arts of these roots--the true and fundamental
constituent elements of Speech, without a knowledge of which there can
be no basic and conclusive comprehension of the meaning of roots--and of
the nature of the method by which these elements become expressive of
thoughts or ideas, there is no word. Language, as it now rests in the
hands of the Comparative Philologists, is in the same state that
Chemistry was when Earth, Air, Fire, and Water were supposed to be the
ultimate constituent elements of Matter, ere a single real ultimate
element was known as such. But Chemistry, _as a science_, had no
existence prior to the discovery of the simple constituents of Physical
creation. In like manner, a _Science_ of Language must be founded on a
knowledge of the nature and _meaning_ of the simple elements of Speech.
Until this knowledge is in our possession it is only on the outskirts of
the subject that we are able to tread. Roots are, it is true, the actual
bases of Language, so far as its concrete, working, or synthetical
structure is concerned; in the same sense that _compound_ substances are
the main constituents found in the Universe as it really and naturally
exists. But, although the proportion of simple chemical elements, in the
real constitution of things, is small, as compared with that of compound
substances; yet it is only by our ability to separate compound
substances into these elements that we arrive at an understanding of
their true character and place in the realm of Matter. So it is only by
our ability to analyze roots--the compound constituents of
Language--into the prime elements which have, except rarely, no
distinctive and individual embodiment in it, that we can hope to gain a
clear comprehension of the nature of Language itself, or of its most
primitive concrete or composite foundations.

Comparative Philology furnishes us with admirable guidance--so far as it
goes. But we do not wish to stop at the terminus which it seems to
consider a satisfactory one. The final answer it offers us, we do not
regard as final. We gladly accept the analysis of Language down to its
Roots. But we wish to analyze Roots also. That the Moon derives its name
from being regarded as the _Measurer_ of time; and Man, from the notion
of _thinking_; that an (_anh_) is a widely-diffused root, signifying
_pressure_; and that _ga_ denotes _going_; with similar expositions, is
valuable information, and takes us a great way toward the goal of