Volume 4 / Part 2 — Part II. ON CURTIUS’ CHRONOLOGY OF THE INDO-GERMANIC LANGUAGES. (continued 2)

Among the works ascribed to him is a story called “Barlaam and Joasaph.”39 There has been a fierce controversy as to whether he was the author of it or not. Though for our own immediate purposes it would be of little consequence whether the book was written by Joannes Damascenus or by some less distinguished ecclesiastic, I must confess that the arguments hitherto adduced against his authorship seem to me very weak.

The Jesuits did not like the book, because it was a religious novel. They pointed to a passage in which the Holy Ghost is represented as proceeding from the Father “and the Son,” as incompatible with the creed of an Eastern ecclesiastic. That very passage, however, has now been proved to be spurious; and it should be borne in mind, besides, that the controversy on the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, or from the Father through the Son, dates a century later than Joannes. The fact, again, that the author does not mention Mohammedanism,40 proves nothing against the authorship of Joannes, because, as he places Barlaam and Joasaph in the early centuries of Christianity, he would have ruined his story by any allusion to Mohammed’s religion, then only a hundred years old. Besides, he had written a separate work, in which the relative merits of Christianity and Mohammedanism are discussed. The prominence given to the question of the worship of images shows that the story could not have been written much before the time of Joannes Damascenus, and there is nothing in the style of our author that could be pointed out as incompatible with the style of the great theologian. On the contrary, the author of “Barlaam and Joasaph” quotes the same authors whom Joannes Damascenus quotes most frequently—e.g., Basilius and Gregorius Nazianzenus. And no one but Joannes could have taken long passages from his own works without saying where he borrowed them.41

The story of “Barlaam and Joasaph”—or, as he is more commonly called, Josaphat—may be told in a few words: “A king in India, an enemy and persecutor of the Christians, has an only son. The astrologers have predicted that he would embrace the new doctrine. His father, therefore, tries by all means in his power to keep him ignorant of the miseries of the world, and to create in him a taste for pleasure and enjoyment. A Christian hermit, however, gains access to the prince, and instructs him in the doctrines of the Christian religion. The young prince is not only baptized, but resolves to give up all his earthly riches; and after having converted his own father and many of his subjects, he follows his teacher into the desert.”

The real object of the book is to give a simple exposition of the principal doctrines of the Christian religion. It also contains a first attempt at comparative theology, for in the course of the story there is a disputation on the merits of the principal religions of the world—the Chaldæan, the Egyptian, the Greek, the Jewish, and the Christian. But one of the chief attractions of this manual of Christian theology consisted in a number of fables and parables with which it is enlivened. Most of them have been traced to an Indian source. I shall mention one only which has found its way into almost every literature of the world:42—

“A man was pursued by a unicorn, and while he tried to flee from it, he fell into a pit. In falling he stretched out both his arms, and laid hold of a small tree that was growing on one side of the pit. Having gained a firm footing, and holding to the tree, he fancied he was safe, when he saw two mice, a black and a white one, busy gnawing the root of the tree to which he was clinging. Looking down into the pit, he perceived a horrid dragon with his mouth wide open, ready to devour him, and when examining the place on which his feet rested, the heads of four serpents glared at him. Then he looked up, and observed drops of honey falling down from the tree to which he clung. Suddenly the unicorn, the dragon, the mice, and the serpents were all forgotten, and his mind was intent only on catching the drops of sweet honey trickling down from the tree.”

An explanation is hardly required. The unicorn is Death, always chasing man; the pit is the world; the small tree is man’s life, constantly gnawed by the black and the white mouse—i.e., by night and day; the four serpents are the four elements which compose the human body; the dragon below is meant for the jaws of hell. Surrounded by all those horrors, man is yet able to forget them all, and to think only of the pleasures of life, which, like a few drops of honey, fall into his mouth from the tree of life.43

But what is still more curious is, that the author of “Barlaam and Josaphat” has evidently taken his very hero, the Indian Prince Josaphat, from an Indian source. In the “Lalita Vistara”—the life, though no doubt the legendary life, of Buddha—the father of Buddha is a king. When his son is born, the Brahman Asita predicts that he will rise to great glory, and become either a powerful king, or, renouncing the throne and embracing the life of a hermit become a Buddha.44 The great object of his father is to prevent this. He therefore keeps the young prince, when he grows up, in his garden and palaces, surrounded by all pleasures which might turn his mind from contemplation to enjoyment. More especially he is to know nothing of illness, old age, and death, which might open his eyes to the misery and unreality of life. After a time, however, the prince receives permission to drive out; and then follow the four drives,45 so famous in Buddhist history. The places where these drives took place were commemorated by towers still standing in the time of Fa Hian’s visit to India, early in the fifth century after Christ, and even in the time of Hiouen Thsang, in the seventh century. I shall read you a short account of the three drives:46—

“One day when the prince with a large retinue was driving through the eastern gate of the city, on the way to one of his parks, he met on the road an old man, broken and decrepit. One could see the veins and muscles over the whole of his body, his teeth chattered, he was covered with wrinkles, bald, and hardly able to utter hollow and unmelodious sounds. He was bent on his stick, and all his limbs and joints trembled. ‘Who is that man?’ said the prince to his coachman. ‘He is small and weak, his flesh and his blood are dried up, his muscles stick to his skin, his head is white, his teeth chatter, his body is wasted away; leaning on his stick, he is hardly able to walk, stumbling at every step. Is there something peculiar in his family, or is this the common lot of all created beings?’

“‘Sir,’ replied the coachman, ‘that man is sinking under old age, his senses have become obtuse, suffering has destroyed his strength, and he is despised by his relations. He is without support and useless, and people have abandoned him, like a dead tree in a forest. But this is not peculiar to his family. In every creature youth is defeated by old age. Your father, your mother, all your relations, all your friends, will come to the same state; this is the appointed end of all creatures.’

“‘Alas!’ replied the prince, ‘are creatures so ignorant, so weak and foolish as to be proud of the youth by which they are intoxicated, not seeing the old age which awaits them? As for me, I go away. Coachman, turn my chariot quickly. What have I, the future prey of old age—what have I to do with pleasure?’ And the young prince returned to the city without going to the park.

“Another time the prince was driving through the southern gate to his pleasure-garden, when he perceived on the road a man suffering from illness, parched with fever, his body wasted, covered with mud, without a friend, without a home, hardly able to breathe, and frightened at the sight of himself, and the approach of death. Having questioned his coachman, and received from him the answer which he expected, the young prince said, ‘Alas! health is but the sport of a dream, and the fear of suffering must take this frightful form. Where is the wise man who, after having seen what he is, could any longer think of joy and pleasure?’ The prince turned his chariot, and returned to the city.

“A third time he was driving to his pleasure-garden through the western gate, when he saw a dead body on the road, lying on a bier and covered with a cloth. The friends stood about crying, sobbing, tearing their hair, covering their heads with dust, striking their breasts, and uttering wild cries. The prince, again, calling his coachman to witness this painful scene, exclaimed, ‘Oh, woe to youth, which must be destroyed by old age! Woe to health, which must be destroyed by so many diseases! Woe to this life, where a man remains so short a time! If there were no old age, no disease, no death; if these could be made captive forever!’ Then, betraying for the first time his intentions, the young prince said, ‘Let us turn back, I must think how to accomplish deliverance.’

“A last meeting put an end to hesitation. He was driving through the northern gate on the way to his pleasure-gardens, when he saw a mendicant, who appeared outwardly calm, subdued, looking downwards, wearing with an air of dignity his religious vestment, and carrying an alms-bowl.

“‘Who is that man?’ asked the prince.

“‘Sir,’ replied the coachman, ‘this man is one of those who are called Bhikshus, or mendicants. He has renounced all pleasures, all desires, and leads a life of austerity. He tries to conquer himself. He has become a devotee. Without passion, without envy, he walks about asking for alms.’

“‘This is good and well said,’ replied the prince. ‘The life of a devotee has always been praised by the wise. It will be my refuge, and the refuge of other creatures; it will lead us to a real life, to happiness and immortality.’

“With these words the young prince turned his chariot, and returned to the city.”

If we now compare the story of Joannes of Damascus, we find that the early life of Josaphat is exactly the same as that of Buddha. His father is a king, and after the birth of his son, an astrologer predicts that he will rise to glory; not, however, in his own kingdom, but in a higher and better one; in fact, that he will embrace the new and persecuted religion of the Christians. Everything is done to prevent this. He is kept in a beautiful palace, surrounded by all that is enjoyable; and great care is taken to keep him in ignorance of sickness, old age, and death. After a time, however, his father gives him leave to drive out. On one of his drives he sees two men, one maimed, the other blind. He asks what they are, and is told that they are suffering from disease. He then inquires whether all men are liable to disease, and whether it is known beforehand who will suffer from disease and who will be free; and when he hears the truth, he becomes sad, and returns home. Another time, when he drives out, he meets an old man with wrinkled face and shaking legs, bent down, with white hair, his teeth gone, and his voice faltering. He asks again what all this means, and is told that this is what happens to all men; and that no one can escape old age, and that in the end all men must die. Thereupon he returns home to meditate on death, till at last a hermit appears,47 and opens before his eyes a higher view of life, as contained in the Gospel of Christ.

