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viii PREFACE.

of itself, and, with it, of the entire Germanic stock, to the Greek and Roman, would necessarily have long since been unveiled, tracked through all its variations, and by this time been understood and recognised by every philologer.^[1] For what is more important, or can be more earnestly desired by the cultivator of the classical languages, than their comparison with our mother tongue in her oldest and most perfect form? Since the Sanskrit has appeared above our horizon, that element can no longer be excluded from a really profound investigation of any province of language related to it; a fact, however, which sometimes escapes the notice of the most approved and circumspect labourers in this department.^[2] We need

↑ Rask has been the first to supply a comprehensive view of the close relationship between the Germanic and the Classical Languages, in his meritorious prize treatise ”On the Thracian Tribe of Languages,” completed in 1814 and published in 1818, from which Vater gives an extract in his Comparative Tables. It cannot be alleged as a reproach against him that he did not profit by the Asiatic intermediary not then extensively known; but his deficiency in this respect shews itself the more sensibly, as we see throughout that he was in a condition to use it with intelligence. Under that deficiency, however, he almost everywhere halts halfway towards the truth. We have to thank him for the suggestion of the law of displacement of consonants, more acutely considered and fundamentally developed by Grimm (§. 87., and see Vater, §. 12.).
↑ We refer the reader to the very weighty judgment of W. von. Humboldt on the indispensable necessity of the Sanskrit for the history and philosophy of language (Indische Bibl. I. 133). We may here borrow, also, from Grimm’s preface to the second edition of his admirable Grammar, some words which are worthy of consideration (I. vi.): “As the too exalted position of the Latin and Greek serves not for all questions in German Grammar, where some words are of simpler and deeper sound, so however, according to A. W. Schlegel's excellent remark, the far more perfect Indian Grammar may, in these casce, supply the requisite corrections. The dialect which history demonstrates to be the oldest and least corrupted must, in the end, present the most profound rules for the general exposition of the race, and thus lead us on to the reformation, without the entire subversion of the rules hitherto discovered, of the more recent modes of speech.”

[1] Rask has been the first to supply a comprehensive view of the close relationship between the Germanic and the Classical Languages, in his meritorious prize treatise ”On the Thracian Tribe of Languages,” completed in 1814 and published in 1818, from which Vater gives an extract in his Comparative Tables. It cannot be alleged as a reproach against him that he did not profit by the Asiatic intermediary not then extensively known; but his deficiency in this respect shews itself the more sensibly, as we see throughout that he was in a condition to use it with intelligence. Under that deficiency, however, he almost everywhere halts halfway towards the truth. We have to thank him for the suggestion of the law of displacement of consonants, more acutely considered and fundamentally developed by Grimm (§. 87., and see Vater, §. 12.).

[2] We refer the reader to the very weighty judgment of W. von. Humboldt on the indispensable necessity of the Sanskrit for the history and philosophy of language (Indische Bibl. I. 133). We may here borrow, also, from Grimm’s preface to the second edition of his admirable Grammar, some words which are worthy of consideration (I. vi.): “As the too exalted position of the Latin and Greek serves not for all questions in German Grammar, where some words are of simpler and deeper sound, so however, according to A. W. Schlegel's excellent remark, the far more perfect Indian Grammar may, in these casce, supply the requisite corrections. The dialect which history demonstrates to be the oldest and least corrupted must, in the end, present the most profound rules for the general exposition of the race, and thus lead us on to the reformation, without the entire subversion of the rules hitherto discovered, of the more recent modes of speech.”

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