248 PHYSICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART I. 



less changeable, whilst we have shown that the physical pecu- 

 liarities are more so ; thus, originally different stocks acquire 

 a resemblance to each other in the course of time, whilst ori- 

 ginally similar stocks become dissimilar. Again, where peoples 

 within historical times have met and influenced each other, 

 words have gradually passed from one language into an- 

 other, just as they may, without foreign influence, undergo a 

 change or disappear altogether \ but never has the gramma- 

 tical structure of a language accommodated itself to a new one, 

 but rather the whole language has disappeared, and has been 

 supplanted by the new one ; for such a change of the structure 

 of a language would presuppose a transformation of ideas and 

 the mode of connecting the elements of thought, which we 

 deem next to impossible. This is confirmed by thieves' and 

 vagabond dialects, which always borrow their grammatical 

 structure from a language ready made, whilst the words are 

 newly-formed and mutilated. Thus, the jargon spoken in 

 Oregon, in the region of Fort Vancouver, consists of words 

 belonging to the English, French, Nootka, Chinook, and other 

 languages. 



Another ground for the principle laid down is, that the 

 scientific method at present applied in comparative philology 

 possesses a higher degree of authenticity, and offers better 

 guarantees for its results than the methods of physical anthro- 

 pology and craniology. As a proof of this may be mentioned, 

 the greater unanimity of linguists with regard to the results 

 of their science in comparison with the disputes among natu- 

 ralists as to the theory of races. 



Moreover, the positive principles on affinity of nations laid 

 down by philology, claim greater reliance than the negative 

 ones supported by naturalists. We have seen that even great 

 resemblance of the physical characters of two peoples affords 

 no positive proof for their real affinity ; whilst philology may, 

 in many instances, adduce an undoubted proof to that effect. 



We are therefore bound to declare against all those authors, 

 who, like Nott and Grliddon, 1 assert, in relation to the Berber 



1 " Types of Mankind/' p. 205. 



