Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Comparative Philology, Anthropology

    In a discussion of the gradual development of representative forms of government in Europe and North America, comments that the 'profound linguistic researches of Pictet, Fick, and others have made it probable that at the time when the old Aryan language was broken up into the dialects from which the existing languages of Europe are descended the Aryan tribes were passing from a purely pastoral stage of barbarism into an incipient agricultural stage'. Also refers to that 'general law by which the useful thing, after discharging its functions, survives for purposes of ornament'. (268)