278 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 



illegitimately mixed itself up with the ideas de- 

 rived from pure philology. It is quite proper to 

 speak of Aryan "people," because, as we havo 

 seen, the existence of the language implies that of 

 a people who speak it ; it might be equally per- 

 missible to call Latin people all those who speak 

 Romance dialects. But, just as the application of 

 the term Latin " race " to the divers people who 

 speak Romance languages, at the present day, is 

 none the less absurd because it is common ; so, it 

 is quite possible, that it may be equally wrong to 

 call the people who spoke the primitive Aryan 

 dialects and inhabited the primitive home, the 

 Aryan race. " Aryan " is properly a term of 



^'classification used in philology. "Race" is the 

 name of a sub-division of one of those groups of 

 living things which are called " species " in the 

 technical language of Zoology and Botany ; and 

 the term connotes the possession of characters 

 distinct from those of the other members of the 

 species, which have a strong tendency to appeal 

 in the progeny of all members of the races. 

 Such race-characters may be either bodily or men- 

 tal, though in practice, the latter, as less easy of 

 observation and definition, can rarely be taken 



jjlnto account. Language is rooted half in the 

 bodily and half in the mental nature of man. The 

 vocal sounds which form the raw materials of 

 language could not be produced without a peculiar 

 conformation of the organs of speech ; the enuncia- 



