APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 53 



movement of the main body ; fondly imagining that 

 the strategic movement to the rear, which oc- 

 casionally follows, indicates a battle lost by science. 

 And it must be confessed that the error is too often 

 justified by the effects of the irrepressible tendency 

 which men of science share with all other sorts of 

 men known to me, to be impatient of that most 

 wholesome state of mind suspended judgment ; to 

 assume the objective truth of speculations which, 

 from the nature of the evidence in their favour, 

 can have no claim to be more than working hypo- 

 theses. 



The history of the "Aryan question" affords a 

 striking illustration of these general remarks. 



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 enunciation of duly accented 

 syllables would be impossible without the nicest co- 

 ordination of the action of the muscles which move 

 these organs ; and such co-ordination depends on the 

 mechanism of certain portions of the nervous system. 

 It is therefore conceivable that the structure of this 

 highly complex speaking apparatus should determine 

 a man's linguistic potentiality ; that is to say, should 

 enable him to use a language of one class and not of 

 another. It is further conceivable that a particular 

 linguistic potentiality should be inherited and become 

 as good a race mark as any other. As a matter of 

 fact, it is not proven that the linguistic potentialities 

 of all men are the same. 



Community of language is no proof of unity of 

 race, is not even presumptive evidence of racial 



