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viii or in both. They are liable either to fail of apprehending the value and interest of the infinity of particulars into which they are plunged, or else to become wholly absorbed in them, losing sight of the grand truths and principles which underlie and give significance to their work, and the recognition of which ought to govern its course throughout: perhaps even coming to combine with acuteness and erudition in etymological investigation views respecting the nature of language and the relations of languages of a wholly crude or fantastic character. I am not without hope that this book may be found a convenient and serviceable manual for use in our higher institutions of learning. I have made its substance the basis of my own instruction in the science of language, in Yale College, for some years past; and, as it appears to me, with gratifying success. In order to adapt it to such a purpose, I have endeavoured to combine a strictly logical and scientific plan with a popular mode of handling, and with such illustration of the topics treated as should be easily and universally apprehensible. If, however, the lecture style should be found too discursive and argumentative for a text-book of instruction, I may perhaps be led hereafter to prepare another work for that special use.


 * New Haven, Conn.,
 * August, 1867.
 * August, 1867.