Although the genuineness of by far the greater part of ancient literature is established by a redundancy of testimonies, such as those here described, there will of course be some few instances of works which, though probably genuine, are so destitute of external proof that they must remain under doubt; and there are also some few which, though probably spurious, possess just so much plausible proof of genuineness as serves to maintain a place for them on the ground of controversy. The two together, therefore, will yield some number of disputable cases. The controversies that have actually been carried on relative to such doubtful works have served to show the exceedingly small chance which any actually spurious work can have of escaping suspicion and detection. And thus these discussions furnish, implicitly, the strongest grounds for relying upon the genuineness of those works against which even a captious and whimsical scepticism can maintain no plausible objection. CHAPTER IV. THE ANTIQUITY AND GENUINENESS OF ANCIENT BOOKS MAY BE INFERRED FROM THE HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGES IN WHICH THEY ARE EXTANT. A language is at once the most complete, and it is the least fallible of all historical records. A poem or a history may have been forged; but a language is an unquestionable reality. The bare circumstance of its existence, though it may long have ceased to be colloquially extant, proves, in substance, what it is which history has to communicate. If we did but possess a complete vocabulary of an ancient language, and if we were to digest the mass in accordance with an exact principle of synthesis, we should frame a model of the people that once used it--a model more perfect than any other monuments can furnish: and on this ground we need fear no falsifications, no concealments, no flatteries, no exaggerations. The precise extent of knowledge and of civilisation to which a people attained--nothing more and nothing less, is marked out in the mass of words of which they were accustomed to make use. A language, if the comparison may be admitted, might be called a _cast_ of the people who spoke it--a cast, taken from the very life; and it is one which represents the world of mind, as well as the world of matter. The common objects of nature--the peculiarities of climate--the works of art--the details of domestic life--political institutions--religious opinions and observances--philosophy, poetry, and art--every form and hue of the external world, and every modification of thought, find their representatives in the language of the people.