PHILOLOGY

(Gr. ,tai. Hove, and Uyoi, speech, discourse.) This word appears to have been used by the cla ical ancients to designate the whole circle of belles lettres, and even of the sciences: cultivated as they then were very imperfectly, and more in a theoretical than an inductive shape; considered, not with respect to their respective subject matters, but to the language in which they were conveyed. A philologist was one who studied or taught the elegance of diction, as applicable to every branch of human learning; nor can the meaning of the designation be very accurately distinguished from that of the ygat^tAtaiT/^ee?, or grammarian: while sometimes the term philology was usurped in a wider sense, so as to comprehend learning in general. After the revival of letters, the word was introduced into modern European languages, but in a much more restricted signification. It then comprehended grammatical criticism and etymology, and some branches of archaeology; and as these studies were almost confined to the ancient languages, and other relics of cla ical antiquity, which alone were then studied in a scientific manner, the only philologists were the learned investigators of the Greek and Latin idioms and literature. Commentaries on ancient authors, etymological works, and glo aries of their language, grammars, . were then the cla of writings usually denominated philological; and although the field of philology, considered in this sense, is now more extensive, as the modern European and non-European languages have also become the subjects of accurate investigation, it is with the same general meaning that the word is chiefly used, at least among English writers, at the present day. It is defined by Johnson " criticism, gram, matical learning." In this popular sense philology may be said to embrace, 1. Etymology, or the science of the origin of words; 2. Grammar, or the science of the construction of language in general and of individual languages; 3. Literary criticism, or the investigation of merits and demerits in style and diction. Of late years, however, a new and very extensive province has been added to the dominion of philology; namely, the science of language in a more general sense, considered philosophically with respect to the light it throws on the nature of the human intellect and progre of human knowledge; and historically, with reftr  [s. 933]