No one, I believe, can read these two stories without feeling convinced that one was borrowed from the other; and as Fa Hian, three hundred years before John of Damascus, saw the towers which commemorated the three drives of Buddha still standing among the ruins of the royal city of Kapilavastu, it follows that the Greek father borrowed his subject from the Buddhist scriptures. Were it necessary, it would be easy to point out still more minute coincidences between the life of Josaphat and of Buddha, the founder of the Buddhist religion. Both in the end convert their royal fathers, both fight manfully against the assaults of the flesh and the devil, both are regarded as saints before they die. Possibly even a proper name may have been transferred from the sacred canon of the Buddhists to the pages of the Greek writer. The driver who conducts Buddha when he flees by night from his palace where he leaves his wife, his only son, and all his treasures, in order to devote himself to a contemplative life, is called Chandaka, in Burmese, Sanna.48 The friend and companion of Barlaam is called Zardan.49 Reinaud in his “Mémoire sur l’Inde,” p. 91 (1849), was the first, it seems, to point out that Youdasf, mentioned by Massoudi as the founder of the Sabæan religion, and Youasaf, mentioned as the founder of Buddhism by the author of the “Kitáb-al-Fihrist,” are both meant for Bodhisattva, a corruption quite intelligible with the system of transcribing that name with Persian letters. Professor Benfey has identified Theudas, the sorcerer in “Barlaam and Joasaph,” with the Devadatta of the Buddhist scriptures.50

How palpable these coincidences are between the two stories is best shown by the fact that they were pointed out, independently of each other, by scholars in France, Germany, and England. I place France first, because in point of time M. Laboulaye was the first who called attention to it in one of his charming articles in the “Debats.”51 A more detailed comparison was given by Dr. Liebrecht.52 And, lastly, Mr. Beal, in his translation of the “Travels of Fa Hian,”53 called attention to the same fact—viz., that the story of Josaphat was borrowed from the “Life of Buddha.” I could mention the names of two or three scholars besides who happened to read the two books, and who could not help seeing, what was as clear as daylight, that Joannes Damascenus took the principal character of his religious novel from the “Lalita Vistara,” one of the sacred books of the Buddhists; but the merit of having been the first belongs to M. Laboulaye.

This fact is, no doubt, extremely curious in the history of literature; but there is another fact connected with it which is more than curious, and I wonder that it has never been pointed out before. It is well known that the story of “Barlaam and Josaphat” became a most popular book during the Middle Ages. In the East it was translated into Syriac(?), Arabic, Ethiopic, Armenian, and Hebrew; in the West it exists in Latin, French, Italian, German, English, Spanish, Bohemian, and Polish. As early as 1204, a King of Norway translated it into Icelandic, and at a later time it was translated by a Jesuit missionary into Tagala, the classical language of the Philippine Islands. But this is not all, Barlaam and Josaphat have actually risen to the rank of saints, both in the Eastern and in the Western churches. In the Eastern church the 26th of August is the saints’ day of Barlaam and Josaphat; in the Roman Martyrologium, the 27th of November is assigned to them.

There have been from time to time misgivings about the historical character of these two saints. Leo Allatius, in his “Prolegomena,” ventured to ask the question, whether the story of “Barlaam and Josaphat” was more real than the “Cyropædia” of Xenophon, or the “Utopia” of Thomas More; but, en bon Catholique, he replied, that as Barlaam and Josaphat were mentioned, not only in the Menæa of the Greek, but also in the Martyrologium of the Roman Church, he could not bring himself to believe that their history was imaginary. Billius thought that to doubt the concluding words of the author, who says that he received the story of “Barlaam and Josaphat” from men incapable of falsehood, would be to trust more in one’s own suspicions than in Christian charity, which believeth all things. Bellarminus thought he could prove the truth of the story by the fact that, at the end of it, the author himself invokes the two saints Barlaam and Josaphat! Leo Allatius admitted, indeed, that some of the speeches and conversations occurring in the story might be the work of Joannes Damascenus, because Josaphat, having but recently been converted, could not have quoted so many passages from the Bible. But he implies that even this could be explained, because the Holy Ghost might have taught St. Josaphat what to say. At all events, Leo has no mercy for those “quibus omnia sub sanctorum nomine prodita male olent, quemadmodum de sanctis Georgio, Christophoro, Hippolyto, Catarina, aliisque nusquam eos in rerum natura extitisse impudentissime nugantur.” The Bishop of Avranches had likewise his doubts; but he calmed them by saying: “Non pas que je veuille soustenir que tout en soit supposé: il y auroit de la témerité à desavouer qu’il y ait jamais eû de Barlaam ni de Josaphat. Le témoignage du Martyrologe, qui les met au nombre des Saints, et leur intercession que Saint Jean Damascene reclame à la fin de cette histoire ne permettent pas d’en douter.”54

With us the question as to the historical or purely imaginary character of Josaphat has assumed a new and totally different aspect. We willingly accept the statement of Joannes Damascenus that the story of “Barlaam and Josaphat” was told him by men who came from India. We know that in India a story was current of a prince who lived in the sixth century B.C., a prince of whom it was predicted that he would resign the throne, and devote his life to meditation, in order to rise to the rank of a Buddha. The story tells us that his father did everything to prevent this; that he kept him in a palace secluded from the world, surrounded by all that makes life enjoyable; and that he tried to keep him in ignorance of sickness, old age, and death. We know from the same story that at last the young prince obtained permission to drive into the country, and that, by meeting an old man, a sick man, and a corpse, his eyes were opened to the unreality of life, and the vanity of this life’s pleasures; that he escaped from his palace, and, after defeating the assaults of all adversaries, became the founder of a new religion. This is the story, it may be the legendary story, but at all events the recognized story of Gautama Śâkyamuni, best known to us under the name of Buddha.

If, then, Joannes Damascenus tells the same story, only putting the name of Joasaph or Josaphat, i.e., Bodhisattva, in the place of Buddha; if all that is human and personal in the life of St. Josaphat is taken from the “Lalita Vistara”—what follows? It follows that, in the same sense in which La Fontaine’s Perrette is the Brahman of the Pañca­tantra, St. Josaphat is the Buddha of the Buddhist canon. It follows that Buddha has become a saint in the Roman Church; it follows that, though under a different name, the sage of Kapilavastu, the founder of a religion which, whatever we may think of its dogma, is, in the purity of its morals, nearer to Christianity than any other religion, and which counts even now, after an existence of 2,400 years, 455,000,000 of believers, has received the highest honors that the Christian Church can bestow. And whatever we may think of the sanctity of saints, let those who doubt the right of Buddha to a place among them read the story of his life as it is told in the Buddhist canon. If he lived the life which is there described, few saints have a better claim to the title than Buddha; and no one either in the Greek or in the Roman Church need be ashamed of having paid to Buddha’s memory the honor that was intended for St. Josaphat, the prince, the hermit, and the saint.

History, here as elsewhere, is stranger than fiction; and a kind fairy, whom men call Chance, has here, as elsewhere, remedied the ingratitude and injustice of the world.

APPENDIX.

I am enabled to add here a short account of an important discovery made by Professor Benfey with regard to the Syriac translation of our Collection of Fables. Doubts had been expressed by Sylvestre de Sacy and others, as to the existence of this translation, which was mentioned for the first time in Ebedjesu’s catalogue of Syriac writers published by Abraham Ecchellensis, and again later by Assemani (“Biblioth. Orient.,” tom. iii. part 1, p. 219). M. Renan, on the contrary, had shown that the title of this translation, as transmitted to us, “Kalilag and Damnag,” was a guarantee of its historical authenticity. As a final k in Pehlevi becomes h in modern Persian, a title such as “Kalilag and Damnag,” answering to “Kalilak and Damnak” in Pehlevi, in Sanskrit “Karaṭaka and Damanaka,” could only have been borrowed from the Persian before the Mohammedan era. Now that the interesting researches of Professor Benfey on this subject have been rewarded by the happy discovery of a Syriac translation, there remains but one point to be cleared up, viz., whether this is really the translation made by Bud Periodeutes, and whether this same translation was made, as Ebedjesu affirms, from the Indian text, or, as M. Renan supposes, from a Pehlevi version. I insert the account which Professor Benfey himself gave of his discovery in the Supplement to the “Allgemeine Zeitung” of July 12, 1871, and I may add that both text and translation are nearly ready for publication (1875).

The oldest MS. of the Pantschatantra.

Göttingen, July 6, 1871.

The account I am about to give will recall the novel of our celebrated compatriot Freytag (“Die verlorene Handschrift,” or “The Lost MS.”), but with this essential difference, that we are not here treating of a creation of the imagination, but of a real fact; not of the MS. of a work of which many other copies exist, but of an unique specimen; in short, of the MS. of a work which, on the faith of one single mention, was believed to have been composed thirteen centuries ago. This mention, however, appeared to many critical scholars so untrustworthy, that they looked upon it as the mere result of confusion. Another most important difference is, that this search, which has lasted three years, has been followed by the happiest results: it has brought to light a MS. which, even in this century, rich in important discoveries, deserves to be ranked as of the highest value. We have acquired in this MS. the oldest specimen preserved to our days of a work, which, as translated into various languages, has been more widely disseminated and has had a greater influence on the development of civilization than any other work, excepting the Bible.

