Copy 1, Volume 1

Twelve lectures on the connexion between science and revealed religion ... / Delivered in Rome by Nicholas Wiseman.

  • Wiseman, Nicholas Patrick, 1802-1865.
Date:
1836
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twelve lectures on the connexion between science and revealed religion ... / Delivered in Rome by Nicholas Wiseman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    fectionnement, jembrasserais opinion de ceux qui rapportent l’origine des langues 4 une révélation immédiate de la divinité. Ils reconnaissent aux moins P’étincelle divine qui luit 4 travers tous les idiomes, méme les plus imparfaits, et les moins cultivés.”* _ Thus, therefore, does this distin- — guished ethnographer agree, that languages do not reach their peculiar development, as it is erroneously called, by slow degrees, but receive it from some unknown energy of the human mind ; unless, like the first speech, we suppose them to have been communicated from above. Having thus denied the power of languages to produce of themselves, and, under ordinary cir- cumstances, even to alter their grammatical struc- ~ ture; and considering this not merely as the outward form of a language, but as its most essential element, we may well enquire how far Schlegel is correct, in assuming that under no circumstances can such a modification or change take place; and I will take the liberty of saying, that some instances seem to warrant us in main- taining, that under the pressure of peculiar in- fluences, a language may undergo such alterations, as that its words shall belong to one class, and its grammar to another. It is true, that in that case, a new language will be formed, different from * P. 55, compare p. 51. See also the quotation in Lect. i. p- 10, note.