1740-60, from the revival of Shakespearian
scholarship, Gray's interest in northern literature, Macpherson's
Ossian, 1762, Percy's Religues of Ancient English Poetry, 1765. The
movement returned from Germany in Burger's Lenore, in the works
of Herder, Jean Paul, Wieland, and, later, of the Schlegels, Tieck,
and the Romantiker. That the English romantic revival owes any-
thing to Bodrn.er (1721) and the German critics of the Swiss school
is not probable, for they had no disciples in England; indeed, they
themselves drew their inspiration largely from English poetry. Nor
did it begin with Rousseau (whose influence shows itself as early
as with Goldsmith), for Rousseau's Nouvelle Helolse did not appear
till 1760. It would appear not unlikely that most of this romantic
inspiration — later carried by France and Germany into sentimental-
ism — issued in England from Thomson, 1739, Samuel Richardson,
1740, and Lillo (George Barnwell, 1731); in France from Marivaux
and Pre*vost, 1731, — but that both schools had in turn derived it
from the sentimental comedy of Sir Richard Steele (The Funeral,
1702, The Lying Lover, 1703, The Conscious Lovers, 1722), and of
Addison (The Drummer, 1715). The creative literature of the cen-
tury must, therefore, evidently, be regarded as a background to
poetic theory. The numerous editions of older authors, collections
of early poetry and drama, histories of types and periods of art,
biographies of authors, translations of and commentaries upon the
ancients, such as Tyrwhitt's and Pye's editions of Aristotle's Poetics,
— the effect of all these, also, upon critical theory and practice,
cannot be ignored though here but mentioned.

Under Johnson criticism had learned to set itself an object and to
move toward it. The followers of the Wartons had, on the other side,
attempted to deepen the study of theory and to widen the course of
method. They had revived the poetic tests of nature, passion, and
imagination, and had put into practice the elementary principles of
historical method, genetic and comparative.

2. The second stage in this modern development of English
poetics, criticism, literary history, is clearly attained by the opening
of the nineteenth century. So far as theory is concerned, the dom-
inant movement of the period, the romantic, had been gaining
momentum ever since 1739; it had reached its culmination as a
movement of revolt in 1798; as a movement of positive and practical

LITERARY STUDIES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY 335

influence it still continues. Divisions into periods are arbitrary.
The classical and the romantic movements in one form or another
are perennial; they flow through periods. Viewed synthetically,
the whole century in English literary history is, indeed, a period of
reconstruction. But, more narrowly considered, the period is, as in
Germany, encyclopedic and romantic. Its beginning is marked by
the organization of criticism which attended the establishment of the
Reviews, — in 1802 the Edinburgh, and in 1809 the Quarterly, — soon
to be followed by Blackwood's and the London Magazine. Hitherto
criticism had carried the authority of the writer only; and the labor
of criticism was generally an avocation, or, at best, secondary to
some regular profession. But the judgments of the Edinburgh and
the Quarterly were known to proceed from one or other of a coterie of
acknowledged scholars and men of letters, to represent the opinions
and policy of the coterie and the best ability of the writer. Criticism,
accordingly, was, at the beginning of the century, organized as a
profession by the Edinburgh, under the editorship of Jeffrey, with
the collaboration of Sydney Smith, Brougham, Scott, Leslie, etc.; by
the Quarterly, under the editorship of Gifford, with the collaboration
of Scott, Southey, Lockhart, etc.; by Blackwood's Magazine, under
Wilson, Lockhart, Hogg, and Maginn; and by the London, under
Lamb, Hazlitt, and De Quincey.

The history of criticism in the early part of this century may be
considered systematically as follows: (1) The Enunciation of the
Romantic Principle: Wordsworth, Coleridge's earlier writings, Scott
in the Edinburgh, etc. It may well be debated whether Coleridge
as well as the Edinburgh reviewers did not take Wordsworth's
apotheosis of rustic passion and speech too literally; but it was the
extreme construction placed upon certain of Wordsworth's pro-
nunciamentos, apparently untenable and really non-essential, that
brought into prominence his advocacy of principles indubitably
vital — the common principles of romantic poetics. His distinction
between imagination and fancy, his search for a psychological basis
of poetic principle, and his advocacy of the comparative and
genetic methods of literary study are contributions to the science
of criticism. (2) The Classical Reaction: the Reviews — Jeffrey, Gif-
ford, Lockhart, Southey, Wilson, etc. But here we must discrimin-
ate between the impressionism and narrow prejudice of a Gifford
(the nadir of personal criticism) and the reactionary but altogether
more catholic and philosophical traditionalism which, in spite of
occasional spleen and error, characterizes Jeffrey. Blackwood follows,
to some extent, the lead of the older Reviews, but Wilson's temper
frequently prompts to liberal appreciation; while Lockhart (even
if he did commit the diatribe against Keats) deserves credit as
a master of critical biography, and displays neither the caprice of

336 HISTORY OF LITERATURE

Wilson nor the malignity and retrogressive bigotry of his editor in
chief. (3) The Establishment of Romantic Criticism. First, Bowles,
whose criticism of Pope's poetry, prefixed to his edition of that
poet's works, 1806, gave rise to the controversy with Campbell and
Byron (Campbell's Essay on Poetry, 1819; Byron's Letter to John
Murray, and Observations upon Observations, 1821; Bowles's In-
variable Principles of Poetry, 1819, and Letters to Byron and Campbell,
1822). Second, Coleridge, who, in his treatment of the progress of
the English drama, states the comparative method excellently and
attempts to put it into practice. Though his criticism was destined
to germinate and bear fruit in younger writers, it was in itself a dis-
appointment. Vague, a priori, unapplied, it fails because the specu-
lations which inspired him — speculations of Lessing, Kant, Schelling,
Schiller, and especially of Jean Paul — were not systematized by
him; because, also, the principles were not drawn by him from the
practice and history of poetry, nor scientifically tested by the social
and poetic practice of the day. (Lectures on English Poets, 1808,
1812; Biographia Literaria, 1817.) Third, Campbell (Lectures on
Poetry, 1810; Specimens of the British Poets, 1819^18). Fourth,
Leigh Hunt, in criticism a direct descendant of the Wartons and
Spence, in temperament, of Goldsmith; he in turn influenced his
contemporaries Hazlitt and Lamb, and probably both Carlyle and
Macaulay, the leaders of criticism in the next generation (Critical
Essays, 1805; What is Poetry ? 1844; Wit and Humor, etc.). Fifth,
Charles Lamb, unique in sympathetic insight, a forerunner of Pater.
Sixth, William Hazlitt, the ally of Coleridge in the contention that
poetry should be judged not by some standard of the critics, but by
the criterion of poetry — poetry universal and in the abstract (Round
Table, 1817; Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, 1817; English Poets,
1818; English Comic Writers, 1819; Dramatic Literature of the Reign
of Elizabeth, 1821; Table Talk, 1821-22). Seventh, Shelley, whose
Defence of Poetry, 1821, provoked by T. L. Peacock's Four Ages of
Poetry, recalls the best of Sidney, Bacon, Wordsworth, and Coleridge
and anticipates Carlyle 's gospel of poetic significance and Pater's
of rational aesthetic delight.

3. The next stage in the development of literary science is marked
first by various attempts at an Historical Method. These began with
Henry Hallam, and were continued by Carlyle, De Quincey, and
Macaulay. Of Carlyle it may be said that his services are rather in
the theory of criticism than the practice; but both in theory and
practice his keynote is "historical": poetry is history vitalized; the
poet is the outcome of his own history and the history of the nation.
Carlyle taught the significance of poetry, the interpretative function
of criticism, and advocated a method of research at once genetic and
comparative. His influence in the systematization and limitation of

LITERARY STUDIES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY 337

modern criticism has been immense, and has by no means begun to
exhaust itself. It affects rather the matter than the manner, and
is more a philosophy than an aesthetic of poetry (see Miscellanies,
Goethe, etc., Lectures on Heroes, History of Literature). In their recog-
nition of national literary development and in their familiarity with
German literature Carlyle and De Quincey were sympathetic; but
as regards the appreciation of German literature De Quincey is more
insular than Carlyle, and as regards literary history, while Carlyle
would discover the bearing of the poet's ethical significance, De Quin-
cey is concerned with that of his literary characteristics. Macau-
lay, who knew not Germany, and with all his biographical industry
never learned the comparative method, represents the "personal"
wing of the historical school. He is judge and advocate combined.
He derives from Samuel Johnson, Gibbon, Jeffrey, Hallam, and
Hazlitt.

