tained nearly
all that could then be known on these allophylian, that is, non-Aryan
and non-Semitic languages; and I may, perhaps, quote the opinion of
Professor Pott, no mean authority at that time, who, after severely
criticizing my letter, declared that it belonged to the most important
publications that had appeared on linguistic subjects for many years.
And yet, though I have again and again protested that I could not
possibly have known in 1854 what has been discovered since as to a
number of these Turanian languages, everybody who writes on any of
them seems to be most anxious to show that in 1894 he knows more than
I did in 1854. No astronomer is blamed for not having known the planet
Neptune before its discovery in 1846, or for having been wrong in
accounting for the irregularities of Saturn. But let that pass; I only
share the fate of others who have lived too long.

After all, all our knowledge, whatever show we may make of it, is very
imperfect, and the more we know the better we learn how little it is
that we do know, and how much of unexplored country there is beyond
the country which we have explored. We must judge a man by what he has
done--by his own original work. There are many scholars, and very
useful they are in their own way, but if their books are examined, one
easily finds the stores from which they borrowed their materials. They
may add some notes of their own and even some corrections,
particularly corrections of the authors from whom they have borrowed
most; but at the end where is the fresh ore that they have raised;
where is the gold they have extracted and coined? There are cases
where the original worker is quite forgotten, whereas the retailers
flourish. Well, facts are facts, whether known or not known, and the
triumphal chariot of truth has to be dragged along by many hands and
many shoulders.

CHAPTER V

PARIS

My stay in Paris from March, 1845, to June, 1846, was a very useful
intermezzo. It opened my mind and showed me a new world; showed me, in
fact, that there was a world besides Germany, though even of Germany
and German society I had seen as yet very little. I had been working
away at school and university, but with the exception of my short stay
in Berlin, I had little experience of men and manners outside the
small sphere of Dessau and Leipzig.

I had been at Berlin some nine months when, in December, 1844, my old
friend Baron Hagedorn came to see me, and invite