OP ARTS AND SCIENCES, FEBRUARY 11, 1868. 461 



The identity of the Seneca-Iroquois and the Tamil is demonstrated 

 by a bare inspection. It is no part of my present purpose to attempt to 

 show how this identity can be explained ; but it may be premised that 

 there are but four hypotheses conceivable for its explanation, which 

 are the following : — 1. By borrowing one from the other. 2. By acci- 

 dental invention by diiferent peoples in disconnected areas ; treating 

 the system as arbitrary and artificial. 3. By spontaneous growth or 

 development in similar conditions of society and in disconnected areas ; 

 treating the system as natural. 4. By inheritance, with the blood, 

 from a common original source. 



The first assumes territorial connection, and the consequent Asiatic 

 origin of the Ganowanian family : and it may therefore be dismissed. 

 Tiie second is an impossible hypothesis. As the system embodies 

 upwards of twenty independent particulars, the improbability of their 

 accidental concurrence in the Seneca-Iroquois and the Tamil increases 

 with the addition of each particular from the first to the last; becoming, 

 finally, an impossibility. The third hypothesis is substantial. It as- 

 sumes that the system is natural in its origin, and in accordance with 

 the nature of descents ; consequently, it must further assume that the 

 ancestors of the Seneca-Iroquois and of the Tamilian people of India, 

 if created in separate and independent zoological provinces, must not 

 only have passed through the same experiences, but also have devel- 

 oped, through great reformatory movements, precisely the same 

 sequence of customs and institutions, to have wrought out by natural 

 development or organic growth the Ganowanian system in America 

 and the Turanian system in Asia; the two remaining identical after 

 having been transmitted with the blood through centuries of time. 

 It will be found, in the sequel, and after the most critical examination, 

 that the fourth hypothesis, that of its transmission with the. blood 

 from common ancestors, will prove the most satisfactory. 



I am aware that the foregoing presentation of the Aryan, Malayan, 

 Ganowanian, and Turanian systems of relationship is far too brief and 

 incomplete to i-ender entirely satisfactory the following solution of the 

 origin of the classificatory system. But it will serve to indicate some 

 of the conclusions to which the facts appear to tend. 



The origin of the classificatory system, in view of its character and 

 spread among the families of mankind, becomes a matter of deep im- 

 portance. It is to be presumed that the recognized relationships were 

 those which actually existed at the time the system was formed. If 



