174 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. \vm. 



Such is a brief and summary statement of what I 

 believe to be the chief facts relating to the physical 

 ethnology of the people of Britain. The conclusions 

 which 1 draw from these and other facts are (l) That 

 the Melanochroi and the Xanthochroi are two separate 

 races in the biological sense of the word race ; (2) That 

 they have had the same general distribution as at pre- 

 sent from the earliest times of which any record exists 

 on the continent of Europe ; (3) That the population 

 of the British Islands is derived from them, and from 

 them only. 



The people of Europe, however, owe their national 

 names, not to their physical characteristics, but to their 

 languages, or to their political relations ; which, it is 

 plain, need not have the slightest relation to these 

 characteristics. 



Thus, it is quite certain that, in Caesar's time, Gaul 

 was divided politically into three nationalities the 

 Belgaa, the Celtae, and the Aquitani ; and that the last 

 were very widely different, both in language and in 

 physical characteristics, from the two former. The 

 Belgas and the Celtae, on the other hand, differed compa- 

 ratively little either in physique or in language. On the 

 former point there is the distinct testimony of Strabo ; 

 as to the latter, St. Jerome states that the " Galatians 

 had almost the same language as the Treviri." Now, 

 the Galatians were emigrant Volcse Tectosages, and 

 therefore Celtas ; while the Treviri were Belgas. 



At the present day, the physical characters of the 

 people of Belgic Gaul remain distinct from those of 

 the people of Aquitaine, notwithstanding the immense 

 changes which have taken place since Caesar's time ; 

 but Belgaa, Celtae, and Aquitani (all but a mere fraction 

 of the last two, represented by the Basques and the 

 Britons) are fused into one nationality, " le peuple 



