The intended result, too, of this ecclesiastical sentence
was simple enough. It was, that great men like Sir William Jones,
Colebrooke, and their compeers, must not be heard in the
Manchester Philological Society in discussion with Dr. Adam
Clarke on questions regarding Sanskrit and other matters
regarding which they knew all that was then known, and Dr. Clarke
knew nothing.
But even Clarke was forced to yield to the scientific
current. Thirty years later, in his _Commentary on the Old
Testament_, he pitched the claims of the sacred theory on a much
lower key. He says: "Mankind was of one language, in all
likelihood the Hebrew.... The proper names and other
significations given in the Scripture seem incontestable evidence
that the Hebrew language was the original language of the
earth,--the language in which God spoke to man, and in which he
gave the revelation of his will to Moses and the prophets." Here
are signs that this great champion is growing weaker in the
faith: in the citations made it will be observed he no longer
says "_is_," but "_seems_"; and finally we have him saying, "What
the first language was is almost useless to inquire, as it is
impossible to arrive at any satisfactory information on this point.
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