Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/110

 presuming what this language must have been, in its entireness, when it was the daily utterance of the people.

A difference should here be noted, as to the inferences that are warrantably derivable, on the one hand, from certain literary remains of an ancient people, and, on the other hand, from their language, so far as this may be known by means of these remains. Among a rude people there may have been instances, one in a century, of Nature's gifted spirits:—individual minds, rich and productive, working the wonders of genius in solitary self-sufficient force. In such instances—rare indeed they are—the tools, the materials of genius are wanting:—it was not a rich and copious language that was at the poet's command; for the "horde" were as indigent in thought as they were rude in their modes of life. How was it then with the ancient people of Palestine?

A people's language is the veracious record of its entire consciousness—intellectual, moral, domestic, civil, political, and technical. The people's glossary is the reflection—whether clear or confused, exact or inexact—first, of the notice it took of Nature, and of the material world; and then of its own inner life of passion, affection, emotion; and then it is the voucher for the people's rate of civilization, and of its daily observances, its occupations, and the customary accidents of these. Whatever is in the language is now, or once was, in the mind