These tentative efforts at historical procedure (thwarted, of course,
by imperfection of material and of method) are succeeded in the latter
half of the century by a movement which has for its purpose the
investigation of principles and the establishment of a scientific
basis for poetic and artistic appreciation. The leaders, among oth-
ers, are John Stuart Mill (System of Logic, 1843, etc.; Thoughts on
Poetry and its Varieties, etc.), Herbert Spencer (Social Statics, 1851;
Psychology, 1855, etc.; Philosophy of Style, 1852; On Gracefulness,
1854), G. H. Lewes (Problems of Life and Mind, 1874-79, etc.;
Principles of Success in Literature), and Bain (The Emotions and the
Will, 1859, etc.). Later still in the century valuable service has been
rendered to the cause of scientific aesthetic, and hence to that of
literary science, by the researches, psychological, physiological, etc.,
of Darwin, Grant Allen, Sully, Gurney, and the studies philosophical
and historical of Caird in his exposition of Kant's Critique of Judg-
ment, Bosanquet, whose History of Esthetic stands easily first,
Butcher, who has given us the most subtle of modern interpret-
ations of Aristotle's aesthetic theory, Jowett in his introductions to
Plato's Dialogues, Knight, Baldwin Brown, W. P. Ker, R. P. Hardie,
and others.

By the earlier of the scientific teachers Morris, Ruskin, and Arnold
were more or less affected. But Morris and Ruskin confined them-
selves principally to the aesthetics and economics of the plastic arts,
while the aesthetics and didactics of poetry were the immediate
concern of Matthew Arnold. Arnold did for the comparative method
of literary criticism what Ruskin tried to do for art-criticism. A
combination and modification of the qualities of Ruskin and Arnold
(by omission of the economics of the first and the didactics of the
second) appear in the essays of Walter Pater, who, with Symonds,
may be regarded as the leader of the hedonistic school. But Pater's

338 HISTORY OF LITERATURE

chief characteristic is his desire to interpret and reproduce the
author; Symonds's, to show the historical relations of poetry and
art.

Among contemporary critics there is evident a right tendency in
theoretic criticism to regard poetry both as absolute and relative:
to test the absolute aesthetic worth by reference to the laws of nature
and thought, the poet's own conception of these and of his poetic
function in interpreting them, — the poet's aim; to test the relative
worth of a poem by reference not to the standard of some preferred,
so-called classical or romantic school, but with reference to the par-
ticular movement of which it was part, and to the social, the inher-
ited, the artistic, and the individual conditions of the age that have
contributed to that movement and have affected the individual. And
in method the tendency has fortunately been, with the best writers,
more impartial, comparative, genetic, psychological, sometimes with
a view to recording, sometimes interpreting, sometimes to teaching.
As a result, something like artistic criticism has occasionally been
produced. Credit in this regard is especially due to Arnold, Pater,
Symonds, Gurney, Stephen, Saintsbury, Gosse, and Dowden. In the
treatment of literary types, the palm for scientific performance must
be given to A. W. Ward and E. K. Chambers — both historians of
the English drama; and to C. H. Herford for his Literary Relations
of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century. In the history of
English poetry, unfortunately, little that is methodical has been done
by English-speaking writers. Morley's English Writers promised
well, but comes only halfway down. Courthope's History of English
Poetry is not yet finished, and has been sev.erely handled by the
philologists. Garnett and Gosse 's History is especially valuable for
its social illustrations and its dynamic and biographical methods of
treatment.

That I have not in this survey said anything of the contribution
to literary science made by the students of linguistic and purely
historical science proceeds by no means from oversight, but from
the limitations of space. To mention a few like Donaldson and
Mure for Greek in the first half of the century, and Mahaffy, Jebb,
ana Haigh for the latter half; or like Cruttwell, Nettleship, Simcox,
Sellar, Munro, Mayor, Conington, Ellis, Mackail, and Tyrrell for the
Latin, is simply invidious, therefore I desist. A catalogue, imperfect
at that, of scholars in modern philology and literary history would be
similarly unavailing. And to attempt, anywhere in this sketch, any
estimate of the influence of the methods of political historians such
as Stubbs, Freeman, Bryce, etid omne genus for England, — Curtius,
Mommsen, and Grote for Germany, — though absolutely requisite to
a complete investigation of the subject, would be madness.

Of the contribution of England to the present condition of literary

LITERARY STUDIES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY 339

science, I shall speak when we come to consider the common outcome
of the movements of the nineteenth century.

C. In France

1. The remote forefather of the modern spirit in French criticism
was Perrault, who in his Parallele des Anciens et des Modernes (1688-
1697) attacked that part of Boileau's doctrine which advocated
imitation of the classics as the best imitators of nature. Thus was
begun a controversy concerning the relative merits of classic and
contemporary literature which not only weakened faith in the infal-
libility of Boileau's principle, but resulted in a wide extension of the
field of criticism. With Perrault there gained currency the poetic
canon of naturalism and the critical method of relativity; the first
of which took form under the hand of Diderot, while the second
culminated on the one hand in the extreme individualism of Rous-
seau, and on the other in the comparative and historical methods
of Mme. de Stae'l, Villemain, Sainte-Beuve, and Taine.

The immediate predecessors of the literary philology of the nine-
teenth century in France were Rousseau, Buffon, and the encyclo-
pedists of the eighteenth century. Rousseau's condemnation of
civilization in his Discours of 1750, on the ground that it corrupted
morals and natural freedom, must have awakened critics to the
advisability of studying art and poetry in their social relations.
Buff on 's Discours de Reception of 1753 developed an essentially
modern and philosophical argument for the intrinsic individuality of
style, purely romantic in tendency. Diderot, much of whose critical
work first appeared in Les Feuilles de Grimm, makes there, and in the
prefaces to his plays (Pere de famille and Le fils naturel), an effort
toward emancipation from the classical conventionalities. "Every-
where," as Professor Saintsbury has said, "there is to be perceived
the cardinal principle of sound criticism; that a book is to be judged,
not according to arbitrary rules laid down ex cathedra for the class
of books to which it is supposed to belong, but according to the
scheme of its author in the first place, and in the second to the general
laws of aesthetics; a science which, if the Germans named it, Diderot,
by their own confession, did much to create." He made the return to
nature in his poetics, and attempted to do so in his dramas — giving
us not mere types, but actual characters. For the strictly defined
tragedy and comedy of the former epoch he substituted the play of
the bourgeoisie — the drame or melodrama. This movement was, of
course, assisted by the vogue of Marivaux's comedie larmoyante, and
by sentimental novels, such as his Marianne. And the same move-*
ment was further advanced by J. J. Rousseau's advocacy, in his
Lettre a D'Alembert, in 1758, Sur les spectacles, in which he censures
the theatre of the day, with its sentimental and imaginative ad-

340 HISTORY OF LITERATURE

ventures, and insists upon the cessation of spectacles based upon
the afflictions of noble and royal characters, upon the introduction
of popular interests and individualities, and the manifestation of a
desire to teach, to moralize.

An entirely different movement characterizes the poetics of an-
other precursor of the romantic school, Andre" Che"nier (1762-94).
His aesthetic was at once imaginative and traditional. Though pos-
sessed of a natural idealism, this did not lead him to disregard the
models of antiquity. He was a "humanist," but of the natural kind,
not the literary, like Ronsard. His principal contribution to poetics
proper was the Poeme de I'invention. It would appear that, all things
considered, the romantic movement was not without obligation to
him; — but his influence is perhaps most evident in the refined or
rational romanticism of the Parnassiens of the latter part of the nine-
teenth century.

2. To the Romantic Period of French poetics the transition was
made by Madame de Stae'l and Chateaubriand.

(1) Madame de Stael's De la litterature consideree dans ses rapports
avec les institutions sodales (1800) reminds one of Gibbon's essay on
the History of Literature and of Shaftesbury's doctrine of cosmopolitan
culture. Like the former, the authoress attempts to show that litera-
ture is an affair of the spirit and can proceed only from conditions of
freedom and progress; and, like the latter, to encourage her fellow
countrymen to assimilate the best that is offered by other nations
and literatures. By her De I'Allemagne (1813) she introduced German
literature into France, as De Quincey and Carlyle were soon to intro-
duce it into England. Her influence over Wilhelm von Schlegel, who
" became the interpreter of Germany to her eager and apprehensive
mind," has been already noticed. Italy and England also were con-
quered by her; and it was in no slight degree that she prepared the
way for the romantic movement. "She advanced criticism," as
Professor Dowden has put it, "by her sense that art and literature
are relative to ages, races, governments, environments. She dreamed
of an European or cosmopolitan literature in which each nation,
while retaining its special characteristics, should be in fruitful com-
munication with its fellows." With her contemporary, Chateau-
briand, we enter upon a revival of medieval religious and aesthetic
sentiment, his most important critical work being the Genie du
christianisme (1802). In this he calls for a sentimental, romantic, but
spontaneous and modern, treatment of life. And with practical
result. It may, indeed, be said that together, these two, Madame
de Stael and Chateaubriand, effected the overthrow of the skeptical,
atheistic, and unscientific interpretation of literature and art; they
shattered the autocracy of classical models and abstract rules; they
introduced the appeal to the imagination and the senses; they revived

LITERARY STUDIES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY 341

the spontaneous and artistic characteristics of medieval lyricism, and
Christianized nature and man for the purposes of literature.

