FIRST ORDINARY MEETING. 23 



briefly enquire whether what is known from other sources about the 

 Aryans is consonant with it. 



It is well-known that philological investigation has established 

 that nearly all the European, and some of the more important Asiatic 

 languages are descended from a common source, and that these 

 are at the same time related to each other in such an intimate 

 manner and so widely different from all other languages, that scientific 

 men feel justified in setting them apart in a family by themselves. 

 To this family belong the Celtic, Teutonic, Slavonic, and Romance 

 languages, together with the Greek, the Armenian, the Persian, the 

 Hindi, and others. The language whence all these have sprung is 

 the Aryan, and it follows as an almost necessary corollary, that 

 wherever an Aryan language is now spoken, there must be some 

 admixture, however slight, of Ai-yan blood. There is therefore a 

 community of speech between all Englishmen and all Hindoos, accom- 

 panied by a community of blood between some of each race. 



With the exception of the Aryans of India, the Aryan races are 

 white, and, as the sacred books of the Hindoos represent their ances- 

 tors as an intrusive race in conflict with dark aborigines, it is fair to 

 assume that their present colour is due to an admixture of non-Aryan 

 blood, this postulate of course being always granted that climate has 

 no appreciable effect upon the colour of a race that has once established 

 for itself a separate and distinct type. But as has already been stated, 

 there are two white races, the brunette and the blonde. These are 

 intermingled in various proportions in almost every country in which 

 whites are to be found. We have seen that the blondes are most 

 numerous on the shores of the Baltic and North Seas, and that in 

 whatever direction, whether north, south, east, or west one recedes 

 from these shores, the proportion of brunettes increases. Now, 

 assuming that racial peculiarities are unchanged, except by inter- 

 mixture, were the original Indo-Europeans a blonde or a brunette 

 race, or one composed like most of the modern Indo-European nations 

 of an intermixture of the two ? 



The following facts seem to show that the original Indo-Europeans 

 must have been either purely or largely blonde. There are only three 

 Indo-European races, the Hindoos, the Persians, and the Armenians, 

 in which no blondes occur, and these occupy countries too far south to 

 be the original home of the race, since a variety of evidence shows 

 that it must have been situated in a tolerably cold climate. 



