Language furnishes the best proof that a law accepted by a community is a thing that is tolerated and not a rule to which all freely consent.

In general, the philological movement opened up countless sources relevant to linguistic issues, treating them in quite a different spirit from traditional grammar; for instance, the study of inscriptions and their language. But not yet in the spirit of linguistics.

The first of these phases is that of grammar, invented by the Greeks and carried on unchanged by the French. It never had any philosophical view of a language as such.

Language furnishes the best proof that a law accepted by a community is a thing that is tolerated and not a rule to which all freely consent.

The business, task or object of the scientific study of languages will if possible be 1) to trace the history of all known languages. Naturally this is possible only to a very limited extent and for very few languages.

Time changes all things; there is no reason why language should escape this universal law

The critical principle demanded an examination, for instance, of the contribution of different periods, thus to some extent embarking on historical linguistics.