During this season other forces, also, had been working to hasten
the advent of a romantic poetics and a comparative criticism. In
1801 Baour-Lormian conveyed to his countrymen by the Poesies
Ossianiques the flavor of Macpherson; and later (1812) Creuze de
Lesser added to the medievalist revival by the publication of his Table
ronde. In 1799 Se'nancour had produced his melancholy Reveries ; and
after the death of Joubert, 1825, appeared a collection of those lyric
rhapsodies in prose, the Pensees. In 1811, stirring the very pool of
romance, Ginguene" published the beginnings of his Histoire litteraire
de I'ltalie, begun in 1802. Historical and philological studies sub-
versive of tradition were meanwhile prosecuted by Fauriel and
Raynouard, and minor critics were feeling their way toward a com-
parative and psychological method. "Foreign life and literature,"
says Dowden, by whom these phenomena of change are duly noted,
" lent their aid to the romantic movement in France — the passion
and mystery of the East; the struggle for freedom in Greece; the old
ballads of Spain; the mists, the solitudes, the young heroes, the pallid
female forms of Ossian; the feudal splendors of Scott; the melan-
choly Harold; the mysterious Manfred; Goethe's champion of free-
dom, his victim of sensibility, his seeker for the fountain of living
knowledge; Schiller's revolters against social law, and his adventures
of court and camp." There were also changes in language and form,
"of which Hugo and Sainte-Beuve were the chief initiators."

The way for the poetics of Hugo was still further prepared by
Henri Beyle (Stendhal, 1783-1842), whose chief contributions to
criticism were his Histoire de la peinture en Italie and the Racine et
Shakespeare. His method was both comparative and psychological,
and in his habit of characterizing the poet by his milieu he was the
precursor of Taine and Brunetiere. " In temperament," as Saintsbury
has pointed out, "religious views, and social ideas, he was a belated
philosopher of the Diderot school. But in literature he had improved
even on Diderot, and very nearly anticipated the full results of the
romantic movement. ... In his De I'amour and in his novels he
made himself the ancestor of what has been called successively
realism and naturalism in France." Stendhal merits the serious
attention of the literary historian.

The history of criticism during the rest of the romantic period
may be conveniently treated under the following movements,
both contributory to the theory of poetics rather than to critical
method.

(2) The Romantic Revolution in the Drama, effected by Victor
Hugo's Preface to Cromwell, 1828, and his Hernani, 1830. Hugo
definitely discards the "unities," declines all artificial limitations,

342 HISTORY OF LITERATURE

and asserts that art should represent the whole truth, no matter
what kind of aesthetic emotion may result.

(3) The Philosophical and Comparative Discipline of Cousin
(1792-1868). This thinker's Du vrai, du beau, et du bien was the
result of a reaction from the sensationalism of the eighteenth cen-
tury. His studies were first made in the wake of Reid and the Scotch
philosophers; but after a visit to Germany in 1817 he became a fol-
lower of the German idealists. Though, with Leveque and Jouffroy,
a member of the school of spiritualistes, and called an eclectic, he
was the most enthusiastic advocate in France of German philosophy.
His influence upon French poetics is not to be underestimated. Nor
is that of Michelet (1798-1874), whose philosophy, like Cousin's,
shows the influence of Herder and Hegel; nor that of Edgar Quinet,
the bosom friend of Michelet and a sympathizer in his aesthetic views.
3. The movement succeeding the early romantic is the Scientific-
Historical. This was headed by Villemain, who, in his Tableau de la
litterature au moyen age, in the Tableau de la litterature au XVIIIe
siecle, and in his lectures, applied a method of inquiry which observed
the social, biographical, genetic, and comparative aspects of the
literary phenomenon. The resulting criticism was characterized by
impartiality, sanity, and a scientific decisiveness far in advance
of that produced by preceding critics. Villemain was seconded
by Saint-Marc Girardin and Sainte-Beuve, the latter probably
the greatest critic of the century. Sainte-Beuve incorporates the
romantic, historical, social, and psychological attempts of his
predecessors and contemporaries under a new method, at once
more logical, more scientific, and more imaginative than theirs —
a method which has been justly called the naturalistic.

In the double paper on Chateaubriand (Nouveaux Lundis, 21, 22
Juillet, 1862), Sainte-Beuve expounds in detail his method of literary
criticism. Starting with the author of the work, the critic studies
him zoologically, as it were, with reference to his race and habitat.
He traces his family history, seeking in the parents (especially the
mother), the brothers and sisters, and even the children, the secret
of his peculiar individuality. From the family he passes to "le
premier milieu," the group of friends and contemporaries who, like
a literary family, shared in the author's aims and ambitions. The
utterances of the author's enemies and admirers also furnish clues.
The result of this method of study, which places the author in his
environment of heredity and influence, is the discovery of some
characteristic by which, as a label, his peculiar talent may be
designated.

Though Sainte-Beuve calls his method naturalistic, he does not
claim for it a place among the exact sciences. The day will indeed
come, he thinks, when the great families of genius and their principal

LITERARY STUDIES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY 343

divisions shall be accurately determined; but men in their moral
nature are so complex that the critic cannot hope ever to treat them
just as he would animals or plants. Criticism must forever remain an
art, demanding, like the art of medicine, a special tact or talent in
those who practice it. The method of Sainte-Beuve is rather English
(that of experience and individual circumstance) than French (that
of system and abstraction). His mother was English; he was him-
self brought up on English books; he especially admired Bacon, with
whose prophetic enunciation of the scope and function of literary
history he was acquainted, and whose comparative method he him-
self attempted to apply. He has, more than any other foreign critic,
affected the course of English literary philology in the nineteenth
century — and affected it for good. His special disciple is Matthew
Arnold. Of Sainte-Beuve 's work an admirable estimate has been
given by Dowden. The latter says that, " wandering endlessly from
author to author in his Portraits litt&raires and Portraits contem-
poraires, Sainte-Beuve studied in all its details what we may term
the physiology of each." His long research in "his most sustained
work, Port-Royal, led him to recognize certain types or families
under which the various minds of men can be grouped and classified."
So, also, in his Causeries du Lundi and the Nouveaux Lundis. " They
formed, as it were, a natural history of intellects and temperaments.
He did not pretend to reduce criticism to a science; he hoped that
at length, as a result of numberless observations, something like
a science might come into existence. Meanwhile he would cultivate
the relative and distrust the absolute." To estimate a work, he
studies the personality of the author, his conditions, his inherited
qualities, his education, life, everything that can be ascertained
concerning him. Thus he aims to discover the key to the secret of
his literary utterances. This is the method, according to Professor
Dowden, "which has best served the study of literature in the
nineteenth century." It is largely the method of Matthew Arnold,
whose success, however, hardly equaled that of Sainte-Beuve, his
master.

That a reaction against liberal methods should set in was of
course to be expected. In this case the movement was headed by
Nisard, who, with his followers, reverted to an abstract, authoritative,
and individual standard, attempting to test the literary product
in question by that. Nisard applies to each literary product a three-
fold test: (1) The ideal of the nation; (2) the ideal of the language;
(3) the ideal of humanity. While believing that knowledge and
taste are essentially relative, of the individual and the environment,
he holds that the critic may contribute to the general onward move-
ment of culture by expressing sincerely and forcibly his opinion as
if it were absolute; for the object of criticism is to regulate the

344 HISTORY OF LITERATURE

intellectual pleasures of each age in turn, and to deliver works
from the tyranny of chacun son gout. The criticism of Nisard is tonic,
but too intensely, therefore narrowly, national. As a philosophical
phenomenon it is the aesthetic outcome of the positivism of Comte.

The present period of criticism in France includes the movement of
art for art's sake, whose representatives, de Vigny, Th4ophile Gautier,
The'od. de Banville, Leconte de Lisle, Sully-Prudhomme, etc., are
called the Parnassiens. This movement is characterized by a revolt
against the excesses of the romantic school, and a revival of a more
philosophical and rationalistic theory of inspiration. It cultivates
accuracy in form, and aims in an aesthetic fashion at sculptural and
picturesque effects of style. Its doctrines may, in fact, be compared
with the much more refined aestheticism or hedonism of Walter Pater.
The period includes, also, important developments in scientific
criticism; the esthopsychological of Hennequin, the naturalistic
(historically objective) of Taine, the national and eidographic of
Brunetiere, the social of Guyau. Taine started out by being frankly
and flatly scientific. Literature, he said, is a natural product whose
characteristics are to be investigated and recorded, like those of
trees and flowers. Criticism is thus a kind of botany applied to human
works, and the efforts of the critic are devoted to determining the
literary system or organism which is made up of the productions
of a given period or nation. Within such a system, when it has
been found, will be arranged the authors and their works according
to the dominant characteristic of each. The literary activity of any
member of such a system is shaped by three influences: (1) The
race, or the influence of heredity and temperament; (2) the environ-
ment, political, social, and physical; (3) the moment. This threefold
formula has vitally affected the literary studies of the nineteenth
century. For long it was in everybody's mouth. It is a fact, however,
not generally known that the formula did not originate with Taine
at all. He derived it beyond a perad venture from Hegel's jEsthetik,
vol. i, p. 20: "Sodann gehort jedes Kunstwerk seiner Zeit, seinem
Volke, seiner Umgebung an." Brunetiere, who adds to the three
conditions specified by Taine the element of individuality (Evolu-
tion des Genres dans I'Histoire de la Litterature, vol. I, p. 22), was also
anticipated by Hegel (JEsthetik, vol. I, p. 45) : " Denn das Kunstwerk
um seiner zugleich materiellen und individuellen Natur willen, geht
wesentlich aus besonderen Bedingungen der mannigfachsten Art,
wozu vorziiglich Zeit und Ort der Entstehung, dann die bestimmte
Indimdualitat des Kunstlers und hauptsachlich die technische
Ausbildung der Kunst gehoren, hervor."

