ON PROBLEMS IN INDO-GERMAN PHILOLOGY. 141 



the same race and within a limited time, striking bodily distinctions, and as, 

 on the contrary, similarity of culture and habits seems to cause, in different 

 races, an identity of craniologlcal structure and intellectual development, 

 it is clear that ethnography, as the science which treats of the different fa- 

 milies into which mankind are divided, and accounts for their distribution 

 over the surface of the globe, cannot be satisfied with the results of physio- 

 logical investigation. The comparative anatomy of the different races of 

 men is not at all calculated to explain the facts of our science or to assist 

 us in forming our classification. Interesting on its own account, as an im- 

 portant branch of pathology, it is useful to the ethnographer only as removing 

 the difficulties by which he would otherwise be encumbered. It is our 

 projjer business to show why a nation or people, having its own peculiar 

 modification of language, came to be settled in a particular locality, and in 

 what manner it is related to the contiguous tribes. Now it is obvious that 

 there can be but four elements in such an inquiry as this. (1.) Our first and 

 most important step is to examine philologically the language of the tribe; 

 (2.) the ancient designation of the people, and the names of persons and 

 places within the district, furnish us with additional materials of the same 

 kind ; (3.) the knowledge thus acquired is to be compared with any historical 

 traditions which may be available ; and (4.) the final test is supplied by phy- 

 sical or descriptive geography. To take a simple and easy example : the 

 district called Hungary is mainly occupied by the Magyars, who are distin- 

 guished by their language from the German, Sclavonian and Wallachian 

 tribes with which they are intermixed. It is by their language that we per- 

 ceive their ethnical identity with the Laplanders of the North and with the 

 Bashkirs of the South. The names of their nobles, of their cities, and of 

 their rivers and plains, show to what an extent they have superseded or 

 yielded to conterminous influences. Their history gives a distinct account 

 of their immigration, and the geographical conformation of the country which 

 they occupy shows how they originally entered it by the outlet of the 

 Danube, and how their ulterior development was controlled by natural ob- 

 stacles. The same process might be applied in eveiy case ; and thus, while 

 the facts are established by a philological investigation of the language 

 spoken and of the names imposed, these facts are explained and accounted 

 for by the results of our historical and geographical knowledge. If we desire 

 to ascertain the origin of any branch of the great human family, this is the 

 only course which we can pursue, and if we have access to all four sources 

 of information, the result is safe and satisfactory. It rarely happens that any 

 further light is derived from the observation of physical peculiarities. Ex- 

 cept as an evidence of hereditary descent, within narrow limits and without 

 the operation of climatologic peculiarities, an appeal to physiology is super- 

 fluous. If ethnography can solve the problems which it undertakes, it must 

 do so without the aid of the anatomist, and we should only complicate our 

 difficulties, if we allowed the precarious and casual to take the place of that 

 ■which is a proper and essential element in our inquiries. 



Under these circumstances, we cannot too soon relinquish, as unscientific, 

 the attempt to classify mankind by the accidents of physical conformation. 

 Differences of race are not regulated or explained by differences in the 

 parietal diameter of the cranium, or in the maxillary process, or in the pelvis, 

 any more than by varieties in the colour of the hair and skin. To separate men 

 into different groups according to their outward distinctions, which do not 

 affect the essential characteristics of our race, is not less puerile than the 

 prima fade classification, which gives rise to the earliest nomenclature in the 



