At that time Herbart’s philosophy, as taught by Drobisch at Leipzig, came to me as a most useful antidote. The chief object of that philosophy is, as is well known, the analysing and clearing, so to speak, of our concepts. This was exactly what I wanted, only that occupied as I was with the problems of language, I at once translated the object of his philosophy into a definition of words. Henceforth the object of my own philosophical occupations was the accurate definition of every word. All words, such as reason, pure reason, mind, thought, were carefully taken to pieces and traced back, if possible, to their first birth, and then through their further developments. My interest in this analytical process soon took an historical, that is etymological, character in so far as I tried to find out why any words should now mean exactly what, according to our definition, they ought to mean. For instance, in examining such words as Vernunft or Verstand, a little historical retrospect showed that their distinction as reason and understanding was quite modern, and chiefly due to a scientific definition given and maintained by the Kantian school of philosophy. Of course every generation has a right to define its philosophical terms, but from an historical point of view Kant might have used with equal right Vernunft for Verstand, and Verstand for Vernunft. Etymologically or historically both words have much the same meaning. Vernunft, from Vernehmen, meant originally no more than perception, while Verstand meant likewise perception, but soon came to imply a kind of understanding, even a kind of technical knowledge, though from a purely etymological standpoint it had nothing that fitted it more for carrying the meaning, which is now assigned to it in German in distinction to Vernunft, than understanding had as distinguished from reason. It requires, of course, a very minute historical research to trace the steps by which such words as reason and understanding diverge in different directions, in the language of the people and in philosophical parlance. This teaches us a very important distinction, namely that between the popular development of the meaning of a word, and its meaning as defined and asserted by a philosopher or by a poet in the plenitude of his power. Etymological definition is very useful for the first stages in the history of a word. It is useful to know, for instance, that deus, God, meant originally bright, bright whether applied to sky, sun, moon, stars, dawn, morning, dayspring, spring of the year, and many other bright objects in nature, that it thus assumed a meaning common to them all, splendid, or heavenly, beneficent, powerful, so that when in the Veda already we find a number of heavenly bodies, or of terrestrial bodies, or even of periods of time called Devas, this word has assumed a more general, more comprehensive, and more exalted meaning. It did not yet mean what the Greeks called θεοἱ or gods, but it meant something common to all these θεοἱ, and thus could naturally rise to express what the Greeks wanted to express by that word. There was as yet no necessity for defining deva or θεὁς, when applied to what was meant by gods, but of course the most opposite meanings had clustered round it. While a philosophical Greek would maintain that θεὁς meant what was one and never many, a poetical Greek or an ordinary Greek would hold that it meant what was by nature many. But while in such a case philosophical analysis and historical genealogy would support each other, there are ever so many cases where etymological analysis is as hopeless as logical analysis. Who is to define romantic, in such expressions as romantic literature. Etymologically we know that romantic goes back finally to Rome, but the mass of incongruous meanings that have been thrown at random into the caldron of that word, is so great that no definition could be contrived to comprehend them all. And how should we define Gothic or Romanic architecture, remembering that as no Goths had anything to do with pointed arches, neither were any Romans responsible for the flat roofs of the German churches of the Saxon emperors.
Enough to show what I meant when I said that Professor Drobisch, in his Lectures on Herbart, gave one great encouragement in the special work in which I was already engaged as a mere student, the Science of Language and Etymology. If Herbart declared philosophy to consist in a thorough examination (Bearbeitung) of concepts, or conceptual knowledge, my answer was, Only let it be historical, nay, in the beginning, etymological; I was not so foolish as to imagine that a word as used at present, meant what it meant etymologically. Deus no longer meant brilliant, but it should be the object of the true historian of language to prove how Deus, having meant originally brilliant, came to mean what it means now.
