stone, and passing on from them to the weapons of bronze. So, too, with language; simple as it seems at first sight to fit the word on to the idea, and early as we ourselves learn this art, a little thought about what language is will show us how much we owe to the ages which have gone before. [Sidenote: The two main classes of words ‘significant’ and ‘insignificant.’] To understand fully the department of study called the science of language considerable linguistic knowledge is necessary. But to grasp many of the general principles of this science, and many of the most important facts which it teaches, we do not need any such wide knowledge. In fact, a little thoughtful examination of any single tongue (his own, whichever it may be) would teach a person many things which without thought he would be inclined to pass over as matters of course or matters of no consequence. In truth, in this science of language what we need, even before we need a very wide array of facts, is what is called the scientific method in dealing with the facts which we possess. But, again, this which we call the scientific method is really represented by two qualities which have less pretentious names--_observation_ and _common sense_. Let us begin then by, so to say, challenging our own language, our English as we find it to-day, and see what hints we can gain from it of the formation of language as a whole and of its origin. An ounce of information gained in this wise, by examination and the use of our own common sense, is worth a much greater bulk of knowledge gained second-hand from books, and merely remembered as facts divorced from their causes. Take any sentence, and place that, so to say, under a microscope, or under the dissecting-knife--take the opening sentence of this chapter, for example. “We have looked upon man fashioning the first implements and weapons and houses that were ever made.” Let us look at these few words alone.