ETHNOLOGY AND ANTHKOPOLOGY. 



385 



Crawfurd on the Aryan Theory in Language. 

 The author, in a paper from which we have 

 already quoted under other heads, said on this 

 subject : The Aryan, or Indo-European theory, 

 had its origin and its chief support in Germany. 

 It is to the effect that, in the most elevated table- 

 land of Central Asia there existed, in times far 

 beyond the reach of history or tradition, a 

 country to which (on very slender grounds) 

 the name of Aryana had been given: the 

 people of this country and their language had 

 been called Aryan. This nation, a nomadic 

 one, for some unknown cause betook itself to 

 distant migrations ; one section of it proceed- 

 ing south-westwardly, to people Hindustan, 

 and another north-westwardly, to people west- 

 ern Asia and Europe, as far as Spain and Brit- 

 ain. Miiller considered that before that time 

 the soil of Europe had been trodden neither 

 by Celts, Germans, Sclavonians, Eomans, nor 

 Greeks. Crawfurd concluded that, according 

 to the theory, the human skeletons found in 

 the caverns near Liege must have belonged to 

 these nomads from Central Asia, or to their 

 descendants ; so that the era of the imagined 

 migration carried us back to the time when 

 man was a contemporary of the extinct mam- 

 moth, cave-lion, and rhinoceros. 



The entire fabric of the Aryan theory was 

 founded on the detection of a small number of 

 words, in mutilated form, as being common to 

 most, though not to all, of the languages of 

 Western Asia and Europe a discovery re- 

 markable enough, but clearly pointing only to 

 an antiquity in the history of man far beyond 

 the reach of history or tradition ( ! ). The 

 Aryan he regarded as a language of the imagi- 

 nation ; and of the existence of which no suffi- 

 cient proof ever had been, or could be, given. 

 The anticipation implied in the theory is that 

 of ultimately reducing all the languages of the 

 earth to a very few primitive ones. The theory 

 itself proceeds on the principle that all lan- 

 guages are traceable to monosyllabic roots : the 

 copious Sanskrit is said to be actually traced 

 to about 1900 such roots. But the languages 

 which Mr. Crawfurd had examined are not so 

 resolvable : they have a majority of dissyllables 

 and trisyllables which are irreducible, and ap- 

 pear to have no recondite sense. In any case, 

 he could not see how the Aryan theory illus- 

 trates or bears on that of transmutation of spe- 

 cies by natural selection. Of the latter process, 

 the progress must be so slow as almost to es- 

 cape notice. But of changes in language, the 

 causes are in unceasing and active operation, 

 and the evidences are patent and abundant. 

 Among the causes are social progress, the inter- 

 mixture of languages through conquest, and 

 the effects of commercial intercourse, and of 

 religious conversions. The author regarded 

 the Aryan theory as a monstrous fiction. 

 Changes in language he considered the exclu- 

 sive work of man ; those in species, by natural 

 selection, if they exist at all, the spontaneous 

 work of nature, unaided by man. 

 VOL. in. 25 A 



Commixture of Races. Mr. Crawfurd, in 

 another paper, considers this subject in its re- 

 lations to the progress of civilization. He ar- 

 gues that, when the qualities of different races 

 of men are equal, no detriment results from 

 their union. Thus, he regards the French and 

 English, both mongrel nations, as equal to the 

 purer breeds of Germany and Scandinavia. 

 But when intermixing races are quite unequal, 

 in physical, or in mental development, the 

 deterioration of the higher race is the result. 

 In cases of extreme disparity, however, there 

 is antipathy ; and consequently, in such cases, 

 no intermixture occurs. 



In his lectures very recently delivered before 

 the Royal Institution, London, on the " Classi- 

 fication of the Mammalia," &c., Prof. Thos. 

 H. Huxley has taken occasion to consider the 

 anatomical and ethnological characters of the 

 Negro, and incidentally, his relation to the 

 white race. From the anatomical survey, he 

 concluded that the negro was not in any such 

 sense inferior to the normal man, as that he 

 could be regarded as nearer to the brutes than 

 races generally, or as a " connecting link " be- 

 tween man and the brutes ; and he condemned 

 the extreme views which had been for some 

 time argued to this latter effect, and especially 

 very lately by Dr. James Hunt, of London. 

 Yet, at the same time, he showed that between 

 the white races and the negro there, are actual 

 physiological differences; and that they are 

 such as, by the light of experience and analogy, 

 are to be interpreted as inferiorities. He al- 

 luded to three theories respecting the social 

 position of the negro, as held by those who 

 take the more favorable view of his capacities : 

 first, that the negro is the equal of the white 

 man ; secondly, that he is better than, or at 

 least the necessary complement to, the white 

 man, so that an intermixture of the two races 

 is desirable even to the latter ; and thirdly, 

 that he is improvable into something like equal 

 capacities and standing with the latter. Ad- 

 mitting at least a probable germ of truth in the 

 third of these opinions, Prof. Huxley remarks 

 on the previous ones, " The two former prop- 

 ositions are so hopelessly absurd as to be un- 

 worthy of serious discussion." In a review of 

 this lecture, in the " Eeader," London, March 

 5th, 1864, the writer, after giving some account 

 of the doctrine of "Miscegenation," which he 

 states has been lately broached in this country, 

 adds : " He [Huxley] appears to hold that 

 general intermarriage of the white and black 

 races would, on the part of the whites, be a 

 culpable consent to a deterioration of the spe- 

 cies." 



Is Man Cosmopolite? We are not at this 

 moment able to state who it was that first dis- 

 cussed this question, or that first gave publicity 

 to the doctrine that man is not cosmopolite 

 in other words, that given races cannot migrate 

 at random to whatever parts of the globe in- 

 clination may lead them to ; but that, in certain 

 cases, deterioration must be the result. The 