For a time I thought of becoming a philosopher, and that sounded so grand that the idea of preparing for a mere schoolmaster, teaching Greek and Latin, seemed to me more and more too narrow a sphere. Soon, however, while dreaming of a chair of philosophy at a German University, I began to feel that I must know something special, something that no other philosopher knew, and that induced me to learn Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian. I had only heard what we call in German the chiming, not the striking of the bells of Indian philosophy; I had read Frederick Schlegel’s explanatory book Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (1808), and looked into Windischmann’s Die Philosophie im Fortgange der Weltgeschichte (1827-1834). These books are hardly opened now—they are antiquated, and more than antiquated; they are full of mistakes as to facts, and mistakes as to the conclusions drawn from them. But they had ushered new ideas into the world of thought, and they left on many, as they did on me, that feeling which the digger who prospects for minerals is said to have, that there must be gold beneath the surface, if people would only dig. That feeling was very vague as yet, and might have been entirely deceptive, nor did I see my way to go beyond the point reached by these two dreamers or explorers. The thought remained in the rubbish-chamber of my mind, and though forgotten at the time, broke forth again when there was an opportunity. It was a fortunate coincidence that at that very time, in the winter of 1841, a new professorship was founded at Leipzig and given to Professor Brockhaus. Uncertain as I was about the course I had to follow in my studies, I determined to see what there was to be learnt in Sanskrit. There was a charm in the unknown, and, I must confess, a charm also in studying something which my friends and fellow students did not know. I called on Professor Brockhaus, and found that there were only two other students to attend his lectures, one Spiegel, who already knew the elements of Sanskrit, and who is still alive in Erlangen,[9] as a famous professor of Sanskrit and Zend, though no longer lecturing, and another, Klengel; both several years my seniors, but both extremely amiable to their younger fellow student. Klengel was a scholar, a philosopher, and a musician, and though after a term or two he had to give up his study of Sanskrit, he was very useful to me by his good advice. He encouraged me and praised me for my progress in Sanskrit, which was no doubt more rapid than his own, and he confirmed me in my conviction that something might be made of Sanskrit by the philologist and by the philosopher. It should not be forgotten that at that time there was a strong prejudice against Sanskrit among classical scholars. The number of men who stood up for it, though it included names such as W. von Humboldt, F. and A. W. von Schlegel, was still very small. Even Herder’s and Goethe’s prophetic words produced little effect. It is said that when the Government had been persuaded, chiefly by the two Humboldts, to found a chair of Sanskrit at the University of Würzburg, and had nominated Bopp as its first occupant, the philological faculty of the University protested against such a desecration, and the appointment fell through. It is true, no doubt, that in their first enthusiasm the students of Sanskrit had uttered many exaggerated opinions. Sanskrit was represented as the mother of all languages, instead of being the elder sister of the Aryan family. The beginning of all language, of all thought, of all religion was traced back to India, and when Greek scholars were told that Zeus existed in the Veda under the name of Dyaus, there was a great flutter in the dovecots of classical scholarship. Many of these enthusiastic utterances had afterwards to be toned down. How we did enjoy those enthusiastic days, which even in their exaggerated hopes were not without some use. Problems such as the beginning of language, of thought, of mythology and religion, were started with youthful hope that the Veda would solve them all, as if the Vedic Rishis had been present at the first outburst of roots, of concepts, nay, that like Pelops and other descendants of Zeus, those Vedic poets had enjoyed daily intercourse with the gods, and had been present at the mutilation of Ouranos, or at the over-eating of Kronos. We may be ashamed to-day of some of the dreams of the early spring of man’s sojourn on earth, but they were enchanting dreams, and all our thoughts of man’s nature and destiny on earth were tinged with the colours of a morning that threw light over the grey darkness which preceded it. It was delightful to see that Dyaus meant originally the bright sky, something actually seen, but something that had to become something unseen. All knowledge, whether individual or possessed by mankind at large, must have begun with what the senses can perceive, before it could rise to signify something unperceived by the senses. Only after the blue aether had been perceived and named, was it possible to conceive and speak of the sky as active, as an agent, as a god. Dyaus or Zeus might thus be called the most sublime, he who resides in the aether, αἰθἑρι ναἱων ὑψἱζυγος, the heavenly one, or οὐρἁνιος ὕπατος and ὕψιστος, the highest, and at last Iupiter Optimus Maximus, a name applied even to the true God. When Zeus had once become like the sky, all seeing or omniscient (ἐπὁψιος), would he not naturally be supposed to see, not only the good, but the evil deeds of men also, nay, their very thoughts, whether pure or criminal? And if so, would he not be the avenger of evil, the watcher of oaths (ὅρκιος), the protector of the helpless (ἱκἑσιος)? Yet, if conceived, as for a long time all the gods were conceived and could only be conceived, namely, as human in their shape, should we not necessarily get that strange amalgamation of a human being doing superhuman work—hurling the thunderbolt, shouting in thunder, hidden by dark clouds, and smiling in the serene blue of the sky with its brilliant scintillations? All this and much more became perfectly intelligible, the step from the visible to the invisible, from the perceived to the conceived, from nature to nature’s gods, and from nature’s god to a more sublime unseen and spiritual power. All this seemed to pass before our very eyes in the Veda, and then to be reflected in Homer and Pindar.
Some details of this restored picture of the world of gods and men in early times, nay, in the very spring of time, may have to be altered, but the picture, the eidyllion remained, and nothing could curb the adventurous spirit and keep it from pushing forward and trying to do what seemed to others almost impossible, namely, to watch the growth of the human mind as reflected in the petrifactions of language. Language itself spoke to us with a different voice, and a formerly unsuspected meaning.
We knew, for instance, that ewig meant eternal, but whence eternal. Nothing eternal was ever seen, and it seemed to the philosopher that eternal could be expressed by a negation only, by a negation of what was temporary. But we now learnt that ewig was derived in word and therefore in thought from the Gothic aiwar, time. Ewigkeit was therefore originally time, and “for all time” came naturally to mean “for all eternity.” Eternity also came from aeternus, that is aeviternus, for time, i. e. for all time, and thus for eternity, while aevum meant life, lifetime, age. But now came the question, if aevum shows the growth of this word, and its origin, and how it arrives in the end at the very opposite pole, life and time coming to mean eternity, could we not by the same process discover the origin and growth of such short Greek words as ἀεἱ and aἰeἱ? It seems almost impossible, yet remembering that aevum meant originally life, we find in Vedic Sanskrit eva, course, way, life, the same as aevum, while the Sanskrit âyush, likewise derived from i, to go, forms its locative âyushi. Âyushi, or originally âyasi, would mean “in life, in time,” and turned into Greek would regularly become then aἰeἱ, lifelong, or ever. It was not difficult to find fault with this and other etymologies, and to ask for an explanation of αἰἑν and αἰἑς, as derived from the same word âyus. It is curious that people will not see that etymologies, and particularly the gradual development in the form and meaning of words, can hardly ever be a matter of mathematical certainty.
