limits of this separation), of an uncertain existence and of a long stage of growth, before it secured its object of expressing certain things by certain sounds. Where the same meaning could be expressed to the same people by an immense number of words originally, where these words at the same time could serve for numberless other conceptions, it is absurd to sup pose that the language could have burst forth from the head of the mass in uniformity as a general inspiration, as that sense of language which ended by associating one sound with one sense could have existed originally. The continued selection of many tribes must with more probability, have decided on the association of sound and meaning.

The value which the study of Egyptian language receives from this, for the study of all languages, warrants the mention of two other traits, which will seem, at first mention, just as strange as those referred to above. In the Egyptian the words —at least in appearance--have two distinctly opposite meanings, and the letters of such words also are sometimes exactly reversed. Suppose the German word gut were Egyptian, then besides meaning good it might mean bad, and besides gut it might sound like tug. Tug again could mean good as well as bad, and by a small sound modification, as it often happens in the life of a language-perhaps to tuch-furnish occasion to a new conversion into chut, which again from its side, could unite the two meanings. What can be more improbable?

Since in the acceptance of miracles, one has immediately to do with the grounds of belief, I may remark here, that the Koptic researches of the author contain a list of such metatheses 90 pages long. For example let a few be adduced. (1.) Metathesis in sound: ab A ba, stein; amma come; anna specification; ar push out; kenh seize; teb ^ bet fig; cleanse, to grow; peh hep to go; sna / ans wind, to blow. (2). Change of sense: kef to take V to let lie; ken strong V weak; men, to stand V menmen to move oneself; tua to honor V to despise; tem to cut up V to bind up; terp to seize V to give; zen to stand V to go; neh to separate, cut up V hoh

rā to make; kennek break to pieces, ḥnek to bloom; penh xenp to catch, to

sâr ^ ras cut up,

divide; fes ^\\ seƒ to

bond. (3.) Change of sound and sense: sos appropriate, ◇

ses inappropriate; seb to mix◇ pes to separate; hen to bind neh to separate; hot to crumble toh to make firm; ben not to be at hand neb fall; eerp to sew together pree break to pieces, to partition, &c. As one can see from a few of these examples, change of sound can accompany the appearance.

If we allow that there can be no question as to the fact, we now face the question of a rational explanation. In the light of the observed homonymies there presents itself an answer dodging the question. What if we had here only apparent reversion of sound and sense, but in truth different roots which by accident correspond to the above mentioned forms? This would apply especially with reference to the reversion of sense. When we have a number of like sounding roots, which mean. different things, there might be among them a number which directly contradict each other. If ken can mean everything imaginable, why should it not, beside strong, at times mean weak also? There would have been no necessity under such. circumstances, of an intentional conscious reversing of sense.

Without attempting to deny that a number of sense-changes might have occurred in this way, we cannot allow that they have all been created or applied so mechanically. Let us imagine that in the course of accidental homonomy there should have occurred a ken "strong" and a ken "weak," then the tendency, if not the necessity, would have been, for the sake of clearness, to have allowed one of the words to drop, and to have remained satisfied with the many other expressions for strong and weak. In that it has not happened in this case, has not happened in so many similar cases, we see ourselves forced to pre-suppose a conscious affinity between these opposite words. We cannot escape at the same time the question of the cause. We are led to the answer by the Egyptian writing. In that it distinguishes ken strong from ken weak, by adding to the sound value written by letter of each word, a determining picture of strength or weakness, we have a logical ground for the appearance. Our judgments are formed solely upon comparison and antitheses. As little as we need to think of weakness when we have once grasped the conception of strength, so surely could not strength have been originally

conceived of without starting out from weakness-without measuring itself by contrast with weakness. Let any one

attempt to grasp a single new idea, beyond the range of thought which has become familiar to him by known word definitions without his being put to the trouble of seeking them out, and he will be convinced on this point as to the nature of intellectual progress. Each one to-day becomes acquainted with strength without an effort of his own judgment, because the idea exists in the language, because he is accustomed to it from childhood as a meaning for certain actions, objects, and persons. But when, leaving the range of every-day experience and words applying to it, we attempt to create individual ideas or to think over again rare and seldom-heard thoughts of others, we find ourselves face to face with the necessity of conscious antithesis. To bide by word-thoughts, no scholar has grasped the idea of obtuse, acute, and right angle without bringing the three in real contrast; no student has grasped the esse of Hegel, without having confronted it with the non esse; in general no one has learned tolerably a foreign tongue without explaining those word-meanings which vary from those of his native tongue, by a comparison with them. The Egyptian leads us back to the infant period of humanity, in which these first, commonest conceptions had to be grasped in this slow and thoughtful manner. In order to learn to think of strength, one must separate oneself from weakness; in order to comprehend darkness, you must separate light; in order to grasp much, you must hold little in the mind for contrast. Such Egyptian words as antithetically show both branches of the original comparison, furnish an insight into the wearisome work-shop in which the first and most necessary ideas-to-day the glibbest and most easily handled-were forged. In the spoken language, only the connection and gesture, could have indicated the meaning intended.

