292 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



been based on philological evidence. The similarities be- 

 tween the so-called Aryan languages, from India to Wales, 

 have been held to indicate as their common place of origin 

 an area which is certainly not farther east than what is 

 now Turkestan, nor farther west than what are now Scan- 

 dinavia and Bohemia, and which within these sufficiently 

 wide limits has been more exactly placed, with much prob- 

 ability, in the wide and fairly uniform plains of South 

 Russia, between the Carpathian Mountains and the Caspian 

 Sea. From this place of origin Aryan speech is inferred 

 to have spread south-eastward to India, north-westward as 

 far as Scandinavia and the British Islands, and south-west- 

 ward into Central and Southern Europe. 



76. From similarity of language has then been inferred 

 community of blood, and a vigorous and rapidly developing 

 Aryan race has been depicted, propagating its linguistic 

 creed, and pressing before it aborigines, who for want of a 

 better name have been simply described as pre-Aryans, 

 and credited, until recently, with little or no civilisation of 

 their own. In Greece, in particular, the migratory Hellene 

 has been held to represent that branch of the Aryan race 

 which broke through from the Danube Valley into the 

 Balkan Peninsula; and Hellenic civilisation has been de- 

 scribed in general terms as approximately Aryan in type. 



yy. The argument from similarity of language to com- 

 munity of race is, however, obviously a weak one, even 

 when supported with secondary philological arguments from 

 a certain community of religious ideas, mode of life, and 

 type of civilisation among the various Aryan-spreading 

 clans before their presumed separation. It seems an ob- 

 vious remark that a language can be learnt, while physical 

 structure cannot, and that as the widely different races 

 which now speak Aryan languages cannot be regarded as 

 varieties which have developed since the " migration," some 

 of them at all events must represent non- Aryan and pre- Aryan 

 races, who have acquired Aryan speech from the newcomers. 



yS. The obvious reply to this objection — that however 

 the others may have acquired their languages, nevertheless 

 some one of these distinct races must represent the original 