Historical, nay, even individual, influences come in which prevent the science of language from becoming purely mechanical. Pott, and Curtius, and others stood up against Bopp and Grimm, maintaining that there could be nothing irregular in language, particularly in phonetic changes. If this means no more than that under the same circumstances the same changes will always take place, it would be of course a mere truism. The question is only whether we can ever know all the circumstances, and whether there are not some of these circumstances which cause what we are apt to call irregularities. When Bopp said that Sanskrit d corresponds to a Greek δ, but often also to a Greek θ, I doubt whether this is often the case. All I say is, if deva corresponds to θεὁς, we must try to find the reason or the circumstances which caused so unusual a correspondence. If no more is meant than that there must be a reason for all that seems irregular, no one would gainsay that, neither Bopp nor Grimm, and no one ever doubted that as a principle. But to establish these reasons is the very difficulty with which the Science of Language has to deal.
There is no word that has not an etymology, only if we consider the distance of time that separates us from the historical facts we are trying to account for, we should sometimes be satisfied with probabilities and not always stipulate for absolute certainty. Many of Bopp’s, Grimm’s, and Pott’s etymologies have had to be surrendered, and yet our suzerainty over that distant country which they conquered, over the Aryan home, remains. If there is an etymology containing something irregular, and for which no reason has as yet been found, we must wait till some better etymology can be suggested, or a reason be found for that apparent irregularity. If the etymological meaning of duhitar, daughter, as milkmaid, is doubted, let us have a better explanation, not a worse; but the general picture of the early family among the Aryans “somewhere in Asia” is not thereby destroyed. The father, Sk. pitar, remains the protector or nourisher, though the i for a in pater and πατἡρ is irregular. The mother, mâtar, remains the bearer of children, though mâ is no longer used in that sense in any of the Aryan languages. Pati is the lord, the strong one—therefore the husband; vadhû, the yoke-fellow, or the wife as brought home, possibly as carried off by force. Vis or vesa is the home, οἰκος or vicus, what was entered for shelter. Svasura, ἑκυρὁς, Socer, the father-in-law, is the old man of the svas, the famuli, or the family, or the clients, though the first s is irregular, and can be defended only on the ground of mistaken analogy. Bhrâtar, frater, brother, was the supporter; svastar, soror, sister, the comforter, &c.
What do a few objections signify? The whole picture remains, as if we could look into the vesa, the οἰκος the veih, the home, the village of the ancient Aryans, and watch them, the svas, the people, in their mutual relations. Even compound words, such as vis-pati, lord of a family or a village, have been preserved to the present day in the Lithuanian Veszpats, lord, whether King or God. It is enough for us to see that the relationship between husband and wife, between parents and children, between brothers and sisters, nay, even between children-in-law and parents-in-law, had been recognized and sanctified by names. That there are, and always will be, doubts and slight differences of opinion on these prehistoric thoughts and words, is easily understood. We were pleased for a long time to see in vidua, widow, the Sanskrit vidua, i. e. without a man or a husband. We now derive vi-dhavâ, widow, from vidh, to be separated, to be without (cf. vido in divido, and Sk. vidh), but the picture of the Aryan family remains much the same.
When these and similar antiquities were for the first time brought to light by Bopp, Grimm, and Pott, what wonder that we young men should have jumped at them, and shouted with delight, more even than the diggers who dug up Babylonian palaces or Egyptian temples! No one did more for these antiquarian finds and restorations than A. Kuhn, a simple schoolmaster, but afterwards a most distinguished member of the Berlin Academy. How often did I sit with him in his study as he worked, surrounded by his Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit books. In later times also, when I had made some discoveries myself as to the mythological names or beings identical in Vedic and Greek writings, how pleasant was it to see him rub his hands or shake his head. Long before I had published my identifications they were submitted to him, and he communicated to me his own guesses as I communicated mine to him. Kuhn would never appropriate what belonged to anybody else, and even in cases where we agreed, he would always make it clear that we had both arrived independently at the same result.
It is in the nature of things that every new generation of scholars should perfect their tools, and with these discover flaws in the work left by their predecessors. Still, what is the refined chiselling of later scholars compared with the rough-hewn stones of men like Bopp or Grimm? If the Cyclopean stones of the Pelasgians are not like the finished works of art by Phidias, what would the Parthenon be without the walls ascribed to the Cyclops? It is the same in all sciences, and we must try to be just, both to the genius of those who created, and to the diligence of those who polished and refined.