442 THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 



Negro stock as a whole. Though these contrasts are partially 

 obscured by intermixtures, they are not so much obscured 

 as to hide the truths that the most-nearly-allied varieties of 

 Man are those which diverged from one another at com- 

 paratively-recent periods; that each group of nearly-allied 

 varieties is more strongly contrasted with other such groups 

 that had a common origin with it at a remoter period; and 

 so on until we come to the largest groups, which are the 

 most strongly contrasted, and of whose divergence no trace is 

 extant. 



The relations existing among the classes and sub-classes 

 of languages, have been briefly referred to by Mr. Darwin in 

 illustration of his argument. We know that languages have 

 arisen by evolution. Let us then see what grouping of them 

 evolution has produced. On comparing the dialects of adja- 

 cent counties in England, we find that their differences are so 

 small as scarcely to distinguish them. Between the dialects 

 of the Northern counties taken together, and those of the 

 Southern counties taken together, the contrast is stronger. 

 These clusters of dialects, together with those of Scotland and 

 Ireland, are nevertheless so similar that we regard them as 

 one language. The several languages of Scandinavian Europe, 

 including English, are much more unlike one another than 

 are the several dialects which each of them includes; in cor- 

 respondence with the fact that they diverged from one 

 another at earlier periods than did their respective dialects. 

 The Scandinavian languages have nevertheless a certain com- 

 munity of character, distinguishing them as a group from the 

 languages of Southern Europe; between which there are 

 general and special affinities that similarly unite them into a 

 group formed of sub-groups containing sub-sub-groups. And 

 this wider divergence between the order of languages spoken 

 "in Northern Europe and the order of languages spoken in 

 Southern Europe, answers to the longer time that has elapsed 

 since their differentiation commenced. Further, these two 

 orders of modern European languages, as well as Latin and 



