went farther separation, the one into Persian and Indian, the other into Greek and Italo-Celtic: while the Italic, of which the Latin is the chief, and the Celtic, were the last to begin their independent history, being still more closely related than the Latin and the Greek. The feature of this arrangement which is most calculated to repel rather than attract assent is the position assigned to the Celtic languages. Few scholars are ready to allow that these tongues, in which the original and distinctive features of Indo-European speech are most of all hidden under the manifold effects of decay and new growth, whose Indo-European character was therefore the last of all to be recognized, and whose separation from the common stock has been generally looked upon as the commencement of its dispersions, are to be regarded as the nearest kindred of the Latin—although no one who remembers how greatly the rates of linguistic change vary among different peoples and under different circumstances will venture to pronounce the connection impossible. The time has not yet come for a full settlement of these controverted points; the means of their solution are, however, doubtless contained in the linguistic facts which lie within our reach, and a more thorough study and closer comparison will one day bring them to light, and may perhaps at the same time illustrate the course and order of those grand movements which have brought the various races of the family into their present seats. But that such or any other evidences will ever direct our gaze to the precise region whence the movements had their first start is in the very highest degree unlikely: and in the mean time it is better candidly to confess our ignorance than to try to hold with confidence an opinion resting upon grounds altogether insufficient and untenable. At any rate, we ought fully to acknowledge that linguistic science, as such, does not presume to decide whether the Indo-European home was in Europe or in Asia: the utmost that she does is to set up certain faint and general probabilities, which, combined with the natural conditions of soil and climate, the traditions of other races, and the direction of the grand movements of population in later times, point to