It has been shown by Professors Brunetiere and Dowden that
while Taine 's theory has had enormous influence in shaping the
destinies of the materialistic movement — an inevitable reaction

LITERARY STUDIES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY 345

against the over-personal temper of the romantic school, — it was
neither sufficient nor capable of securing the adherence in practice
of its chief advocate. It exaggerates the local, the temporary, the
animal. It pretends to be scientific and impartial, but is in reality
deductive and magisterial. Still M. Taine has by his famous History
of English Literature taught literary historians to regard literature as
a social and historical phenomenon, and critics to use the objective
method as at least a component part of the system of appreciation.

In his article on La Critique litteraire, in La Grande Encyclopedic,
M. Brunetiere states with clearness his view of the function of crit-
icism. It is threefold, (1) to explain, (2) to classify, (3) to judge. By
explanation is meant description, analysis, and comment. The critic
must explain the author, whose character is not always an analogue
of his book, but he must not stop with the author. Others have
helped write the book. The author's contemporaries are his col-
laborators. Other books have influenced him. He lives in a particular
moment or phase of the evolution of the genre to which his work
belongs. A part of the explanation, therefore, consists in placing
the work in its milieu, national and international. To perform the
work of classification criticism needs sound principles of three kinds:
(1) Scientific, analogous to those of natural history; (2) Moral, es-
tablishing an ethical hierarchy without identifying morals and art;
(3) /Esthetic, measuring the work of art by the absolute quantity
that it expresses. Furnished with these principles, criticism, as
a mode of classifying, would become scientific. Finally, criticism
is under obligation to pass judgment; for a work of art, while it is
a record to be explained and classified, is also a poem or statue better
or worse than some other poem or statue. Distinct from the object
of criticism is its function. According to Brunetiere the function of
criticism is to act on public opinion, on authors, and upon the general
direction of literature and art. By maintaining literary traditions
criticism perpetuates from age to age the literary consciousness of the
nation.

In his Evolution des Genres dans I'histoire de la litter ature (1890)
this admirable scholar sketches the rise and development of the
spirit of modern criticism from its beginning in Italy in the period
of the Renaissance. It came into existence as the result of two
causes: (1) The rediscovery of the classics; (2) (following Burck-
hardt's Civilization in Italy') the growth of the sense of personality.
The first led to philological criticism of a pedantic kind, the second
to rivalry and envy, and so to criticism in the sense of fault-finding.
When criticism passed over into France, laying aside its pedantry
and its satire it became at first strictly literary, then in turn aesthetic,
philosophical, historical, and scientific. Of BrunetiSre's view of
literary growth as following the biological analogy I shall have

346 HISTORY OF LITERATURE

a criticism to offer in the remarks upon comparative literature with
which this paper will conclude.

To Brunetiere's insistence upon the individual element as con-
tributory to the creation of the literary organism, I have already
referred, showing that in Germany he was anticipated by Hegel.
But even in France the doctrine was enunciated with great clearness
before Brunetiere's statement of it. This was one of the services
performed for literary philology by Emile Hennequin, a follower
of Herbert Spencer, — who in La Critique scientifique (1888) attempted
to put criticism upon a scientific basis. Hennequin's method, which
he terms Esthopsychologie, is in some respects similar to that of
Taine. It differs from Taine's in attaching less importance to the
race, and in throwing emphasis upon the individuality of the author
and his power to create an environment for himself. The purpose of
criticism, according to Hennequin, is not to evaluate the work of
art, nor yet to determine the means by which it is produced, but
to show the relation of the work to the social and psychological
characteristics of the artist whom it reveals. " His method of crit-
icism," remarked J. A. Symonds, "may be defined as the science of
the work of art regarded as a sign."

Of the contributions to theoretical or applied poetics of a notable
host, I cannot here speak. Suffice it to acknowledge the manifold
genius of the critic, Edward Scherer ; the philological and historical
contributions of Gaston Paris, Darmesteter, Petit de Julleville; and
the excellent researches into literary movements and types con-
ducted by MM. Pellisier, Albert, Ampere, Desnoiresterres, Le"on
Gautier, Jeanroy, Faguet, Be*dier, Lenient, and Jusserand. At the
present moment, special attention is directed to the late Joseph
Texte's revival of the comparative or cosmopolitan ideal in literary
history advocated long ago by Rousseau and adopted by Mme. de
Stael, Villemain, and Sainte-Beuve; and to the social aesthetics of
Guyau. These will be mentioned when I come to speak of com-
parative literature.

The reaction against romanticism in dramatic theory and practice
instituted by Emile Augier and Alexandre Dumas, I have unfor-
tunately no time to discuss. It is as realistic as that of the Parnassiens
is aesthetic. The minor French school of poetry, their creeds and
affectations, les decadents, les symbolistes , etc., will have no per-
manent effect.

Of the development of literary studies in two or three other coun-
tries, especially Italy, Russia, and America, I had intended to treat,
but this discussion is already longer than it should have been. Let us
advance at once to the possibilities of literary study, as scientifically
conducted, to-day.

LITERARY STUDIES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY 347

III. THE OUTCOME IN A LITERARY SCIENCE

The movements of which I have spoken merge in what is frequently,
with more or less definiteness of meaning, styled comparative litera-
ture, or the comparative study of literature. In order to present the
significance of these terms, and to decide whether they convey
the idea to be expressed, I must be permitted to recapitulate some
portions of an inquiry, entitled "What is Comparative Literature?"
published by me in the Atlantic Monthly for July, 1903. Comparative
literature, as now cultivated, is, in the first place, understood of
a field of investigation, — the literary relations existing between dis-
tinct nationalities: the study of international borrowings, imitations,
adaptations. And to recognize such relations as incidental to national
growth is of the utmost importance — social as well as literary;
(Gaston Paris, Texte, Arnold, Goethe.) This attention to literary
relations is, of course, the consequent of the study of literatures as
national: first the history of each literature; then the historic
relations between literatures. That in turn is naturally followed
by the synthesis in literature as a unit. "The nineteenth century,"
says M. Texte, "has seen the national history of literatures develop
and establish itself: the task of the twentieth century will undoubt-
edly be to write the comparative history of those literatures." "The
scientific view of literature," says Brandes, "provides us with a tele1-
scope of which the one end magnifies, and the other diminishes; it
must be so focused as to remedy the illusion of unassisted eyesight.
The different nations have hitherto held themselves SO4 distinct, as
far as literature is concerned, that each has only to a very limited
extent been able to benefit by the productions of the rest." Here,
again, the way had been marked out by Arnold, when he advocated
the comparison of literary classics in one language, or in many, with
a view to determining their relative excellence, that is, to displacing
personal or judicial criticism by a method more scientific. I am aware
that this conception of the study concerns its method and purpose
rather than its field. But I mention it here because it implies a more
comprehensive and deeper conception underlying all these statements
of the material of comparative study: the solidarity of literature.
And that is the working premise of the student of comparative
literature to-day: literature as a distinct and integral medium of
thought, a common institutional expression of humanity; differ-
entiated, to be sure, by the social conditions of the individual, by
racial, historical, cultural, and linguistic influences, opportunities,
and restrictions, but (irrespective of age or guise), prompted by the
common needs and aspirations of man, sprung from common fac-
ulties psychological and physiological, and obeying common laws of
material and mode, of the individual, and of social humanity.

