534 
SECOND REPORT—-! 832 . 
convey. To this very remarkable class of languages belong all 
the idioms of America, from that of the Esquimaux at Behring’s 
Straits, to the dialects of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. 
<£ I shall now terminate what I have to say on this branch of 
my subject— viz. on philological researches—by one remark, of 
which the application will hereafter be very obvious. It is, that 
although we may not be authorized in a positive conclusion, 
that all nations whose languages belong to the same class are 
of one race,—as for example, all the nations ofthe New World, 
the resemblance between their respective idioms being only ana¬ 
logy and not amounting to affinity,—yet we may determine upon 
regarding such nations as more nearly connected than those 
whose idioms belong to different classes ; and we may assert, 
that any pretence for including in one race or lineage, nations 
whose idioms belong to classes totally different, must be arbi¬ 
trary and in opposition to all probability. Such, for example, 
would be an attempt to include some of the American nations 
whose idioms are polysynthetic, in the same race or stock with 
tribes who speak monosyllabic languages. 
“ From the survey I have now taken of the progress of philo¬ 
logical information, and from the conception which this survey 
is calculated to produce, of the nature and extent of such infor¬ 
mation, we are entitled to conclude that it is a department of 
knowledge which ought by no means to be neglected by those 
who wish to elucidate the history and affinity of nations or of 
different races of men ; and that any conclusions which may be 
drawn by such writers from other sources,—as, for example, 
from anatomical and physical inquiries pursued separately,— 
will be liable to error, if reference is not occasionallv made to 
the results deduced from philology. Notwithstanding this al¬ 
most palpable fact, we shall presently perceive that the most 
popular systems with respect to the history of mankind, and the 
classification of nations, are not only built on premises alto¬ 
gether distinct from those which depend on affinity in languages, 
but are completely at variance with the most obvious conclu¬ 
sions derivable from this source of information.” 
The author, after these general remarks on the application of 
philology, proceeded to give an account of the attempts which 
have been made to distinguish and classify the races of men by 
their physical characters. 
“ Many late writers on the history of mankind have attempted 
to distribute the human species into several races, distinguished 
from each other by peculiarities in the form, structure and 
colour, of their bodies. Varieties of form have generally been 
thought to afford a better groundwork for this division than 
