98 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



the origin of the people of this race to that part of 

 the world. Thence, as from a central point, the 

 different branches of this variety shot forth like the 

 radii of a circle, and even at the present day we find 

 its peculiar characteristics in the highest perfection 

 among the people in the neighbourhood of Caucasus, 

 the Georgians and Circassians, who are considered 

 the handsomest natives of the earth. The principal 

 branches of this race may be distinguished by the 

 analogies of language. The Syrian division di- 

 recting its course southward, gave birth to the 

 Assyrians, the Chaldeans, the untameable Arabs, 

 destined to become for a period nearly masters of 

 the world, the Phenicians, the Jews, and the Abys- 

 synians, who were Arabian colonies, and the ancient 

 Egyptians, who, all in probability, owe their origin 

 to the same source. From this branch, always in- 

 clined to mysticism, have sprung those religions, 

 the influence of which has proved the most widely 

 extended and the most durable. Science and li- 

 terature have flourished occasionally among these 

 people, but always clothed in strange and mystic 

 guise, and obscured by a highly figurative diction. 



The Indian, German, and Pelasgic branch (for it is 

 one and the same) is infinitely more extended than the 

 preceding, and was subdivided at an earlier period. 

 We may, notwithstanding, still recognis every nume- 

 rous affinities between its four principal languages: 

 these are the Sanscrit, at present the sacred language 

 of the Hindoos, and parent of all the dialects of Hindos- 

 tan; the ancient language of the Pelasgi, the common 



