PHILOLOGICAL VAEIETIES. 65 



In proportion as modern knowledge has made us penetrate 

 more deeply into the minds of races, since we are no longer 

 contented with studying them superficially in the ordinary 

 manifestations of life, which we may call " common-place/' 

 and which belong to nearly all countries, we perceive that 

 insuperable limits separate one set of men from another with re- 

 gard to intellectual affinity, so that here, as in the case of physical 

 characteristics, each race is almost to be distinguished from its 

 neighbours. " Profound and unchangeable differences," said 

 M. Paul de Remusat,* in 1854, "which would, perhaps, suffice 

 of themselves to found definite and thoroughly limited clas- 

 sifications." 



It was in order to point out a new branch of anthropology, 

 a new and fruitful branch, that a work appeared which was 

 destined to throw a bright light on the subject. It was neces- 

 sary to explain these distinctions, and not merely to enunciate 

 them. The merit in this matter belongs to M. Renan, who, 

 in his treatise on the languages of the great Semitic family, 

 has painted, from the most favourable characteristics, this hu- 

 manity which is, morally, so different from our own, however 

 like it may be in external form. The intellectual disparity of 

 races is henceforward an undeniable fact. 



The religious or moral system of a people being the highest 

 manifestations of its intellectual tendencies, we see that the 

 study of religions enters quite naturally into anthropology ; it 

 is a part of this comparable study of the human mind, unfor- 

 tunately too much neglected, but which begins to take a place 

 worthy of its importance in the world of science. f We do 

 not wish to discuss theological or religious questions, the an- 



* Des Races Humaines, in the Revue des Deux Mondes. 



f [It is, indeed, worthy of a place in science, though not apparently in 

 the sense which is meant by our author, C. Carter Blake says, and says 

 truly, " In zoology, as in all other methods of human thought, the sincere 

 searcher after truth will reap some solid benefit for his labours if carried on 

 in a fair and honest spirit. What science reveals to us, and we know of no 

 source of knowledge whence the revelation of the truth, as it is manifested 

 in living nature, can be impugned, what science teaches us, a simple-minded 

 student will accept, that which the unbiassed evidences of his senses and 

 the manifestations of his own consciousness tell him to be true." (C. Carter 

 Blake, On the Doctrine of Final Causes, as illustrated by Zoology, Hastings 

 Philosophical Society, meeting of January 13, 1864.) EDITOR.] 



