SECT. I.] MENTAL CULTURE. 77 



formation among the Magyars, Osmanlis, Finns, and Samojeds, 

 while they have preserved their language that " an exchange 

 of body" with foreign tribes has taken place without an ex- 

 change of soul ; whilst on the other hand, the Romanic nations 

 were compelled to adopt the Latin as their language without 

 any great injury to the essential peculiarities of their corporeal 

 structure. Without considering such a theory as absolutely 

 impossible, we should still require more stringent proofs to 

 support it ; for intermixtures of great extent which alter the 

 physical type of a people can scarcely be thought of, unless 

 the language should experience a corresponding change. 

 Where foreign races, as the Chinese in the East Indian Archi- 

 pelago, bring no women with them, and can only ally them^ 

 selves with native women, it cannot be wondered at that the 

 mongrels belong to one type according to language, and to 

 another according to race (at Java for instance, according 

 to De Jong) j 1 but such instances are among the rare excep- 

 tions. Though it is plainly shown, how among the Komanic 

 nations the language of the conquerors replaced that of the 

 'Conquered, the change which the Latin underwent corre- 

 sponds to some extent with the physical metamorphosis by 

 which the Celts in Gaul became the French of the present 

 day, and the Iberians became Spaniards. How much must be 

 ascribed to intermixture, or to many other causes, can be hardly 

 ; ascertained. We are far too ready to ascribe it to the first 

 cause simply because it affords a convenient explanation. 

 When, for instance, the Finns are considered as originally a 

 Mongolian people, which has improved its physical type by in- 

 itermixture with the white race (Castren), the theory is objec- 

 itionable on account of the linguistic development and its 

 : inflections, which certainly cannot be ascribed to the engrafting 

 of Indo-Grermanic elements upon a Mongolian foundation. 

 With regard to the Magyars and Osmanli-Turks, it must be 

 ; admitted, that the admixture of foreign elements has contri- 

 buted to the change of their physical type, the extent of which 



Eeisen nach dem Vorgeb. der guten Hoffnung," ii, p. 373, 1803. 



