TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 787 



a real science, and it is now guided by principles as strict and as rigorous as any 

 other science — such as Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, and all the rest. Many theories 

 which were very popular fifty years ago are now completely exploded ; nay, some 

 of the very principles by which our science was then guided have been discarded. 

 Let me give you one instance — perhaps the most important one — as determining the 

 right direction of anthropological studies. 



At our meeting in 18i7 it was taken for granted that the study of Comparative 

 Philology would be in future tLie only safe foundation for the study of Anthropology. 

 Linguistic Ethnology was a very favourite term used by Buusen, Prichard, Latham, 

 and others. It was, in fact, the chief purpose of Buusen's paper to show that the 

 whole of mankind could be classified according to language. I protested against 

 this view at the time, and in 1853 I published my formal protest in a letter to 

 Bunsen, ' On the Turanian Languages.' In a chapter called ' Ethnology vosus 

 Phonology ' I called, if not for a complete divorce, at least for a judicial separation 

 between the study of Philology and the study of Ethnology. ' Ethnological race,' I 

 said, ' and phonological race are not commensurate, except in antehistorical times, 

 or, perhaps, at the very dawn of history. With the migration of tribes, their 

 wars, their colonies, their conquests and alliances, which, if we maj- judge from 

 their effects, must have been much more violent in the ethnic than ever in the 

 political periods of history, it is impossible to imagine that race and language should 

 continue to run parallel. The physiologist should pursue his own science, uncon- 

 cerned about language. Let him see how far the skulls, or the hair, or the colour, 

 or the skin of different tribes admit of classification ; but to the sound of their 

 words his ear should be as deaf as that of the ornithologist's to the notes of caged 

 birds. If his Caucasian class includes nations or individuals speaking Aryan 

 (Greek), Turanian (Turkish), and Semitic (Hebrew) languages, it is not his fault. 

 His system must not be altered to suit another sj-stem. There is a better solution 

 both for his difficulties and for those of the phonologist than mutual compromise. 

 The phonologist should collect his evidence, arrange his classes, divide and combine 

 as if no Blumeubach had ever looked at skulls, as if no Camper had ever measured 

 facial angles, as if no Owen had ever examined the basis of a cranium. His evidence 

 is the evidence of language, and nothing else ; this he must follow, even though in 

 the teeth of history, physical or political. . . . There ought to be no compromise 

 between ethnological and phonological science. It is only by stating the glaring 

 contradictions between the two that truth can be elicited.' 



At first my protest met with no response ; nay, curiously enough, I have often 

 been supposed to be the strongest advocate of the theory which I so fiercely attacked. 

 Perhaps I was not entirely without blame, for, having once delivered my soul, I 

 allowed myself occasionally the freedom to speak of the Aryan or the Semitic race, 

 meaning thereby no more than the people, whoever and whatever they were, who 

 spoke Aryan or Semitic languages. I wish we could distinguish in English as in 

 Hebrew between nations and languages. Thus in the Book of Daniel, iii. 4, ' the 

 herald cried aloud, . . . O people, nations and languages.' Why then should we 

 not distinguish between nations and languages '^ But to put an end to every 

 possible misunderstanding, I declared at last that to speak of ' an Aryan skull 

 would be as great a monstrosity as to speak of a dolichocephalic language.' 



I do not mean to say that this old heresy, which went by the name of linguistic 

 ethnology, is at present entirely extinct. But among all serious students, whether 

 physiologists or philologists, it is by this time recognised that the divorce between 

 Ethnology and Philology, granted if only for incompatibility of temper, has been 

 productive of nothing but good. 



Instead of attempting to classify mankind as a whole, students are now engaged 

 in classing skulls, in classing hair, and teeth, and skin. Many solid results have 

 been secured by these special researches ; but, as yet, no two classifications, based 

 on these characteristics, have been made to run parallel. 



The most natural classification is, no doubt, that according to the colour of the 

 skin. This gives us a black, a brown, a yellow, a red, and a white race, with 

 several subdivisions. This classification has often been despised as unscientific ; 

 but it may still turn out fiir more valuable than is at pre-i^ent supposed. 



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