684 ORIENTAL SCHOLARSHIP DURING THE PRESENT CENTURY. 



trutli. These are stern, iinniovable facts, just as Mont Blanc is a 

 stern, irremovable fact, tliougli from a distance we must often be satis- 

 fied with seeing its gigantic outline only, not all its glaciers and all its 

 crevasses. What I mean is tliat we must not attempt to discover too 

 much of what hapi)ened thousands of years ago, or strain our sight to 

 see what, from this distance in time, we can not see. - - - 



Nothing has shaken the belief, for I do not call it more, that the old- 

 est home of the Aryas was in the East. All theories in favor of other 

 localities, of wliich we have heard so )nuch of late, whether in favor of 

 Scandinavia, Eussia, or Germany, rest on evidence far more i)recarious 

 than that which was collected by the founders of Comparative Philology. 

 Only we must remember, what is so often forgotten, that when we say 

 Aryas we predicate nothing — we can predicate nothing — but language. 

 We know, of course, that languages presuppose speakers, but when we 

 say Aryas we say nothing about skulls, or hair, or eyes, or skin, as little 

 as when we say Christians or Mohammedans, English or Americans. 

 All that has been said and written about the golden hair, the blue eyes, 

 and the noble profile of the Aryas, is pure invention, unless we are pre- 

 pared to say that Socrates, the wisest of the Greeks, was not an Arya, 

 but a Mongolian. We ought, in fact, when we speak of Aryas, to shut 

 our eyes most carefully against skulls, whether dolichocei)halie, or 

 brachycephalic, or mesocephalic, whether orthognathic, prognathic, or 

 mesognathic. We are completely agnostic as to all that, and we gladly 

 leave it to others to discover, if they can, whether the ancestors of the 

 Aryan speakers rejoiced in a jSTeanderthal or any other kind of skull 

 that has been discovered in Europe or Asia. Till people will learn this 

 simple lesson, which has been inculcated for years by such high authori- 

 ties as Horatio Hale, Powell, and Brinton, all discussions on tlie original 

 home of the Aryas are so much waste of time and temper. 



There is the same difference of opinion as to the original home of the 

 Semites, but all Semitic scholars agree that it was " somewherein Asia." 

 The idea that the Semites proceeded from Armenia has, hardly any 

 defenders left, though it is founded on an ancient tradition preserved 

 in Genesis. An eminent scholar, who at the last moment was [)revented 

 by domestic afHiction from attending our Congress, Prof. Guidi,* holds 

 that the- Semites came probably from the Lower Euphrates. Other 

 scholars, particularly Dr. Sprenger, placed the Semitic cradle in Arabia. 

 Prof. IS'oldeke takes much the same view with regard to the home of 

 the Semites, which 1 take with regard to the home of the Aryas. We 

 can not with certainty fix on any particular spot, but tliat it was " some- 

 where in Asia'' no scholar would ever doubt. 



It is well known also that some high authorities. Dr. Hommel, for 

 instance, and Prof. Schmidt, hold that the ancestors of the Semites and 

 Aryas must for a time have lived in close i)roximity, which would be a 



* Delia sede primilira dei Popoli, Se»iitici. "Proceedings of the Aocademia dei liucei," 

 1878-79. 



