The imperfection of the Monosyllabic languages does not arise solely from their consisting of Monosyllables, but from the want of the more refined grammatical forms which are found in all other Tongues, even those of the wildest American Tribes. No nation, however uncivilized, that had once acquired a knowledge of these would ever fall back “to the speech of childhood!” Hence Adelung infers that the Chinese, &c. must have been completely separated at an early period from the other races of men. But it will be asked, Why is it that the Chinese have remained stationary in this respect, while nations far inferior to them in every other point of view have surpassed them in this one instance? There is, I conceive, no other mode of solving this problem than by regarding these opposite results in the light of vestiges, belonging to an early stage of society, of the same variableness and inequality in the efforts of the human mind, which are observable in the inventions of modern times! That this question admits of no other solution will be manifest from Chapter VI, in which it is shown that the Chinese is not fundamentally different from the tongues of Europe and Western Asia, but the _same language in a different stage of its growth_! 6. The Astronomical Theory of Bailly. Bailly’s theory is that the various nations of the ancient world were descendants of emigrants from a primæval community superior to them in knowledge and civilization, of which he places the locality in Central Asia. His views are founded on the fact that there existed a knowledge of the results of some of the most recondite Scientific principles among the Persians, Chaldeans, &c., (nations who were certainly unacquainted with the principles themselves,) as, for example, of the moon’s course, of the Solar year, of the Zodiac, of the Planets, of the retrogression of the fixed Stars &c. Some of Bailly’s opinions have been impugned in Cuvier’s Theory of the Earth. The question whether the different branches of the Human Race are descended from one Stock, has been discussed on Physiological grounds by Dr. Prichard,(14) in a work equally remarkable for profound Philosophical and extensive Literary research. After detailing a variety of facts with respect to the distribution of Plants and Animals, he thus expresses his conclusion: “The inference to be collected from the facts at present known, seems to be as follows. The various tribes of organized beings, were originally placed by the Creator in certain regions, for which they are by their nature peculiarly adapted. Each species had only one beginning in a single stock; probably a single pair, as Linnæus supposed, was first called into being in a particular spot, and their progeny left to disperse themselves to as great a distance as the locomotive powers, bestowed on each species, or its capability of bearing changes of climate and other physical circumstances may have enabled it to wander.”