lOS 



ORGANIC LIFE. 



man race (a point which lies beyond the reach 

 of all experience), in a way that accords with 

 the experience of the day, and proceed to show 

 how, in times when the human kind must al- 

 ready have existed for thousands of years, a 

 desert island, or a sequestered valley, may 

 have been peopled. It is in vain, however, 

 that reflection attempts to dive into this prob- 

 lem of original production, seeing that man is 

 so bound up with his kind and with t^me. that 

 an individual without contemporaries, and with- 

 out a past, can by no means be conceived in 

 human existence. Whether, therefore, in this 

 question, which can neither be decided by the 

 way of reasoning nor of experience, this pre- 

 tended tradition be the historical truth, or the 

 human kind from its commencement has pos- 

 sessed the earth in the shape of tribes or com- 

 munities, can neither be determined by Philol- 

 ogy out of the elements of its science, nor, as- 

 suming the decision on other grounds, can it 

 use the conclusion come to in illustration of its 

 own propositions." 



The distribution of the human kind is no 

 more than a distribution into varieties, which 

 have been designated by the somewhat indefi- 

 nite word races. As in the vegetable kingdom, 

 and in the natural history of birds and fishes, 

 the system of grouping into many small fami- 

 lies is more certain than that info a few divis- 

 ions, embracing larger masses, so does it ap- 

 pear to me preferable, in the determination of 

 races of men, to arrange them into smaller fam- 

 ilies. The old classification of m'y master, Blu- 

 menbach, into five races — the Caucasian, the 

 Mongolian, the American, the J^thiopian, and 

 the Malayan, may be followed ;. or with Prich- 

 ard, seven Vaces may be assumed — the Trani'- 

 an(*°»), the Turanian, the Anjerican, the Hot- 

 tentot and Buschman, the Negro, the Papuan, 

 and the Alfoarousian ; still is there no typical 

 rigour, no natural principle of classification, rec- 

 ognizable in such arrangements. The extremes 

 in reference to configuration and colour are sep- 

 arated, without reference to the stocks that 

 cannot be connected with one or other of these, 

 and which have at one time been entitled Scyth- 

 ian, at another Allophylian races. Tranian, in 

 reference to the European nations, is certainly 

 a less objectionable name than Caucasian ; 

 but it may be maintained in a general way, 

 that geographical designations as derivative 

 points of races are very indeterminate, when 

 the country which is chosen to confer the title 

 on the race, for example, Turan (Maweran- 

 nahr), has at different epochs been possessed 

 by most dissimilar races — of Indo-Germanic 

 and Finnish, but not Mongolian origin(*'°). 



Languages, as mental creations of man, as 

 closely intertwined with his spiritual develop- 

 ment, inasmuch as they exhibit national forms, 

 possess high importance in connection with the 

 recognizable similarities and dissimilarities of 

 races. They have this importance, because 

 community of descent leads into the myste- 

 rious labyrinth in which the enchainment of 

 physical (bodily) aptitude with mental power 

 is exhibited in. an endless variety of forms. 

 The brilliant advances which philosophical phi- 

 lology has made in Germany, especially within 

 the last half century, facilitate inquiries into the 

 national character of languages, into that which 



descent appears to have added to them(*"). 

 As in all other regions of abstract speculation, 

 however, the danger of being deceived is here 

 set beside the hope of collecting a rich and as- 

 sured booty. 



Positive ethnographical studies, based upon 

 solid historical knowledge, warn us that the 

 greatest caution is necessary in all compari- 

 sons of nations A'ith the languages which they 

 have made use of at determinate epochs. Sub- 

 jugation, living long together, the influence of 

 a foreign religion, and intermixture of races, 

 though often effected by a relatively small 

 numher of more powerful and more civiUzed 

 intruders, have produced a phenomenon which 

 has recurred in like measure, in both conti- 

 nents, viz. : that totally different families of 

 languages are met with in use by one and the 

 same race ; that among nations of very differ- 

 ent descent, idioms of the same original tongue 

 are encountered. Asiatic conquerors have had 

 the greatest influence upon such phenomena. 



Speech, however, is a portion of the natural 

 science of mind ; and if the freedom wherewith 

 the spirit in a state of happy independence 

 steadily pursues the self-elected course under 

 totally different physical influences, strives 

 vigorously to withdraw it from the power of 

 the earth, still the unfettering is never quite 

 complete. There ever remains something of 

 that which belongs to natural aptitude, to de- 

 scent, to climate, to the bright blue sky, or to 

 the cloudy atmosphere of the insular world. 

 And since copiousness and grace in the struc- 

 ture of a language are unfolded from thought 

 as from the most delicate blossom of the soul, 

 so would we not, that in the intimacy of the 

 bond which unites the two spheres — that of the 

 physical nature, and that of the intellect and 

 •feelings — our delineation should be without the 

 favourable light and colouring which it must 

 derive from a consideration, here only indica- 

 ted, it is true, of the relations of hereditary de- 

 scent to language. 



In maintaining the unity of the human kind, 

 we at the same time repudiate all the unsatis- 

 factory assumptions of higher and lower races 

 of men(*^='). There are races of men more 

 flexible, more highly polished, through mental 

 culture more ennobled, but none naturally more 

 noble. All are in equal measure ordained for 

 liberty ; for liberty which in ruder conditions 

 of society appertains to the individual, which 

 in more polished states, in civil life and among 

 men in the enjoyment of political institutions, 

 is the right of the community. " If we would 

 signalize an idea which is conspicuous through- 

 out the entire current of history, and ever with 

 a wider import, when any one assures us of 

 the much-discussed, but still more extensively 

 misapprehended perfectibility of mankind, it is 

 the idea of Humanity : the effort to cast down 

 the barriers which prejudice and one-sided 

 views of every kind have hostilely raised be- 

 twixt man and man, and to treat mankind at 

 large, without reference to religion, to nation, 

 or to colour, as one great and nearly-related 

 family — as a whole, that exists for the accom- 

 plishment of this single end, the free devel- 

 opment OF INTERNAL POWER. This is thc ex- 

 treme, the ultimate purpose of the social state, 

 and at the same time it is the tendency infixed 



