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lier development in all the departments of knowledge successively, which has mischievously passed them, often for ages, as the real and whole science of the subject. Even Anatomy did not escape this preposterous abuse; as was well remarked by Fontanelle, who used to say of the anatomists of his day, "That they resembled the porters of Paris, who were familiar with all the streets of the city, down to the most obscure and suburban purlieu, but knew nothing of what passed in the houses." But our grammarians are constantly losing their way even in the open streets, each having an essentially different chart. The fundamental rectification of a point of view productive of such confusion and error would seem, of itself, a sufficient proof of the soundness and importance of the modification we have proposed; and which, as a final result of the discussion, places philology as yet entirely in the second and unscientified section, which might now be termed the category of Empiricism.

There are two terms sometimes applied to the categories of space and time, or organization and function, in the current and objective. sense, which might be conveniently applied to them in our subjective acceptation. We have ourselves employed the word statical to designate the organic aspect of language. The correlative term dynamical is likewise borrowed from mechanics, where, for reasons. abundantly explained, the logical importance of the distinction was earliest evolved. To "staticize" a phenomenon would import, then, to reduce it under scientific laws-to integrate it, if we may use the expression designative of the same procedure, in its application to transcendental Algebra, and the invention of which application was deemed, not over a century ago, of importance enough to illustrate the rival geniuses of even a Leibnitz and a Newton. The term "dynamical," which needs no verbal reform, will denote the region of knowledge, which, being in a condition of absolute particularity, or of uniformities merely empirical and sporadic, must be regarded, scientifically, as in a state of fluxion. Thus would be precisely characterized, we think, the operation of science, as turning the dynamical into the statical, the concrete into the abstract, quality into quantity; and science itself be placed in the imposing attitude of the divine spirit of Milton, reducing to order the rude materials abstracted from chaos, or (in the sublime language of the philosophic poet)

"Won from the void and formless infinite."

The inquiry is then reduced to a single point, to wit: By what method, by what mode of comparison, is this process to be performed upon language, destitute, as we have shown it to be, of the collateral media of philosophical investigation? The answer has been already

suggested: by a comparison of its successive states, which, by an admirable logical compensation, come in to supply the absence of an organical series. Of course, these states cannot now be all traced in the vicissitudes of a particular language; but they may be sufficiently represented, by the infinite variety of dialects to be found in almost all the grades of development. The problem then turns upon determining the order of the succession. But this cannot, of course, be even attempted rationally without a type, a theory; to which, by the way, we are thus again brought around by a new route, as the fundamental postulate. This once furnished, the investigation would proceed by a mutuality of impulsion; the laws of progression analyzing the organization indirectly, in explaining the corresponding functions or connotations; while the grammatical organization in turn serves to sustain and illustrate successively the logical march of the development. This is, then, the new modification of comparison sought, and which we expected to result naturally from an adequate explication of the special nature of the subject. It might be termed the Historical, or the Dynamical Method.

There now remains but to propose some principle for the preparatory arrangement of the subject, and to characterize the special extent to which it is to be considered.

Such an arrangement, we have seen, would present itself spontaneously, could any one of the forms of language be now traced consecutively from the primordial state to that of any of our modern dialects. How, then, may we best approximate this unattainable model? Obviously by selecting the language, or family of dialects, which may be similarly followed, with most sequence and certainty, through the largest section of the accomplished evolution. In this way, (instead of drifting chartless on the chaos of vocabularies and grammars,) having first prepared a sketch of the most general laws of the subject from the broadest historical basis, we shall have a nucleus and a criterion for the classification of the subordinate varieties, which in turn will react upon the main series, in rectifying or elucidating the corresponding subdivisions. The anomalies which might still resist this accessary co-ordination, would necessarily find their place at the primitive extremity of the line; thus happily bridging over the vacuum, otherwise impassable, in the infancy of speech, or at least planting it with stakes, over which philosophy may draw the chain of theory in attaching it to the primordial elements.

There exists an admirable resource of this description in the great family of languages known as the Indo-European, coeval with the whole historical existence of our race, and diffused beneath almost

every diversity of climate. This grand natural series is unbroken from the Sanscrit to the French. Beyond the Sanscrit, however, which some would still be found to consider the more perfect of the two languages-such is the utter absence of all philosophy upon this subject; beyond this, we say, there is certainly left at present a vast terra incognita. But we have to fill it up both the monosyllabic and the polysynthetic families; of which the Chinese and the American Indian idioms may be taken respectively as the extreme types. The co-ordination might then be made somewhat after the following manner: The Indo-European family would exhibit two of the three typical forms; its modern dialects presenting the sole specimens of the analytic structure, while the fountain idiom of Sanscrit offered, at the other extremity, the synthetic form in its utmost maturity of inflection. Accordingly this would be the proper place of the American group, which presents us the same synthetic system, but in that less freely inflected stage which led William Von Humboldt to designate them by the happy term "agglutinated." Still a ruder form of this agglutination, a more imperfect condition of verbal composition and syntactic connexion, is known to characterize the Shemitic branch; and it should therefore be assigned a lower and more primitive place on the scale. After this, and last in order, should rank the Chinese, &c.; wherein all grammatical combination entirely disappears into the primordial elements of significant syllables.

