The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-18 00:00:00

THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE.

On Saturday last Professor Max Miller delivered
the first of a course of lectures on this subject at
the Royal Institution, Albemarle-street. The first
lecture was chiefly introductory, and was intended
to explain the general plan of the course. The
lecturer stated that he readily accepted the invita-
tion to give a course of lectures on the science of
language, because he felt convinced that the re-
searches which had been carried on for the last
fifty years into the history and laws of language
deserved a larger share of public sympathy than
they had hitherto received, and because. the dis-
coveries that had been made in this science need
not fear comparison with the greatest discoveries
of our age. He explained that in a course of
nine lectures he could only give a very general
survey, but that he hoped to show as many inte-
resting lessons in words as geology had discovered
in stones. After dwelling on the wonderful nature
of language, and after explaining the various titles
given to the science of language, such as Compara-
tive Philology, Etymology, Glossology, and Logo-
logy, the lecturer proceeded to claim for this science
a place among the physical sciences. He examined
the three stages through which each physical
science has to pass, the empirical, classificatory,
and theoretical. He gave the etymology of some
of the ancient names of the physical sciences, in
order to show that in their beginning these sciences
were intended to answer the most pressing wants
of a primitive society. He admitted that the
science of language had but little to offer to
the utilitarian spirit of our age, but there
were some.'problems which had agitated the world,
which properly belonged to the domain of this
science. He alluded to the struggle between
mythology and religion in the ancient world,
to the controversy between nominalism and
realism during the Middle Ages, and he cha-
racterised a myth as a diseased word. He then
referred to the remodelling of the map of Europe
produced by the antagonism between nationalities
and languages on one side, and dynasties and
treaties on the other; to the defence which had
been set up for slavery ; on the ground of the
different origin of the races of mankind; and,
lastly, to the Darwinian theory, which he main-
tained could be answered only through the science
of language, language forming an insurmountable
barrier between animal and man. After passing
in review the classificatory and theoretical stages
of some of the physical sciences, the lecturer pro-
ceeded to examine how far the science of language
could be said to have passed through each of these
three stages. Dividing all human knowledge into
two branches, the historical and physical, the former
comprising the works of man, the latter the works
of God, he explained why comparative philology
was a physical, while classical philology was a his-
torical science. He objected to the name of philo-
logy, as apt to mislead. In classical phi-
lology, he said, language is a means, in
comparative philology it is the object. He
then dilated on the immense number of
languages, amounting to at least 900, and he pro-
tested against being supposed to be a great linguist
in the usual sense of the word. A division of
labour was shown to be absolutely necessary in the
classificatory treatment of languages, and it was
pointed out that the highest object of the science
was not to know languages, but to know what
language is. In conclusion, the lecturer tried to
explain why language should have been so long
passed by unnoticed by the natural philosophers,
" like a veil that hung too close over the eye of the
human mind ;" and he ended by pointing out that
language was the most ancient monument in the
history of man—more ancient than cuneiform in-
scriptions or Egyptian hieroglyphics; how nothing
materially new had ever been added to the stores
of language since the first beginnings of human
speech, and how in one sen se we might be said to
handle the very words which issued from' the
mouth of the first ancestor of our race. In his
second lecture, which will be delivered on Saturday
next, the Professor intends to examine the views
of the various philosophers who see in language
nothing but a conventional contrivance for the
communication of thought.

COMMITTAL OF A SHAREBRO.KER FOR
A £2,000 FRA UD.

On Tuesday Mr. Thomas Parkinson, sharebroker,
Halifax, was brought up, on remand from the pre-
vious day, and charged before the Halifax borough
justices with fraudulently appropriating to his own
use railway stock to the value of £2,000, the pro-
perty of Mr. H. Blakey, clothier and woollendraper,
Halifax. The court was densely crowded. Mr.
Parkinson was a gentleman much respected, and
had a large practie. Scores of tradesmen were
congregated at the doors of the court in order to
gain intelligence how the case was going on.
The information was laid under the 2d and. 4th
section of the Fraudulent Trustees Act.

