ABSTRACT
Centuries are a most arbitrary mode of historical periodization. But in cases where certain tendencies are concentrated in given centuries they may have some mnemonic value. Through a number of historical events and previous trends in linguistics, the nineteenth century was dominated by historical studies; but in tracing some of the developments that arose directly from the work of the neograrnmarians we were led across into the twentieth; and likewise, in following up the genesis of present-day theories and attitudes, we shall be looking back into the nineteenth and preceding centuries, not merely for the antecedents of the scholars in volved and the teaching that they received, but for specific movements of thought more closely connected with the present age than with the predominant concerns of the nineteenth century.