But to the point.

Through the researches, which I have published in my edition of the Pantschatantra,55 it is known that about the sixth century of our era, a work existed in India, which treated of deep political questions under the form of fables, in which the actors were animals. It contained various chapters, but these subdivisions were not, as had been hitherto believed, eleven to thirteen in number, but, as the MS. just found shows most clearly, there were at least twelve, perhaps thirteen or fourteen. This work was afterwards so entirely altered in India, that five of these divisions were separated from the other six or nine, and much enlarged, whilst the remaining ones were entirely set aside. This apparently curtailed, but really enlarged edition of the old work, is the Sanskrit book so well known as the Pantschatantra, “The Five Books.” It soon took the place, on its native soil, of the old work, causing the irreparable loss of the latter in India.

But before this change of the old work had been effected in its own land, it had, in the first half of the sixth century, been carried to Persia, and translated into Pehlevi under King Chosru Nuschirvan (531–579). According to the researches which I have described in my book already quoted, the results of which are fully confirmed by the newly discovered MS., it cannot be doubted that, if this translation had been preserved, we should have in it a faithful reproduction of the original Indian work, from which, by various modifications, the Pantschatantra is derived. But unfortunately this Pehlevi translation, like its Indian original, is irretrievably lost.

But it is known to have been translated into Arabic in the eighth century by a native of Persia, by name Abdallah ibn Almokaffa (d. 760), who had embraced Islamism, and it acquired, partly in this language, partly in translations and retranslations from it (apart from the recensions in India, which penetrated to East, North, and South Asia,) that extensive circulation which has caused it to exercise the greatest influence on civilization in Western Asia, and throughout Europe.

Besides this translation into Pehlevi, there was, according to one account, another, also of the sixth century, in Syriac. This account we owe to a Nestorian writer, who lived in the thirteenth century. He mentions in his catalogue of authors56 a certain Bud Periodeutes, who probably about 570 had to inspect the Nestorian communities in Persia and India, and who says that, in addition to other books which he names, “he translated the book ‘Qalîlag and Damnag’ from the Indian.”

Until three years ago, not the faintest trace of this old Syrian translation was to be found, and the celebrated Orientalist, Silvestre de Sacy, in the historical memoir which he prefixed to his edition of the Arabic translation, “Calila and Dimna” (Paris, 1816), thought himself justified in seeing in this mention a mere confusion between Barzûyeh, the Pehlevi translator, and a Nestorian Monk.

The first trace of this Syriac version was found in May, 1868. On the sixth of that month, Professor Bickell of Münster, the diligent promoter of Syrian philology, wrote to tell me that he had heard from a Syrian Archdeacon from Urumia, Jochannân bar Bâbisch, who had visited Münster in the spring to collect alms, and had returned there again in May, that, some time previously, several Chaldæan priests who had been visiting the Christians of St. Thomas in India, had brought back with them some copies of this Syriac translation, and had given them to the Catholic Patriarch in Elkosh (near Mossul). He had received one of these.

Though the news appeared so unbelievable and the character of the Syrian priest little calculated to inspire confidence in his statements, it still seemed to me of sufficient importance for me to ask my friends to make further inquiries in India, where other copies ought still to be in existence. Even were the result but a decided negative, it would be a gain to science. These inquiries had no effect in proving the truth of the archdeacon’s assertions; but, at the same time, they did not disprove them. It would of course have been more natural to make inquiries among the Syrians. But from want of friends and from other causes, which I shall mention further on, I could hardly hope for any certain results, and least of all, that if the MS. really existed, I could obtain it, or a copy of it.

The track thus appeared to be lost, and not possible to be followed up, when, after the lapse of nearly two years, Professor Bickell, in a letter of February 22, 1870, drew my attention to the fact that the Chaldæan Patriarch, Jussuf Audo, who, according to Jochannân bar Bâbisch, was in possession of that translation, was now in Rome, as member of the Council summoned by the Pope.

Through Dr. Schöll of Weimar, then in Rome, and one Italian savant, Signor Ignazio Guidi, I was put into communication with the Patriarch, and with another Chaldæan priest, Bishop Qajjât, and received communications, the latest of June 11, 1870, which indeed proved the information of Jochannân bar Bâbisch to be entirely untrustworthy; but at the same time pointed to the probable existence of a MS. of the Syriac translation at Mardîn.

I did not wait for the last letters, which might have saved the discoverer much trouble, but might also have frustrated the whole inquiry; but, as soon as I had learnt the place where the MS. might be, I wrote; May 6, 1870, exactly two years after the first trace of the MS. had been brought to light, to my former pupil and friend, Dr. Albert Socin of Basle, who was then in Asia on a scientific expedition, begging him to make the most careful inquiries in Mardîn about this MS., and especially to satisfy himself whether it had been derived from the Arabian translation, or was independent of and older than the latter. We will let Dr. Socin, the discoverer of the MS., tell us himself of his efforts and their results.

“I received your letter of May 6, 1870, a few days ago, by Bagdad and Mossul, at Yacho on the Chabôras. You say that you had heard that the book was in the library at Mardîn. I must own that I doubted seriously the truth of the information, for Oriental Christians always say that they possess every possible book, whilst in reality they have but few. I found this on my journey through the ‘Christian Mountain,’ the Tûr el’ ’Abedîn, where I visited many places and monasteries but little known. I only saw Bibles in Estrangelo character, which were of value, nowhere profane books; but the people are so fanatical, and watch their books so closely, that it is very difficult to get sight of anything; and one has to keep them in good humor. Unless after a long sojourn, and with the aid of bribery, there can never be any thought of buying anything from a monastic library. Arrived in Mardîn, I set myself to discover the book. I naturally passed by all Moslem libraries, as Syriac books only exist among the Christians. I settled at first that the library in question could only be the Jacobite Cloister, ‘Der ez Zàferân,’ the most important centre of the Christians of Mardîn. I therefore sent to the Patriarch of Diarbekir for most particular introductions, and started for ‘Der ez Zàferân,’ which lies in the mountains, 5½ hours from Mardîn. The recommendations opened the library to me. I looked through four hundred volumes, without finding anything; there was not much of any value. On my return to Mardîn, I questioned people right and left; no one knew anything about it. At length I summoned up courage one day, and went to the Chaldæan monastery. The different sects in Mardîn are most bitter against each other, and as I unfortunately lodged in the house of an American missionary, it was very difficult for me to gain access to these Catholics, who were unknown to me. Luckily my servant was a Catholic, and could state that I had no proselytizing schemes. After a time I asked about their books; Missals and Gospels were placed before me; I asked if they had any books of Fables. ‘Yes, there was one there.’ After a long search in the dust, it was found and brought to me. I opened it, and saw at the first glance, in red letters, ‘Qalîlag and Damnag,’ with the old termination g, which proved to me that the work was not translated from the Arabic ‘Calila ve Dimnah.’ You may be certain that I did not show what I felt. I soon laid the book quietly down. I had indeed before asked the monk specially for ‘Kalila and Dimna,’ and with some persistency, before I inquired generally for books of fables; but he had not the faintest suspicion that the book before him was the one so eagerly sought after. After about a week or ten days, in order to arouse no suspicion, I sent a trustworthy man to borrow the book; but he was asked at once if it were for the ‘Fréngi den Prot’ (Protestant), and my confidant was so good as to deny it, ‘No, it was for himself.’ I then examined the book more carefully. Having it safely in my possession, I was not alarmed at the idea of a little hubbub. I therefore made inquiries, but in all secret, whether they would sell it. ‘No, never,’ was the answer I expected and received, and the idea that I had borrowed it for myself was revived. I therefore began to have a copy made. But I was obliged to leave Mardîn and even the neighboring Diarbekir, before I received the copy. In Mardîn itself the return of the book was loudly demanded, as soon as they knew I was having it copied. I was indeed delighted when, through the kindness of friends, post tot discrimina rerum I received the book at Aleppo.”

So far writes my friend, the fortunate discoverer, who, as early as the 19th of August, 1870, announced in a letter the happy recovery of the book. On April 20, 1871, he kindly sent it to me from Basle.

This is not the place to descant on the high importance of this discovery. It is only necessary to add that there is not the least doubt that it has put us in possession of the old Syriac translation, of which Ebedjesu speaks. There is only one question still to be settled, whether it is derived direct from the Indian, or through the Pehlevi translation? In either case it is the oldest preserved rendering of the original, now lost in India, and therefore of priceless value.

The fuller treatment of this and other questions, which spring from this discovery, will find a place in the edition of the text, with translation and commentary, which Professor Bickell is preparing in concert with Dr. Hoffman and myself.

Theodor Benfey.

NOTES.

NOTE A. text

In modern times, too, each poet or fabulist tells the story as seems best to him. I give three recensions of the story of Perrette, copied from English schoolbooks.

The Milkmaid.

Fable.

