A few proper names and certain titles were up to this time all that could be deciphered of the cuneiform inscriptions on the walls of Persian palaces. Classical or oriental scholars had hitherto only seen in them a quaint conglomeration of nails, wedges, or arrows; but when at last the meaning was disentangled, it suddenly flashed upon the discoverers that there was a close relationship between languages hitherto held to be quite distinct. Facts, at first only suspected, now received full confirmation; those previously unknown were discovered and claimed, if only provisionally, in the name of Science. Historians and philologists pressed eagerly into this new path. In looking back they could see that the human family was divided into three distinct groups, the Semetic family, the Aryan family--sometimes called the Indo-Germanic--and the Turanian class, the northern division of which has the name Ural-Altaic given to it occasionally. I use the word _class_ advisedly, as the characteristic traits hardly merit the rank of family. They also discovered that human speech had equally marked divisions, making three groups or families, corresponding to the three great human races. The Semetic family produced the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the Arabic of the Koran, and the ancient language graven on the monuments of Phœnicia and Carthage, of Babylon and Assyria; the Greek and Latin, Persian and Sanscrit, the Germanic languages, Celtic and Slavonic, all belong to the Aryan family; from the Ural-Altaic group come the Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic, Samoyedic and Finnic; there still remains the Chinese language, which is monosyllabic and stands by itself, the only remnant of the earliest formation of human speech. These discoveries caused a complete change in the methods adopted by philologists; at the present time the ancient systems of the classification of tongues are entirely abandoned. The comparative philologist ignores altogether geographical locality, the varying ages of languages, and their classical or illiterate character. Languages are now classified genealogically, according to their real relationship; and Hebrew, coming down from its pedestal, took its natural place amongst the languages of the Semetic family.[7] * * * * * I revert here for a moment to the past in order to quote a page from Plato, which shows us the small esteem in which the purely speculative method, in the treatment of philosophy, was held by one of the profoundest minds of antiquity:-- “Dost thou see that very tall plane-tree?” said Phædros to Socrates. “Certainly, I do.” “Tell me, Socrates, is it not from the foot of this plane-tree that they say Boreas carried away Oreithyia from the Ilissos?” “So they say.” “But tell me, O Socrates, dost thou believe this mythe to be true?”