_Europe_.—Bara (_Welsh_.) Bro (_Norwegian_.) Bread (_English_.) Brod or Brot (_German_.) The source of these words seems to be, B.r.e, B.r.ou.th, “Food,” (_Hebrew_.) In the same language, Lc’h.m, “Bread,” primarily means “Food, To feed.” Combined with the phenomenon of the absolute identity of the united elements of the languages of the Four Continents, we encounter a wide, and in many instances a total difference, when two individual languages are compared. And this is true not merely of two languages taken from different continents, but it is true also of languages spoken even in contiguous regions of the same continent. How then are these singular features of general unity combined with individual diversity to be reconciled? Of this problem the investigation will be found in the following pages. CHAPTER II. ON THE DIFFERENCES WHICH DISTINGUISH INDIVIDUAL LANGUAGES OF THE FOUR CONTINENTS. SECTION I. These differences may be explained by Causes now in Operation. The principal causes are, The abandonment by different branches of the same race: 1, Of different Synonymes; 2, Of different meanings of the same Synonyme. This Section may be considered as confined to an affirmation of the propositions above stated. SECTION II. _On the Differences between the Celtic and Gothic Classes of Languages. The Celtic and Gothic differ almost totally in the most Common Words. Celtic and Gothic words identical with Persian Synonymes._ The Celtic and Gothic Races form the population of North-western and Central Europe. In those early ages in which the Celtic tribes first came into collision with the Roman legionaries, the Celtic language and race occupied a wide section of Europe, including the British islands, France, the Rhine, the whole of Switzerland, a portion of South-western Germany, and the North of Italy. The Celts were also in possession of some of the fairest regions of the Spanish Peninsula, a country which they shared with Iberian tribes, the ancestors of the Basque nation, of which a remnant still preserves among the fastnesses of the Pyrenean mountains the language, character, and institutions of their warlike forefathers. The existence in those ages of a Celtic population, occupying territories thus extensive, and the identity of their languages with the living tongues still spoken by the Welsh and other Celtic nations, have been placed beyond all doubt by the luminous investigations of Dr. Prichard and Humboldt. In the present day, the Gothic nations and languages extend over a large section of the area of Europe, including the greatest portion(29) of Germany, the whole of Sweden, Norway, and Iceland, the German Cantons of Switzerland, and the British Isles, with the exception of those districts in which dialects of the Celtic are spoken.