ETHNOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 385 



races of men,"* though felt as "one of the greatest difficulties 

 connected with the opinion that all mankind are descended 

 from one primitive stock," will not affect those who believe 

 in the existence of separate species of men. 



The study of language, again, clearly proves the great anti- 

 quity of man. Four thousand years ago the Assyrians, as 

 proved by their inscriptions, spoke a tongue in many respects 

 less archaic than that of central Arabia is now; and when 

 we consider that it was descended from a parent source which 

 has produced all the other Semitic languages, that this again 

 was probably related to Libyan and Egyptian, and that still 

 further back lie the ages in which inarticulate cries were 

 gradually moulded into true language, we must feel that lin- 

 guistic researches point most strongly in the same direction. -f- 



Prof. Huxley has also deduced a very interesting argument 

 from the geographical distribution of the races of men. He 

 divides mankind into four groups, the Australoid, Negroid, 

 Mongoloid, and Xanthochroid. The latter are the fair, light- 

 haired, blue-eyed people who occupy a large part of Europe ; 

 the Mongoloid are the Tartar, American, and Polynesian races ; 

 the Negroid are the Negroes, Hottentots, and Negritos ; and 

 the Australoid type contains all the inhabitants of Australia, 

 and the native races of the Deccan, with whom he also asso- 

 ciates the ancient Egyptians. Whatever difference of opinion 

 may exist among ethnologists about the other three divi- 

 sions, still as to the Negroid race most are agreed, and this is 

 the one to which I now wish to call attention. The geogra- 

 phical distribution of the Xanthochroid and Mongoloid races 

 presents no difficulty, nor will I here discuss that of the 

 Australoid group. But I entirely agree with Prof. Huxley 

 that the present position of the Negro race cannot be explained 

 excepting on the hypothesis that since the appearance of that 



* Pritcharcl, 1. c. p. 552. 



t See Sayce, Int. to the Sci. of Lang. vol. ii. p. 319. 



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