e,
London, 1772, pp. 85-100. For Rowland Jones, see The Origin of Language
and Nations, London, 1764, and preface. For the origin of languages in
Brittany, see Le Brigant, Paris, 1787. For Herder and Lessing, see Canon
Farrar's treatise; on Lessing, see Sayce, as above. As to Perrin, see
his essay Sur l'Origine et l'Antiquite des Langues, London, 1767.

Nothing better reveals to us the darkness and duration of this chaos
in England than a comparison of the articles on Philology given in the
successive editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The first edition
of that great mirror of British thought was printed in 1771: chaos
reigns through the whole of its article on this subject. The writer
divides languages into two classes, seems to indicate a mixture of
divine inspiration with human invention, and finally escapes under a
cloud. In the second edition, published in 1780, some progress has been
made. The author states the sacred theory, and declares: "There are some
divines who pretend that Hebrew was the language in which God talked
with Adam in paradise, and that the saints will make use of it in heaven
in those praises which they will eternally offer to the Almighty. These
doctors seem to be as certain in regard to what is past as to what is to
come."

This was evidently considered dangerous. It clearly outran the belief
of the average British Philistine; and accordingly we find in the third
edition, published seventeen years later, a new article, in which, while
the author gives, as he says, "the best arguments on both sides," he
takes pains to adhere to a fairly orthodox theory.

This soothing dose was repeated in the fourth and fifth editions. In
1824 appeared a supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions,
which dealt with the facts so far as they were known; but there was
scarcely a reference to the biblical theory throughout the article.
Three years later came another supplement. While this chaos was fast
becoming cosmos in Germany, such a change had evidently not gone far
in England, for from this edition of the Encyclopaedia the subject of
philology was omitted. In fact, Babel and Philology made nearly as much
trouble to encyclopedists as Noah's Deluge and Geology. Just as in
the latter case they had been obliged to stave off a presentation of
scientific truth, by the words "For Deluge, see Flood" and "For
Flood, see Noah," so in the former they were obliged to take various
provisional measures,