received a
new character from comparative philology. This is true; but it is also
true that the traditional grammar has still a great hold on the mind of
the student.

Metaphysics are even more troublesome than the figments of grammar,
because they wear the appearance of philosophy and there is no test to
which they can be subjected. They are useful in so far as they give us
an insight into the history of the human mind and the modes of thought
which have existed in former ages; or in so far as they furnish wider
conceptions of the different branches of knowledge and of their relation
to one another. But they are worse than useless when they outrun
experience and abstract the mind from the observation of facts, only to
envelope it in a mist of words. Some philologers, like Schleicher, have
been greatly influenced by the philosophy of Hegel; nearly all of them
to a certain extent have fallen under the dominion of physical science.
Even Kant himself thought that the first principles of philosophy
could be elicited from the analysis of the proposition, in this respect
falling short of Plato. Westphal holds that there are three stages of
language: (1) in which things were characterized independently, (2)
in which they were regarded in relation to human thought, and (3) in
relation to one another. But are not such distinctions an anachronism?
for they imply a growth of abstract ideas which never existed in early
times. Language cannot be explained by Metaphysics; for it is prior to
them and much more nearly allied to sense. It is not likely that the
meaning of the cases is ultimately resolvable into relations of space
and time. Nor can we suppose the conception of cause and effect or
of the finite and infinite or of the same and other to be latent in
language at a time when in their abstract form they had never entered
into the mind of man...If the science of Comparative Philology had
possessed 'enough of Metaphysics to get rid of Metaphysics,' it would
have made far greater progress.

(4) Our knowledge of language is almost confined to languages which are
fully developed. They are of several patterns; and these become altered
by admixture in various degrees,--they may only borrow a few words from
one another and retain their life comparatively unaltered, or they may
meet in a struggle for existence until one of the two is overpowered
and retires from the field. They attain the full rights and dignity of
language when they