392 LANGUAGE AND EACE. 



animals as well as man. Articulate language alone draws 

 an impassable barrier between us and tbe beasts. 



The speech of different nations and communities shows 

 almost endless variety. How far are we justified in as- 

 suming that the use of similar or cognate languages proves 

 a near blood-relationship of the peoples using those lan- 

 guages ? And, again, may we conclude that the use of ver^^ 

 dissimilar tongues by different nations is sufficient proof 

 that they cannot be closely allied racially ? In other words, 

 is language a sure guide to race ? 



The evidence bearing upon this question has grown very 

 quickly the last few years, and its mass is now so great that 

 it will be only possible in the brief space of an hour to 

 give a mere sketch of it. 



The chief point at issue will perhaps be made more clear 

 by the following assertion: "The classification comprehended 

 in the terms Aryan, Semitic, Turanian, etc., is in point of 

 fact one of languages only ; but the popular delusion is that 

 it is a well-founded and scientific classification of the races 

 of man." I call it a " popular " delusion because it still has 

 a firm hold upon the minds of a large majority of those who 

 take any interest at all in racial questions. Comparatively 

 few, outside a small circle of scientists, have as yet recog- 

 nised it as a fallacy ; and indeed it is not many years since 

 philologists and ethnologists themselves taught it as a 

 truth, to doubt which was rank heresy in science. Man is 

 indeed very liable to err: ''most ignorant of what he's most 

 assured." 



When the newly-born science of Comparative Philology, 

 about fifty-five years ago, was able to show that most Euro- 

 pean languages and some Asiatic were so related that logical 

 deduction proved they must have sprung from one mother- 

 tongue, a further deduction, by no means logical, was drawn, 



