there is the distinction between languages which have had a free and full
development of their organisms, and languages which have been stunted in
their growth,--lamed in their hands or feet, and never able to acquire
afterwards the powers in which they are deficient; there is the distinction
between synthetical languages like Greek and Latin, which have retained
their inflexions, and analytical languages like English or French, which
have lost them. Innumerable as are the languages and dialects of mankind,
there are comparatively few classes to which they can be referred.

Another road through this chaos is provided by the physiology of speech.
The organs of language are the same in all mankind, and are only capable of
uttering a certain number of sounds. Every man has tongue, teeth, lips,
palate, throat, mouth, which he may close or open, and adapt in various
ways; making, first, vowels and consonants; and secondly, other classes of
letters. The elements of all speech, like the elements of the musical
scale, are few and simple, though admitting of infinite gradations and
combinations. Whatever slight differences exist in the use or formation of
these organs, owing to climate or the sense of euphony or other causes,
they are as nothing compared with their agreement. Here then is a real
basis of unity in the study of philology, unlike that imaginary abstract
unity of which we were just now speaking.

Whether we regard language from the psychological, or historical, or
physiological point of view, the materials of our knowledge are
inexhaustible. The comparisons of children learning to speak, of barbarous
nations, of musical notes, of the cries of animals, of the song of birds,
increase our insight into the nature of human speech. Many observations
which would otherwise have escaped us are suggested by them. But they do
not explain why, in man and in man only, the speaker met with a response
from the hearer, and the half articulate sound gradually developed into