Olvas—om= I read.= reading-my.
  ——od= thou readest.= reading-thy.
  ——uk= we read.= reading-our.
  ——atok= ye read.= reading-your.

2.

Almá—m= my apple.= apple-my.
  ——d= thy apple.= apple-thy.
  ——nk= our apple.= apple-our.
  ——tok= your apple.= apple-your.

I submit, that facts of this kind are of some value, great or small. But the facts themselves are not all. How were they got at? They were got at by dealing with the phenomena of language as we found them, by an induction of no ordinary width and compass; for many forms of speech had to be investigated before the facts came out in their best and most satisfactory form.

The illustration of the verb (olvasom, and almám, &c.) is from the Hungarian; that of the plural number (nginde, &c.), from the Tumali—the Tumali being a language no nearer than the negro districts to the south of Kordovan, between Sennaar and Darfur, and (as such) not exactly in the highway of literature and philology.

Now I ask whether there be, or whether there be not, certain branches of inquiry which are, at one and the same time, recognised to be of the highest importance, and yet not very remarkable for either unanimity of opinion, precision of language, or distinctness of idea on the part of their professors. I ask whether what is called, with average clearness, Mental Philosophy, and, with somewhat less clearness, Metaphysics, be not in this predicament? I ask whether, in this branch of investigation, the subject-matter do not eminently desiderate something definite, palpable, and objective, and whether these same desiderated tangibilities be not found in the wide field of Language to an extent which no other field supplies? Let this field be a training-ground. The facts it gives are of value. The method it requires is of value.

As the languages of the world, as the forms of speech mutually unintelligible, are counted by the hundred, and the dialects by the thousand, the field is a large one—one supplying much exercise, work, and labour. But the applications of the results obtained are wide also; for, as long as any form of mental philosophy remains susceptible of improvement, as long as its improved form remains undiffused, so long will a knowledge of the structure of language in general, a knowledge of comparative philology, a knowledge of general grammar (for we may choose our term), have its use and application. And, assuredly, this will be for some time.

As to its special value in the particular department of the ethnologist, high as it is, I say nothing, or next to nothing, about it; concerning myself only with its more general applications.

Let it be said, then, that the study of language is eminently disciplinal to those faculties that are tasked in the investigation of the phenomena of the human mind; the value of a knowledge of these being a matter foreign to the present dissertation, but being by no means low. High or low, however, it measures that of the studies under notice.

But how is this general philology to be taught? Are youths to seek for roots and processes in such languages as the Hungarian and the Tumali? No. The teaching must be by means of well-selected suggestive examples, whereby the student may rise from particulars to generals, and be taught to infer the uncertain from the certain. I do not say that the s in fathers arose exactly after the fashion of the Tumali plural; but, assuredly, its development was the same in kind, if not in detail. At all events, language must be dealt with as a growth.