English has become analytical, for many older inflected words have now been worked over into combinations of independent words, but this is far from a complete or consistent process. Probably it will never become like the Chinese, for to do away now with its inflectional system entirely would necessitate a complete upheaval of structure which is not likely to happen in the course of normal inner development, particularly with a vast literature to assist in stabilizing present forms. As regards polysynthesism, or amount of agglutination, the Aryan tongues are intermediate; they allow affixes, but only within certain limits. Languages undoubtedly differ from one another in their richness and power of expression, but may not be used as a test of the intellectual capacity of those who now speak them. In fact, men of any race can learn any language, unless abnormal. To account for the great and striking difference of structure among human languages is beyond the power of the linguistic student, and will doubtless always continue so. We are not likely to be able even to demonstrate a correlation of capacities, saying that a race which has done this and that in other departments might have been expected to form such and such a language. Every tongue represents the general outcome of the capacity of a race as exerted in this particular direction, under the influence of historical circumstances which we can have no hope of tracing, but there are striking anomalies to be noted. “The Chinese and the Egyptians have shown themselves to be among the most gifted races the earth has known; but the Chinese tongue is of unsurpassed jejuneness, and the Egyptian, in point of structure, little better, while among the wild tribes of Africa and America we find tongues of every grade up to a high one or the highest. This shows clearly enough that mental power is not measured by language structure. On the whole the value and rank of a language are determined by what its users have made it do—a poor tool in skilful hands can do vastly better work than the best tool in unskilful hands, even as the ancient Egyptians, without steel or steam, turned out products which, both for colossal grandeur and for exquisite finish, are the despair of modern engineers and artists.” In other words, we must not underestimate the important part played by habit or inertia. “The formation of habit is slow, and once formed it exercises a constraining as well as a guiding influence.”