348 HISTORY OF LITERATURE

From this conception of the material as a unit, scholars naturally
advance to the consideration of its development, the construction
of a theory. If a unity, and an existence approximately contempora-
neous with that of society, why not a life, a growth? "We no longer
have to examine solely the relations of one nation with another,"
says one, " but to unfold the simultaneous development of all litera-
tures, or, at least, of an important group of literatures." It is the
task of comparative literature, according to another, to find whether
the same laws of literary development prevail among all peoples or
not. The internal and external aspects of literary growth, Mr.
Posnett announces to be the objects of comparative inquiry; and
accepting as the principle of literary growth the progressive deepen-
ing and widening of personality, — in other words, the contraction
and expansion of Arnold and Texte, — with the development of
the social unit in which the individual is placed, this author finds a
corresponding differentiation of the literary medium from the prim-
itive homogeneity of communal art, a gradual individualizing of the
literary occasion and an evolution of literary forms. Mr. Posnett 's
method is perhaps impaired by the fact that he regards the relation
of literary history to the political rather than to the broader social
development of a people, but he certainly elaborates a theory; and
it is the more instructive because he does not treat literature as
organic, developing by reason of a life within itself to a determined
end, but as secondary and still developing with the evolution of the
organism from which it springs. In this theory of institutional growth
result also the methods of Buckle and Ernst Grosse, which may be
termed physiological and physiographical ; and the physio-psycho-
logical of Schiller, Spencer, and Karl Groos; and the method of Irjo
Hirn, and Guyau, which combines the social and psychological in the
inquiry into the art-impulse, its history and its effect; and that of
Schlegel and Carriere, who, emphasizing one side of Hegel's theory,
rest literary development largely upon the development of religious
thought. In M. Bruneti&re, on the other hand, we have one who
boldly announces his intention to trace the evolution of literary
species, — not as dependent upon the life of an organism such as
society, but in themselves. He frankly proposes to discover the laws
of literary development by applying the theory of evolution to the
study of literature. When he details the signs of youth, maturity,
and decay which the type may exhibit, and the transformation of
one type into another — as, for instance, the French pulpit oration
into the ode — according to principles analogous in their operation
to the Darwinian struggle for existence, survival of the fittest, and
natural selection, we become apprehensive lest the parallel be over-
worked. If M. Brunetiere would only complete the national portion
of his history, or, at least, try to substantiate his theory, we should

LITERARY STUDIES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY 349

be grateful. He has, however, enunciated one of the problems with
which comparative literature must grapple, and is grappling. Does
the biological principle apply to literature? If not, in how far may
the parallel be scientifically drawn?

That leads us to still a third conception of the term under con-
sideration. Comparative literature, say some, is not a subject-
matter nor a theory, but a method of study. With the ancients it was
the habit of roughly matching authors. The method has existed
ever since there were two pieces of literature known to the same
man; it has persisted through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance;
and it is alive to-day. Its merits and defects are those of the man who
uses it. To others the comparative method means the attempt to
obtain by induction from a sufficient variety of specimens the charac-
teristics, distinguishing marks, principles, even laws of the form,
movement, type, or literature under discussion. (Carriere, Freytag,
Aristotle.) In the discipline under consideration historical sequence
is just as important as comparison by cross-sections. The science is
called "comparative literary history" rather than "literature com-
pared," by French, German, and Italian scholars, not for nothing.
The historian who searches for origins or stages of development in a
single literature may employ the comparative method as much as he
who zigzags from literature to literature; and so the student whose
aim is to establish relations between literary movement and literary
movement, between author and author, period and period, type and
type, movement and movement, theme and theme, contemporaneous
or successive in any language, nationality, clime, or time. The com-
parison is not alone between diverse national literatures, but between
any elements involved in the history of literature, or any stages in the
history of any element. There have been, within my own knowledge,
those who would confine the word literature to the written productions
of civilized peoples, and consequently would exclude from consider-
ation aboriginal attempts at verbal art. But students nowadays
increasingly recognize that the cradle of literary science is anthropo-
logy. The comparative method therefore sets civilized literatures
side by side with the popular, traces folk-lore to folk-lore, and these
so far as possible to the matrix in the undifferentiated art of human
expression. Such is "comparative literature" when used of the
work of the Grimms, Steinthal, Comparetti, Donovan, Talvj, or
Ernst Grosse. The term is also properly used of the method of Taine,
which in turn derives from that recommended by Hegel in the first
volume of his JEsthetik (the appraisement of the literary work in
relation to Zeit, Volk, und Umgebung), and of the method of Brune-
tiere so far as he has applied it, for it is in theory the same, save that
it purports to emphasize the consideration of the element of individ-
uality. But that the method is susceptible of widely varying inter-

350 HISTORY OF LITERATURE

pretations is illustrated by the practice of still another advocate
thereof, Professor Wetz, who, in his Shakespeare from the Point of
yiew of Comparative Literary History, of 1890, and in his essay on the
history of literature, insists that comparative literature is neither
the literary history of one people, nor investigations in international
literary history; neither the study of literary beginnings, nor even the
attempt to obtain by induction the characteristics of Weltlitteratur,
its movements and types. While he accepts the analytical critical
method of Taine in combination with the historical and psychological
of Herder, Goethe, and Schiller, he insists that the function of com-
parative literature is to determine the peculiarities of an author by
comparison with those of some other author sufficiently analogous.

A survey of courses offered in European and American universities
and of the practice of our American philological journals and asso-
ciations shows that the academic conception is as I have stated it :
comparative literature works in the history of national as well as
of international conditions, it employs, more or less prominently,
the comparative method, logical and historical, it presupposes, and
results in, a conception of literature as a solidarity, and it seeks to
formulate and substantiate a theory of literary development whether
by evolution or permutation, in movements, types, and themes.
With these main considerations it is but natural that scholars should
associate the attempt to verify and systematize the characteristics
common to literature in its various manifestations wherever found;
to come by induction, for instance, at the eidographic or generic qual-
ities of poetry, — the characteristics of the drama, epic, or lyric; at
the dynamic qualities, those which characterize and differentiate the
main literary movements, such as the classical and romantic; and
at the thematic, the causes of persistence and modification in the
history of vital subjects, situations, and plots. As to the growth,
or development, of literature, our survey shows that two distinct
doctrines contend for acceptance: one, by evolution, which is an
attempt to interpret literary processes in accordance with biological
laws; the other, by what I prefer to call permutation. Since literature,
like its material, language, is not an organism, but a resultant
medium, both product and expression of the society whence it springs,
the former theory must be still in doubt. It can certainly not be
available otherwise than metaphorically unless it be substantiated
by just such methods — comparative and scientific — as those of
which we have spoken.

Much of this comparative method has been anticipated in theory;
but not so much in discipline and fact. The solidarity of literature
was long ago announced by Bacon. And he was not the only fore-
runner of the present movement. In one way or another the solidarity
of literature, the theories of permutation or of evolution, sometimes

crudely, sometimes with keen scientific insight, were anticipated by
Englishmen, Germans, Frenchmen, Italians of note all the way from
Dante, Scaliger, and Sidney down. If these writers and their main
contributions to the science could be cited, it would be seen that
they do not discredit, but confirm, the scope and hope of the science
of to-day. They testify to the need of a science in the nature of
things. They perform their service by anticipations in detail of a
discipline that could not be designated a science until the sciences
propaedeutic thereto had been developed. Advances in historical
method, in psychological, sociological, linguistic, and ethnological
research have, now, furnished the discipline with an instrument
unknown to its forebears in critical procedure; and with fresh and
rich materials for illumination from without. The conception of
literature as a unit is no longer hypothetical; the comparison of
national histories has proved it. The idea of a process by evolu-
tion may be unproved; but that some process, as by permutation,
must obtain is recognized. We no longer look upon the poet as in-
spired. Literature develops with the entity which produces it, —
the common social need and faculty of expression; and it varies
according to differentiae of racial, physiographic, and social condi-
tions, and of the inherited or acquired characteristics of which the
individual author is constituted. The science of its production
must analyze its component factors and determine the laws by which
they operate. By a constant factor are fixed the only possible
moulds or channels of expression, and, therefore, the integral and
primary types, as, for instance, within the realm of poetry, the
lyric, narrative, and dramatic. By the presence of other factors,
both inconstant, these types are themselves liable to modification.
I refer, of course, to environment, that is to say, to the anteced-
ent and contemporary condition of thought, social tendency, and
artistic fashion; and to the associational congeries called the author.
So far as physiological and psychological modes of expression may
be submitted to objective and historical analysis, so far as the
surrounding conditions which directly or indirectly affect the art
in which the author works, and the work of the author in that art,
may be inductively studied, and their nature interpreted and regis-
tered in relation to other products of society, such as language,
religion, and government, so far is the discipline of which we speak
legitimately scientific. And as rapidly as experimental psychology,
anthropology, ethnology, or the history of art in general, prove their
right to scientific recognition, they become instruments for the
comparative investigation of the social phenomenon called literature.
It is thus that the literary science, just now called comparative
literature, improves upon the efforts of the former stylistic or poet-
ics, largely traditional or speculative, and displaces the capricious

352 HISTORY OF LITERATURE

matching of authors, the static or provincial view of history, and
the appraisement lacking atmosphere.

