3/4 
REMARKS TO THE ETIJNOKOCT OF* 
^hlch he has woven around himself. The person of the savage, 
and the mind of the civilized, man must first wander far into new 
realms of action or thought, before he can loosen the ties of a lan¬ 
guage once produced. 
, i 
Every language contains within itself the evidence of its own imme¬ 
diate origin and progress; and it can hardly admit of a doubt that 
when the same minute, patient and reflective observation and analysis 
that have constructed a science such as chemistry, botany or zoology, 
are applied by numerous labourers, as they already are by a few, 
to language, the power of reading that evidence will be acquired. 
A comparison of usages and habits may often throw light on eth¬ 
nological questions even when the affinities of language are wanting, 
and where these exist, may eoinc in to fill up those blanks which 
their deficiencies have left. Habits and customs are sometimes 
more deeply rooted than language, and survive unimpaired many 
changes in it; although the reverse also happens. They are more 
immediately connected with the mind and less subject to physical ac¬ 
cident; while, on the other hand, they are more easily changed thro’ 
foreign influences, or the self-agency of the race. If a number of 
families of the same uncivilized nomadic race were scattered about, 
in distant localities, in a region similar in its general physical geogra¬ 
phy, they would perhaps retain their original unity of customs longer 
than their original unity of language. Ilut there are such remarka¬ 
ble instances of persistency both in language and in customs that we 
can hardly yet form any opinion on this point. Races, the character 
of which has once been formed, and which remain in a torpid mental 
condition, may change both in language and customs without under¬ 
going much or any radical transformation. But while isolation and 
dispersion would give free scope to the operation of those organic 
causes which produce differences in pronunciation «Kc. and mental 
torpidity would disable the race from resisting their influence, 
the same torpidity would cause an adherence to customs independent 
of organic influences. If such a race, in possession of some simple 
arts and customs, such as the mode of procuring fire by the friction 
of one slick worked rapidly up and down in a hole made through 
another, the use of the siimpitan, and some practice connected With 
religion— such as circumcision, filing the teeth, or making large opening 
in the ears,—gave off families who were scattered through wide forests, 
n 
