Lectures on the science of language, delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in ... 1861

Front matter

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

Preface

Mt Lectures on the Science of Language are here printed as I had prepared them in manuscript for the Royal Institution. When I came to deliver them, a considerable portion of what I had written had to be omitted ; and, in now placing them before the public in a more complete form, I have gladly complied with a wish expressed by many of my hearers. As they are, they only form a short abstract of several Courses delivered from time to time in Oxford, and they do not pretend to be more than an introduction to a science far too comprehensive to be treated successfiilly in so small a compass.

My object, however, will have been attained, if I should succeed in attaracting the attention, not only of the scholar, but of the philosopher, the historian, and the theologian, to a science which concerns them all, and which, though it professes to treat of words only, teaches us that there is more in words than is dreamt of in our philosophy. I quote from Bacon : " Men believe that their reason is lord over their vm PREFACE.

words, but it happens, too, that words exercise a reciprocal and reactionary power over our intellect. Words, as a Tartar's bow, shoot back upon the understanding of the wisest, and mightily entangle and pervert the judgment."

MAX MULLER.

Oxford, June 11,1861.

Contents

LECTURE I.

Page THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE ONE OF THE PHYSICAL

SCIENCES 11