A country maid was walking with a pail of milk upon her head, when she fell into the following train of thoughts: “The money for which I shall sell this milk will enable me to increase my stock of eggs to three hundred. These eggs will bring at least two hundred and fifty chickens. The chickens will be fit to carry to market about Christmas, when poultry always bear a good price; so that by May-day I shall have money enough to buy me a new gown. Green?—let me consider—yes, green becomes my complexion best, and green it shall be. In this dress I will go to the fair, where all the young fellows will strive to have me for a partner; but I shall perhaps refuse every one of them, and with an air of distain toss from them.” Charmed with this thought, she could not forbear acting with her head what thus passed in her mind, when down came the pail of milk, and with it all her fancied happiness.—From Guy’s “British Spelling Book.”

Alnasker.

Alnasker was a very idle fellow, that would never set his hand to work during his father’s life. When his father died he left him to the value of a hundred pounds in Persian money. In order to make the best of it he laid it out in glasses and bottles, and the finest china. These he piled up in a large open basket at his feet, and leaned his back upon the wall of his shop in the hope that many people would come in to buy. As he sat in this posture, with his eyes upon the basket, he fell into an amusing train of thought, and talked thus to himself: “This basket,” says he, “cost me a hundred pounds, which is all I had in the world. I shall quickly make two hundred of it by selling in retail. These two hundred shall in course of trade rise to ten thousand, when I will lay aside my trade of a glass-man, and turn a dealer in pearls and diamonds, and all sorts of rich stones. When I have got as much wealth as I can desire, I will purchase the finest house I can find, with lands, slaves, and horses. Then I shall set myself on the footing of a prince, and will ask the grand Vizier’s daughter to be my wife. As soon as I have married her, I will buy her ten black servants, the youngest and best that can be got for money. When I have brought this princess to my house, I shall take care to breed her in due respect for me. To this end I shall confine her to her own rooms, make her a short visit, and talk but little to her. Her mother will then come and bring her daughter to me, as I am seated on a sofa. The daughter, with tears in her eyes, will fling herself at my feet, and beg me to take her into my favor. Then will I, to impress her with a proper respect for my person, draw up my leg, and spurn her from me with my foot in such a manner that she shall fall down several paces from the sofa.” Alnasker was entirely absorbed with his ideas, and could not forbear acting with his foot what he had in his thoughts; so that, striking his basket of brittle ware, which was the foundation of all his grand hopes, he kicked his glasses to a great distance into the street, and broke them into a thousand pieces.—“Spectator.” (From the “Sixth Book,” published by the Scottish School Book Association, W. Collins & Co., Edinburgh).

NOTE B. text

Pertsch, in Benfey’s “Orient und Occident,” vol. ii. p. 261. Here the story is told as follows: “Perche si conta che un certo pouer huomo hauea uicino a doue dormiua, un mulino & del buturo, & una notte tra se pensando disse, io uenderò questo mulino, & questo butturo tanto per il meno, che io comprerò diece capre. Le quali mi figliaranno in cinque mesi altre tante, & in cinque anni multiplicheranno fino a quattro cento; Le quali barattero in cento buoi, & con essi seminarò una cãpagna, & insieme da figliuoli loro, & dal frutto della terra in altri cinque anni, sarò oltre modo ricco, & farò un palagio quadro, adorato, & comprerò schiaui una infinità, & prenderò moglie, la quale mi farà un figliuolo, & lo nominerò Pancalo, & lo farò ammaestrare come bisogna. Et se vedrò che non si curi con questa bacchetta cosí il percoterò. Con che prendendo la bacchetta che gli era uicina, & battendo di essa il vaso doue era il buturo, e lo ruppe, & fuse il buturo. Dopò gli partorì la moglie un figliuolo, e la moglie un dì gli disse, habbi un poco cura di questo fanciullo o marito, fino che io uo e torno da un seruigio. La quale essendo andata fu anco il marito chiamato dal Signore della terra, & tra tanto auuenne che una serpe salì sopra il fanciullo. Et vna donzella uicina, corsa là l’uccise. Tornato il marito uide insanguito l’vscio, & pensando che costei l’hauesse ucciso, auanti che il uedesse, le diede sul capo, di un bastone, e l’uccise. Entrato poi, & sano trouando il figliuolo, & la serpe morta, si fu grandemente pentito, & piāse amaramente. Cosí adunque i frettolosi in molte cose errano.” (Page 516.)

NOTE C. text

This and some other extracts, from books not to be found at Oxford, were kindly copied for me by my late friend, E. Deutsch, of the British Museum.

“Georgii Pachymeris Michael Palæologus, sive Historia rerum a M. P. gestarum,” ed. Petr. Possinus. Romæ, 1666.

Appendix ad observationes Pachymerianas, Specimen Sapientiæ Indorum veterum liber olim ex lingua Indica in Persicam a Perzoe Medico: ex Persica in Arabicam ab Anonymo: ex Arabica in Græcam a Symeone Seth, a Petro Possino Societ. Iesu, novissime e Græca in Latinam translatus.

“Huic talia serio nuganti haud paulo cordatior mulier. Mihi videris, Sponse, inquit, nostri cujusdam famuli egentissimi hominis similis ista inani provisione nimis remotarum et incerto eventu pendentrum rerum. Is diurnis mercedibus mellis ac butyri non magna copia collectâ duobus ista vasis e terra coctili condiderat. Mox secum ita ratiocinans nocte quadam dicebat: Mel ego istud ac butyrum quindecim minimum vendam denariis. Ex his decem Capras emam. Hæ mihi quinto mense totidem alias parient. Quinque annis gregem Caprarum facile quadringentarum confecero. Has commutare tunc placet cum bobus centum, quibus exarabo vim terræ magnam et numerum tritici maximum congeram. Ex fructibus hisce quinquennio multiplicatis, pecuniaæ scilicet tantus existet modus, ut facile in locupletissimis numerer. Accedit dos uxoris quam istis opibus ditissiman nansciscar. Nascetur mihi filius quem jam nunc decerno nominare Panealum. Hunc educabo liberalissime, ut nobilium nulli concedat. Qui si ubi adoleverit, ut juventus solet, contumacem se mihi præbeat, haud feret impune. Baculo enim hoc illum hoc modo feriam. Arreptum inter hæc dicendum lecto vicinum baculum per tenebras jactavit, casuque incurrens in dolia mellis et butyri juxta posita, confregit utrumque, ita ut in ejus etiam os barbamque stillæ liquoris prosilirent; cætera effusa et mixta pulveri prorsus corrumperentur; ac fundamentum spei tantæ, inopem et multum gementem momento destitueret.” (Page 602.)

NOTE D. text

“Directorium Humanæ Vitæ alias Parabolæ Antiquorum Sapientum,” fol. s. l. e. a. k. 4 (circ. 1480?): “Dicitque olim quidam fuit heremita apud quendam regem. Cui rex providerat quolibet die pro sua vita. Scilicet provisionem de sua coquina et vasculum de melle. Ille vero comedebat decocta, et reservabat mel in quodam vase suspenso super suum caput donec esset plenum. Erat autem mel percarum in illis diebus. Quadam vero die: dum jaceret in suo lecto elevato capite, respexit vas mellis quod super caput ei pendebat. Et recordatus quoniam mel de die in diem vendebatur pluris solito seu carius, et dixit in corde suo. Quum fuerit hoc vas plenum: vendam ipsum uno talento auri: de quo mihi emam decem oves, et successu temporis he oves facient filios et filias, et erunt viginti. Postea vero ipsis multiplicatis cum filiis et filiabus in quatuor annis erunt quatuor centum. Tunc de quibuslibet quatuor ovibus emam vaccam et bovem et terram. Et vaccæ multiplicabuntur in filiis, quorum masculos accipiam mihi in culturam terre, præter id quod percipiam de eis de lacte et lana, donec non consummatis aliis quinque annis multiplicabuntur in tantum quod habebo mihi magnas substantias et divitias, et ero a cunctis reputatus dives et honestus. Et edificabo mihi tunc grandia et excellentia edificia pre omnibus meis vicinis et consanguinibus, itaque omnes de meis divitiis loquantur, nonne erit mihi illud jocundum, cum omnes homines mihi reverentiam in omnibus locis exhibeant. Accipiam postea uxorem de nobilibus terre. Cumque eam cognovero, concipiet et pariet mihi filium nobilem et delectabilem cum bona fortuna et dei beneplacito qui crescet in scientia virtute, et relinquam mihi per ipsum bonam memoriam post mei obitum et castigabo ipsum dietim: si mee recalcitraverit doctrine; ac mihi in omnibus erit obediens, et si non: percutiam eum isto baclo et erecto baculo ad percutiendum percussit vas mellis et fregit ipsum et defluxit mel super caput ejus.”

