Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/416

394 rudimentary stage of linguistic growth was comparatively scanty, the circle of ideas represented by the roots was narrow and limited, the application of each root more vague and indeterminate; hence accidental analogies of form and meaning might even more reasonably be looked for between the radical elements of unconnected families than between their later developed words.

For these reasons it is that the comparison of roots is not likely to lead to any satisfactory results even in the most favourable cases, and cannot possibly be made fruitful of valuable and trustworthy conclusions through the whole body of human language. There are, it is true, not a few philologists—and among them some authorities deserving of the highest respect—who hold that correspondences enough have been found between Indo-European and Semitic roots to prove the ultimate connection of those two families of language: but the number is yet greater of those who regard the asserted proof as altogether nugatory. The attempt has been made above (in the eighth lecture  ) to show that the governing presumption in the case is not a purely linguistic one, but rather a historical; and it is one which is quite as likely to be weakened as to be strengthened by the results of future researches. But, as regards the point now under discussion, the admission or rejection of a genetic tie between these two particular families, or even between these and the Scythian and Chinese, would make no manner of difference: there would still remain the impossibility of extending a like tie, by linguistic means, to the other great families.

Our general conclusion, then, which may be looked upon as incontrovertibly established, is this: if the tribes of men are of different parentage, their languages could not be expected to be more unlike than they in fact are; while, on the other hand, if all mankind are of one blood, their tongues need not be more alike than we actually find them to be. The evidence of language can never guide us to any positive conclusion respecting the specific unity or diversity of human races.