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Excerpt from The History of Language
When asked by Mr. Dent to write an introduction to the principles of Comparative Philology for his series, I willingly consented, not only because I had the necessary materials ready to hand, but also because I felt there was still room for an addition to the already large literature of the subject; a subject which, however, admits of being approached from so many different points of view that any competent treatment of it is sure to have some special merits of its own.
The first part of this book deals with the definition of the science of language, its scope (p. 20) and methods, and the life of language generally. In this part I have aimed at clearness of statement and adequate illustration, and have tried to avoid truisms and super¿uous generalizations on the one hand, and over-abstraction and linguistic mysticism on the other.
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