Besides this, the number of surviving Egyptian words which suffer change of sense without change of sound is by no means too large. For the most part, opposite meaning is marked off by phonetic modification; at times the phonetic differentiation occurs first in historic times. Of the first mex empty, V meḥ full, a good example; as an evidence of the latter are: men

AMERICAN POEMS.*--This book, which was edited by Mr. Horace E. Scudder, with special reference to use as a reading-book in advanced classes, contains some of the choicest American poems. It is a book for Americans to be proud of, not merely that so much is here brought together, as to give a just idea of the wealth of our poetical literature, but that the arrangement and notes reveal discernment and accuracy of learning. Most of the poems here collected are long enough to require some grasp on the part of the reader, and contain allusions that afford good material for notes. Indeed, though these poems are familiar to most students of our literature, few would conjecture how many notes, for instance, in the "Evangeline," and "the Courtship of Miles Standish," are really needful for the young reader, and how many passages gain clearness even for older persons, from Mr. Scudder's judicious explanations. This is particularly true of Holmes' "Schoolboy." It will be well if our youth learn from these readers to know of our sweetest poet something better and of wider scope than the "Psalm of Life," or "Excelsior," and of Bryant something at once brisker and subtler than "Thanatopsis." Such short poems have too long constituted the bulk of the poetical literature in our school books. Juvenal speaks of Virgil as "pueris decantatum," and we may be sure it was the Æneid, not the Eclogues, that was the main study of the Roman boys. So in regard to Longfellow, Whittier, and Lowell, it is the longer, more strictly American poems that our young people should thoroughly know. In this book we have of the best and the broadest. Pure minds will easily open to the love of "Snow Bound," Lowell's "Agassiz," or the stalwart "Monadnoc" of Emerson.

The order is wise, from Longfellow to Emerson, through Whittier, Bryant, Holmes, and Lowell. Even if the first two poets are very distinctively American, "provincial," if Mr. Swinburne will, one can pass easily, without much abruptness from Emerson to the greatest masters of English song. We trust that the book will have a wide use, and that Mr. Scudder will be thus rewarded for the devotion of his fine taste to the advancement of literature in our schools, and that the publishers will have no cause to regret their new departure in the issue of this reader.

* American Poems. Longfellow; Whittier; Bryant; Holmes; Lowell; Emerson. With Biographical Sketches, and Notes. Boston: Houghton, Osgood and Company. The Riverside Press, Cambridge. 1879. pp. 455.

54

SOCRATES.*This handsome little book consists of a translation of the Apologia, the Crito, and the narrative and moral parts of the Phado, with a brief summary of the omitted arguments of the latter in their several places. Thus it presents the greater part of the information which Plato has given us as to his mas ter's life and personal character. The preface adds a few particulars from Plato's other writings and from Xenophon, and puts the outline of the whole life into chronological order. The book seems well adapted, as is said in the introduction contributed by Professor Goodwin, for those who have not command of Greek, and do not care to undertake reading the translation of Plato's complete works. If read with such complements as Grote's chapter on Socrates, and Emerson's vivid sketch in his essay on Plato, it will give a very good idea of Socrates as a man. It will certainly be useful if it serves to check the loose statements that are often made about him.

THE SIX DAYS OF CREATION.t-The design of this work is to discuss the first chapter of Genesis from the scriptural or philolog ical side, and to ascertain what the Hebrew really means. It is thus in contrast with the most of the recent works on this chapter, which discuss it from the scientific side. Their object is to recocile Genesis with science. Their argument is, The Bible may have this meaning; it must have it in order to be consistent with science; therefore it does have this meaning, because truth must be consistent with itself. Dr. Lewis disclaims the purpose of reconciling the passage with science, and aims simply to ascertain its real meaning. The author contrasts his method also with that of recent advocates of the twenty-four hours hypothesis, with whom the exegetical is far from being the predominant element; but who, assuming what they choose to call the literal meaning, and finding science incompatible with it, reject science as false in its conclusions and infidel in its spirit. But their own conclusions are vitiated by the lack of wide and scholarly investigation of the meaning and spirit of the Hebrew, as understood when the passage was written.

*Socrates. A translation of the Apology, Crito, and parts of the Phado of Plato. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1879. pp. xxii. and 159. Cosmology, with the ancient idea of By TAYLER LEWIS, Professor of

The Six Days of Creation: or The Scriptural Time-worlds in distinction from worlds in space.

Greek in Union College. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 530 Broadway.