a connection anterior to the full elaboration of the fundamental peculiarities of Semitic language which we have been considering. If this claim shall be established by maturer investigation, there will be reason to look for important revelations as the result of comparisons made between the two classes. The often-asserted relationship between the beginnings of Indo-European and of Semitic speech does not at present offer any appreciable promise of valuable light to be thrown upon their joint and respective history. It must be evident, I think, from the foregoing exposition, that the whole fabric and style of these two families of language is so discordant, that any theory which assumes their joint development out of the radical stage, the common growth of their grammatical systems, is wholly excluded. If correspondence there be between them, it must lie in their roots, and it must have existed before the special working-over of the Semitic roots into their present form. It will be time, then, to talk of the signs of Indo-European and Semitic unity when the earliest process of Semitic growth is better understood, its effects distinguished from the yet earlier material upon which they were wrought. Against so deep and pervading a discordance, the surface analogies hitherto brought to light have no convincing weight. The identification is a very alluring theme: the near agreement of the peoples speaking these two classes of languages in respect to physical structure and mental capacity, their position as the two great white races, joint leaders in the world's history, taken in connection with their geographical neighbourhood and an apparent agreement between the traditions held by some nations of each touching their earliest homes and fates, are inducements which have spurred on many a linguist to search for verbal and radical coincidences in the tongues of both, and to regard with a degree of credence such as he appeared to find—while, nevertheless, if the same coincidences were found to exist, along with the same differences, between our languages and those of some congeries of Polynesian or African tribes, they would at once be dismissed as of no value or account. To claim, then, that the common descent of Indo-European and Semitic races has been proved
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