Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/417



the last lecture, we took up and considered certain matters which seemed naturally to present themselves to our attention in connection with our survey of the divisions and characteristics of human speech. We first examined the various systems of classification of languages, according to morphological form or to general rank, weighing briefly the value of the distinctions upon which they are founded; and we arrived at the conclusion that no other mode of classification has anything like the same worth with the genetical, or that which groups dialects together by their historical relationship. We then passed on to the subject of the general relations between linguistic science and ethnology, the history of human races. We saw that between the study of language and that of physical characteristics, as tests of race, there can be no discordance and jealousy, but only an honourable emulation and mutual helpfulness; that each, feeling its own limitations and imperfections, needs and seeks the assistance of the other; claiming, also, all the aid which recorded