NOTE E. text

“Das Buch der Weisheit der alter Weisen,” Ulm, 1415. Here the story is given as follows:—

“Man sagt es wohnet eins mals ein brůder der dritten regel der got fast dienet, bei eins künigs hof, den versach der künig alle tag zů auff enthalt seines lebens ein kuchen speiss und ein fleschlein mit honig. diser ass alle tag die speiss von der kuchen und den honig behielt er in ein irden fleschlein das hieng ob seiner petstat so lang biss es voll ward. Nun kam bald eine grosse teür in den honig und eins morgens früe lag er in seinem pett und sach das honig in dem fleschlein ob seinem haubt hangen do fiel ym in sein gedanck die teüre des honigs und fieng an mit ihm selbs ze reden. wann diss fleschlein gantz vol honigs wirt so verkauff ich das umb fünff güldin, darum̅ kauff ich mir zehen gůter schaff und die machen alle des jahrs lember. und dann werden eins jahrs zweintzig und die und das von yn kummen mag in zehen jaren werden tausent. dann kauff ich umb fier schaff ein ku und kauff dobei ochsen und ertrich die meren sich mit iren früchten und do nimb ich dann die frücht zů arbeit der äcker. von den andern küen und schaffen nimb ich milich und woll ee das andre fünff jar fürkommen so wird es sich allso meren das ich ein grosse hab und reichtumb überkumen wird dann will ich mir selbs knecht und kellerin kauffen und hohe und hübsche bäw ton. und darnach so nimm ich mir ein hübsch weib von einem edeln geschlecht die beschlaff ich mit kurtzweiliger lieb. so enpfecht sie und gebirt mir ein schön glückseligten sun und gottförchtigen. und der wirt wachsen in lere und künsten und in weissheit. durch den lass ich mir einen gůten leümde nach meinem tod. aber wird er nit fölgig sein und meiner straff nit achten so wolt ich yn mit meinem stecken über sein rucken on erbermde gar hart schlahen. und nam sein stecken da mit man pflag das pet ze machen ym selbs ze zeigen wie frefelich er sein sun schlagen wölt. und schlůg das irden fass das ob seinem haubt hieng zů stücken dass ym das honig under sein antlit und in das pet troff und ward ym von allen sein gedencken nit dann das er sein antlit und pet weschen můst.”

NOTE F. text

This translation has lately been published by Don Pascual de Gayangos in the “Biblioteca de Autores Españoles,” Madrid, 1860, vol. li. Here the story runs as follows (p. 57):—

“Del religioso que vertió la miel et la manteca sobre su cabeza.

“Dijo la mujer: ‘Dicen que un religioso habia cada dia limosna de casa de un mercader rico, pan é manteca é miel e otras cosas, et comia el pan é lo ál condesaba, et ponia la miel é la manteca en un jarra, fasta quel a finchó, et tenia la jarra colgada á la cabecera de su cama. Et vino tiempo que encareció la miel é la manteca, et el religioso fabló un dia consigo mismo, estando asentado en su cama, et dijo así: Venderé cuanto está en esta jarra por tantos maravedís, é comparé con ellos diez cabras, et empreñarse-han, é parirán á cabo de cinco meses; et fizo cuenta de esta guisa, et falló que en cinco años montarian bien cuatrocientas cabras. Desí dijo: Venderlas-he todas, et con el precio dellas compraré cien vacas, por cada cuatro cabezas una vaca, é haberé simiente é sembraré con los bueyes, et aprovecharme-he de los becerros et de las fembras é de la leche é manteca, é de las mieses habré grant haber, et labraré muy nobles casas, é compraré siervos é siervas, et esto fecho casarme-he con una mujer muy rica, é fermosa, é de grant logar, é empreñarla-he de fijo varon, é nacerá complido de sus miembros, et criarlo-he como á fijo de rey, é castigarlo-he con esta vara, si non quisiere ser bueno é obediente’. E él deciendo esto, alzó la vara que tenia en la mano, et ferió en la olla que estaba colgada encima dél, é quebróla, é cayóle la miel é la manteca sobre su cabeza,” etc.

NOTE G. text

See “Poésies inédites du Moyen Âge,” par M. Edélstand Du Méril. Paris, 1854. XVI. De Viro et Vase Olei (p. 239):—

All brackets and parentheses are in the original.

I owe the following extract to the kindness of M. Paul Meyer:—

Apologi Phædrii ex ludicris I. Regnerii Belnensis doct. Medici, Divione, apud Petrum Palliot, 1643 in 12, 126 pages et de plus un index.

Le recueil se divise en deux partis, pars I., pars II. La fable en question est à la page 32, pars I. fab. xxv.

XXV.

Pagana et eius mercis emptor.

NOTE H. text

Hulsbach, “Sylva Sermonum,” Basileæ, 1568, p. 28: “In sylva quadam morabatur heremicola jam satis provectæ ætatis, qui quaque die accedebat civitatem, afferens inde mensuram mellis, qua donabatur. Hoc recondebat in vase terreo, quod pependerat supra lectum suum. Uno dierum jacens in lecto, et habens bacalum in manu sua, hæc apud se dicebat: Quotidie mihi datur vasculum mellis, quod dum indies recondo, fiet tandem summa aliqua. Jam valet mensura staterem unum. Corraso autem ita floreno uno aut altero, emam mihi oves, quæ fœnerabunt mihi plures: quibus divenditis coëmam mihi elegantem uxorculam, cum qua transigam vitam meam lætanter: ex ea suscitabo mihi puellam, quam instituam honeste. Si vero mihi noluerit obedire, hoc baculo eam ita comminuam: atque levato baculo confregit suum vasculum, et effusum est mel, quare cassatum est suum propositum, et manendum adhuc in suo statu.”

NOTE I. text

“El Conde Lucanor, compuesto por el excelentissimo Principe don Iuan Manuel, hijo del Infante don Manuel, y nieto del Santo Rey don Fernando,” Madrid, 1642; cap. 29, p. 96. He tells the story as follows: “There was a woman called Dona Truhana (Gertrude), rather poor than rich. One day she went to the market carrying a pot of honey on her head. On her way she began to think that she would sell the pot of honey, and buy a quantity of eggs, that from those eggs she would have chickens, that she would sell them and buy sheep; that the sheep would give her lambs, and thus calculating all her gains, she began to think herself much richer than her neighbors. With the riches which she imagined she possessed, she thought how she would marry her sons and daughters, and how she would walk in the street surrounded by her sons and daughters-in-law; and how people would consider her happy for having amassed so large a fortune, though she had been so poor. While she was thinking over all this, she began to laugh for joy, and struck her head and forehead with her hand. The pot of honey fell down, was broken, and she shed hot tears because she had lost all that she would have possessed if the pot of honey had not been broken.”

NOTE K. text

Bonaventure des Periers, “Les Contes ou les Nouvelles.” Amsterdam, 1735. Nouvelle XIV. (vol. i. p. 141). (First edition, Lyon, 1558): “Et ne les (les Alquemistes) sçauroiton mieux comparer qu’à une bonne femme qui portoit une potée de laict au marché, faisant son compte ainsi: qu’elle la vendroit deux liards: de ces deux liards elle en achepteroit une douzaine d’œufs, lesquelz elle mettroit couver, et en auroit une douzaine de poussins: ces poussins deviendroient grands, et les feroit chaponner: ces chapons vaudroient cinq solz la piece, ce seroit un escu et plus, dont elle achepteroit deux cochons, masle et femelle: qui deviendroient grands et en feroient une douzaine d’autres, qu’elle vendroit vingt solz la piece; apres les avoir nourris quelque temps, ce seroient douze francs, dont elle achepteroit une iument, qui porteroit un beau poulain, lequel croistroit et deviendroit tant gentil: il sauteroit et feroit Hin. Et en disant Hin, la bonne femme, de l’aise qu’elle avoit en son compte, se print à faire la ruade que feroit son poulain: et en ce faisant sa potée de laict va tomber, et se respandit toute. Et voila ses œufs, ses poussins, ses chappons, ses cochons, sa jument, et son poulain, tous par terre.”

IV. ON THE RESULTS OF THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. INAUGURAL LECTURE, DELIVERED IN THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY OF STRASSBURG, MAY 23, 1872.

You will easily understand that, in giving my first lecture in a German University, I feel some difficulty in mastering and repressing the feelings which stir within my heart. I wish to speak to you, as it becomes a teacher, with perfect calmness, thinking of nothing but of the subject which 1 have to treat. But here where we are gathered together to-day, in this old free imperial town, in this University, full of the brightest recollections of Alsatian history and German literature, even a somewhat gray-headed German professor may be pardoned if, for some moments at least, he gives free vent to the thoughts that are foremost in his mind. You will see, at least, that he feels and thinks as you all feel and think, and that in living away from Germany he has not forgotten his German language, or lost his German heart.

The times in which we live are great, so great, that we can hardly conceive them great enough; so great that we, old and young, cannot be great and good and brave and hardworking enough, if we do not wish to appear quite unworthy of the times in which our lot has been cast.

We older people have lived through darker times, when to a German, learning was the only refuge, the only comfort, the only pride; times when there was no Germany except in our recollection, and perhaps in our secret hopes. And those who have lived through those sadder days feel all the more deeply the blessings of the present. We have a Germany again, a united, great, and strong country; and I call this a blessing, not only in a material sense, as giving, at last, to our homes a real and lasting security against the inroads of our powerful neighbors, but also in a moral sense, as placing every German under a greater responsibility, as reminding us of our higher duties, as inspiring us with courage and energy for the battle of the mind even more than for the battle of the arm.

That blessing has cost us dear, fearfully dear, dearer than the friends of humanity had hoped; for, proud as we may be of our victories and our victors, let us not deceive ourselves in this, that there is in the history of humanity nothing so inhuman, nothing that makes us so entirely despair of the genius of mankind, nothing that bows us so low to the very dust, as war—unless even war becomes ennobled and sanctified, as it was with us, by the sense of duty, duty towards our country, duty towards our town, duty towards our home, towards our fathers and mothers, our wives and children. Thus, and thus only, can even war become the highest and brightest of sacrifices; thus, and thus only, may we look history straight in the face, and ask, “Who would have acted differently?”

