142 REPORT 1851. 



natural history of lower animals. There some one prominent quality is 

 grasped by the mind, and an attributive noun is formed, which, so far from 

 defining the species, is often equally applicable to animals of the most different 

 genera. We smile when we are told that theyba;, the stoat, and the lobster, 

 are designated in Old English by a common name referring to the wideness 

 of the tail. But surely this is only the same process as that which induces 

 us to distinguish the human race into great families by a reference to external 

 characteristics, many of which may be exhibited by the different members 

 of the same family, and all of which may exist, at least in approximate forms, 

 in members of the same national tribe. Scientific classification ought to be 

 regulated by (he most advanced results of our knowledge, and not by the 

 vague impressions resulting from our first cursory observations. Imperfect 

 science, like imperfect manhood, dwells upon differences long before it can 

 perceive resemblances. It is the business of the matured intellect to find 

 the common element by which classes are linked together, and to subordinate 

 the multiform exterior to the unity which reigns within. If this is true in 

 all cases, it is so especially when we have to do with man, whose essential 

 definition is independent of his external frame. The instinct which convinces 

 us that our race constitutes one family, dispersed indeed by emigration, but 

 connected with one home by a common pedigree, is confirmed by all access- 

 ible knowledge, and it seems that no ethnographical classification can be 

 permanently satisfactory, unless it recognises this primeval unity, and con- 

 trasts it with the subsequent process of separation and dispersion. As the 

 evidences furnished by language, tradition, and physical geography all point 

 to Armenia as the first cradle of the human race, it would seem to be most 

 scientific to contrast the original nucleus, which formed itself in this region, 

 and more gradually expanded itself in massive outpourings, with the scat- 

 tered offshoots which were always dispersing themselves in scanty streams of 

 restless wanderers. We shall thus find two great subdivisions of the popu- 

 lation of the world — the central and the sporadic. The former will include 

 the Jndo- Germanic race, which extended itself from Iran to India on the 

 one side, and on the other side peopled the whole of Europe : and the Semitic 

 race, which after having reached the highest pitch of civilization in Syria 

 and Egypt, pushed forward its undulations of decreasing intelligence until it 

 had covered the whole of Africa. All the rest of the world, the north and 

 east of Asia, America, and the intervening islands are peopled by branches of 

 the sporadic race, more or less connected with the Eastern or Iranian group. 

 Among the various advantages of this classification, I may mention that it not 

 only represents the present results and obvious tendencies of our researches, 

 but is also conformable to our daily experience. For the world is still but par- 

 tially peopled, and still exhibits itself as a central mass, sending forth spo- 

 radic ramifications of colonies. And even if we were to discover reasons, 

 much more convincing than any which have as yet been produced, in favour 

 of the Polyadamism of our race, nothing can alter the fact that there has been 

 a centre and starting-point of human civilization, and that the cradle of the 

 Semitic and Indo- Germanic families has sent forth those tribes, whose history 

 is that of the world. 



However, it is not my purpose on the present occasion to pursue these 

 general reasonings any farther. I may be content to refer to what I have 

 elsewhere written on the subject. And I shall proceed at once to my im- 

 mediate object, namely, to the indications of the important conclusions 

 deducible from a more accurate survey of the first and last contacts of the 

 Sclavonians. 



