204 B AMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



difficult to change, are justly considered as one of the 

 most constant indications which may assist us in re- 

 covering traces of an extinct or transplanted race. 



When we combine the data furnished by this 

 study with some passages in the Greek and Roman 

 historians, we are led to admit that the Basque race 

 must have formerly been much more widely extended 

 than at the present day. It is probable that it occu- 

 pied a large portion of Italy, the eastern coasts of 

 Gaul, and the whole of Spain; while it may also have 

 partially colonised the islands of the Mediterranean, 

 together with the Libyan provinces.* It is to the 

 nations of this race that Prichard has given the name 

 of Iberians. They appear early to have attained a 

 certain degree of civilisation. They were acquainted 

 with the art of writing, and their alphabet, which is 

 undoubtedly derived from the Phoanician letters, 



the highest reputation. Being deeply impressed with religious 

 sentiments, he could not accommodate his mind either to sensualism 

 or to pantheism, and while he always endeavoured to discover the 

 practical bearing of even the highest theories, he rejected all 

 approach to exaggerated idealism. His system, which has been 

 termed a Spiritualistic Realism, is principally expounded in the work 

 entitled Monadologia, which he wrote for Prince Eugene. In the 

 application of his views to science, and more particularly to the 

 natural sciences, we find the first traces of those ideas which 

 Bonnet and his successors advanced in reference to the progressive 

 series of organised beings. 



* The Libyans are the ancestors of the modern Berbers, and 

 form a branch of the great Semitic or Syro-Arab race. They 

 occupy the northern coast of Africa, from Egypt to the Straits of 

 Gibraltar, and all the western portion of the African continent, 

 known to the Romans and Greeks. (Prichard's Natural History of 

 Man.) 