I do not speak here of politics in the ordinary sense of the word,—nay, I gladly leave the groping for the petty causes of the late war to the scrutiny of those foreign statesmen who have eyes only for the infinitesimally small, but cannot, or will not, see the powerful handiwork of Divine justice that reveals itself in the history of nations as in the lives of individuals. I speak of politics in their true and original meaning, as a branch of ethics, as Kant has proved them to be, and from this point of view, politics become a duty from which no one may shrink, be he young or old. Every nation must have a conscience, like every individual; a nation must be able to give to itself an account of the moral justification of a war in which it is to sacrifice everything that is most dear to man. And that is the greatest blessing of the late war, that every German, however deep he may delve in his heart, can say without a qualm or a quiver, “The German people did not wish for war, nor for conquest. We wanted peace and freedom in our internal development. Another nation or rather its rulers, claimed the right to draw for us lines of the Main, if not new frontiers of the Rhine; they wished to prevent the accomplishment of that German union for which our fathers had worked and suffered. The German nation would gladly have waited longer still, if thereby war could have been averted. We knew that the union of Germany was inevitable, and the inevitable is in no hurry. But when the gauntlet was thrown in our face, and, be it remembered, with the acclamation of the whole French nation, then we knew what, under Napoleonic sway, we might expect from our powerful neighbor, and the whole German people rose as one man for defense, not for defiance. The object of our war was peace, and a lasting peace, and therefore now, after peace has been won, after our often menaced, often violated, western frontier has been made secure forever by bastions, such as nature only can build, it becomes our duty to prove to the world that we Germans are the same after as before the war, that military glory has nothing intoxicating to us, that we want peace with all the world.”

You know that the world at large does not prophesy well for us. We are told that the old and simple German manners will go, that the ideal interests of our life will be forgotten, that, as in other countries, so with us, our love for the True and the Beautiful will be replaced by love of pleasure, enjoyment, and vanities. It rests with us with all our might to confound such evil prophesies, and to carry the banner of the German mind higher than ever. Germany can remain great only by what has made her great—by simplicity of manners, contentment, industry, honesty, high ideals, contempt of luxury, of display, and of vain-glory. “Non propter vitam vivendi perdere causas,”— “Not for the sake of life to lose the real objects of life,” this must be our watchword forever, and the causæ vitæ, the highest objects of life, are for us to-day, and will, I trust, remain for coming generations the same as they were in the days of Lessing, of Kant, of Schiller, and of Humboldt.

And nowhere, methinks, can this return to the work of peace be better inaugurated than here in this very place, in Strassburg. It was a bold conception to begin the building of the new temple of learning in the very midst of the old German frontier fortress. We are summoned here, as in the days of Nehemiah, when “the builders every one had his sword girded by his side and so builded.” It rests with us, the young as well as the old, that this bold conception shall not fail. And therefore I could not resist the voice of my heart, or gainsay the wish of my friends who believed that I, too, might bring a stone, however small, to the building of this new temple of German science. And here I am among you to try and do my best. Though I have lived long abroad, and pitched my workshop for nearly twenty-five years on English soil, you know that I have always remained German in heart and mind. And this I must say for my English friends, that they esteem a German who remains German far more than one who wishes to pass himself off as English. An Englishman wishes every man to be what he is. I am, and I always have been, a German living and working in England. The work of my life, the edition of the Rig-Veda, the oldest book of the Indian, aye, of the whole Aryan world, could be carried out satisfactorily nowhere but in England, where the rich collections of Oriental MSS., and the easy communications with India, offer to an Oriental scholar advantages such as no other country can offer. That by living and working in England I have made some sacrifices, that I have lost many advantages which the free intercourse with German scholars in a German university so richly offers, no one knows better than myself. Whatever I have seen of life, I know of no life more perfect than that of a German professor in a German school or university. You know what Niebuhr thought of such a life, even though he was a Prussian minister and ambassador at Rome. I must read you some of his words, they sound so honest and sincere: “There is no more grateful, more serene life than that of a German teacher or professor, none that, through the nature of its duties and its work, secures so well the peace of our heart and our conscience. How many times have I deplored it with a sad heart, that I should ever have left that path of life to enter upon a life of trouble which, even at the approach of old age, will probably never give me lasting peace. The office of a schoolmaster, in particular, is one of the most honorable, and despite of all the evils which now and then disturb its ideal beauty, it is for a truly noble heart the happiest path of life. It was the path which I had once chosen for myself, and how I wish I had been allowed to follow it!”

I could quote to you the words of another Prussian ambassador, Bunsen. He, too, often complained with sadness that he had missed his true path in life. He too, would gladly have exchanged the noisy hotel of the ambassador for the quiet home of a German professor.

From my earliest youth it has been the goal of my life to act as a professor in a German university, and if this dream of my youth was not to be fulfilled in its entirety, I feel all the more grateful that, through the kindness of my friends and German colleagues, I have been allowed, at least once in my life, to act during the present spring and summer as a real German professor in a German university.

This was in my heart, and I wanted to say it, in order that you might know with what purpose I have come, and with what real joy I begin the work which has brought us together to-day.

I shall lecture during the present term on “The Results of the Science of Language;” but you will easily understand that to sum up in one course of lectures the results of researches which have been carried on with unflagging industry by three generations of scholars, would be a sheer impossibility. Besides, a mere detailing of results, though it is possible, is hardly calculated to subserve the real objects of academic teaching. You would not be satisfied with mere results: you want to know and to understand the method by which they have been obtained. You want to follow step by step that glorious progress of discovery which has led us to where we stand now. What is the use of knowing the Pythagorean problem, if we cannot prove it? What would be the use of knowing that the French larme is the same as the German Zähre (tear), if we could not with mathematical exactness trace every step by which these two words have diverged till they became what they are?

The results of the Science of Language are enormous. There is no sphere of intellectual activity which has not felt more or less the influence of this new science. Nor is this to be wondered at. Language is the organ of all knowledge, and though we flatter ourselves that we are the lords of language, that we use it as a useful tool, and no more, believe me there are but few who can maintain their complete independence with respect to language, few who can say of her, Ἔχω Λαΐδα, οὐκ ἔχομαι. To know language historically and genetically, to be able more particularly to follow up the growth of our technical terms to their very roots, this is in every science the best means to keep up a living connection between the past and the present, the only way to make us feel the ground on which we stand.

Let us begin with what is nearest to us, Philology. Its whole character has been changed as if by magic. The two classical languages, Greek and Latin, which looked as if they had fallen from the sky or been found behind the hedge, have now recovered their title-deeds, and have taken their legitimate place in that old and noble family which we call the Indo-European, the Indo-Germanic, or by a shorter, if not a better name, the Aryan. In this way not only have their antecedents been cleared up, but their mutual relationship, too, has for the first time been placed in its proper light. The idea that Latin was derived from Greek, an idea excusable in scholars of the Scipionic period, or that Latin was a language made up of Italic, Greek, and Pelasgic elements, a view that had maintained itself to the time of Niebuhr, all this has now been shown to be a physical impossibility. Greek and Latin stand together on terms of perfect equality; they are sisters, like French and Italian:—

If it could be a scientific question which of the two is the elder sister, Greek or Latin, Latin, I believe, could produce better claims of seniority than Greek. Now, as in the modern history of language we are able to explain many things that are obscure in French and Italian by calling in the Provençal, the Spanish, the Portuguese, nay, even the Wallachian and the Churwälsch, we can do the same in the ancient history of language, and get light for many things which are difficult and unintelligible in Greek and Latin, by consulting Sanskrit, Zend, Gothic, Irish, and even Old Bulgarian. We can hardly form an idea of the surprise which was occasioned among the scholars of Europe by the discovery of the Aryan family of languages, reaching with its branches from the Himalayan mountains to the Pyrenees. Not that scholars of any eminence believed at the end of the last century that Greek and Latin were derived from Hebrew: that prejudice had been disposed of once for all, in Germany at least, by Leibniz. But after that theory had been given up, no new truly scientific theory had taken its place. The languages of the world, with the exception of the Semitic, the family type of which was not to be mistaken, lay scattered about as disjecta membra poëtæ, and no one thought of uniting them again into one organic whole. It was the discovery of Sanskrit which led to the reunion of the Aryan languages, and if Sanskrit had taught us nothing else, this alone would establish its claim to a place among the academic sciences of our century.

