INTRODUCTION. 41 



Europe, (as the art of printing, of paper-money, of the mariner's 

 compass, of a certain amount of astronomical knowledge, and even 

 of gunpowder,) he doubts the antiquity of this civilization, v and still 

 more the self-evolution of it. Within the historical period, three 

 civilizing' influences have been introduced into China. To begin with 

 the latest, European and American intercourse has not changed it 

 in any essential points. The influence of the early Nestorian 

 Christians, between A. D. GOO and 1200, must have been very 

 great, from the introduction of Syrian literature, theology and 

 science. The Buddhism of India is the earliest civilizing influence. 

 The Han dynasty being the extreme date of Chinese history, begin- 

 ning 13. C. 200, Buddhism must have been introduced since that 

 period ; it is generally believed to have been introduced in the first 

 century after Christ. He thus limits the growth of Chinese civiliza- 

 tion to the las) eighteen hundred years, believing " that whatever is 

 older than their religion is reasonable tradition for a limited period, 

 (say a century.) and unreasonable tradition beyond it." 



2. The Turanian stock, of which the divisions are the Mongo- 

 lians, the Tungusians, the Turks, and the Ugrians, extending from 

 Kamtskatka to Norway, and from the Arctic Ocean to the frontiers of 

 Tibet and Persia. Though there are here some physical changes, there 

 are also greater changes in the languages, from those of a monosyl- 

 labic and aptotic type to those polysyllabic and anaptotic ; but as 

 we know what modifies form, and what modifies language, we 

 may readily understand that physical and philological changes may 

 go on at different rates. 



An interesting branch of the Ugrian division of the Turanian 

 slock is the Magyar, or Hungarians, who migrated from the 

 country of the Baslekirs, about A. 1). «J0(). Those who would con- 

 nect the Hungarians with the Huns are misled by r the similarity of 

 the name, for no facts are more undeniable than that the Magyars 

 are of Ugrian and the Huns of Turkish descent. The Magyars arc 

 the only members of the Ugrians who have made a permanent con- 

 quest, within the historical period, over any portion of the Japitidce. 



B. — Dioscurian Mongolida, so called from the ancient sea-port 

 Dioscurias ; the term Caucasian would have been more appro- 

 priate, but it has already been misapplied in another division, the 

 Japctidae. The principal divisions are the Georgians, the Lesgians, 

 the Iron, and the Circassians. 



Dr. Latham differs from the long established division of man- 

 kind by placing the Caucasians, who have been heretofore consid- 

 ered as a preeminently European type, among the Mongolida?. The 

 anatomical reason for making the Circassians and Georgians, so 

 4* 



