Note 10-1 — An Ethnologist’s View of History.

One of the most lucid of modern German philosophical writers says, “Without language, there could be no unity of mental life, no national life at all.” Friedrich Paulsen, Introduction to Philosophy, p. 193. (English translation, New York, 1895.) I need scarcely recall to the student that this was the cardinal principle of the ethnological writings of Wilhelm von Humboldt, and that his most celebrated essay is entitled “Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts.” The thought is well and tersely put by Prof. Frank Granger—“Language is the instinctive expression of national spirit.” (The Worship of the Romans, p. 19, London, 1896.)