When Greek and Latin had once been restored to their true place in the natural system of the Aryan languages, their special treatment, too, became necessarily a different one. In grammar, for instance, scholars were no longer satisfied to give forms and rules, and to place what was irregular by the side of what was regular. They wished to know the reasons of the rules as well as of the exceptions; they asked why the forms were such as they were, and not otherwise; they required not only a logical, but also an historical foundation of grammar. People asked themselves for the first time, why so small a change as mensa and mensæ could express the difference between one and many tables; why a single letter, like r, could possess the charm of changing I love, amo, into I am loved, amor. Instead of indulging in general speculations on the logic of grammar, the riddles of grammar received their solution from a study of the historical development of language. For every language there was to be a historical grammar, and in this way a revolution was produced in philological studies to be compared only to the revolution produced in chemistry by the discoveries of Lavoisier, or in geology by the theories of Lyell. For instance, instead of attempting an explanation why the genitive singular and the ablative plural of the first and second declensions could express rest in a place—Romæ, at Rome; Tarenti, at Tarentum; Athenis, at Athens; Gabiis, at Gabii—one glance at the past history of these languages showed that these so-called genitives were not and never had been genitives, but corresponded to the old locatives in i and su in Sanskrit. No doubt, a pupil can be made to learn anything that stands in a grammar; but I do not believe that it can conduce to a sound development of his intellectual powers if he first learns at school the real meaning of the genitive and ablative, and then has to accept on trust that, somehow or other, the same cases may express rest in a place. A well-known English divine, opposed to reform in spelling, as in everything else, once declared that the fearful orthography of English formed the best psychological foundation of English orthodoxy, because a child that had once been brought to believe that t-h-r-o-u-g-h sounded like “through,” t-h-o-u-g-h like “though,” r-o-u-g-h like “rough,” would afterwards believe anything. Be that as it may, I do not consider that grammatical rules like those just quoted on the genitive and ablative, assuming the power of the locative, are likely to strengthen the reasoning powers of any schoolboy.

Even more pernicious to the growth of sound ideas was the study of etymology, as formerly carried on in schools and universities. Everything here was left to chance or to authority, and it was not unusual that two or three etymologies of the same word had to be learnt, as if the same word might have had more than one parent. Yet it is many years since Otfried Müller told classical scholars that they must either surrender the whole subject of the historical growth of language, etymology, and grammatical morphology, or trust in these matters entirely to the guidance of Comparative Philology. As a student at Leipzig, I lived to see old Gottfried Hermann quoting the paradigms of Sanskrit grammar in one of his last Programs; and Boeckh declared in 1850, at the eleventh meeting of German philologists, that, in the present state of the science of language, the grammar of the classical languages cannot dispense with the coöperation of comparative grammar. And yet there are scholars even now who would exclude the Science of Language from schools and universities. What gigantic steps truly scientific etymology has made in Greek and Latin, every scholar may see in the excellent works of Curtius and Corssen. The essential difference between the old and the new systems consists here, too, in this, that while formerly people were satisfied if they knew, or imagined they knew, from what source a certain word was derived, little value is now attached to the mere etymology of a word, unless at the same time it is possible to account, according to fixed phonetic laws, for all the changes which a word has undergone in its passage through Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit. How far this conscientiousness may be carried is shown by the fact that the best comparative philologists decline to admit, on phonetic grounds, the identity of such words as the Latin Deus, and the Greek Θεός, although the strongest internal arguments may be urged in favor of the identity of these words.1,A

Let us go on to Mythology. If mythology is an old dialect, outliving itself, and, on the strength of its sacred character, carried on to a new period of language, it is easy to perceive that the historical method of the Science of Language would naturally lead here to most important results. Take only the one fact, which no one at present would dare to question, that the name of the highest deity among the Greeks and Romans, Ζεύς, and Jupiter, is the same as the Vedic Dyaus, the sky, and the old German Zio, Old Norse Tyr, whose name survives in the modern names of Dienstag or Tuesday. Does not this one word prove the union of those ancient races? Does it not show us, at the earliest dawn of history, the fathers of the Aryan race, the fathers of our own race, gathered together in the great temple of nature, like brothers of the same house, and looking up in adoration to the sky as the emblem of what they yearned for, a father and a God. Nay, can we not hear in that old name of Jupiter, i.e., Heaven-Father, the true key-note which still sounds on in our own prayer, “Our Father which art in heaven,” and which imparts to these words their deepest tone, and their fullest import? By an accurate study of these words we are able to draw the bonds of language and belief even more closely together. You know that the nom. sing. of Ζεύς has the acute, and so has the nom. sing. of Dyaus; but the vocative of Ζεύς has the circumflex, and so has likewise the vocative of Dyaus in the Veda.2,B Formerly the accent might have been considered as something late, artificial, and purely grammatical: the Science of Language has shown that it is as old as language itself, and it has rightly called it the very soul of words. Thus even in these faint pulsations of language, in the changes of accent in Greek and Sanskrit, may we feel the common blood that runs in the veins of the old Aryan dialects.

History, too, particularly the most ancient history, has received new light and life from a comparative study of languages. Nations and languages were in ancient times almost synonymous, and what constitutes the ideal unity of a nation lies far more in the intellectual factors, in religion and language, than in common descent and common blood. But for that very reason we must here be most cautious. It is but too easily forgotten that if we speak of Aryan and Semitic families, the ground of classification is language, and language only. There are Aryan and Semitic languages, but it is against all rules of logic to speak, without an expressed or implied qualification, of an Aryan race, of Aryan blood, of Aryan skulls, and to attempt ethnological classification on purely linguistic grounds. These two sciences, the Science of Language and the Science of Man, cannot, at least for the present, be kept too much asunder; and many misunderstandings, many controversies, would have been avoided, if scholars had not attempted to draw conclusions from language to blood, or from blood to language. When each of these sciences shall have carried out independently its own classification of men and of languages, then, and then only, will it be time to compare their results; but even then, I must repeat, what I have said many times before, it would be as wrong to speak of Aryan blood as of dolichocephalic grammar.3

We have all accustomed ourselves to look for the cradle of the Aryan languages in Asia, and to imagine these dialects flowing like streams from the centre of Asia to the South, the West, and the North. I must confess that Professor Benfey’s protest against this theory seems to me very opportune, and his arguments in favor of a more northern, if not European, origin of the whole Aryan family of speech, deserve, at all events, far more attention than they have hitherto received.

For the same reasons it seems to me at least a premature undertaking to use the greater or smaller number of coincidences between two or more of the Aryan languages as arguments in support of an earlier or later separation of the people who spoke them. First of all, there are few points on which the opinions of competent judges differ more decidedly than when the exact degrees of relationship between the single Aryan languages have to be settled. There is agreement on one point only, viz., that Sanskrit and Zend are more closely united than any other languages. But though on this point there can hardly be any doubt, no satisfactory explanation of this extraordinary agreement has as yet been given. In fact, it has been doubted whether what I called the “Southern Division” of the Aryan family could properly be called a division at all, as it consisted only of varieties of one and the same type of Aryan speech. As soon as we go beyond Sanskrit and Zend, the best authorities are found to be in open conflict. Bopp maintained that the Slavonic languages were most closely allied to Sanskrit, an opinion shared by Pott. Grimm, on the contrary, maintained a closer relationship between Slavonic and German. In this view he was supported by Lottner, Schleicher, and others, while Bopp to the last opposed it. After this, Schleicher (as, before him, Newman in England) endeavored to prove a closer contact between Celtic and Latin, and, accepting Greek as most closely united with Latin, he proceeded to establish a Southwestern European division, consisting of Celtic, Latin, and Greek, and running parallel with the Northwestern division, consisting of Teutonic and Slavonic; or, according to Ebel, of Celtic, Teutonic, and Slavonic.

But while these scholars classed Greek with Latin, others, such as Grassmann and Sonne, pointed out striking peculiarities which Greek shares with Sanskrit, and with Sanskrit only, as, for instance, the augment, the voiceless aspirates, the alpha privativum (a, not an), the mâ and μή prohibitivum, the tara and τερο as the suffix of the comparative, and some others. A most decided divergence of opinion manifested itself as touching the real relation of Greek and Latin. While some regarded these languages not only as sisters, but as twins, others were not inclined to concede to them any closer relationship than that which unites all the members of the Aryan family. While this conflict of opinions lasts (and they are not mere assertions, but opinions supported by arguments), it is clear that it would be premature to establish any historical conclusions, such, for instance, as that the Slaves remained longer united with the Indians and Persians than the Greeks, Romans, Germans, and Celts; or, if we follow Professor Sonne, that the Greeks remained longer united with the Indians than the other Aryan nations. I must confess that I doubt whether the whole problem admits of a scientific solution. If in a large family of languages we discover closer coincidences between some languages than between others, this is no more than we should expect, according to the working of what I call the Dialectic Process. All these languages sprang up and grew and diverged, before they were finally separated; some retained one form, others another, so that even the apparently most distant members of the same family might, on certain points, preserve relics in common which were lost in all the other dialects, and vice versâ. No two languages, not even Lithuanian and Old Slavonic, are so closely united as Sanskrit and Zend, which share together even technical terms, connected with a complicated sacrificial ceremonial. Yet there are words occurring in Zend, and absent in Sanskrit, which crop up again sometimes in Greek, sometimes in Latin, sometimes in German.4,C As soon as we attempt to draw from such coincidences and divergences historical conclusions as to the earlier or later separation of the nations who developed these languages, we fall into contradictions like those which I pointed out just now between Bopp, Grimm, Schleicher, Ebel, Grassmann, Sonne, and others. Much depends, in all scientific researches, on seeing that the question is properly put. To me the question, whether the closer relations between certain independent dialects furnish evidence as to the successive times of their separation, seems, by its very nature, fruitless. Nor have the answers been at all satisfactory. After a number of coincidences between the various members of the Aryan family have been carefully collected, we know no more in the end than what we knew at first, viz., that all the Aryan dialects are closely connected with each other. We know—

1. That Slavonic is most closely united with German (Grimm, Schleicher);

2. That German is most closely united with Celtic (Ebel, Lottner);

3. That Celtic is most closely united with Latin (Newman, Schleicher);

4. That Latin is most closely united with Greek (Mommsen, Curtius);

5. That Greek is most closely united with Sanskrit (Grassmann, Sonne, Kern);

6. That Sanskrit is most closely united with Zend (Burnouf).

Let a mathematician draw out the result, and it will be seen that we know in the end no more than we knew at the beginning. Far be it for me to use a mere trick in arguing, and to say that none of these conclusions can be right, because each is contradicted by others. Quite the contrary. I admit that there is some truth in every one of these conclusions, and I maintain, for that very reason, that the only way to reconcile them all is to admit that the single dialects of the Aryan family did not break off in regular succession, but that, after a long-continued community, they separated slowly, and, in some cases, contemporaneously, from their family-circle, till they established at last, under varying circumstances, their complete national independence. This seems to me all that at present one may say with a good conscience, and what is in keeping with the law of development in all dialects.

