ON ETHNOLOGY. 
269 
lo us by thft Egyptian, and the most ancient form of the already indi¬ 
vidualized Semitic. But even the language of the primitive empire of 
Babylon must have inclined to the Semitic idiom. As to that of Bactria, if 
its list of kings, preserved by the Armenian Eusebius, deserves, as I believe 
it does, serious consideration, all its traditions were in decidedly Iranian 
tongues. As the one may therefore be called the mother of Hebrew, the 
other must have been t il her the mother of Zend and Us colonial scion, Sans¬ 
krit, or the most ancient form of that very laiigaage. 
The neighbouring metropolis of Assyria, Nineveh, belongs, as its name 
proves, to the historical age; for admitting that Nitius, according lo all credible 
sccoonts of the historians, cannot l>e placed higher than the thirteenth century 
before our era, the restored chronology and the history of Egypt afford us 
a itew proof of this fact. Geographically it must appear highly probable 
that the Assyrians, tbe men of Old Kurdistan, having Nineveh as their later 
southern metropolis, spoke a Semitic language: even the apparent affinity of 
the names of Assyria and .Syria seems to lead to this assumption. But it must 
be candidly confessed, that hitherto we have no positive proof nf it. Assyria, 
as regards its most essential and primitive region, is represented by modern 
Kurdistan: and tbe Kurds speak an Inanmn language. §o do the Armenians, 
their northern neighbours, whose historical traditions roach very far back, 
lodeed there is no proof of a Semitic language on the left bank of the 
Tigris. But on the other side, the cuneiform alphabet, the characters of 
which are called by the ancients Assyrian, is undoubtedly not constructed for 
an Iranian language- Moreover, Assur is in the Mosaic table of Semitic 
ongio, posterior to the Babylonian empire; and Assur seems lo point to 
Assyria. 
In the second act of the modem history of mankind, we find, on the 
Japhetic side, the principal parts of civilization cntrustetl to the Hellenic 
and Italic nations; the Jews again, with the Carthagiuiuns, representing the 
Semitic on the other. Finally, in the third act, now still on the scene of 
the world, we have as the leaders, the Scandinavian, tlu; Germanic, and the 
Slavonic nations: but here also a powerful admixture of the Semitic ele- 
ineot is not wanting. There is, nationally, the conquering Arab, who with his 
sword and his Islam once penetrated even into Europe. Tiiere is, individu¬ 
ally, tlie Jew, standing without a country and temple, bctwemi the past and the 
future, and meanwhile living as a cosmopolite among the children of that Ja- 
phot, who was destined “ to live In the tents of Shem,” and whose children, at 
the dawn of history, drove him out of his primitive scats, and finally destroyed 
bis city, and that temple, upon the ruins of which the Christian church was 
built, to spread all over the earth. Now what is tbe remaining history of 
the world, but an account of incursions and devastations, with the names of 
disturbing tribes, savage conquerors, and a few isolated sages? Egypt» in 
^ite of uceasional couquests uud a continued but mummified civilization, 
is in this historical age only reraarkabh’ as having nursed the great legis¬ 
lator of the Jews, and given him oceusion to found the first religion, based 
upon our moral consciousness, emancipated from the bondage of the ele¬ 
ments, and striving after liberty through the law of conscience. That whole 
age is the agony of Cham. If we compare the relative position of the two 
families in those three periods, wt- observe an increasing extent and power of 
the Japhetic element, destined to rule the world in a number of successive 
nations. Of the two first known empires nf the world, the more powerful and 
influential seems to have been that which, if it did not speak the most ancient 
form of Hebrew, certainly must be considered as the representative of Shem. 
Sliein appears in bis own annals ns one who had left his native land, and in 
