omising distinction drawn by human
conceit between instinct and intelligence.

In the walks of comparative philology much has been accomplished.
Sanskrit has been exhumed. Aryan and Semitic roots are traced back
to an almost synchronous antiquity. The decipherment of the Egyptian
inscriptions seems to bring us into communication with a still more
remote form of language. More recent periods derive new light from the
Etruscan tombs and the Assyrian bricks. Linguists deem themselves in
sight of something better than the "bow-wow" theory, and are no longer
content to let the calf, the lamb and the child bleat in one and the
same vocabulary of labials, and with no other rudiments than "ma" and
"pa" "speed the soft intercourse from pole to pole." As yet, that part
of mankind which knows not its right hand from its left is the only
one possessed of a worldwide lingo. The flux that is to weld all
tongues into one, and produce a common language like a common unit of
weight, measure and coinage, remains to be discovered. A Chinese pig,
transplanted to an Anglo-Saxon stye, has no difficulty in instituting
immediate converse with his new friend, but the gentleman who travels
in Europe needs to carry an assortment of dialects for use on opposite
sides of the same rivulet or the same hill. However, as the French
franc has been adopted by four other nations, and the French litre and
metre by a greater number, one and the same mail and postage made to
serve Europe and America, and passports been abolished, we may venture
to picture to ourselves the time when the German shall consent to
clear his throat, the Frenchman his nose, the Spaniard his tonsils and
the Englishman the tip of his tongue--when all shall become as little
children and be mutually comprehensible. Commerce at present is
doing more than the philosophers to that end. While the countrymen
of Wilhelm von Humboldt and Max Mueller persist in burying their
laboriously heaped treasures under a load of black-letter type and
words and sentences the most fearfully and wonderfully made, the
skipper scatters English words with English calico and American clocks
among all the isles. A picturesque fringe of pigeon English decorates
the coasts of Africa, Asia and Oceanica. It might be deeper, and
doubtless will be, for our mother-tongue will very certainly be
supreme in the world of trade for at least a couple of centuries to
come. If we were only half as sure of its being adopted by