If now we turn away from the purely philological results of the Science of Language, in order to glance at the advantages which other sciences have derived from it, we shall find that they consist mostly in the light that has been shed on obscure words and old customs. This advantage is greater than, at first sight, it might seem to be. Every word has its history, and the beginning of this history, which is brought to light by etymology, leads us back far beyond its first historical appearance. Every word, as we know, had originally a predicative meaning, and that predicative meaning differs often very considerably from the later traditional or technical meaning. This predicative meaning, however, being the most original meaning of the word, allows us an insight into the most primitive ideas of a nation.

Let us take an instance from jurisprudence. Pœna, in classical Latin, means simply punishment, particularly what is either paid or suffered in order to atone for an injury. (Si injuriam faxit alteri, viginti quinque æris pœnœ sunto, fragm. xii. tab.) The word agrees so remarkably, both in form and meaning, with the Greek ποινή, that Mommsen assigned to it a place in what he calls Græco-Italic ideas.5 We might suppose, therefore, that the ancient Italians took pœna originally in the sense of ransom, simply as a civil act, by which he who had inflicted injury on another was, as far as he and the injured person were concerned, restored in integrum. The etymology of the word, however, leads us back into a far more distant past, and shows us that when the word pœna was first framed, punishment was conceived from a higher moral and religious point of view, as a purification from sin; for pœna, as first shown by Professor Pott (and what has he not been the first to show?) is closely connected with the root pu, to purify. Thus we read in the “Atharva-veda,” xix. 33, 3:—

“Thou, O God of Fire, goest mightily across the earth; thou sittest brilliantly on the altar at the sacrifice. The prophets carry Thee as the Purifier; purify us from all misdeeds.”

From this root pu we have, in Latin, pūrus, and pŭtus, as in argentum purum putum, fine silver, or in purus putus est ipse, Plaut. Ps. 4, 2, 31. From it we also have the verb purgare, for purigare, to purge, used particularly with reference to purification from crime by means of religious observances. If this transition from the idea of purging to that of punishing should seem strange, we have only to think of castigare, meaning originally to purify, but afterwards in such expressions as verbis et verberibus castigare, to chide and to chasten.

I cannot convince myself that the Latin crimen has anything in common with κρίνειν. The Greek κρίνειν is no doubt connected with Latin cer-no, from which cribrum, sieve. It means to separate, to sift, so that κρῖμα may well signify a judgment, but not a crime or misdeed. Crīmen, as every scholar knows or ought to know, meant originally an accusation, not a crime, and, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, has nothing whatever in common with discrīmen, which means what separates two things, a difference, a critical point. In crimen venire means to get into bad repute, to be calumniated; in discrimine esse means to be in a critical and dangerous position.

It is one of the fundamental laws of etymology that in tracing words back to their roots, we have to show that their primary, not their secondary meanings agree with the meaning of the root. Therefore, even if crīmen had assumed in later times the meaning of judgment, yet its derivation from the Greek κρίνειν would have to be rejected, because it would explain the secondary only, but not the primary meaning of crīmen. Nothing is clearer than the historical development of the meanings of crīmen, beginning with accusation, and ending with guilt.

I believe I have proved that crīmen is really and truly the same word as the German Verleumdung, calumny.6 Verleumdung comes from Leumund, the Old High-German hliumunt, and this hliumunt is the exact representative of the Vedic śromata, derived from the root śru, to hear, cluere, and signifying good report, glory, the Greek κλέος, the Old High-German hruom. The German word Leumund can be used in a good and a bad sense, as good or evil report, while the Latin crī-men, for croe-men (like liber for loeber), is used only in malam partem. It meant originally what is heard, report, on dit, gossip, accusation; lastly, the object of an accusation, a crime, but never judgment, in the technical sense of the word.

The only important objection that could be raised against tracing crīmen back to the root śru, is that this root has in the Northwestern branch of the Aryan family assumed the form clu, instead of cru, as in κλέος, cliens, gloria, O.Sl. slovo, A.S. hlûd, loud, inclutus. I myself hesitated for a long time on account of this phonetic difficulty, nor do I think it is quite removed by the fact that Bopp (“Comp. Gr.” § 20) identified the German scrir-u-mês, we cry (instead of scriw-u-mês), with Sk. śrâv-ayâ-mas, we make hear; nor by the r in in-cre-p-are, in κράζω, as compared with κλάζω, nor even by the r in ἀ-κρο-ά-ομαι, which Curtius seems inclined to derive from śru. The question is whether this phonetic difficulty is such as to force us to surrender the common origin of śromata, hliumunt, and crīmen; but even if this should be the case, the derivation of crīmen from cerno or κρίνειν would remain as impossible as ever.

This will give you an idea in what manner the Science of Language can open before our eyes a period in the history of law, customs, and manners, which hitherto was either entirely closed, or reached only by devious paths. Formerly, for instance, it was supposed that the Latin word lex, law, was connected with the Greek λόγος. This is wrong, for λόγος never means law in the sense in which lex does. λόγος, from λέγειν, to collect, to gather, signifies, like κατάλογος, a gathering, a collection, an ordering, be it of words or thoughts. The idea that there is a λόγος, an order or law, for instance, in nature, is not classical, but purely modern. It is not improbable that lex is connected with the English word law, only not by way of the Norman loi. English law is A.S. lagu (as saw corresponds both to the German Sage and Säge), and it meant originally what was laid down or settled, with exactly the same conception as the German Gesetz. It has been attempted to derive the Latin lex, too, from the same root, though there is this difficulty, that the root of liegen and legen does not elsewhere occur in Latin. The mere disappearance of the aspiration would be no serious obstacle. If, however, the Latin lex cannot be derived from that root, we must, with Corssen, refer it to the same cluster of words to which ligare, to bind, obligatio, binding, and the Oscan ablative lig-ud belong, and assign to it the original meaning of bond. On no account can it be derived from legere, to read, as if it meant a bill first read before the people, and afterwards receiving legal sanction by their approval.

From these considerations we gain at least this negative result, that, before their separation, the Aryan languages had no settled word for law; and even such negative results have their importance. The Sanskrit word for law is dharma, derived from dhar, to hold fast. The Greek word is νόμος, derived from νέμειν, to dispense, from which Nemesis, the dispensing deity, and perhaps even Numa, the name of the fabulous king and lawgiver of Rome.

Other words might easily be added which, by the disclosure of their original meaning, give us interesting hints as to the development of legal conceptions and customs, such as marriage, inheritance, ordeals, and the like. But it is time to cast a glance at theology, which, more even than jurisprudence, has experienced the influence of the Science of Language. What was said with regard to mythology, applies with equal force to theology. Here, too, words harden, and remain unchanged longer even than in other spheres of intellectual life; nay, their influence often becomes greater the more they harden, and the more their original meaning is forgotten. Here it is most important that an intelligent theologian should be able to follow up the historical development of the termini technici and sacrosancti of his science. Not only words like priest, bishop, sacrament, or testament, have to be correctly apprehended in that meaning which they had in the first century, but expressions like λόγος, πνεῦμα ἅγιον, δικαιοσύνη have to be traced historically to the beginnings of Christianity, and beyond, if we wish to gain a conception of their full purport.

In addition to this, the Philosophy of Religion, which must always form the true foundation of theological science, owes it to the Science of Language that the deepest germs of the consciousness of God among the different nations of the world have for the first time been laid open. We know now with perfect certainty that the names, that is, the most original conceptions, of the Deity among the Aryan nations, are as widely removed from coarse fetichism as from abstract idealism. The Aryans, as far as the annals of their language allow us to see, recognized the presence of the Divine in the bright and sunny aspects of nature, and they, therefore, called the blue sky, the fertile earth, the genial fire, the bright day, the golden dawn their Devas, that is, their bright ones. The same word, Deva in Sanskrit, Deus in Latin, remained unchanged in all their prayers, their rites, their superstitions, their philosophies, and even to-day it rises up to heaven from thousands of churches and cathedrals,—a word which, before there were Brahmans or Germans, had been framed in the dark workshop of the Aryan mind.