While this science must exclude from the object under consider-
ation the purely subjective element, and the speculative or so-called
" judicial " (me judice) method from criticism and history, it need not
ignore or disregard the unexplained quantity, — the imaginative.
Its aim will be to explore the hitherto unexplained in the light of
historical sequence and scientific cause and effect, physical, biological,
psychological, or anthropological, to reduce the apparently unreason-
able or magical element, and so to leave continually less to be
treated in the old-fashioned inspirational and ecstatic manner. We
shall simply cease to confound the science with the art. The more
immediate advantages of the prosecution of literary research in such
a way as this are an ever-increasing knowledge of the factors that
enter into world-literature and determine its growth, — its reasons,
conditions, movements, and tendencies, — in short, its laws; and a
poetics capable not only of detecting the historical, but of appreciat-
ing the social accent in what is foreign and too often despised, or
contemporary and too often overpraised, if not ignored. The new
science of literature will in turn throw light upon that which gave it
birth; it will prove an index to the evolution of soul in the individual
and in society; it will interpret that sphinx, national consciousness
or the spirit of the race, or, mayhap, destroy it. It will in one case
and in all assist a science of comparative ethics. The new discipline
brought to the study of all kinds of writing a scientific objectivity
and the historical method. It has taken up into itself what is object-
ive and historical of the older stylistic : it aims to reject or confirm
former theories, but on purely scientific grounds. It is the transition
from stylistic to a science which shall still find room for aesthetics,
but for aesthetics properly so called, developed, checked, and corrected
by scientific procedure and by history.

Before the day of modern psychology, anthropology, linguistics,
and the comparative sciences of society, religion, and art, literature
was not possible to be studied either in relation to its antecedents
or to its components. Otherwise our study would long ago have been
known as comparative philology, a name improperly usurped by
the linguistic branch of the philological discipline. Such indeed is the
name by which Professor Whitney would have called the comparative
study of the literatures of different countries had the discipline,
been prosecuted as a science when he wrote. Such was the conception
of Wolf and Herder. The modern science of literature is a reaffirm-
ation of that aspect of philology — the literary — which, both because
it was dependent upon, and eclipsed by, the development of lin-
guistics, has long ceased to be regarded as philology at all; save in
Germany, where philological seminars have dealt not only with the

LITERARY STUDIES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY 353

phonology and history of language as they asserted themselves,
but also as of old with whatever concerns the literary side of language
as an expression of the national, or more broadly human spirit.
Since all study of origins and growth, whether of one phenomenon
or more than one, must be comparative if scientifically conducted,
it is not necessary to characterize the literary science, of which we
speak, by that particular adjective. More methods than the com-
parative enter into it, and it is more than a method; it is a theory
of relativity and of growth; and its material is vertically as well
as horizontally disposed. The literary study of to-day, based upon
the sciences of which I have spoken, and conducted in the scientific
method, is literary philology — nothing more nor less : it stands over
against linguistic philology or glottology; and it deals genetically,
historically, and comparatively with literature as a solidarity and as
a product of the social individual, whether the point of view be
national or universal. The new discipline is already the property
and method of all scientific research in all literatures, ancient or
modern, not only in their common but in their individual relations to
the social spirit in which they live and move and have their being.
The more we develop this discipline, the more rapidly will each
literature in turn seek its explanation in literary philology; and of
such is the future of literary studies in the twentieth century.

SECTION A— INDO-IRANIAN LITERATURE

SECTION A — INDO-IRANIAN LITERATURE

(Hall 8, September 24, 3 p. m.)

CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR MAURICE BLOOMFIELD, Johns Hopkins University.
SPEAKER: PROFESSOR A. V. W. JACKSON, Columbia University.

OUR INTEREST IN PERSIA AND THE STUDY OF HER
HISTORY, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE

BY A. V. WILLIAMS JACKSON

[Abraham Valentine Williams Jackson, Professor of Indo-Iranian Languages,
Columbia University, since 1895. b. New York, February 9, 1862. Graduate of
Columbia University, 1883; A.M. 1884; L.H.D. 1885; Ph.D. 1886. Instructor in
Anglo-Saxon and Iranian Languages, Columbia, 1887-90; University student,
Halle, Germany, 1887-89; Adjunct Professor of English Language and Literature,
Columbia, 1891-95. Member of American Oriental Society, American Philo-
logical Society, Deutsche Morgenlandische Gesellschaft. Author of A Hymn of
Zoroaster, Yasna, xxxi; An Avestan Grammar, in comparison with Sanskrit;
An Avestan Reader; Zoroaster, the Prophet of Ancient Iran; also many articles
in Journal of American Oriental Society.}

TO-DAY when all eyes are turned toward the East watching the
struggle for supremacy between Japan and Russia, the interest in
the Orient and its development is greater than ever before. As an
Eastern nation, therefore, Persia merits our attention, but she has
also peculiar claims upon our interest which it is the purpose of this
address to emphasize.

Of all the great historic nations which came into contact with
Greece and Rome, Persia alone has maintained her independence
to the present time. Her monarchs have been rulers for three thou-
sand years, and her shah, sitting upon the Peacock Throne at Tehran,
may boast his claim to sovereign sway as inheritor of Jamshid's
kingly rule in the legendary past of Iran and as successor to the
sceptre of the Median Deioces and the crown of Cyrus the Great.
The story of the foundation of a mighty empire by the conquering
arm of Cyrus and its development by the organizing hand of Darius
is rich in historic interest. The struggle with Greece, the first signs
of Persian decadence under Xerxes and Artaxerxes, the blow struck
by Alexander, which overthrew the Achsemenian throne, furnish
fruitful themes for its historian to discuss. If there were time to
dilate upon the period of Parthian rule which followed, I might
account for the hatred for Persia felt by Rome and summed up in

358 INDO-IRANIAN LITERATURE

Horace's Persicos odi, puer, apparatus or discuss his graphic image
of the Parthian horsemen turning to launch showers of deadly
arrows upon the Roman legions; or again, I might picture the fall
of the Sasanian power in the seventh century of our era and the
rude awakening from their dream of establishing once more a world-
empire. This was caused by the Arab conquest of Iran, the most
momentous event in Persia's history. I am compelled to pass over
the causes which led to this event and the far-reaching effects which
it produced, even if I tried to crowd the history of a thousand years
into a day, nor is there time more than to call attention to the
magnificence of the Persian capital at Isfahan under Shah Abbas,
the contemporary of Queen Elizabeth and of Henry IV of France,
whose munificent rule and the luxury of his successors are described
by the European travelers, Herbert, Olearius, and Chardin, who
visited his court. The centuries which followed, and likewise the
present, contain lessons for the statesman, historian, and philosopher.

In the realm of religion Persia has played an important role — a
role not wholly laid aside. Her ancient national creed, Zoroastrian-
ism, was one of the great religions of the East, and its remarkable
analogies to Judaism and Christianity have long engaged the atten-
tion of biblical students. Outside of these two faiths it would be
difficult to point to another religion which has a higher ethical code,
considering its antiquity, or a clearer grasp of the ideas of right and
wrong, than Zoroastrianism; or one which holds before its believers
a more exalted image of divinity than Ahura Mazda (Ormazd)
or inculcates a firmer doctrine of the responsibility of man to his
Maker, or so exalted a hope of the coming of a Saviour, a bodily
resurrection, a general judgment, and a future life with rewards
and punishments for the immortal soul, as taught in the Avesta, the
sacred book of ancient Iran.

From the earliest times when King Shalmanesar of Assyria placed
colonies of Israelites in certain cities of the Medes, there have been
more or less close relations between the Jews and the Persians. The
prophet Isaiah calls Cyrus the Great "the anointed of the Lord"
and His "Shepherd," and Darius gave orders for the temple at
Jerusalem to be rebuilt. Xerxes and Artaxerxes, the former under
the name of Ahasuerus, are renowned as kings in the Bible, and the
scenes of the apocryphal books Judith and Tobit are laid partly in
Persia. No study of the infancy of our Saviour, either in theology
or in art, can be complete without a reference to the Magi, for one or
all of these Wise Men from the East came from Persia, according
to old-time traditions and legends. To-day, moreover, the gospel
of Christ is being preached within the borders of Persia by self-
sacrificing missionaries, one of whom this very year sealed his faith
with his blood.

PERSIA — HISTORY, LANGUAGE, LITERATURE 359

In the early Christian ages a phase of Zoroastrianism, known as
. Mithraism, penetrated into the Roman world and spread so widely
that in many parts of Europe altars were set up and cave temples
built to celebrate the mysteries of the Persian divinity Mithra and
to glorify this personification of light, the sun, and truth. Further-
more, the system of Manichaeism, which sprang up on Persian soil,
was powerful enough for a time to compete with neo-Platonism and
Christianity for the religious and intellectual supremacy of the
Roman Empire.

Persia to-day is Muhammadan, having accepted Islam in the
seventh century, at the time of the Arab conquest, but here again
she has played a prominent part, because she is the chief represent-
ative of the Shiite sect which acknowledged Ali as the successor
of Muhammad in opposition to the orthodox Sunnites. Within the
last seventy years, moreover, a new religious movement, eclectic in
character and known as Babism, has sprung up in Persia and as-
sumed such proportions as to menace the progress of Muhammadan-
ism in Iran and to attract attention even in the Occident.

