1328 



VARIETIES OF MANKIND. 



have conquered, or by the introduction of 

 Georgian or Circassian slaves into their 

 harems. But the cause suggested is plainly 

 inadequate to the effect. For we know that 

 in the Christian countries subjugated by the 

 Turks, the conquering and the conquered 

 races have been kept from properly domestic 

 intermixture by mutual hatred, fostered by 

 their difference in religion and manners ; and 

 although Greek, Georgian, and Circassian 

 females have been introduced into the harems 

 of those who could afford to purchase them, 

 yet any other modification which has been 

 effected by their means must have had but 

 an insignificant effect upon the mass of the 

 population, since the pure Turkish descent of 

 the poorer classes must have been but little 

 interrupted, and universal experience shows 

 that if the " cross-breeding" be not kept up, 

 any new element introduced into a race 

 speedily disappears. Even admitting that 

 some modification may have been thus engen- 

 dered, we cannot fairly attribute to it more 

 than a very trifling share in the result ; since 

 the effect of intermixture would simply have 

 been to produce a hybrid or intermediate 

 race, instead of the entire substitution of the 

 elliptical type, which now manifests itself 

 among the comparatively civilised Western 

 Turks, whilst those which inhabit Central 

 Asia, and retain the nomadic habits of their 

 ancestors, have retained also their cranial 

 conformation. 



Another instance of the same modification 

 is to be found in the Magyar race, which 

 forms a large part of the population of Hun- 

 gary, including the entire nobility of that 

 country. This race, which is not inferior in 

 physical or mental characters to any in 

 Europe, is proved by historical and philolo- 

 gical evidence to have been a branch of the 

 great Northern Asiatic stock, which was ex- 

 pelled about ten centuries since from the 

 country it then inhabited (which bordered on 

 the Uralian mountains), and, in its turn, ex- 

 pelled the Slavonian nations from the fertile 

 parts of Hungary, which it has occupied ever 

 since. Having thus exchanged their abode, 

 from the most rigorous climate of the old 

 Continent, a wilderness in which Ostiaks 

 and Samoiedes pursue the chase during only 

 the mildest season, for one in the South of 

 Europe, amid fertile plains abounding in rich 

 harvests, the Magyars gradually laid aside the 

 rude and savage habits which they are recorded 

 to have brought with them, and adopted a more 

 settled mode of life. In the course of a thou- 

 sand years, their type of cranial conformation 

 has been changed from the pyramidal to the 

 elliptical ; and they have become a handsome 

 people, with fine stature and regular Euro- 

 pean features, with just enough of the Tartar 

 cast of countenance, in some instances, to 

 recal their origin to mind. Here, again, it 

 may be said that the intermixture of the con- 

 quering with the conquered race has had a 

 great share in bringing about this change ; 

 but a similar reply must be returned ; for the 



existing Magyars pride themselves greatly on 

 the purity of their descent ; and the small 

 infusion of Slavonic blood, which may have 

 taken place from time to time, is by no means 

 sufficient to account for the complete change 

 of type which now manifests itself. The 

 women of pure Magyar race are said by good 

 judges to be singularly beautiful, far surpass- 

 ing either German or Slavonian females. 



A similar modification, but less in degree, ap- 

 pears to have taken place among the Finnish 

 tribes of Scandinavia. These may be almost 

 certainly affirmed to have had the same origin 

 with the Lapps* ; but whilst the Litter re- 

 tain (although inhabiting Europe) the no- 

 madic habits of their Mongolian ancestors, 

 the former have adopted a much more settled 

 mode of life, and have made considerable ad- 

 vances in civilisation, especially in Esthonia, 

 where they assimilate with their Russian neigh- 

 bours. And thus we have in the Lapps, 

 Finns, and Magyars, three nations or tribes, 

 of whose descent from a common stock no 

 reasonable doubt can be entertained, ami 

 which yet exhibit the most marked differences 

 in cranial characters, and also in general con- 

 formation, the Magyars being as tall and well- 

 made, as the Lapps are short and uncouth. 



Another instance of the same kind, which 

 is still more remarkable if it can be entirely 

 substantiated, is the conversion of the Geor- 

 gian and Caucasian nations from the pyra- 

 midal or Mongolian to the elliptical or Indo- 

 European type. The designation Caucasian 

 seems to have been given to the latter on the 

 following most unsatisfactory ground. " Blu- 

 menbach had a solitary Georgian skull ; and 

 that solitary skull was the finest in his collec- 

 tion, that of a Greek being next. Hence it 

 was taken as the type of the skull of the more 

 organised divisions of the species. More 

 than this, it gave its name to the type, and 

 introduced the term Caucasian." f Now the 

 fact is, that the Georgian and Circassian 



This proposition, which is supported by the 

 almost unanimous voice of the learned historians of 

 Germany, was assailed a few years since by Profs. 

 Nilson, Retzius, and other Scandinavian savans, 

 who endeavoured to prove by archaeological and 

 anatomical evidence, that the origin of the Finnish 

 race was not the same with that of the Lapps, but 

 that it was more nearly connected with the Swedish 

 nation, which is a northern branch of the great 

 Indo-European family. Much of the archajological 

 evidence adduced, however, is capable of receiving 

 a directly opposite interpretation; and the philo- 

 logical evidence, derived from the comparative study 

 of the Finnish and Swedish languages, shows that 

 the basis of the former was essentially peculiar to it, 

 and that the nature of the modification which it has 

 undergone from Swedish influence, indicates a con- 

 siderable advance in civilisation previously to the 

 subjugation of the race by foreign invaders. Dr. 

 Latham, the latest authority on this subject, ex- 

 presses himself very decidedly as to the affinity of 

 the Finns, Lapps, and Hungarians, whom he ranks 

 with the Yoguls, Ostiaks, and Permians, as off-sets 

 of the Ugriau branch of the Turanian (Mongolian) 

 stock. See his Natural History of the Varieties of 

 Man, p. 100. 



f Latham, op. cit. p, 108. 



