result rather of analysis than of synthesis, or possibly is a combination
of the two. Nor, again, are we sure that the original process of learning
to speak was the same in different places or among different races of men.
It may have been slower with some, quicker with others. Some tribes may
have used shorter, others longer words or cries: they may have been more
or less inclined to agglutinate or to decompose them: they may have
modified them by the use of prefixes, suffixes, infixes; by the lengthening
and strengthening of vowels or by the shortening and weakening of them, by
the condensation or rarefaction of consonants. But who gave to language
these primeval laws; or why one race has triliteral, another biliteral
roots; or why in some members of a group of languages b becomes p, or d, t,
or ch, k; or why two languages resemble one another in certain parts of
their structure and differ in others; or why in one language there is a
greater development of vowels, in another of consonants, and the like--are
questions of which we only 'entertain conjecture.' We must remember the
length of time that has elapsed since man first walked upon the earth, and
that in this vast but unknown period every variety of language may have
been in process of formation and decay, many times over.

(Compare Plato, Laws):--

'ATHENIAN STRANGER: And what then is to be regarded as the origin of
government? Will not a man be able to judge best from a point of view in
which he may behold the progress of states and their transitions to good
and evil?

CLEINIAS: What do you mean?

ATHENIAN STRANGER: I mean that he might watch them from the point of view
of time, and observe the changes which take place in them during infinite