448 COSMIC PJIILOSOrilY. [it. n 



biological question, it has nevertheless a logical value so im- 

 portant that zoologists as eminent as Haeckel and philologists 

 as profound as Schleicher have not failed to insist upon it. 

 What we see exemplified in these linguistic phenomena, is 

 the way in which a classification must he framed in all cases 

 where we have to express complex genetic relationships. We 

 see that where a multitude of objects are associated by a 

 common genesis, we cannot classify them in a linear series, 

 but only in groups and sub-groups, diverging from a common 

 trunk, like the branches and twigs of what we very aptly 

 term a " family-tree." And on the general principles of 

 hereditary relationship, we see that objects near the common 

 trunk will depart less widely from the primitive ancestral 

 type, and will therefore resemble each other more closely, 

 than objects far up on the ends of the branches. A com- 

 parison of the different races of Aryan men would bring out 

 the same results as the comparison of their languages. After 

 making all allowances for the intermixture of the Aryans 

 with divers aboriginal races in Europe and Asia, it remains 

 generally admitted that every Aryan language is spoken by 

 men who are predominantly Aryan in blood. Now it would 

 be impossible to arrange Hindus, Greeks, Italians, Russians, 

 Germans, and English, in any linear series. We can only 

 divide and subdivide, arranging them in groups that diverge 

 and re-diverge. Such must always be the case when we 

 have to deal with phenomena due to hereditary relationship ; 

 and wherever we find a set of objects thus arranged in 

 groups within groups, converging at the bottom and diverging 

 at the top, we have the very strongest possible primd facie 

 ground for asserting hereditary relationship. 



Coming now to our main thesis, we can begin to appreciate 

 the strength of the evidence in favour of the derivation- 

 theory, which is furnished by the classification of animals, as 

 effected by Cuvier and Von Baer, and still further elaborated 

 by Huxley and Haeckel. Previous to Cuvier, many eminent 



