Miscellany

Abstract

“GENETIC, as distinguished from a purely historical, philology,” says Dr. Marett in his preface to this book, “can never hope to verify its guesses.” Yet, as he goes on to add that Sir Richard Paget at the close of a lecture at Oxford was successful in identifying the meaning of fifty per cent of Chinese words in a test, it is evident that if his theory of the origin of language cannot be proved, it has some measure Nof experimental support, resting on a basis more substantial than that subjective conviction, which is the best, as a rule, that most theories on this subject can produce.

This English

By Sir Richard Paget. Pp. xii+118. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd., 1935.) 4s. 6d. net.