NOTES.
Note 1, p. 6. l. 24.
To be heard with confidence we must prove that we have anticipated objections. There are those who shew reason for believing that the inflectional elements were once independent roots: in other words (or rather in a formal expression) that a given case=the root+a preposition, and that a given tense=the root+the substantive verb. Now believing that, although two forms may be thus accounted for, the third may have a very different origin, in other words, drawing a difference between a method of accounting for a given part of speech, and the method of so doing, I find that the bearings of the objection are as follows:—
The independent words, anterior to their amalgamation with the root, and anterior to their power as elements in inflection were either, like the present prepositions and the verb substantive, exponents of the relations of Time and Place, or they were, like the present nouns and verbs, names expressive of ideas: and presuming the former to have been the case, the old inflected Languages may have grown out of Languages like our own; and, vice versa, Languages uninflected (or at least comparatively so), like our own, may give rise to inflected ones like the Latin: in which case, a Cycle is established, and the assertion concerning the sequence falls to the ground.
Now the assertion concerning the two stages professes to be true only as far as it goes. The fact that certain nations are even now evolving a rudimentary inflection out of a vocabulary of independent roots, gives us, as an etymological phenomenon, a third, and an earlier stage of Language; a stage, however, of which cognizance, out of a work on Etymology, would have been superfluous. The independent roots, however, in these Languages coincide, not with the prepositions and the verbs substantive of (comparatively) uninflected Languages, but with their Nouns and Verbs.
To an objector of another sort who should inquire (for instance) where was the Passive Voice in English, or the Definite Article in Latin, the answer would be that the question shewed a misapprehension of the statement in the text, which is virtually this: not that there is either in English or Latin, respectively, Passive Voices, or Definite Articles, but that there are in the two Languages the processes that evolve them. It may also be added, that (an apparent truism) the quantity of Processes depends upon the capacity of the Language. A dialect consisting (as some do) of about ten-score words can bear but a proportionate number of Processes. The truth, however, of the statements in question depends upon this: viz. that all the processes there existing are the processes that exist elsewhere, and that all processes which, with a given increase of Language may at any future time be developed, shall coincide, in kind, with the processes of other Languages.
It may be satisfactory to the Author of the Principles of Geology to discover that his criticism affects other sciences besides his own. Notwithstanding the industry, and acumen of continental critics, it may be doubted whether the Principles of Etymology (as a Science) have not yet to be exhibited. I use the word exhibited intentionally. That many Etymologists apply them I am most certain; where, however, do we find them detailed in system, or recognised as tests?
We draw too much upon the Philologists of Germany; and where men draw indefinitely they trust implicitly. I believe that the foundations of Etymology are to be laid upon the study of existing processes; and I grow sanguine when I remember that by no one so well as by an Englishman can these processes be collected. With the exception of the Russian (a doubtful exception) we come in contact with more Languages than any nation under the Sun. Here then we have an advantage in externals. The details of Etymology I can willingly give up to the scholars of the Continent; in these they have already reaped a harvest: but for the Principles of Etymology, I own to the hope that it may be the English School that shall be the first to be referred to and the last to be distrusted. In sketching the outline of a system of Scientific Etymology, I again borrow my analogies from Geology. Its primary divisions would be two: 1stly, The processes that change the form of words, or the formal processes. 2ndly, The processes that change their meanings, or the Logical processes. The first of these would be based upon the affinities and interchanges of sounds, the second upon the affinities and interchanges of ideas: the sciences (amongst others) which they were erected on being, respectively, those of Acoustics and Metaphysics; and the degrees of Etymological probability would then coincide with the correspondence of the two sorts of processes.
Few Etymologists have any conception of the enormous influence of small and common processes, provided that the extent of Language that they affect be considerable. In the very generalizing classification of Languages into Monosyllabic, Triliteral, and Polysynthetic, I put no trust; for I can refer (to my own satisfaction at least) the differences that are generally attributed to an original diversity of composition, to a diversity in the development of processes: in other words, I know of processes which with a given degree of development render the three classes convertible each in the other. With these notions I, of course, take exceptions to the Principle of the classification; for I deny that the Form of a Language is, in any degree, an essential characteristic. The axiom is not Propter formam Lingua est id quod est, but Propter elementa Lingua est id quod est. The question concerning the Classification in point is analogous to the question concerning the Chemical and the Natural-History Classification in Mineralogy.
