od may be mixed; and who could
tell at the present day the exact proportion of Celtic and Saxon blood in
the population of England? But languages are never mixed. It is
indifferent by what name the language spoken in the British Islands be
called, whether English or British or Saxon; to the student of language
English is Teutonic, and nothing but Teutonic. The physiologist may
protest, and point out that in many instances the skull, or the bodily
habitat of the English language, is of a Celtic type; the genealogist may
protest and prove that the arms of many an English family are of Norman
origin; the student of language must follow his own way. Historical
information as to an early substratum of Celtic inhabitants in Britain, as
to Saxon, Danish, and Norman invasions may be useful to him. But though
every record were burned, and every skull mouldered, the English language,
as spoken by any ploughboy, would reveal its own history, if analyzed
according to the rules of comparative grammar. Without the help of
history, we should see that English is Teutonic, that like Dutch and
Friesian it belongs to the Low-German branch; that this branch, together
with the High-German, Gothic, and Scandinavian branches, constitute the
Teutonic class; that this Teutonic class, together with the Celtic,
Slavonic, the Hellenic, Italic, Iranic, and Indic classes constitute the
great Indo-European or Aryan family of speech. In the English dictionary
the student of the science of language can detect, by his own tests,
Celtic, Norman, Greek, and Latin ingredients, but not a single drop of
foreign blood has entered into the organic system of the English language.
The grammar, the blood and soul of the language, is as pure and unmixed in
English as spoken in the British Isles, as it was when spoken on the
shores of the German Ocean by the Angles, Saxons, and Juts of the
continent.

In thus considering and refuting the objections which have been, or might
be, made against the admission of the science of language into the circle
of the physical sciences, we have arrived at some results which it may be
useful to recapitulate before we proceed further. We saw that whereas
philology treats language only as a means, comparative philology chooses
language as the object of scientific inquiry. It is not the study of one
language, but of many, and in the end of all, which forms the aim of this
new science. Nor is the language of Homer of greater interest,