138 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vn. 



arrangement of mankind ; whether the foundation of the natural 

 classification of the genus Homo has not been discovered in it. 



" How little constant are cranial peculiarities and other so-called 

 race characters ! Language, on the other hand, is always a perfectly 

 constant diagnostic. A German may occasionally compete in hair and 

 prognathism with a negro, but a negro language will never be his 

 mother tongue. Of how little importance for mankind the so-called 

 race characters are, is shown by the fact that speakers of languages 

 belonging to one and the same linguistic family may exhibit the 

 peculiarities of various races. Thus the settled Osmauli Turk exhibits 

 Caucasian characters, while other so-called Tartarie Turks exemplify 

 the Mongol type. On the other hand, the Magyar and the Basque do not 

 depart in any essential physical peculiarity from the Indo-Germans, 

 whilst the Magyar, Basque, and Indo-Ger manic tongues are widely 

 different. Apart from their inconstancy, again, the so-called race 

 characters can hardly yield a scientifically natural system. Languages, 

 on the otner hand, readily fall into a natural arrangement, like that 

 of which other vital products are susceptible, especially when viewed 

 from their morphological side. . . . The externally visible structure 

 of the cerebral and facial skeletons, and of the body generally, is less 

 important than that no less material but infinitely more delicate 

 corporeal structure, the function of which is speech. I conceive, 

 therefore, that the natural classification of languages is also the natural 

 classification of mankind. With language, moreover, all the higher 

 manifestations of man's vital activity are closely interwoven, so that 

 these receive due recognition in and by that of speech." l 



"Without the least desire to depreciate the value of 

 philology as an adjuvant to ethnology, I must venture to 

 doubt, with Kudolphi, Desmoulins, Crawfurd, and others, 

 its title to the leading position claimed for it by the 

 writers whom I have just quoted. On the contrary, it 

 seems to me obvious that, though, in the absence of any 

 evidence to the contrary, unity of languages may afford 

 a certain presumption in favour of the unity of stock 

 of the peoples speaking those languages, it cannot be held 

 to prove that unity of stock, unless philologers are prepared 

 to demonstrate, that no nation can lose its language and 



1 August ScHeicher. Ueber die Bedeutung der Sprache fur die Natur- 

 gescliichte des Menschen, pp. 16 18. Weimar, 1858. 