In the domain of art and architecture Persia is thought to have
borrowed largely from Assyria and Babylon in ancient times, and
later from Greece, Rome, and Byzantium, and in more recent days
from China and even the West ; nevertheless she has added so much
and made the importation so characteristically her own creation as to
command attention in all histories of these subjects. Our knowledge
of the artistic condition of Iran during the Median period is extremely
limited. Regarding architecture at that remote era we have to rely
solely on the account which Herodotus gives of the magnificent
walls at Ecbatana, colored in rainbow hues, and supplement this by
the description in the book of Judith, or again we must reproduce the
picture which Polybius gives of the temple of the Persian Artemis
at Ecbatana, the walls of which were covered with plates of silver
and gold. These structures have all vanished long since, except one
or two bases of columns and capitals of pillars, and there remains
not a trace of Median sculpture at Hamadan, which was the ancient
Ecbatana, save one, and even its claim to so great an antiquity
has been questioned. This is the great stone lion outside the city.
Although it is broken, battered, and prone on the ground, its outlines
are lifelike and artistic, and show what the Persian sculptor could
accomplish in ages past.

The art and architecture developed under the Achsemenian
kings, between the sixth and the fourth century B.C., can boast of
having brought forth some of the grandest monuments produced
by the Aryan race. The ruins of ancient Pasargadse and Persepolis
find their superior in grandeur only at Athens and Rome. The
remains at the ancient city of Hathra, and perhaps also the huge

360 INDO-IRANIAN LITERATURE

foundation stones and fallen columns of the great temple of the
Persian Diana at Kangavar,1 furnish the student with specimens of-
Parthian architecture; while the sculptured grottoes of Tag-i Bostan,
and the bas-reliefs at Hajiabad, Shapur, and Naksh-i Rustam, are
the best examples of Sasanian art. If we are interested in Persia's
later architectural achievements under Islam, we shall find examples
of the Muhammadan style everywhere from Tehran and Meshed to
Shiraz, or from the Blue Mosque at Tabriz to the turquoise domes
and slender minarets of Isfahan.

In ceramic art Persia has long enjoyed a high renown. Fragments
of porcelain with the exquisite reflet d'or are dug up among the ruins
of ancient Rai near Tehran, and the tiles of Isfahan, with their
delicate shades in color, are masterpieces in decorative faience;
while the art of the Persian potter is familiar to every reader of
Omar Khayyam. In metalware the graceful shape of the vessels of
copper and hammered brass appeals to the eye as one makes a tour
through the bazaars, and the filigree work in silver and gold or the
traceries on a damascened sword present a delicacy of outline that tells
of a high artistic sense. In the weaving of rugs and carpets, with their
careful blending of colors and variety in pattern and design, the
Persians bear away the palm. The embroidery done by the women
is equally attractive, and the delicate mesh work in their veils is
often so fine that it must try the eyes that make it, as much as the
eyes it hides. Brocaded silks, gay saddle-cloths, lacquered pommels,
pen-cases, book-covers, trays, and artistic specimens of antique armor
are among the Persian products which have called forth admiration
from the time of Jamshid till to-day. In the art of painting Persia
has little to show, for the influence of Islam is not favorable to the
pictorial arts, but in calligraphy, the art of beautiful handwriting,
Persia is unsurpassed. Penmanship is cultivated as a fine art, and
some of the specimens of nastalik script interlaced into a monogram
or of arabesque woven into intricate patterns in carpets or traced
about the domes and portals of mosques, are unrivaled in the world.
Music cannot be called a Persian art, but it may be mentioned in
comparison with Oriental harmony and in contrast to the West.

It may seem surprising to hear that even in science and philosophy
the world owes something to Persia. This indebtedness is chiefly to the
great philosopher-physician Ibn Sina, better known in Europe under
the name of Avicenna, who flourished about A.D. 1000. His medical
system was originally adopted from the Greek, but was Orientalized,
and it spread then over the East, finding its way to Europe through

1 Modern Kangavar is the same as the classical Konkobar, and kindred to
a presumable Avestan form *Kanha-yara, " Enclosure of Kanha." Isidorus of
Cnarax, ManvionesParthicae, § 7, mentions the temple at Konkobar. I visited the
ruins on my journey from Hamadan to Kermanshan.

PERSIA — HISTORY, LANGUAGE, LITERATURE 361

the Moors of Spain. So well was Avicenna's Canon known in the
fourteenth century that Chaucer refers to its author familiarly in
The Pardoner's Tale, on the subject of poisoning, and even uses the
technical word fen, by which the sections of the Canon are designated.
In metaphysics, moreover, Ibn Sina's fame as a thinker is known
to every student of scholastic philosophy, because his writings,
which were influenced by Aristotle and neo-Platonism, found their
way to Europe through the so-called Arabian philosophy of the
Moors, became widely known through translations, and exercised
a strong influence on Scholasticism. Persian Sufiism also, with its
transcendental ideas, although not the result of Persian thought
alone, presents many interesting analogies to European mysticism
of the Middle Ages, in whatever manner we may seek to explain the
likenesses. In the realm of science, furthermore, Nasir ad-Din of Tus
in Khorasan was an astronomer who enjoyed a great reputation in
the East,1 and many of us call Omar Khayyam " the astronomer-poet
of Persia," without recalling the fact that he wrote also an algebra.
In the department of history and chronology the name of Mirkhond
may be mentioned with praise, and I may add that a number of
the Eastern medieval writers whom we think of as Arabs were really
Persians, but chose the language of their conquerors as a vehicle
to express their thoughts.

The student of social institutions, political economy, and science
of government may learn something also from the code of the
Avesta, or better still from the organization of the Persian Empire
by Darius. His system of administration by satraps, his distribution
of taxes among the provinces, his management of financial pro-
blems, fixing the ratio of silver to gold at a precise figure, and his
encouragement of agriculture, as enjoined by Zoroaster, may be
mentioned as single illustrations. The contrast between the present
and the past of Iran in these respects is no less instructive, and the
hand of a Darius, if not of a Cyrus, is needed once more if we are
to have a Persia rediviva.

Nothing has been said thus far regarding the language of Persia,
and our interest in that study. The discovery and translation of the
Avesta by Anquetil du Perron marked a new era in philology as well
as in the study of religion, and the decipherment of the cuneiform
inscriptions of the Achaemenian kings by Grotefend and Rawlinson
added a chapter to the story told by Herodotus, corroborating the
facts of ancient history previously known from other sources, and
throwing fresh light on the monuments of the past. The researches
into the Middle Persian or Pahlavi texts and inscriptions, supple-

1 See the sketch by my friend, Professor Paul Horn, Was verdanken wir
Persien ? in Nord und Sud, Heft 282, p. 289, Breslau, 1900, to which I am indebted
for several suggestions.

362 INDO-IRANIAN LITERATURE

mented by a knowledge of the Modern Persian and its dialects, and
still further elaborated by a study of the coins and gems, have helped
to place Iranian linguistics on as firm a basis as that of any other
group of languages and materially to further the science of com-
parative philology. The Modern Persian, moreover, with its admix-
ture of Arabic and loss of inflections, both due to the Muhammadan
conquest, offers an interesting linguistic parallel to English with its
leveled case-endings, analytic structure, and vast infusion of Romance
words due to the Norman-French invasion. In the matter of lin-
guistic purity and the avoidance of foreign words in a national epic,
the Persian poet Firdausi, author of the Shah Namah (A.D. 1000)
affords an excellent parallel to the English poetic chronicler Laya-
mon, author of the Brut (A.D. 1200) ; the one is as free from Arabic
words, which later became popular, as the other from elements
derived from the Norman-French.

Our own vocabulary to-day owes something to Persia. So common
a word as van, used in moving furniture, is an abbreviation of
caravan (which has been etymologized in the folk-speech as "carry-
van ") and is as much Persian as the name shah itself, or his tiara.
The same is true of the words paradise, and Peri, magic, and bakhshish,
which have a history as old as the Avesta. The Persian term bazaar
is current in English, and shawls, sashes, awnings, turquoises, and taffeta
are standard articles in our linguistic supply as well as in the business
market. Products so generally common in America as the orange,
lemon, melon, and peach (the latter word having come through the
medium of the French from the Latin malum Persicum, "Persian
apple") are Iranian in name as well as in origin. The vegetable
spinach is Persian, and asparagus traces its lineage apparently
through the Greek <Wapayos ultimately to Avestan sparegha, "shoot,
stalk." * The list of our linguistic indebtedness to Persia might be
increased by adding a score or more words, like julep, which is really
an arabicized form of the Persian gulab, " rose-water," hazard, applied
to taking one chance in a thousand (Pers. hazar), while gul and
bulbul are familiar to every one who reads poetry about the night-
ingale and rose of Persia.2

The title of Persian literature to a place among the great literatures
of the world is a recognized one, and it is perhaps in this domain that
she can make the greatest claim upon our interest. In antiquity and
compass Persian literature may rank behind its cousin, the Sanskrit of
India, and its monuments may not date so far back as the Egyptian,
Assyrian, and Old Babylonian, nor may its compositions make pre-
tensions to rival the Psalms in loftiness, nor its style to match the

1 This vegetable has gained much by being transplanted to the West, if I may
judge by the asparagus which now grows in Persia.

