ZOOLOGICAL LAWS 515 



Iberians, the next neighbors of the Ligurians, used the same forms of 

 place-names as the latter, and that some of the words plainly exhibit 

 Aryan terminations. Thus we may conclude that with the exception of 

 the Basques, who are probably a non- Aryan spurt from North Africa, 

 the melanochrous populations of Spain, Italy, the Balkan Peninsula, 

 France, Britain, Ireland and Holland have from the first spoken none 

 but an Aryan language. 



(c) Only one argument is now left to the defenders of the non- Aryan 

 theory. When the study of sociology first sprang up in the last century, 

 it at once became a fundamental doctrine that the Aryans had always 

 been strictly patriarchal, and that polyandry and descent through 

 women was unknown amongst them. Though this view has received 

 many rude shocks in later days, Professor Zimmer argues from it that 

 the indigenous people of Britain and Ireland were non-Aryan. 



It is well known from the ancient writers that the Picts were 

 polyandrous and that succession was consequently through females. 

 Again, it is certain, both from the ancient Irish literature and also 

 from statements of external writers, that the Irish were polyandrous, 

 and that they also almost certainly traced descent through women. 

 Accordingly, Professor Zimmer infers that the indigenous race was non- 

 Aryan. But McLennan has long since pointed out that descent through 

 women was the ancient law at Athens, and I have just shown that 

 the Athenians and Arcadians, the autochthonous, dark-complexioned 

 people of Greece, never spoke any save an Aryan tongue. Moreover, 

 I have shown elsewhere that the Ligurians, who are now generally 

 admitted to have spoken always an Aryan language, had descent through 

 women, whilst I have also pointed out that there is good evidence that 

 the ancient Latins, who have generally been taken as typical Aryans, 

 had the same system. Again, it is admitted that the ancient Illyrians 

 and dark-complexioned Thracians spoke an Aryan language, which, 

 inasmuch as it differed materially in certain ways from that spoken by 

 their Celtic overlords, must have been aboriginal, whilst I have further 

 given grounds for believing that the ancient Iberians (though not the 

 Basques) were also an Aryan-speaking folk. But there is good evi- 

 dence that the Illyrians, melanochrous Thracians and Iberians all 

 traced descent through women. In view of these facts it is useless to 

 urge that because the Picts of Scotland and the ancient Irish had that 

 system of succession through females these peoples must have been non- 

 Aryan. 



We have now reviewed the three main criteria of race at present 

 used by anthropologists: (a) pigmentation of the skin, hair and eyes; 

 (&) the shape of the skull and other osteological characteristics; and 

 finally, (c) their system of tracing descent. We have seen that osteo- 

 logical differences may be but foundations of sand, because it is certain 



