358 AVERAGE WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN IN THE 



of Bactriana, between the Indus on the south, Bokharia on the north, Belurtag on 

 the east, and the territories of Merva and Herat on the west, — a very extensive 

 mountainous region.* Others have referred the primeval Aryans to Persia and other 

 countries. 



In proof of the high powers of this primitive race of people, it is affirmed that they 

 spoke a pristine language from which the Sanscrit language, which has been desig- 

 nated by competent authorities as the finest language ever spoken by man, was de- 

 rived, as well as numerous other allied tongues. Parallel to this derivation of 

 languages from the primeval Aryans, is also deduced a succession of races of man, 

 •who, most strange to say, are spread over the world from the farthest confines of 

 India to western Europe. After the mere enunciation of this hypothesis, which is so 

 much at variance with the doctrines of anthropology, our faith in it must be shaken 

 by the inquiry which clearly proves that the Indo-European races, although they may 

 speak languages between which resemblances, real or fancied, whether of construction 

 or vocabulary, may be found, embrace among themselves peoples, some of whom have 

 the largest brain-weights of any among mankind, and other peoples, as the races of 

 India, who are equally distinguished for their small brain-weights. It is believed 

 that this fact, although not congenial to the learned in the vast field of philology, is 

 quite adequate of itself to decide the real value of the Indo-European hypothesis. 



Nature has irrevocably fixed the cerebral diversities of the European races and of 

 the races of India, both so-called Aryan and Aboriginal. Upon these cerebral di- 

 versities all their other diversities rest, and it is quite vain to plead that there are 

 resemblances in their languages which prove that these two essentially different 

 peoples are derived from the same stock. The philological resemblances are utterly 

 impotent to overcome such diversities of organization as have been proved. If the 

 resemblances exist and are valid, they must be explained upon credible grounds. It 

 is quite useless to attempt to explain them by assumptions that are contradicted by 

 the laws of anthropology. The Indo-Euroj^ean, or Aryan hypothesis, entirely breaks 

 down under an examination of the brain-weights of the peoples of Europe and the 

 peoples of India. 



Difficulties have long been encountered in the details of the hj'pothesis itself. We 

 have been told that there are tribes in India of the purest Aryan blood, particularly 

 alluding to the people of Brahminical caste, and that there are many also unequivo- 

 cally non-Aryan, or aboriginal races of Hill people, who have never mingled their 

 blood with the high Aryan races. When I first directed my attention to these in- 

 quiries, I expected to find that the Aryan hypothesis would be easily proved upon 

 these grounds. If we found the Aryan peoples to have a development of brain 

 organization resembling that of European peoples (recollect the term " Indo- 



* Antropologia della Grecia, p. 24. 1866. 



