Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/280

270 270 On the Use of Defmitmis. Sand^ because in many places it is more calcareous than siliceous. The subtlety of this criticism was applauded: but the name still keeps its ground, and is to this day a good and serviceable name, inasmuch as it is universally under- stood to designate certain members in a known and widely extended series of strata. If the writer of the memoir had been compelled to arrest his researches till he had secured himself against such attacks, or if he should suspend the pub- lication of them, till he can begin his work with a definition of The Green Sand^ unimpeachable by logical or philosophi- cal rules, those who desire the increase of geological know- ledge will have little reason to think definitions promote their interests. The reader who has followed this train of examples so far, will have little diflSculty in perceiving that the same reflexions might be made with respect to any other assemblage of facts which can become the subject of classification. If, for instance, we consider the languages of the earth, what a long and com- prehensive labour of comparison was gone through before phi- lologers had a clear view of the classes of languages which are now termed the Indo-European and the Semitic ! And how little would it have contributed to the progress of philological knowledge, if, before this labour had been gone through, men had used the word Semitic, and defined it to mean " the languages spoken by the descendants of Shem,*" without know- ing whether these languages resembled each other more than Arabic and Latin ! And what is true of the languages of nations is surely no less true of any other circumstances in which they may resemble or difi'er : of their modes of life, their social struc- ture, the amount and distribution of their means of sub- sistence, of luxury, of greatness. In contemplating all such subjects on the whole surface of the earth, we may, and, if our facts are laboriously collected and well compared, in the end we shall, arrive at general classifications; perhaps at general laws of connexion and causation. Voyages and travels, history and legislation, politics and statistics, will all be needed as materials for such a survey, and such a result. And when we have reached this point, the7i^ indeed, terms to designate our classes, definitions to enable us to express our laws, will