From the facts Historically proved in the previous Sections it will be found to be an indisputable truth, that—assuming their operation to be continued for an adequate period of time,—these two causes are calculated to produce, from one parent Tongue, languages of which the differences are apparently fundamental. For example, if the differences between the Gothic and Celtic languages noticed at page 28,—languages which differ almost totally,—are compared with those which have been proved to have arisen in the last nine hundred years among the various branches of the Scandinavian and the Celtic, it will be seen at once that the latter are of precisely the same nature as the former. The only distinction is that they are fewer in point of number! But on the other hand, it is certain that the same causes of change—acting at the same rate during a previous period of treble that length of time—might have produced between two branches of a common original speech differences equally numerous with those which the Gothic and Celtic exhibit; in other words, differences sufficiently extensive almost entirely to exclude all vestiges of original unity! But it must be added, that it would be highly erroneous to infer that the rate of change previous to the commencement of the Historical period was the same as it has been since; it must have been much more rapid! Changes of this nature are prompted by the dictates of convenience, which suggest the extinction of superfluous words, and the appropriation of the remainder to distinct though kindred purposes; names for “Water, Rivers, the Sea,” for example, were doubtless in the first instance applied indifferently to all these objects. Now, inasmuch as languages are more redundant in their earlier than they are in their later stages, it is apparent that these changes, of which this redundant character is the source, must be more rapid. This explanation would fully account for the diversity of structure evinced by the Gothic and Celtic Tongues, which probably differ as widely as any languages of the globe, without referring the commencement of their separation to a more remote date than would be quite consistent with received systems of Chronology. That the Celtic and Gothic were originally one speech, and that the differences which they now display have arisen in this manner, will be evident from Section II. (page 26,) combined with the facts developed in the other Sections of this Chapter.