The Genesis of the Earth and of Man, a Critical Examination of Passages in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures [By E.W. Lane] Ed. by R.S. Poole (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1860. Excerpt: ... another distinct family, though not so closely united. But many of the most accomplished scholars of the present age, among whom Bunsen and Max Miiller hold prominent places, maintain that all the languages of the world have most probably originated from one; and hence they argue that all mankind have descended from a single pair. Others hold, with ourselves, that the Semitic languages cannot with any just reason be supposed to be derived, through the medium of any other language or languages, from a rude primeval form of speech: and further, that the Iranian languages cannot be derived from the Turanian, nor the Turanian from a still earlier language, such as the ancient Chinese. The opinion of the latter party, so far as it relates only to the Semitic languages, obviously favours the belief in the existence of Pre-Adamites: and as relating to other languages, it has been urged in confirmation of the hypothesis that man is of many independent origins. One of the latest of the writers who have advocated this view of the origins of languages, M. Ernest Renan, after having adduced and reviewed the opinions of many distinguished scholars, in his "Histoire Generale et Systeme Compare des Langues Semitiques" (p. 475), states in the following manner the principal ethnological conclusions to which his studies of comparative philology, aided by history, have led him: -- "La philologie comparee, aidee par l'histoire, arrive, non pas certes a resoudre, mais a circonscrire le probleme des origines de l'espece humaine. Elle etablit avec une entiere certitude l'unite de la grande race indo-europeenne; or cette race etant evidemment destinee a s'assimiler toutes les autres, avoir etabli l'unite de la race indo-europeenne, ce sera, a...