LECTURES

ON

THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE

DELIVERED AT THE

ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN

IN

APRIL, MAY, AND JUNE, 1861.

BY MAX MÜLLER, M.A.

FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE, OXFORD:

CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE.

65219-R

LONDON:

LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, AND ROBERTS.

DEDICATED

ΤΟ

THE MEMBERS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,

BOTH RESIDENT AND NON-RESIDENT,

TO WHOM I AM INDEBTED

FOR NUMEROUS PROOFS OF SYMPATHY AND KINDNESS

DURING THE LAST TWELVE YEARS,

IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THEIR GENEROUS SUPPORT

ON THE

7TH OF DECEMBER, 1860.

PREFACE.

Mr Lectures on the Science of Language are here printed as I had prepared them in manuscript for the Royal Institution. When I came to deliver them, a considerable portion of what I had written had to be omitted, and, in now placing them before the public in a more complete form, I have gladly complied with a wish expressed by many of my hearers. As they are, they only form a short abstract of several Courses delivered from time to time in Oxford, and they do not pretend to be more than an introduction to a science far too comprehensive to be treated successfully in so small a

compass.

My object, however, will have been attained, if I should succeed in attracting the attention, not only of the scholar, but of the philosopher, the historian, and the theologian, to a science which concerns them

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