CHAPTER IV

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THE ANTIQUITY AND GENUINENESS OF ANCIENT BOOKS MAY BE INFERRED FROM THE HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGES IN WHICH THEY ARE EXTANT.

A language is at once the most complete, and it is the least fallible of all historical records. A poem or a history may have been forged; but a language is an unquestionable reality. The bare circumstance of its existence, though it may long have ceased to be colloquially extant, proves, in substance, what it is which history has to communicate. If we did but possess a complete vocabulary of an ancient language, and if we were to digest the mass in accordance with an exact principle of synthesis, we should frame a model of the people that once used it--a model more perfect than any other monuments can furnish: and on this ground we need fear no falsifications, no concealments, no flatteries, no exaggerations. The precise extent of knowledge and of civilisation to which a people attained--nothing more and nothing less, is marked out in the mass of words of which they were accustomed to make use.

A language, if the comparison may be admitted, might be called a _cast_ of the people who spoke it--a cast, taken from the very life; and it is one which represents the world of mind, as well as the world of matter. The common objects of nature--the peculiarities of climate--the works of art--the details of domestic life--political institutions--religious opinions and observances--philosophy, poetry, and art--every form and hue of the external world, and every modification of thought, find their representatives in the language of the people.

In any case, therefore, if we have a complete knowledge of a language--that is to say, of the words of which it consists--we possess a mass of facts by aid of which to judge of the claims to authenticity of every work in which that language is embodied. And if, in addition to a knowledge of its vocabulary, the laws of its construction also, and the nicest proprieties of its syntax and style are known; and if, moreover, the changes that have taken place from age to age in the sense of words, and in modes of expression, are understood, we then possess ample and exact _data_ with which to compare any book that pretends to antiquity. A writer who employs his native language must be expected to conform himself to its usages; and we should find him adhering, more or less strictly, to the peculiarities of the age in which he writes: his vocabulary, moreover, will include that compass of words which his subject demands, and which the language affords.

It is true that such a degree of skill in a dead language may be acquired as may enable a writer to use it with so exact a propriety as shall deceive, or at least perplex, even the most accomplished scholars. But the difficulty of avoiding every phrase of later origin, and all modern senses of those words which are continually passing from a literal to a metaphorical meaning, is so great, as to leave the chances of escaping detection extremely small. Yet, as such a chance still remains within the range of possibility, this line of evidence cannot be reckoned absolutely conclusive, but must only be employed as subsidiary to those other evidences that bear upon questions of authenticity.

The minute changes which are continually taking place in most languages, and the history of which, when known, serves often to ascertain the date of ancient books, are of two kinds; namely, those which result necessarily from actual changes in the objects represented by words, and those which are mere changes in the use and proprieties of language itself.

Language being a mirror, reflecting all the communicable notions of the people who use it, every mutation in the condition of the people must bring with it, either new terms, or new combinations of words; and as the particular circumstances which introduce such additions or alterations are often known, their occurrence in an author may serve to fix the date of the book, almost with certainty.

Moreover, there is a progression in language itself, independent of any alterations in the objects represented by words. Whenever a vocabulary affords a choice of appellatives, even for immutable objects or notions, the caprices of conversation or of literature--affectation perhaps, or excessive refinement, will, from time to time, occasion a new selection to be made. In all those terms, especially, which either bring with them ideas too familiar to accord with the proprieties of an elevated style, or which are in any degree offensive to delicacy, there will take place a continual, and, sometimes, even a rapid, substitution of new for old phrases--not because the new are in themselves more dignified, or more pure than the old; but because, when first introduced, they are untainted by gross associations or vulgar use.

Every language, therefore, copious specimens of which are extant, and of which the progress is known, contains a latent history of the people through whose lips it has passed, and furnishes to the scholar a series of recondite dates, by means of which literary remains may almost with certainty be assigned to their proper age. This sort of evidence bears the same relation to the history of _books_, which that derived from the successive changes known to have taken place in the mode of writing bears to the history of _manuscripts_. It is of a subsidiary kind, and from its very indirectness it often deserves peculiar attention.

We have now seen on what grounds it is, generally, that with reasonable confidence the extant works of ancient authors may be accepted as being such in truth. In presenting this statement of the case, nothing more has been attempted than to offer an outline or brief summary of the argument before us. Certain parts of this argument, as the reader will at once perceive, would admit of much amplification; and in any instance in which the genuineness of a particular manuscript, or the authenticity of an ancient work were alleged to be questionable, every part of the evidence would require to be brought forward in all its details, and to be narrowly scrutinized.

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