THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. 



205 



center of dissemination in the Alps. For the first three of our 

 types the task of christening was simple enough. To name this 

 second one would have been comparatively easy as well, if Csesar 

 had not introduced his Commentaries by the well-known passage : 

 "All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgse 

 inhabit ; the Aquitani, another ; those who in their own language 

 are called Celts, in ours Gauls, the third." The so-called Celtic 

 question is all involved in this simple statement. Let us reduce it 

 to its lowest terms. The philologers properly insist upon calling 

 all those who speak the Celtic language Celts. With less reason 

 the archaeologists follow them and insist upon assigning the 

 name Celt to all those who pos- 

 sessed the Celtic culture ; while 

 the physical anthropologists, 

 finding the Celtic language 

 spoken by peoples of divers 

 physical types, with equal pro- 

 priety hold that the term Celt 

 should be applied to that phys- 

 ical group or type of men which 

 includes the greatest number of 

 those who use the Celtic lan- 

 guage. This manifestly oper- 

 ated to the exclusion of those 

 who spoke Celtic but who dif- 

 fered from the linguistic major- 

 ity in physical characteristics. 

 The practical result of all this 

 was that anthropologists called 

 the tall and blond people of 

 northern France and Belgium, 



Gauls or Kymri ; and the broad heads of middle and southwest- 

 ern France Celts : while Cccsar, as we saw, insisted that the Celt 

 and the Gaul were identical. The anthropologists affirmed that 

 the Celtic language had slipped off the tongues of some, and that 

 others had adopted it at second hand. Their explanation held 

 that the blond Belgse had come into France from the north, 

 bringing the Celtic speech, which those already there speedily 

 adopted ; but that they remained as distinct in blood as before. 

 These anthropologists, therefore, insisted that the Belgae deserved 

 a distinctive name: and they called them Gauls, since they ruled 

 in Gaul, in distinction from the Celts, who, being the earlier in- 

 habitants, constituted the majority of the Celtic-speaking people. 

 This was a cross- division with the philologists, who called the 

 Belgse Celts, because they brought the language, reserving the 

 name Gaul, as they said, for the natives of that country; but 



Alpine Type. Piednioiit, Northern Italy. 

 Cephalic Index, 91 2. 



