And even then, after a grammatical form has become obsolete and unintelligible, it by no means loses its power of further development. Though the Greeks did not themselves, we still imagine that we feel the infinitive as the case of an abstract noun in many constructions. Thus χαλεπὸν εὑρεῖν, difficult to find, was originally, difficult in the finding, or difficult for the act of finding; δεινὸς λέγειν, meant literally, powerful in speaking; ἄρχομαι λέγειν, I begin to speak, i.e., I direct myself to the act of speaking; κέλεαί με μυθήσασθαι, you bid me to speak, i.e., you order me towards the act of speaking; φοβοῦμαι διελέγχειν σε, I am afraid of refuting you, i.e., I fear in the act, or, I shrink when brought towards the act, of refuting you; σὸν ἔργον λέγειν, your business is in or towards speaking, you have to speak; πᾶσιν ἁδεῖν χαλεπόν, there is something difficult in pleasing everybody, or, in our endeavor after pleasing everybody. In all these cases the so-called infinitive can, with an effort, still be felt as a noun in an oblique case. But in course of time expressions such as χαλεπὸν ἁδεῖν, it is difficult to please, ἀγαθὸν λέγειν, it is good to speak, left in the mind of the speaker the impression that ἁδεῖν and λέγειν were subjects in the nominative, the pleasing is difficult, the speaking is good; and by adding the article, these oblique cases of verbal nouns actually became nominatives, τὸ ἁδειν, the act of pleasing, τὸ λέγειν, the act of speaking, capable of being used in every case, e.g., ἐπιθυμια τοῦ πίειν, desiderium bibendi. This regeneration, this process of creating new words out of decaying and decayed materials may seem at first sight incredible, yet it is as certain as the change with which we began our discussion of the infinitive. I mean the change of the conception of a ῥῆμα γενικώτατον, a verbum generalissimum, into a generalissimus or infinitivus. Nor is the process without analogy in modern languages. The French l’avenir, the future (Zukunft), is hardly the Latin advenire. That would mean the arriving, the coming, but not what is to come. I believe l’avenir was (quod est) ad venire, what is to come, contracted to l’avenir. In Low-German to come assumes even the character of an adjective, and we can speak not only of a year to come, but of a to-come year, de tokum Jahr.[23]
This process of grammatical vivisection may be painful in the eyes of classical scholars, yet even they must see how great a difference there is in the quality of knowledge imparted by our Greek and Latin grammars, and by comparative grammar. I do not deny that at first children must learn Greek and Latin mechanically, but it is not right that they should remain satisfied with mere paradigms and technical terms, without knowing the real nature and origin of so-called infinitives, gerunds, and supines. Every child will learn the construction of the accusative with the infinitive, but I well remember my utter amazement when I first was taught to say Miror te ad me nihil scribere, “I am surprised that you write nothing to me.” How easy would it have been to explain that scribere was originally a locative of a verbal noun, and that there was nothing strange or irrational in saying, “I wonder at thee in the act of not writing to me.” This first step once taken, everything else followed by slow degrees, but even in phrases like Spero te mihi ignoscere, we can still see the first steps which led from “I hope or I desire thee, toward the act of forgiving me,” to “I trust thee to forgive me.” It is the object of the comparative philologist to gather up the scattered fragments, to arrange them and fit them, and thus to show that language is something rational, human, intelligible, the very embodiment of the mind of man in its growth from the lowest to the highest stage, and with capabilities for further growth far beyond what we can at present conceive or imagine.
As to writing Greek and Latin verse, I do not maintain that a knowledge of Comparative Philology will help us much. It is simply an art that must be acquired by practice, if in these our busy days it is still worth acquiring. A good memory will no doubt enable us to say at a moment’s notice whether certain syllables are long or short. But is it not far more interesting to know why certain vowels are long and others short, than to be able to string longs and shorts together in imitation of Greek and Latin hexameters? Now in many cases the reason why certain vowels are long or short, can be supplied by Comparative Philology alone. We may learn from Latin grammar that the i in fîdus, trusty, and in fîdo, I trust, is long, and that it is short in fides, trust, and perfidus, faithless; but as all these words are derived from the same root, why should some have a long, others a short vowel? A comparison of Sanskrit at once supplies an answer. Certain derivatives, not only in Latin but in Sanskrit and Greek too, require what is called Guṇa of the radical vowel. In fîdus and fîdo, the i is really a diphthong, and represents a more ancient ei or oi, the former appearing in Greek πείθω, the latter in Latin foedus, a truce.
