GLOSSOLOGY.

INTRODUCTION.

science.

1. THE term Glossology, though in some measure new to English Glossology literature, will be employed in the following pages to signify that an applied applied Science which investigates the various languages spoken or written by mankind, with reference, on the one hand, to the pure science of Universal Grammar, as the source of principles in which they necessarily agree, and, on the other hand, to the historical facts which constitute or cause their differences. Every pure science emanates from an Idea in the human mind, which is permanently and universally true; and every applied science combines with that idea the effect of circumstances, which, being partial and subject to change, necessarily fall within the domain of history. The applied science of Language, if confined to the speech of a single country or district, forms the particular Grammar of the language there spoken; but if it embrace many languages, testing their formation, construction, and powers, by the common standard of Universal Grammar, it is termed by different authors Comparative Grammar, Comparative Philology, Sprachlehre, Linguistique, Glottology, or Glossology. I have adopted the last of these terms, because it is analogous to many English words derived from the Greek, such as Glossography, Geology, &c.; and because its derivation from γλῶσσα, a tongue or language, and λόγος, reason, sufficiently indicates that its office is to open forth the reasons and causes of diversity in the numberless modes by which men, in different parts of the world, give utterance to their thoughts and feelings in speech.

2. I have elsewhere fully explained what I mean by the word Idea, Idea. as a basis of pure science. It may be sufficient here to say, that I do not use it in the vague and popular sense of "whatsoever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks;" but I restrict it to its proper, original, and strictly-definite signification in the Greek language, from which it is taken, of a law, or form of the mind, enabling Univ. Grammar, s. 142.

2 In no instance has the false use of a word become current without some practical ill consequence, of far greater moment than would primo aspectu have been thought possible. A strong instance of this is the misuse of the word idea, which became current from its use, in sheer ignorance, by Locke.—Coleridge, Church and State, 22.

[G.]

B

History

a test of science.

Induction.

us to contemplate a Truth as universal, and to employ that truth as a standard-measure in testing the accuracy of subordinate conceptions. The idea of a Circle, for instance, is the mathematical standard-measure of our subordinate conceptions of external circles; and so, the idea of Language as "a signifying or showing forth of the mind," or, in M. EICHHOFF's terse and elegant definition, "l'expression de l'ame humaine," is the grammatical standard-measure of our subordinate conceptions of written or spoken language.

3. Glossology, on the other hand, presents to us the History of Languages as a touchstone of the Science of Language. If reflection suggest to me a grammatical principle, as involved in the idea of language, and I afterwards find that the same principle has been acted upon by men in all countries, and that it forms an essential part of the Grammar of every tongue, I may be assured that it is a law imposed on human nature by the All-wise Creator, and bears the stamp of infallible science. And on the other hand, though a grammatical rule may at first sight appear to me plausible, and may even be borne out by several examples in the history of nations, yet if, on extending my researches, I find it occasionally contradicted by experience, its character of universality will be at an end, and I shall be forced to confess that, in assuming it to be universally correct, I had not fully comprehended the Idea of which I had supposed it to be a develop

ment.

4. In the treatise on Universal Grammar, I proceeded by deduction from a universal law: in the present treatise on Glossology, I must proceed by induction from particular facts. It may easily be conceived, therefore, that the course of investigation will now be different from that pursued on the previous occasion. I then began with the forms which Language necessarily receives from the active energy of the human mind, and which, in their development, determine the characteristic properties of the Noun, the Verb, and the other constituent parts of speech; and I reserved to the last the consideration of the matter of language; that is, of the sounds which serve to express those parts of speech, and which result from the peculiar mechanism of the vocal organs. I must now reverse this order, first analyzing the matter, and then showing how that is and has been adapted to the forms by men in various stages of civilization. Previously, however, it will be necessary to notice another main distinction, which depends on the history of language. Men spoke before they wrote; and though all men now speak, the great majority of the human race is still ignorant of writing. Hence there are two arts, the vocal and the graphic, which require to be treated differently. The early chapters of this treatise will be confined to the examination of spoken language: afterwards, I shall notice the different systems of written language. So far, my researches will be directed to matters of fact; but as many 1 Univ. Grammar, s. 51.

2 Parallèle des Langues de l'Europe et de l'Inde.