ADVANCE OF ANTHROPOLOGY. 489 



Basques are shown by their speech to be at least 

 partly descended from a pre-Aryan or a non-Aryan 

 race (African Hamite?), and similarly it may be 

 said of Finns and of Magyars that their speech be- 

 tray eth them. ^' Language used with judgment is 

 thus seen to be a great aid to the ethnologist in de- 

 termining racial affinities and in solving many an- 

 thropological difficultes '' (Keane). Into the ques- 

 tion of the various lines of language-evolution — Ag- 

 glutinating, Polysynthetic, Inflecting, and Isolating 

 — it is beyond our scope to enter. 



On the other hand, we must remember. Prof. 

 Sayce's caution : " A common language is not a test 

 of race, it is a test of social contact. . . . While the 

 characteristics of race seem " almost indelible, lan- 

 guage is as fluctuating and variable as the waves of 

 the sea.'' 



APPRECIATION OF FOLK-LOEE. 



The advance of anthropology in the nineteenth 

 century has involved a quite new appreciation of 

 folk-lore, and this has brought much gain to the 

 science. What was formerly regarded as the some- 

 what mysterious romance of young peoples is now 

 part of the anthropologist's data. So much has it 

 been used, indeed, that the taunt has arisen that an- 

 thropology is founded on romance. Let us give 

 one familiar illustration, in reference to folk-lore 

 about the fairies. 



It seems that there are fairies and fairies. There 

 are divinities associated with rivers and lakes, and 

 there are dead ancestors, but " in far the greater 

 number of cases, we seem to have something histori- 

 cal, or, at any rate, something which may be con- 