It appeared ;Mr. Parkinson had acted as broker
for Mr. Blakey for 16 years. In January, 1859, he
was induced by the prisoner to sell out a lot of rail-
way stock, and to purchase in the place £4,000 of
Caledonian stock. At that time Mr. Hanson Free-
man, Southowram, had advanced £l,OOO as loan on
the railway stock, the advance having been made
through the prisoner. It was agreed that an addi-
tional £l,OOO should be borrowed of Mr. Freeman
upon the Caledonian stock. The stock was duly
purchased by the prisoner, and it was not until
the 27th of March last that Mr. Blakey was aware
that the whole of the stock was in the hands of
Mr. Freeman, who was consequently communicated
with and who presented an account showingwhat he
held and what he had advanced upon. Mr. Blakey's
suspicions were aroused on finding,that only £2,000
instead of £4,000 were in the hands of Mr. Free-
man. He at once waited upon the prisoner, who
said Mr. Blakey had lent him £2,000 stock. This
was denied. Since that time the £2,000 missing
stock had never been recovered. The suggestion of
a loan was met by two accounts furnished by the
prisoner himsel, in which the whole of the Caledonian
stock was dealt with on the assumption that the
whole of it was in the hands of Mr. Freeman. The
following document was put in to negative alto-
gether the idea of a ban :
" June 20, 1860.

Mr. Hy. Blakey has lent me £l,OOO on a bill at
six months; also, 1:500 East Lancashire stock,which
I have to return, and for which I am liable ; I also
owe Mr. Blakey £2,000 borrowed from George
Sutcliffe, Stoneshaw Gate, which I have to return
to Mr. Blakey. " THOS. PARKINSON.
" Mr. Hy. Blakey."

No mention was Made of £2,000 Caledonian stock
as a loan. In the course of the case it was stated
that there were other transactions which might
hereafter be the foundation of other charges against
the accused. Mr. Blakey had permitted the prisoner
to use his property for raising money, and at that
moment his signature was to a bill for £1;000 to
one bank in Halifax ; that he had permitted stock
of the Red Sea and Indian Telegraph Company to
be deposited with a bank in the same town as secu-
rity for £1,500, and the preceding day he had been
called on by the solicitor of the bank for a larger
sum than he had authorised should be obtained. In
addition, Mr. Blakey had given personal security
and mortgage on Great Indian Peninsular Stock.
The defence was, that the prisoner never had the
£2,000 Caledonian Stock in his possession. He was
committed to take his trial at the sessions. Mr.
Wavell then said he appeared to prosecute the pri-
soner on a charge of fraudulently appropriating to
his own use the sum of £1,040, the property of
Mr. Wightman, M.D., of Halifax, a sum entrusted
to him in December last. He was then charged
by Mr. Lancaster, of Bradford, with a like appro-
priation to the amount of £B5O consolidated stock
of the South-Eastern and Dover Railway, the
property of Mr. Edward Freeman, of Huddersfield.
On these charges the prisoner was remanded until
next Monday. The prisoner is said to be largely
involved. He has filed a petition in the Leeds
Bankruptcy Court.

PISCICULTURE IN FRANCE.—What the French
style " the planting and cultivation of the sea," and the
English, less ambitious in speech, would be content to call
" the artificial raising of fish," is being carried on in France
with a perseverance and success which promise to yield
very valuable results, and at no distant date. The
various operations of modern pisciculture, due to
the inventive genius of the humble fisherman 11 emy,
and zealously promoted by the labours of the indefatig-
able M. Jacques Coste, under the joint auspices of the
Imperial Government and of the Society of Acclimation, are
being rapidly reduced to a system at once easy of applica-
tion, and of almost certain success, and destined, apparently,
to render the raising of fish as common as that of kine, sheep,
wheat, and potatoes. Rivers, lakes, and ponds, exhausted by
the improvident greed of fishermen, and the destruction of the
young, are being restocked from the great raising establish-
ments founded in various departments; while the coasts of the
Channel, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean, are being con-
verted into oyster-grounds which threaten, if their tenants
continue to multiply as rapidly as they are now doing, to
ensure a surfeit of that dainty for the entire population of
' France.—Once a Week,