2 For a list of Persian words in English consult the appendix to Skeat, Etymo-
logical Dictionary of the English Language.

PERSIA — HISTORY, LANGUAGE, LITERATURE 363

Greek in classic beauty, but this is equally true of any other Oriental
literature. Persian literature has special claims of its own, and these
are such as to allow it to rank high when compared with ancient
models, and assign it a position of distinction in the line of epic,
lyric, and descriptive poetry, when judged by modern standards.

Viewed in its broadest sense, the literature of Persia comprises all
the literary monuments of Iran conceived as a national entity, and
covers a period of more than twenty-five centuries. From the fact that
"the book of records of the chronicles," according to Esther (vi, 1),
was brought and read before King Ahasuerus, or Xerxes, we may infer
the existence of annals, chronicles, and historical accounts, which were
written and kept long before the days of Xerxes.

The Avesta, our oldest book in Iranian literature, is of importance
chiefly because of its religious character and the light which it throws
upon the conditions of early Media and Bactria; but some of the
epic passages in its Yashts show that there must have been even
earlier some sort of national literature in the form of annals or
chronicles, lays or ballads, legends or mythical stories, traces of
which survive in the Shah Namah, or Persian Book of Kings. The
Avestan Gathas, or Psalms of Zoroaster, moreover, ring with the
voice of a prophetic soul inspired by the greatness of his calling, and
this lends a literary tone to the force of these metrical compositions.
The Old Persian inscriptions have already been alluded to, and
mention has been made of our interest in these rock-cut records of
the great Achsemenian kings. Even the sober Pahlavi, or Middle
Persian literature, twice turns aside from its sacerdotal, scientific,
or exegetical style of composition to give us an early instance of
the Eastern biographical and historical romance, the Karnamak,
or Gests of King Ardashir Papakan, and the Yatkar, or Battle of the
Zoroastrian crusader Zarir.

Most interesting is the Modern Persian literature. This sprang up
a century or more after the Arab conquest, as a revival of the old
feeling of national pride and an effort to recall the lost glory of Iran
then gave rise to a kind of literary renaissance. The names of the
earlier poets of this era, like Rudaki and Dakiki, might be mentioned
as worthy of praise, but we pass them over to pay homage to Firdausi,
the Father of Persian Song, who wrote before the date A.D. 1000, and
cast into the mould of undying verse the annals of Persia down to
the Arab invasion. This work, a poem of 60,000 couplets, he called
Shah Namah, Book of Kings; it ranks as a world-epic and entitles
him to his proud name Firdausi, Poet of Paradise. His last poem,
on the romantic story of the passion of Potiphar's wife Zulaika for
the youthful Joseph, though written in old age, is a masterpiece and
full of fervid imagination, while his panegyric and his satire on his
patron but deceiver, Mahmud of Ghazni, is unsurpassed in power

364 INDO-IRANIAN LITERATURE

of expressing eulogy and scorn. The last years of Firdausi were
unhappy ones, marred by a failure to meet with a suitable acknow-
ledgment of his true greatness, and tinged even by a suspicion of
heresy imputed to him by reason of the sympathy shown toward the
fire-worshipers in his epic. He died almost in exile, and this pathetic
fact inspired the pen of the English poet Edmund Gosse to write
Firdausi in Exile. Not to mention translations, and adaptations or
versions of episodes in the Shah Namah which have been made in
continental tongues, I may call to memory Matthew Arnold's Sohrab
and Rustum, one of the finest pieces of epic narrative in the English
language, which is based directly on Firdausi's tragic incident of the
death of Sohrab by the hand of his father Rustum in mortal com-
bat on the battlefield.

To speak of Persian poetry is to mention the name of Omar Khay-
yam, who flourished about A.D. 1100 and whose Rubaiyat has become
an English classic through FitzGerald's memorable version of the
quatrains. Editions, translations, commentaries, and appreciations
of Omar in England, America, France, and Germany, number legion,
and the study of this Persian poet has become so much a cult as to
lead to the foundation of Omar Khayyam clubs in London and in
Boston.

Less known in the Occident, but deserving a wider reputation
than he has in the West, is Nizami (A.D. 1141-1203), a Persian master
of the romantic epopee. As an example of his narrative and descrip-
tive power, I may mention his poem on the fatal love of the sculptor
Farhad for Shirin, the lovely favorite of King Khosru. The monarch
was aware of the artist's secret admiration; desiring to call forth
new miracles from his chisel, as well as secure from him a work of
lasting practical value, he promised the enamoured sculptor the hand
of Shirin as a reward for his carving, provided he would also cut
a channel through the lofty rock of Bisitun and lead the water to the
plain beneath. The love-inspired artist accomplished the feat, but
sacrificed his life in the task, for he threw himself down from the rock
to destruction on hearing a false report that his beloved Shirin was
dead. No more touching bit of narrative poetry is to be found than in
Nizami 's account of the tragic tale.

Familiar to every one interested in literature are the names of
Sa'di and Hafiz. Sa'di's long life extended over most of the thirteenth
century, and his experiences enabled him to combine the moralist with
the poet. In his two best works, the Gulistan and the Bostan, Gardens
of Roses and Perfumes, we have wise matter commingled with rich
verse, and his short poems thrill with a human touch, while some of
his stories and sayings are distinctly humorous. Hafiz deserves still
greater fame. He died at Shiraz towards the end of the fourteenth
century, and his tomb is pointed out, not far from Sa'di's, outside

PERSIA — HISTORY, LANGUAGE, LITERATURE 365

the city of nightingales and roses. Hafiz is a poet's poet and one of
the world's greatest lyrists; some acquaintance with his exquisite
odes belongs to true culture.

If there were time, I should like to discuss the metaphysical poet
Jalal ad-Din Rumi, of the thirteenth century, and the mystic Jami,
who lived two centuries later, and to draw a comparison between their
verses and the mystic poetry, sensuous imagery, and transcendental
symbolism of the seventeenth-century English poets Donne and
Crawshaw, or the Purple Island of Phineas Fletcher. Space also
forbids me to include in the list dozens of minor names from Abu
Said ibn Khair, an author of quatrains who died in 968, or Kamal
of Isfahan, 1200, to the prose of the late Shah Nasir ad-Din's diary
of his journey to Europe in 1889. Among the curiosities of Persian
literature, moreover, is a culinary poet, Bushak of Shiraz and Isfahan,
who lived in the fifteenth century and whose verses in praise of the
cuisine would delight the heart of a gourmand; or again the clothes-
poet, Mahmud Kari of Yezd, in the sixteenth century, whose lyre
responded to the Sartor Resartus theme of robes and garments.
Though the times to-day do not favor a poet's birth nor foster the
cultivation of the Muses, the Persian race has not forgotten how to
sing, and a renaissance of the poetic art may come perchance some
day with a new order of things.

Little space remains for adding a few words about the influence of
Persia on our own poetry. In the earlier ages Persia was little known
to England except as a name, yet Chaucer alludes to Persian blue,
"pers," in the Prologue, and "robes de pers" occur in the French
original of the Romaunt which Chaucer translated. Marlowe has
Persian names and Persian scenes in his Tamburlaine; and Shake-
speare alludes to Persian attire in King Lear and to a Persian prince
in Merchant of Venice, as well as to a voyage to Persia in his Comedy
of Errors. Milton, besides making other allusions, summarizes the
earlier history of Persia in his Paradise Regained, and Shelley recalls,
the pillared halls of Persepolis in a passage in Alastor. Byron's
Giaour and Lander's Gebir hark back to the old Zoroastrian faith of
Iran, and Matthew Arnold and Edmund Gosse have already been
cited as falling under the spell of Firdausi. A dozen other instances
of Persian influence on English poets might be cited, the best known
being Tom Moore, whose Lalla Rookh fills the senses with the melody
and perfume, color and beauty, tenderness and tremulous ecstasy,
which is associated in imagination with the East.

In the realm of English prose, two volumes of Persian Tales were
widely read in Europe in the latter part of the eighteenth century,
and the so-called Arabian Nights are really largely Persian. The
inimitable Persian novel, Hajji Baba of Isfahan, by Morier, is so
thoroughly Oriental that Persians who read English mistake it for

366 INDO-IRANIAN LITERATURE

a serious composition and take umbrage at some of its amusing
accounts. One of our contemporary American writers, Marion
Crawford, selected Zoroaster to be the hero of a pseudo-historical
novel. A dozen more of examples would occur to mind if I had
chosen to go outside of English and speak of the influence of Persia
upon French, German, and other European literatures, but enough
has already been said.

In conclusion and by way of summary I would emphasize again
the value of Persian studies in the lines of history, religion, and
sociology, art, architecture, and archaeology, language and literature,
and incidentally in philosophy and science. I venture also to express
the hope that America may be led further to emulate the example
of France, England, Germany, and Russia, in encouraging investiga-
tion in these particular branches of study relating to Iran and the
Land of the Lion and the Sun.

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