declined, and which may certainly be found again (in the singular) in tubhyam, Umbrian tefe, Lat. tibi, and in the Homeric forms in pi-Bind, by force; if, lastly, we were to adventure ourselves on that superfluous doubling of the plural called the dual, of which the practical Latin has only retained the two useful words duo and ambo (Sans. dvau and ubhau), we should lose ourselves in an endless labyrinth. I may, however, without engaging myself too far, contest the most commonly received opinion on the origin of the dual. It is generally supposed to be a development of the plural, and even a late development. But why should this be so? Does not the invention of the plural take from the dual its raison d'être? We find the dual in the languages which are nearest to the common idiom, in Sanscrit, in Zend, in Greek, and among the LettoSlavs. I should prefer to regard it as a survival from the time when our savage ancestors first distinguished two from one, when they perceived that man had two arms, two legs, two eyes, when the worship of generation inaugurated the idea of the couple, animal, divine, or human.

I will now sketch the evolution, which is relatively simple, of the degrees of comparison. Three words suffice in French, plus, moins, derived from the Latin comparatives, and très, the Lat. trans, beyond. In the languages which are nearer than French to the Indo-European idiom we shall find suffixes placed after the theme, or between the root and the termination, and consequently subject to numerous alterations.

Leaving on one side monosyllabic and agglutinative methods, such as the repetition of the word, or the addition of a term signifying quantity, which have again become familiar to our analytic languages, we

find that the only means possessed by language for expressing difference in size, distance, or number was the postposition of a demonstrative root. Custom, use, would do the rest, would fix and define the sense. The general suffixes, ra, ta, ma, were used, suffixes which form adjectives, nouns, or participles, without having a very defined meaning in themselves; then at a later period two compound suffixes were employed, jans or yos, this latter very nearly allied to the present or perfect participles, ans, ón, ôs, and os, and ishtha, which seems to be connected with the desiderative verbs.

I give a few examples of the two groups. Ra has only survived in a small number of words; Sans. ava-ra, inferior; upa-ra, superior; apa-ra, posterior; probably pra for pa-ra; in Gr. ὑπέρ for ὑπόρα; Lat. inferus, superus, infra, supra, super, pro, præ. We have not here a very marked comparison, yet it marks differences of situation, behind, before, under, upon. Ther of the French preposition sur is a relic of the old suffix ra.

Ta is not more precise; it is retained chiefly in the ordinal numbers; Sans. tchaturtha (fourth), Gr. πρῶτος, τρίτος, δέκατος ; Lat. quartus, quintus ; Goth. saihs-ta-n, ahtu-da-n, sixth, eighth; and in certain adverbs, Gr. evrós, Lat. intus, subtus, penitus.

Similarly ma signifies first of all the order of things; Sans. saptama, daçama, seventh, tenth; Gr. eßdoμos, seventh; Lat. primus, decimus; afterwards it expressed the superlative; Sans. apama, the lowest; Lat. su(p)mus, summus, minimus, infimus; supremus, imus, the last; Goth. fruman, first; auhuman, superior.

These suffixes have been variously combined to give more force to the idea: tara, tero, ter, for the com

The

parative; tama, timo, tato, for the superlative. first has been adopted by Sanscrit, Greek, and the Germanic languages; Sans. katara, which of two, antara, interior; Goth. khathar, which, anthar, the other; Gr. πότερος, δεύτερος, κουφότερος. Latin has kept this form in a number of words in ter-uter, noster, dexter, alter, ceteri, iterum, ultra, intra, citra; but it is still more used to determine comparatives properly so called.

Tama is one of the regular forms of the Sanscrit superlative: punjatama, the purest; Goth. aftuman, the last; Lat. optimus, ultimus, mactimus (maximus), intimus, &c. In Greek there is only the doubtful form Ar-temi-s, the most noble; tato is used by preference: γλυκύτατος, the sweetest, κουφότατος, &c.

The other group of suffixes, well known in Sanscrit (bhu-yans, more numerous, mahishtha, garishtha, the largest, the heaviest), in Greek (ἡδίων, μαγίων [μείζων], apeiwv, softer, larger, stronger), in Gothic and Teutonic (hauhista, the highest, best), has furnished Latin with all its comparatives; but the nasal has dropped, and sometimes the y also; and the sibilant in the masculine and the feminine has been changed into an r (as in odor, odoris, arbor, arboris, &c., for arbos, odos); it has persisted in the neuter: melior, melius; major, majus, magis (the Fr. mais), pluris, (for pleoris), plus ; minor, minus; pejor, pejus.

Lastly, the combination of the two groups has produced double comparatives and superlatives; Sans. papi-yastara, wickeder, panisthatama, very praiseworthy, surabisthatama, very sweet-smelling, nedisthatama, the nearest; Gr. Xaλioτepos, apioτepos, evdaιμovéσTepos; Goth. aftumist, the last; in Lat. interior, superior, minister, "the last of the least slaves,"

sinister, magister; and perhaps the superlatives in -issimus, doctissimus, felicissimus.

Thus grammatical forms wear out and are reinforced by doubling them, or by other complications which do not preserve them from becoming obsolete. But their long life has not been inglorious; they have closely followed or determined the progress of the human intelligence towards order in the proposition, towards clearness, precision, towards variety also in the expression of every shade of thought. Their use has at last rendered them useless. From reins they became fetters; the apparent aid which they gave to syntax ended by impeding the logic of the sentence. The declension, of which we have given this hasty sketch, seemed at first to be sufficient for all the relations of the noun with the verb and the adjective; but even before the separation of the idioms, the too narrow meaning of the case-endings, and the inevitable confusions between their worn-out forms, rendered necessary the employment of more varied and distinct prepositions. As the terminations implied nothing more than the sense given by these free particles, they gradually lost their ancient function. Greek, Latin, and the Germanic languages reduced their number and altered their meaning, and finally modern languages are gradually losing all trace of them. German alone retains their vestiges without deriving any profit from their use.

CHAPTER III.

THE INDO-EUROPEAN VERB.

Office of the verb, expressed or understood-The addition of the personal pronoun after the root or theme constitutes the verb-The augment, reduplication, the alteration of the root, the insertion of auxiliary suffixes between the theme and the termination, express tense, mood, voice, and circumstance-Richness and complication of the Indo-European conjugation-Verbal evolution of the roots bha, kar, vid, svap, &c.-The middle voice-Free auxiliaries tend to replace suffixes of tense and mood-Persistence of the terminations signifying person-Verbal nouns and adjectives-The infinitive and the participles-Anthropism of the noun and the verb.

THE verb, like the noun, expresses a manner of being, a quality, a fact, or an action, or, lastly, an abstract idea. But to the signs of case, that is to say, of gender, number, cause, of dependence, place and movement, which the declension grafts upon the root, conjugation adds person, tense, and mood. When the various elements of the sentence are in their respective places, ready to play the part assigned to them by the terminations, but still dumb and immovable, the verb intervenes to preside over their evolutions. "It is I," it says, indicating the subject, "it is thou, you, he, we, or they, who, in such a place or with such an object, with such means, endowed with such and such properties, urge to-day, urged yesterday, shall or should urge, if it were necessary, them, him, us, you, myself, and all which in the phrase wears the livery of the accusative, of the complement." The imperative commands, and everything moves to execute the marches and the