THE ANTIQUITY AND GENUINENESS OF ANCIENT BOOKS MAY BE INFERRED FROM
THE HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGES IN WHICH THEY ARE EXTANT.
A language is at once the most complete, and it is the least fallible
of all historical records. A poem or a history may have been forged;
but a language is an unquestionable reality. The bare circumstance
of its existence, though it may long have ceased to be colloquially
extant, proves, in substance, what it is which history has to
communicate. If we did but possess a complete vocabulary of an ancient
language, and if we were to digest the mass in accordance with an exact
principle of synthesis, we should frame a model of the people that once
used it--a model more perfect than any other monuments can furnish:
and on this ground we need fear no falsifications, no concealments, no
flatteries, no exaggerations. The precise extent of knowledge and of
civilisation to which a people attained--nothing more and nothing less,
is marked out in the mass of words of which they were accustomed to
make use.
A language, if the comparison may be admitted, might be called a
_cast_ of the people who spoke it--a cast, taken from the very life;
and it is one which represents the world of mind, as well as the
world of matter. The common objects of nature--the peculiarities of
climate--the works of art--the details of domestic life--political
institutions--religious opinions and observances--philosophy,
poetry, and art--every form and hue of the external world, and every
modification of thought, find their representatives in the language of
the people.
In any case, therefore, if we have a complete knowledge of a
language--that is to say, of the words of which it consists--we possess
a mass of facts by aid of which to judge of the claims to authenticity
of every work in which that language is embodied. And if, in addition
to a knowledge of its vocabulary, the laws of its construction also,
and the nicest proprieties of its syntax and style are known; and if,
moreover, the changes that have taken place from age to age in the
sense of words, and in modes of expression, are understood, we then
possess ample and exact _data_ with which to compare any book that
pretends to antiquity. A writer who employs his native language must
be expected to conform himself to its usages; and we should find him
adhering, more or less strictly, to the peculiarities of the age in
which he writes: his vocabulary, moreover, will include that compass of
words which his subject demands, and which the language affords.
It is true that such a degree of skill in a dead language may be
acquired as may enable a writer to use it with so exact a propriety
as shall deceive, or at least perplex, even the most accomplished
scholars. But the difficulty of avoiding every phrase of later origin,
and all modern senses of those words which are continually passing
from a literal to a metaphorical meaning, is so great, as to leave the
chances of escaping detection extremely small. Yet, as such a chance
still remains within the range of possibility, this line of evidence
cannot be reckoned absolutely conclusive, but must only be employed
as subsidiary to those other evidences that bear upon questions of
authenticity.
The minute changes which are continually taking place in most
languages, and the history of which, when known, serves often to
ascertain the date of ancient books, are of two kinds; namely, those
which result necessarily from actual changes in the objects represented
by words, and those which are mere changes in the use and proprieties
of language itself.
Language being a mirror, reflecting all the communicable notions of
the people who use it, every mutation in the condition of the people
must bring with it, either new terms, or new combinations of words;
and as the particular circumstances which introduce such additions or
alterations are often known, their occurrence in an author may serve to
fix the date of the book, almost with certainty.
Moreover, there is a progression in language itself, independent of any
alterations in the objects represented by words. Whenever a vocabulary
affords a choice of appellatives, even for immutable objects or
notions, the caprices of conversation or of literature--affectation
perhaps, or excessive refinement, will, from time to time, occasion a
new selection to be made. In all those terms, especially, which either
bring with them ideas too familiar to accord with the proprieties of an
elevated style, or which are in any degree offensive to delicacy, there
will take place a continual, and, sometimes, even a rapid, substitution
of new for old phrases--not because the new are in themselves more
dignified, or more pure than the old; but because, when first
introduced, they are untainted by gross associations or vulgar use.
Every language, therefore, copious specimens of which are extant, and
of which the progress is known, contains a latent history of the people
through whose lips it has passed, and furnishes to the scholar a series
of recondite dates, by means of which literary remains may almost with
certainty be assigned to their proper age. This sort of evidence bears
the same relation to the history of _books_, which that derived from
the successive changes known to have taken place in the mode of writing
bears to the history of _manuscripts_. It is of a subsidiary kind, and
from its very indirectness it often deserves peculiar attention.
We have now seen on what grounds it is, generally, that with reasonable
confidence the extant works of ancient authors may be accepted as
being such in truth. In presenting this statement of the case, nothing
more has been attempted than to offer an outline or brief summary of
the argument before us. Certain parts of this argument, as the reader
will at once perceive, would admit of much amplification; and in any
instance in which the genuineness of a particular manuscript, or the
authenticity of an ancient work were alleged to be questionable, every
part of the evidence would require to be brought forward in all its
details, and to be narrowly scrutinized.