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.
“Tell me, Socrates, is it not from the foot of this plane-tree that they say Boreas carried away Oreithyia from the Ilissos?”
“But tell me, O Socrates, dost thou believe this mythe to be true?”
“Well, if I did not believe it, like the wise people, I should not be so very far wrong; and I might set up an ingenious theory and say that a gust of Boreas, the north wind, carried her down from the rocks in the neighbourhood, and that having died in this manner, she was reported to have been carried off by Boreas from thence. As for myself, Phædros, I think these explanations, on the whole, very pleasant; a man is, after all, not much to be envied, if it were only for this, that when he has set right this one fable, he is bound to do the same for a second, then a third, and thus much time is lost. I, at least, have no leisure to spare for these things, and the reason, my friend, is this, that I cannot yet, according to the Delphic line, know myself; and it seems to me ridiculous that a man who does not yet know this, should trouble himself about what does not concern him. Therefore I leave these things alone, and, believing what other people believe about them, I meditate, as I said just now, not on them, but on myself--whether I be a monster more complicated and more savage than Typhon, or a tamer and simpler creature, enjoying by nature a blessed and modest lot.”[8]