Vaux.—On the Probable Origin of the Maori Races. 21 
the present Dravidians were nearly connected with the Maoris, their 
common numbers would have been nearly the same—if not identical.* 
But though I have thus freely criticised the views put forward by Mr. 
Thomson, and cannot admit I am a bit more convinced by his reasonings 
than I was, years since, by the still more elaborate papers of Mr. Logan, I 
recognise with pleasure the patient labour and study he has shewn in the 
papers he has contributed to this work, and the value of his independent 
researches in connection with Malagasi, Malay, Tongan, and Maori. I 
further think, that it would be a most valuable work, if any scholars, who 
have the time and the means, would subject the languages of Africa to the 
same exhaustive treatment, that has been applied with such remarkable 
success to the languages of Europe, by Gormin and to the Sanskritic dialects 
y Bopp. Were such a work to be effectually carried out, and were the 
result this, that the numerals of any reasonable number of these African 
languages or dialects were found to agree with those in Mr. Thomson's list, 
I would be first to recognise this fact, and to withdraw the objections I, at 
present urge. But I must confess J am not very hopeful of the proof of 
any such agreement between the numerals or, indeed, with any other lin- 
guistic system in Africa or in “‘ Indonesia ’’—the more so, that a very intel- 
ligent Negro,—himself a native of the West Coast of Africa, and at present 
a student at Oxford, tells me that, though familiar with four or five lan- 
guages on the West, he cannot understand one word of the Eastern 
language of Zanzibar. 
On the other hand, I quite agree with Mr. Thomson, as to the principle 
of investigation to be pursued in tracing out cognate languages—and the 
primary words (as he aptly calls them, the “ fossils ’ of language), in that 
they express the first wants of man, are more tenacious of existence than 
any others. No doubt, common nouns, pronouns and verbs, when found 
little changed in a long series of dialects, do go far to prove descent from 
some one common source. It is, on this very principle, that we speak, and 
speak truly, of the Celtic, Slavonic and Teutonic languages being akin with 
Sanskrit, not, indeed, as children to a mother, but as brothers and sisters, 
the offspring of a parent, at present nameless. As the Roman poet, said so 
long ago, they may be termed sisters with a strong family resemblance,— 
“ Facies non omnibus wna nec diversa tamen, qualem decet esse sororum.” 
But though, as [I have said, I cannot accept Mr. Thomson’s theory for the 
* After all, I venture to doubt how far numbers are a safe test of race. The resem- 
blance of numerical systems ascending to high numbers may be, as demanding consider- 
able power of abstraction, but the simplest and smallest numbers up to 5, would seem to 
be within the reach of the most unlettered savage. 
