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TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. VI. 
THE USE AND Awes EF Or PHI eOr OG. 
BY THE REV. FATHER A. G. MOoRICE, O.M.I. 
(Read March 4th, 1899.) 
WE frequently hear in scientific circles of craniometry and other 
anthropological measurements ; our literature is full of descriptions of 
the manners and customs of different peoples ; their social organization 
is detailed and their psychological attainments studied, while the 
archeologist never tires of submitting the claims of his favorite science 
to our consideration. Yet, when it is a question of determining with 
precision and without fear of error the ethnic differences upon which is 
based the distribution of mankind into distinct races, philology alone is 
entitled to unqualified confidence and respect. In other words, philology 
is the best, nay, the only safe criterion of ethnological certitude. 
This proposition I have repeatedly formulated, and my first intention, 
on being asked to contribute my mite towards the fund of information 
which is to become the Memorial Volume, was to try and put it beyond 
the possibility of cavil. Proofs of the fallibility of the other branches of 
ethnological science are many and weighty. They could readily be 
presented for the appreciation of the indulgent reader. Circumstances 
however, have arisen whereby I have been led to abandon, or at least 
postpone, such a course in favor of more timely considerations. 
Let it suffice, just now, to state by way of an @ fortiori argument that, 
not only is language the best criterion of racial differentiations, but it can 
even be represented as greatly subserving the ends of history through 
archeology and mythology. Had not Champollion and Sir Henry 
Rawkinson previously familiarized themselves with the dialects of ancient 
Egypt and Assyria, those hieroglyphic and cuneiform inscriptions which 
for ages had puzzled legions of savants would still wait for a philologist 
equal to the task of deciphering them. And why is it, I may ask, that 
the researches of the American, French and German scientists relative to 
the Maya and other aboriginal characters have not yielded more 
practical results? Let Dr. D. G. Brinton answer for me. In the case 
of the former, it is largely, he says, “ because none of the interpreters have 