We learn from our Greek grammars that the second syllable in δείκνῡμι is long, but in the plural, δείκνῠμεν, it is short. This cannot be by accident, and we may observe the same change in δάμνημι and δάμναμεν, and similar words. Nothing, however, but a study of Sanskrit would have enabled us to discover the reason of this change, which is really the accent in its most primitive working, such as we can watch it in the Vedic Sanskrit, where it produces exactly the same change, only with far greater regularity and perspicuity.
Why, again, do we say in Greek, οἶδα, I know, but ἴσ-μεν, we know? Why τέτληκα, but τέτλαμεν? Why μέμονα, but μέμαμεν? There is no recollection in the minds of the Greeks of the motive power that was once at work, and left its traces in these grammatical convulsions; but in Sanskrit we still see, as it were, a lower stratum of grammatical growth, and we can there watch the regular working of laws which required these changes, and which have left their impress not only on Greek, but on Sanskrit, and even on German. The same necessity which made Homer say οἶδα and ἴδμεν, and the Vedic poet véda and vidmás, still holds good, and makes us say in German, Ich weiss, I know, but wir wissen, we know.
All this becomes clear and intelligible by the light of Comparative Grammar; anomalies vanish, exceptions prove the rule, and we perceive more plainly every day how in language, as elsewhere, the conflict between the freedom claimed by each individual and the resistance offered by the community at large, establishes in the end a reign of law most wonderful, yet perfectly rational and intelligible.
These are but a few small specimens to show you what Comparative Philology can do for Greek and Latin; and how it has given a new life to the study of languages by discovering, so to say, and laying bare, the traces of that old life, that prehistoric growth, which made language what we find it in the oldest literary monuments, and which still supplies the vigor of the language of our own time. A knowledge of the mere facts of language is interesting enough; nay, if you ask yourself what grammars really are—those very Greek and Latin grammars which we hated so much in our schoolboy days—you will find that they are store-houses, richer than the richest museums of plants or minerals, more carefully classified and labeled than the productions of any of the great kingdoms of nature. Every form of declension and conjugation, every genitive and every so-called infinitive and gerund, is the result of a long succession of efforts, and of intelligent efforts. There is nothing accidental, nothing irregular, nothing without a purpose and meaning in any part of Greek or Latin grammar. No one who has once discovered this hidden life of language, no one who has once found out that what seemed to be merely anomalous and whimsical in language is but, as it were, a petrification of thought, of deep, curious, poetical, philosophical thought, will ever rest again till he has descended as far as he can descend into the ancient shafts of human speech, exploring level after level, and testing every successive foundation which supports the surface of each spoken language.
One of the great charms of this new science is that there is still so much to explore, so much to sift, so much to arrange. I shall not, therefore, be satisfied with merely lecturing on Comparative Philology, but I hope I shall be able to form a small philological society of more advanced students, who will come and work with me, and bring the results of their special studies as materials for the advancement of our science. If there are scholars here who have devoted their attention to the study of Homer, Comparative Philology will place in their hands a light with which to explore the dark crypt on which the temple of the Homeric language was erected. If there are scholars who know their Plautus or Lucretius, Comparative Philology will give them a key to grammatical forms in ancient Latin, which, even if supported by an Ambrosian palimpsest, might still seem hazardous and problematical. As there is no field and no garden that has not its geological antecedents, there is no language and no dialect which does not receive light from a study of Comparative Philology, and reflect light in return on more general problems. As in geology again, so in Comparative Philology, no progress is possible without a division of labor, and without the most general coöperation. The most experienced geologist may learn something from a miner or from a ploughboy; the most experienced comparative philologist may learn something from a schoolboy or from a child.
I have thus explained to you what, if you will but assist me, I should like to do as the first occupant of this new chair of Comparative Philology. In my public lectures I must be satisfied with teaching. In my private lectures, I hope I shall not only teach, but also learn, and receive back as much as I have to give.