Chapter XIII: Section IV: Recent Origin of the Human Race

The Hebrew and Sanscrit, as pointed out in the previous Sections, display certain features which cannot have long survived the infancy of language. The caprices of custom, the progress of the human mind, and the dictates of convenience, are calculated to efface these features within a limited period of time. Hence it follows, that the existence of language, and of the Species by which it is employed, could not have commenced at an era very remotely anterior to the date of the earliest specimens of these ancient Tongues; for it must be borne in mind that the identity of the Hebrew and the Sanscrit with other Human Tongues having been proved (see Appendix A), the vestiges of recent formation which these two languages display furnish evidence of the recent origin, not only of the ancient nations by whom they were spoken, but also of the Human Race. As previously noticed, no difficulty is felt in accounting for the descriptive character of the scientific names which occur at page 95, on the ground that the substances named have only lately become known to man. The existence in the Sanscrit of numerous descriptive Synonymes for the “Sun” (see page 98), the most conspicuous object in nature, is an example which, as already intimated, must suggest analogous reflections.

Viewed with reference to the lapse of a few centuries, the changes language undergoes are too irregular to furnish a safe test of the date of historical events. But adverting to the progress of the European languages within the last thousand years, we may infer, nevertheless, that the effect of a long interval in producing extensive changes is certain.

Judging from these data, I conceive it may reasonably be concluded that the ancient Hebrew and Sanscrit remains could not have preserved the descriptive or metaphorical character to the same extent as they have done had the Human species been introduced at a period anterior to the date assigned to that event by our received systems of chronology.