The Science Of Language Vol I Author:F. Max Muller THE SCIENCE OP LANGUAGE FOUNDED ON LECTURES DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION IN 1861 AND 1SC3 BY . MAX MULLER, OL, JLEUUEIt OF TJUIS rUENCH INSTITUTE IN TWO VOLUMES,-VOL I NEW LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO, 30 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON AND BOMBAY 1899 BinilOGEAPHICAL NOTE First printed, January, 1891 Ke-is-tied in Collected Edition of Prof. Max Miille... more »ra Woiks, and reprinted, Januaiy, 1899. PREFACE. in tine UTew Edition li TY Lectures on the Science of Language were - i JL delivered at the Eoyal Institution in London in the years 1861 and 1863. They have since passed through many editions, and in every successive edition I have tried to remove whatever seemed to me either doubtful or wrong. But, after the two volumes had been stereotyped, I found it very troublesome to do this, except on a very limited scale, so that it became almost impossible to keep my lectures abreast with the advance of philological science which, particu larly of late years, has been very rapid. It is difficult indeed for an author who lives be yond the number of years generally allotted to scholars, to know what to do with his old books. After his death, they take their place on the peaceful shelves of a library, and he himself is no longer held responsible for defects which at the time when they were written were inevitable. But so long as he is alive, the author is expected to keep his books up to vi PEEFACB. the highest mark, and he is blamed if he lends the authority of his name to opinions which he himself has ceased to hold. When therefore a new edition of my Lectures became necessary once more, 1 insisted on the destruc tion of the old stereotype plates, and I determined to make one more attempt to render these volumes us correct as I could. I found it necessary not only to strike out many things, but likewise to add, and, in some cases, to re-write many pages. I left out what was peculiar to the form of lectures, and in order to keep this new edition more clearly distinct from former editions, I have changed the title from Lectures on the Science of Language to c Tlw Science of Language, founded on Lectures delivered at the Eoyal Institution in the years 18G1 and 18G3. I did not attempt, however, to change altogether the original character of my book, and though I should gladly have written a new work on the Keic of Language instead of remodelling the old, my a and my many occupations rendered such an impossible. What will, I believe, strike my present and future readers as the most serious defect in this now edition of my Lectures on the Science of Language, is tho elaborate character of many arguments in. support of theories which are now accepted by almost everybody, but which thirty years ago were novel and startling, and required to bo defended against numerous gaiu sayers. I shall mention a few of them. Tho Science of Language as different from Comparative Philology. Tho very idea that, by the side of Comparative Grammar, there was room for a Science of Language, treating not only of vowels and consonants and the laws of phonetic change, but of the nature, the origin, and development of human speech, - was received very coldly at first. With the exception of TIeyses fty fwn tier ffprachwiweiwlutft, 1850, no such attempt had been mado before. My own teachers and fi lends, such as Professors JJopp, Benfey, Gurtius and others, looked upon niy attempt to establish Uie gcneial principles of a Science of Language and to connect the discoveries of Coinparativo Philology with the fjrrat problems of philosophy, as at all events pre mature, while philosophers by profession resented moHt strongly tho intrusion of anew Saul among the old prophets of Logic, Psychology, and Metaphysics. All this is changed now...« less