"A discovery equalling in magnitude the one to which I lay claim, must appear to all, before examining its accompanying proofs, just about as probable as the discovery, in the neighbourhood of the British Channel, of some rich and extensive island that had escaped till now the mariner's notice. Then am I either egregiously in error, or, through my humble means, one of the greatest and most important discoveries on record has been made." The alternative here allowed us is irresistible--_either_ our author is egregiously in error, _or_ he has made a great discovery. Who can doubt it? We feel at once driven to the wall by the horns of so dexterous a dilemma; and unable as we are, in the kindness of our hearts, to adopt the more uncivil supposition, we succumb, without a struggle, to the only choice left us, and concede to such a disputant all that he can demand. Mr Kavanagh is determined that the importance of his discovery shall lose nothing from his reluctance to put it in the strongest light:-- "If, from having taken a view of the human mind different from any other hitherto taken, and from having founded a rational principle, in conformity with this view, I can offer such a definition of words as may bear the strictest investigation, and which all may understand; and if a child, by adhering to this principle, may be able to account for words with all their changes and variations, and show them such as they must have been, not only ages before the Bible and the Iliad had been written, but even as they were at their very birth; then it will, I dare hope, be admitted, that I shall not only have surmounted innumerable difficulties, but have discovered the real science of languages. Yet all this, and a great deal more, may be done by the application of the principle by which I am guided." Again he says:--