A little consideration will show that that difference between the
study of a given subject in its general and abstract, and the study
of one in its applied or concrete, form, which finds place in so many
departments of human knowledge, finds place in respect to Language
and Languages. It finds place in the subject before us as truly as it
does in that science, which one of my able successors will have the
honour of illustrating,--the science of the laws of Life--Physiology or
Biology. Just as there is, therein, a certain series of laws relating
to life and organization, which would command our attention, if the
whole animal and vegetable world consisted of but a single species,
so the study of Speech would find place in a well-devised system of
education, even if the tongues of the whole wide world were reduced
to a single language, and that language to a single dialect. This is
because the science of life is one thing, the science of the forms
under which the phenomena of life are manifested, another. And just as
Physiology, or Biology, is, more or less, anterior to and independent
of such departments of study as Botany and Zoology, so, in the subject
under notice, there is the double division of the study of _Language_
in respect to structure and development, and the study of _Languages_
as instances of the variety of form in which the phenomenon of human
speech exhibits, or has exhibited, itself. Thus--
When (as I believe once to have been the case) there was but a single
language on the face of the earth, the former of these divisions had
its subject-matter. And--
When (as is by no means improbable) one paramount and exclusive
tongue, developed, at first, rapidly and at the expense of the
smaller languages of the world, and, subsequently, slowly and at
that of the more widely-diffused ones, shall have replaced the still
numerous tongues of the nineteenth century; and when all the dialects
of the world shall be merged into one Universal Language, the same
subject-matter for the study of the structure of Language, its growth
and changes, will still exist.
So that the study of Language is one thing, the study of Languages,
another.
They are different; and the intellectual powers that they require and
exercise are different also. The greatest comparative philologists
have, generally, been but moderate linguists.
A certain familiarity with different languages they have, of course,
had; and as compared with that of the special scholar--the Classic or
the Orientalist, for instance--their range of language (so to say) has
been a wide one; but it has rarely been of that vast compass which is
found in men after the fashion of Mezzofanti, &c.--men who have spoken
languages by the dozen, or the score;--but who have left comparative
philology as little advanced as if their learning had been bounded by
the limits of their own mother tongue.
Now this difference, always of more or less importance in itself,
increases when we consider Language as an object of education; and it
is for the sake of illustrating it that the foregoing preliminaries
have been introduced. No opinion is given as to the comparative rank or
dignity of the two studies; no decision upon the nobility or ignobility
of the faculties involved in the attainment of excellence in either.
The illustration of a difference is all that has been aimed at. There
is a difference between the two classes of subjects, and a difference
between the two kinds of mental faculties. Let us make this difference
clear. Let us also give it prominence and importance.
One main distinction between the study of Language and the study of
Languages lies in the fact of the value of the former being _constant_,
that of the latter, _fluctuating_. The relative importance of any two
languages, as objects of special attention, scarcely ever remains
steady. The value, for instance, of the German--to look amongst the
cotemporary forms of speech--has notably risen within the present
century. And why? Because the literature in which it is embodied has
improved. Because the scientific knowledge which, to all who want the
key, is (so to say) locked up in it, has increased some hundred per
cent.
But it may go down again. Suppose, for instance, that new writers of
pre-eminent merit, ennoble some of the minor languages of Europe--the
Danish, Swedish, Dutch, &c. Such a fact would divide the attention of
_savans_--attention which can only be bestowed upon some second, at
the expense of some first, object. In such a case, the extent to which
the German language got studied would be affected much in the same way
as that of the French has been by the development of the literature of
Germany.
Or the area over which a language is spoken may increase; as it may,
also, diminish.
Or the number of individuals that speak it may multiply--the area being
the same.
Or the special application of the language, whether for the purposes of
commerce, literature, science, or politics, may become changed. In this
way, as well as in others, the English is becoming, day by day, more
important.
There are other influences.
High as is the value of the great classical languages of Greece and
Rome, we can easily conceive how that value might be enhanced. Let a
manuscript containing the works of some of the lost, or imperfectly
preserved, writers of antiquity be discovered. Let, for instance,
Gibbon's _desiderata_--the lost _Decads of Livy_, the _Orations of
Hyperides_, or the _Dramas of Menander_--be made good. The per-centage
of classical scholars would increase; little or much.
Some years back it was announced that the Armenian language contained
translations, made during the earlier centuries of our era, of certain
classical writings, of which the originals had been lost--lost in the
interval. This did not exactly make the Armenian, with its alphabet
of six-and-thirty letters, a popular tongue; but it made it, by a
fraction, more popular than it was in the days of Whiston and La Croze,
when those two alone, of all the learned men of Europe, could read it.
Translations tell in another way. Whatever is worth reading in the
Danish and Swedish is forthwith translated into German. _E. g._
Professor Retzius of Stockholm wrote a good Manual of Anatomy. He
had the satisfaction of seeing it translated into German. He had the
further satisfaction of hearing that the translation ran through five
editions in less time than the original did through one.
Now, if the Germans were to leave off translating the value of the
language in which Professor Retzius wrote his Anatomy would rise.
Upon the whole, the French is, perhaps, the most important language of
the nineteenth century; yet it is only where we take into consideration
the whole of its elements of value. To certain special _savans_, the
German is worth more; to the artist, the Italian; to the American, the
Spanish. It fell, too, in value when nations like our own insisted
upon the use of their native tongues in diplomacy. It fell in value
because it became less indispensable; and another cause, now in
operation, affects the same element of indispensability. The French
are beginning to learn the languages of other nations. Their own
literature will certainly be none the worse for their so doing. But it
by no means follows that that literature will be any the more studied.
On the contrary, Frenchmen will learn English more, and, _pro tanto_,
Englishmen learn French less.
If all this have illustrated a difference, it may also have done
something more. It may have given a rough sketch, in the way of
classification, of the kind of facts that regulate the value of special
languages as special objects of study. At any rate (and this is the
main point), the subject-matter of the present Address is narrowed. It
is narrowed (in the first instance at least) to the consideration of
that branch of study whereof the value is constant; for assuredly it is
this which will command more than a moiety of our consideration.
This may be said to imply a preference to the study of Language as
opposed to that of Languages--a _singular_ preference, as a grammarian
may, perhaps, be allowed to call it. It cannot be denied that, to
a certain extent, such is the case; but it is only so to a certain
extent. The one is not magnified at the expense of the other. When all
has been said that logic or mental philosophy can say about the high
value of comparative philology, general grammar, and the like, the
lowest value of the least important language will still stand high, and
pre-eminently high that of what may be called the _noble_ Languages.
No variations in the philological barometer, no fluctuations in the
Exchange of Language, will ever bring down the advantage of studying
one, two, or even more foreign languages to so low a level as to expel
such tongues as the Latin, the Greek, the French, or the German, one
and all, from an English _curriculum_--and _vice versâ_, English from a
foreign one.
Now, if this be the case, one of the elements in the value of the
_study of Language in general_ will be the extent to which it
facilitates the acquirement of any one language in particular, and
this element of value will be an important--though not the most
important--one.
The structure of the human body is worth knowing, even if the
investigator of it be neither a practitioner in medicine nor a teacher
of anatomy; and, in like manner, the structure of the human language
is an important study irrespective of the particular forms of speech
whereof it may facilitate the acquirement.
The words on the diagram-board will now be explained. They are meant to
illustrate the class of facts that comparative philology supplies.