e civilized. It may safely be said of this
as of other mere ideas, that it may be true, but that there is no
evidence to show that it is true. At all events it takes much for
granted, and neglects, as it would seem, the very lessons which the
theory of evolution has taught us. It is the nature of evolution to be
continuous, and not to proceed _per saltum_. Therein lies the beauty
of genealogical evolution that we can recognize the fibres which
connect the upper strata with the lower, till we strike the lowest, or
at least that which contains what seem to be the seeds and germs of
early thoughts, words, and acts. We can trace the most modern forms of
language back to Sanskrit, or rather to that postulated linguistic
stratum of which Sanskrit formed the most prominent representative,
just as we can trace the French _Dieu_ back to Latin _Deus_ and
Sanskrit _Devas_, the brilliant beings behind the phenomena of nature;
and again behind them, _Dyaus_, the brilliant sky, the Greek _Zeus_,
the Roman _Iovis_ and _Iuppiter_, the most natural of all the Aryan
gods of nature. This is real evolution, a real causal nexus between
the present and the past. It used to be called history or pragmatic
history, whether we take history in the sense of the description of
evolution, or in that of evolution itself. History has generally to
begin with the present, to go back to the past, and to point out the
palpable steps by which the past became again and again the present.
Evolution, on the contrary, prefers to begin with the distant past, to
postulate formations, even if they have left no traces, and to speak
of those almost imperceptible changes by which the postulated past
became the perceptible present, as not only necessary, but as real.
Perhaps the difference is of no importance, but the historical method
seems certainly the more accurate, and the more satisfactory from a
purely scientific point of view.

In all such evolutionary researches language has always been the most
useful instrument, and the study of the science of language may truly
be said to have been the first science which was treated according to
evolutionary or historical principles. Here, too, no doubt,
intermediate links which must have existed, are sometimes lost beyond
recovery, and when we arrive at the very roots of language, we feel
that there may have been whole aeons before that radical period. Here
science must recognize her inevitable horizons, but here again