SLAV AND CELT. 



By J. DYNELEY PRINCE. 



(Read April 22, 1920.) 



It has been long recognized that language is not a final test 

 of race; that is, of race in the anthropological sense. It must be 

 remembered, however, that in current usage the word " race ^ ib 

 not employed to indicate the primitive long-heads, short-heads and 

 round-heads of strict anthropology, about which many modern 

 educated people know and care next to nothing, but rather to denote 

 what should be properly defined as " tribal groups," which subse- 

 quently developed into " nationalities," and then into political 

 " nations." Such primitive tribal " races " were originally nothing 

 more than groups of families fortuitously speaking the same lan- 

 guage or kindred dialects, who were forced together for purposes 

 of mutual protection, or for the purpose of conquest over weaker 

 and richer peoples. Such a tribal nucleus w-as the beginning of 

 every modern nation-group. It is, therefore, quite obvious that a 

 " pure " race, that is, a race originating from and maintaining a 

 single strain can not be in existence at the present time. In order 

 to determine national trend development, the student of group char- 

 acteristics must, therefore, refer to environment and the common 

 interests bred by common speech, rather than to skull-shape or 

 other bodily peculiarities which often vary in individuals of one 

 and the same family. 



Mutual comprehensibility and the possession of a common 

 hereditary trend are the two most important features of such in- 

 fluential environment. The peoples now termed " Slavs " and 

 " Celts " must consequently be classified each within their own group 

 from the point of view of their respective speech-groups (= influ- 

 ence-groups), and may be studied still more closely by a comparison 

 of the traditions which have given rise to their mental and spiritual 

 characteristics. 



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