SYRO-ARABIAN OR SEMITIC NATIONS. 1003 



tensive distribution through Southern Europe. It would not seem improba- 

 ble, then, that the advance of the Indo-European tribes from the southeast 

 corner into Central Europe, separated that portion of the aboriginal (Mon- 

 golian) population which they did not absorb or destroy, into two great di- 

 visions ; of which one was gradually pressed northward and eastward, so as 

 to be restricted to Finland and Lapland ; and the other southward and 

 westward, so as to be confined at the earliest historic period to a part of the 

 peninsula of Spain and the South of France, gradually to be driven before 

 the successive irruptions of the Celts, Romans, Arabians, and other nations, 

 until their scanty remnant found an enduring refuge in the fastnesses of the 

 Pyrenees. 1 The Indo-Germanic race is unquestionably that which has exer- 

 cised the greatest influence on the civilization of the Old World ; and it seems 

 indubitably destined to acquire a similar influence in those newly-found lands 

 which have been discovered by its enterprise. With scarcely an exception, 

 as Dr. Latham has justly remarked, the nations belonging to it present an 

 encroaching frontier: there being no instance of its permanent displacement 

 by any other race, save in the case of the Arab dominion in Spain, which 

 has long since ceased ; in that of the Turkish dominion in Turkey and Asia 

 Minor, which is evidently destined to expire at no distant period, being up- 

 held for merely political purposes by extraneous influence ; and in that of the 

 Magyars in Hungary, who only maintain their ground through their complete 

 assimilation to the Indo-Germauic character. It is a remarkable fact, that 

 in most cases in which this race extends itself into countries previously 

 tenanted by people of an entirely different type, the latter progressively 

 decline and at last disappear before it, provided the climate be such as en- 

 ables it to maintain a vigorous existence; this is pre-eminently the case in 

 North and South America, in Australia, in New Zealand, and in many of 

 the smaller Polynesian islands. And where the climate is less favorable to 

 the perpetuation of the race in its purity, an intermixture with the native 

 blood frequently gives origin to a mixed race, which possesses the developed 

 intellect of the one, and the climatic adaptiveness of the other, and which 

 appears likely ultimately to take the place of both. 



848. The Syro- Arabian or Semitic nations agree with the preceding in gen- 

 eral physical characters, but differ entirely in the structure of their language, 

 and for the most part in vocabulary also, though recent researches seem to 

 indicate that certain roots of the Semitic and Indo-Germauic languages have 

 a decided affinity. It seems quite certain, however, that the linguistic affin- 

 ities of the Semitic nations are rather with the African than with the Indo- 

 European races; and so strong is the link of connection thus established, 

 that by Dr. Latham they are ranked with the former under the general des- 

 ignation Atlantidce, 2 whilst Mr. Norris, whose authority upon all such subjects 

 is deservedly great, is strongly disposed (as he has himself informed the 

 Author) to consider them an essentially African people. The original seat 

 of this race, however, is commonly reputed to have been that region of Asia 

 which is intermediate between the countries of the Indo European and of 

 the Egyptian races; having as its centre the region watered by the great 

 rivers of Mesopotamia. Several of the nations primarily constituting this 

 group have become extinct, or nearly so; and the Arabs, which originally 

 formed but one subdivision of it, have now become the dominant race, not 



1 This view, which was suggested by the Author in the Brit, and For. Mod. Rev., 

 Oct. 1847, without the knowledge that it had been elsewhere propounded, has been 

 put forth with considerable confidence by Dr. Latham (Varieties of Man, 1850), as 

 having originated with Arndt and been adopted by Rask, distinguished Scandinavian 

 ethnologists. 



2 See"his Varieties of Man, 1850, p. 469. 



