f any language
is not to be found in a comparison of its forms or methods with those of
any other, but in its fitness as a vehicle for the expression of deeper
life, of the best and the greatest that is in those who use it, and
above all in its ability to react and stimulate newer and yet greater
mental and spiritual activity and expression. The force behind man,
demanding expression through him, and him only, into the human life of
all, is infinite--of necessity infinite. There is no limit, nor ever has
been any limit, to what man may bring down into the dignifying,
broadening and enriching of human life and evolution, save in his own
ability to comprehend, express, and _live_ it. And the brightness and
cleanness of the tools whereby he formulates his thought, as well as the
worthiness and fitness of the substance and the forms into which he
shapes it for others to see, are the essentials of his craft. For such
is the economy of nature, which wastes nothing in reality, that a fit
vehicle will be taken possession of by its own tenant; and the unfit
left to and be taken by those who can use no better.

Before, then, taking up the great formal classes into which language at
large is usually divided, it will be necessary to say a few words as to
the foundations of form itself in language, that we may then proceed to
consider these classes from the standpoint of their inner meaning rather
than solely of the outer form; and by seeking to understand the mental
and spiritual equipment and life of those that used them, may perhaps in
turn be better fitted finally to enter into the genius of their written
and spoken languages, and to interpret through them in the detail more
of the ideas which those forms were both fitted and used to express.
Such a method is essential for the understanding of any language or
culture, but it is absolutely necessary in the case of these non-Aryan
tongues, so great is the distance both of time and thought which
separates us from them. If we set out to compare the forms by which they
expressed their thought with those within which we develop ours, or
approach these cultures and peoples in the attitude of alien criticism,
study their "interesting ways" through a mental lorgnette and impale
their dead forms on the needles of our collection, we shall not only
show ourselves less broad in culture than many of them, but we shall
simply close and lock the doors of discrimination and understanding
before