discovery
of the intuitional forms of language. I do not know whether the
suggested classification into four conceptual groups is likely to drive
deeper or not. My own feeling is that it does, but classifications, neat
constructions of the speculative mind, are slippery things. They have to
be tested at every possible opportunity before they have the right to
cry for acceptance. Meanwhile we may take some encouragement from the
application of a rather curious, yet simple, historical test. Languages
are in constant process of change, but it is only reasonable to suppose
that they tend to preserve longest what is most fundamental in their
structure. Now if we take great groups of genetically related
languages,[117] we find that as we pass from one to another or trace the
course of their development we frequently encounter a gradual change of
morphological type. This is not surprising, for there is no reason why a
language should remain permanently true to its original form. It is
interesting, however, to note that of the three intercrossing
classifications represented in our table (conceptual type, technique,
and degree of synthesis), it is the degree of synthesis that seems to
change most readily, that the technique is modifiable but far less
readily so, and that the conceptual type tends to persist the longest of
all.

[Footnote 117: Such, in other words, as can be shown by documentary or
comparative evidence to have been derived from a common source. See
Chapter VII.]

The illustrative material gathered in the table is far too scanty to
serve as a real basis of proof, but it is highly suggestive as far as it
goes. The only changes of conceptual type within groups of related
languages that are to be gleaned from the table are of B to A (Shilluk
as contrasted with Ewe;[118] Classical Tibetan as contrasted with Modern
Tibetan and Chinese) and of D to C (French as contrasted with
Latin[119]). But types A : B and C : D are respectively related to each
other as a simple and a complex form of a still more fundamental type
(pure-relational, mixed-relational). Of a passage from a pure-relational
to a mixed-relational type or _vice versa_ I can give no convincing
examples.

[Footnote 118: These are far-eastern and far-western representatives of
the "Soudan" group recently proposed by D. Westermann. The genetic
relationship between Ewe and Shilluk is exceedingly remote at best.]

[Footnote 119: This case is doubtful at that.