Slight as is this sketch of a natural classification of languages, and insufficiently as it could be introduced and developed within the compass of two or three articles, yet the reader, we trust, will find no difficulty in deciding upon its merits, in comparison at least with the only accredited attempt of the German philologists; a scheme which is chargeable with the double absurdity of taking what are only the extreme divergencies of form, for so many kinds of language, independent in origin and co-ordinate in constitution: whereas they are, we see, in reality, the complementary sections of one and the same progressive series.

But to the latter part of our arrangement there is a much more plausible objection. How, it may be asked, can the Chinese and Hebrew be assigned a lower position on the scale of language than the American-Indian idioms, seeing that the latter are the invention of segregate and savage tribes, while the others have been and are the tongues of semi-civilized nations? The explanation has been often broached in reference to the Chinese idiom; though never, we believe, firmly insisted upon, probably because not fully understood. It is, that the Chinese and the Shemitic groups had been arrested in their syntactic development, both prematurely, though at widely dif

ferent stages, by the supervention of the art of writing; whereas the Americans, dissevered from all the rest of the world, were left to draw out and elaborate their verbal tissue unimpeded or unrelieved by the anticipated expedients of civilization; even as the Hindoos had been, we doubt not, amid the primeval solitude or savagedom of the old continents. It is curiously confirmatory to remark in the disparity of development between the Chinese and the Hebrew, for instance, an exact correspondence to the two successive stages of the alleged obstacle also, at the periods of its introduction to either people; these stages of the art of writing being well known to be, in the case of the Chinese, the symbolical: in that of the Hebrews, the much later one denominated the alphatic. In short, the manifest effect of such an importation upon an infant community must have been, by furnishing it an objective and material medium of combining its vocal signs, to dispense the feeble intellect from the painful effort to combine them orally by the abstract ties of syntax. And an effect again of this artificial medium would be to divert the oral development into a different channel-for to suppress it would be impossible, save in so far as its place might be supplied. Accordingly, we find it pullulate in the vowel-points of Hebrew; which this observation would of itself prove to be a modern invention, and necessitated by the grammatical rudeness of this idiom. It has branched forth in the Chinese into a system of accentuation, which makes that anomalous tongue, to the eye at least, one of the most copious of languages. In fine, we have no doubt that this solution of the anomaly is quite susceptible of demonstration, and will one day be attested by history. But this is not the place or time to enter upon either line of evidence. And moreover, the facts themselves, which cannot be denied, are all we were concerned with for the purpose of classification.

ART. VIL-THE JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA.

Narrative of the United States Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea. By W. F. LYNCH, U. S. N., Commander of the Expedition. With Maps and numerous Illustrations. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard. 1849.

THE most sacred and revered portions of the earth are mountains and rivers. The first awaken the religious sensibilities of man by their sublimity, and the last by their beauty and beneficence. In remote and superstitious ages the emotions they inspired assumed the form of religious adoration, which, by a very easy transition, invested the objects of worship with divine virtues. Hence religious

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houses have clustered upon the sides, and crowned the summits of sacred mountains; and the most precious possessions, even children, have been cast into the waters of holy rivers. While the Nile is revered by the Mohammedans, the Ganges worshipped by the Pagans, the Christian's respect and worship are attracted by the Jordan. With the exception of the environs of Jerusalem, there is not on earth any scenery that awakens such deep and varied emotions in the Christian's heart as the scenery of the Jordan. Its relation to the most sacred mountain in the world; the grandeur, beauty, and gloom of its banks; the recollection of divine events it has witnessed, and of heroic deeds which have been done upon its borders, and its connexion with the life of the Saviour, may well invest it with wondrous interest to the intelligent Christian, and inspire with over-mastering superstition the heart of the man of ignorant and implicit faith. From its source to its termination, it is written all over with deeds which lie at the foundation of society, and illustrate the wonderful providence of God towards man.

A glance at the map will show, that in the original formation of the earth a vast mountain-range stretched from the Lebanons, on the north, to the Indian Ocean, on the south. The subterranean fires which upheaved it subsequently cleft it lengthwise, beginning at the foot of Mount Hermon, on the north, and extending southward to the Straits of Babelmandel. In this deep cleft, which the Arabs of the country still call the Ghor, or chasm, now lie the Jordan, the Dead Sea, the Wady Arabah, and the eastern arm of the Red Sea; and each side, throughout its whole length, is bordered by precipitous mountains. It will be subsequently seen, that the researches of Capt. Lynch strongly support the suggestion of Laborde, that before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, as recorded in the Bible, the sweet and fertilizing waters of the Jordan ran through this whole valley, and found an outlet into the Red Sea. Upon its borders to the southward probably lay the land of Uz, the country of Job; while we know that "all the plain of the Jordan was well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt." Gen. xiii, 10.

It is the upper regions of the Jordan, above and around the Lake Gennesareth, and the lower portion of it, near the Dead Sea, that have such intense interest for the Christian. The snow-waters of Mount Hermon, percolating through the rock formations on its southern slopes, collect into ponds, from which rivulets flow southward, and concentrate in the little lake Huleh, about seven miles north of Gennesareth. These waters enter the Huleh by two streams run