Note 2, p. 7. l. 22.
Were it not for the admixture of other questions, the present Lecture might have been entitled The Sufficiency of the English Language as a Disciplinal Study in Grammar and Etymology, irrespective of the fact of its being the native Language of Englishmen. The appended qualification is in no wise a superfluity. Our native Language is the best instrument in Disciplinal Study simply because it is our native one; and a Pole, a Spaniard, or Hungarian can best lay in their ideas of General Grammar from the special study of the Polish, Spanish, and Hungarian Languages respectively. The very palpable reason for this is that, before we can advantageously study the System of a Language, we must have acquired a certain quantity of the detail of it. Now, in the attempt to collect ideas of General Grammar from the study of a Foreign Language, we shall find that the Theory will be swamped by the Practice; in other words, that, by attempting to do two things at once, we shall do one of them badly. Merely, then, to have predicated in England, of the English Language, that it was a good and sufficient Disciplinal Instrument would have been to have remained silent as to its abstract merits as such.
Of these abstract merits the degree depends upon the chronological extent of Language that we make use of. To get them at their maximum the Two Stages must be taken in: and the Two Stages being taken in, it is more on a par with the Languages of Classical Antiquity, than it has generally been considered to be. Still (considered thus far only) it is inferior to them. For the Greek and Latin, exceeding it in the quantity of original Inflection, have run through an equal quantity of change. Considering, however, not the English only, but the whole range of allied Languages forming the Gothic Stock, the question takes a different shape. As a Magazine of Processes and Principles, the Gothic Stock not only equals the Classical, but exceeds, by far, the Greek Branch of it. The Hebrew from its quasi-symbolic form has Disciplinal merits of its own.
Let the Languages of Greece and Italy be learned for their own sake; and by those who have the privilege to appreciate them. One might think that the works of Homer and Demosthenes, of Lucretius and Cæsar, were a sufficient reason for turning with diurnal and nocturnal hands the copies that exhibit them. But let us not (as we often are) be told that it is necessary to study the Latin or the Greek Accidence for the sake of learning grammar in general. The self-deception that in taking up Latin and Greek we are studying a Grammar, instead of beginning a Literature, is too often the excuse for concluding our studies just where they might advantageously begin, and for looking with complacency upon limited acquirements just where limited acquirements are pre-eminently of little use.
Note 3, p. 8, l. 27.
I feel that the assertion here made requires modifying and explaining. I should be sorry to be supposed to have made it, under the old notion that in any written records of the Saxon Literature there is any ostensible admixture of Danish (i. e. Scandinavian); still less do I participate in the belief of the early Gothic Scholars in the existence of their so-called Dano-Saxon Dialect. I recognize, moreover, the criticism that refers the apparent Danish (Scandinavian) element of the East-Anglian, and Northumbrian Glossaries to the original affinity between the extreme Low German and the extreme Scandinavian Dialects: thus making it indirect. It was once my opinion (one which I have since modified but not given up) that in the present English, and consequently in the Low Germanic Branch of the Gothic Stock, obscure traces of the great Scandinavian characteristics (viz. the existence of a Passive Middle or Reflective Voice, and the peculiar expression of the sense of the Definite Article) could be discovered: but it was not upon this idea that I founded the assertion in the text.
The question has its peculiar difficulties. Words that have long passed for Scandinavian, are continually being detected in the Saxon; so that the Philologist who should say this word is Scandinavian and not Saxon has the difficult task of proving a negative. Again, the point is one upon which no single person's assertion should be received. Hastiness of Induction, in favour of particular Languages, when we know these Languages (as every Language, indeed as every kind of Knowledge, must be known) at the expense of some other, comes upon us unconsciously. The Languages of the Gothic Stock that I know best are those of Scandinavia; the Provincial Dialect of England which I have most studied is that of Lincolnshire, and the neighbouring maritime Counties. Here the preeminence of the Danish (Scandinavian) element being acknowledged, the question is whether it be Direct or Indirect. I am free to confess that this circumstance sharpens my sight for the perception (true or false) of direct Danish elements. As a counterbalance, however, the consciousness of it engenders a proportionate self-distrust.
Upon the whole, I would rather that the sentence had run thus: the Direct Scandinavian element in the English is still to be determined, and here (as in many other places) there is open ground for the original investigator.