PRINCIPAL FAMILIES OF MANKIND. 1043 



Africa and the Indian Peninsula. The hair is generally long and flexible, with 

 a tendency to curl; but considerable variety presents itself with regard to this 

 particular. The conformation of the features approaches more or less closely to 

 that which we are accustomed to regard as the type of beauty. 



1051. The first place, in a more natural distribution of the Human Races, 

 must undoubtedly be given to that which is designated by Dr. Prichard as the 

 Arian, and which is often termed the Indo-European; including the collective 

 body of European nations, with the Persians, Affghans, and certain other na- 

 tions of the south-western portion of the Asiatic continent, near to which their 

 original focus appears to have been. The great bond of connection between 

 these nations lies in their languages ; which, in spite of great diversities, present 

 a certain community of character that is recognized by every philologist. The 

 family which is most dissimilar to the rest is that which is formed by the Celtic 

 nations ; these are undoubtedly, like the others, of eastern origin, as was first 

 shown by Dr. Prichard j 1 but they appear to have detached themselves from the 

 common stock at an earlier period in the development of its language ; and 

 both in their physical conformation and in their psychical character, the typical 

 Celt contrasts remarkably with the Germanic group of nations. The languages 

 of the whole Indo-Germanic group are united alike by community in many of 

 the most important " primary words/' and by general similarity in grammatical 

 construction ; being obviously all formed upon the same base with the ancient 

 Sanskrit, if not upon the Sanskrit itself. The existing Lettish or Lithuanian 

 dialect presents a very near approach to that type j and the Old Prussian, a 

 dialect spoken as late as the sixteenth century, had a still closer alliance to the 

 ancient Zend or Median, which seems to have been a very early derivation from 

 the Sanskrit, and which is the basis of the language now spoken in Persia. But 

 there is evidence that, notwithstanding the mutual affinities of the Indo-Grer- 

 manic languages, every one of them has been modified by the introduction of 

 extraneous elements : thus, in those of Western Europe, there is a considerable 

 admixture of Celtic ; whilst in others there are traces of more barbaric tongues. 

 In fact, there can be little doubt that Europe had an indigenous population 

 before the immigration of the Indo-Gerinan or even of the Celtic tribes ; and of 

 this population it seems most probable that the Lapps and Finns of Scandinavia, 

 and the Euskarians (or Basques) of the Biscayan provinces, are but the remnant. 

 The former of these tribes, which is undoubtedly of Mongolian origin, once 

 extended much further south than at present ; and with regard to the latter, 

 whose nearest linguistic affinities are also with the tongues of High Asia, there 

 is ample historical proof that they had formerly a very extensive distribution 

 through Southern Europe. It would not seem improbable, then, that the 

 advance of the Indo-European tribes from the south-east corner into central 

 Europe, separated that portion of the aboriginal (Mongolian) population which 

 they did not absorb or destroy, into two great divisions ; of which one was 

 gradually pressed northward and eastward, so as to be restricted to Finland and 

 Lapland ; and the other southward and westward, so as to be confined at the 

 earliest historic period to a part of the ' peninsula of Spain and the south of 

 France, gradually to be driven before the successive irruptions of the Celts, 

 Romans, Arabians, and other nations, until their scanty remnant found an en- 

 during refuge in the fastnesses of the Pyrenees. 3 The Indo-Germanic race is 

 unquestionably that which has exercised the greatest influence on the civiliza- 



' "On the Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations," 1831. 



2 This view, which was suggested by the Author in the "Brit, and For. Med. Rev.," 

 Oct., 1847, without the , knowledge that it had been elsewhere propounded, has been 

 put forthwith considerable confidence by Dr. Latham ("Varieties of Man," 1850), as 

 having originated with Arndt and been adopted by Rask, distinguished Scandinavian 

 ethnologists. 



