Part 15

It is clear that such forms, when submitted to arrangement and classification, will not come out in any definite and wellmarked groups, like the groups that constitute what is currently called species. On the contrary, they will run into each other, with equivocal points of contact, and indistinct lines of demarcation; so that discrimination will be difficult, if not impracticable. If practicable, however, it will be effected by having recourse to certain typical forms, around which such as approximate most closely can most accurately and conveniently be grouped. When this is done, the more distant outliers will be distributed over the debateable ground of an equivocal frontier. To recapitulate: varieties as opposed to species imply transitional forms, whilst transitional forms preclude definite lines of demarcation.

Yet what is the actual classification of the varieties of mankind, and what is the current nomenclature? To say the least, it is very like that of the species of a genus. Blumenbach's Mongolians, Blumenbach's Caucasians, Blumenbach's Æthiopians,--where do we find the patent evidence that these are the names of varieties rather than species? Nowhere. The practical proof of a clear consciousness on the part of a writer that he is classifying _varieties_ rather than _species_, is the care he takes to guard his reader against mistaking the one for the other, and the attention he bestows on the transition from one type to another. Who has ever spent much ethnology on this? So far from learned men having done so, they have introduced a new and lax term--_race_. This means something which is neither a variety nor yet a species--a _tertium quid_. In what way it differs from the other denomination has yet to be shown.

Now if it be believed (and this belief is assumed) that the varieties of mankind are _varieties of a species_ only, and if it cannot be denied that the nomenclature and classification of ethnologists is the nomenclature and classification of men investigating the _species of a genus_, what is to be done? Are species to be admitted, or is the nomenclature to be abandoned? The present remarks are made with the view of showing that the adoption of either alternative would be inconsiderate, and that the existing nomenclature, even when founded upon the assumption of broad and trenchant lines of demarcation between varieties which (_ex vi termini_) ought to graduate into each other, is far from being indefensible.

Man conquers man, and occupant displaces occupant on the earth's surface. By this means forms and varieties which once existed become extinct. The more this extinction takes place, the greater is the obliteration of those transitional and intermediate forms which connect extreme types; and the greater this obliteration, the stronger the lines of demarcation between geographically contiguous families. Hence a variational modification of a group of individuals simulates a difference of species; forms which were once wide apart being brought into juxtaposition by means of the annihilation of the intervening transitions. Hence what we of the nineteenth century,--ethnologists, politicians, naturalists, and the like--behold in the way of groups, classes, tribes, families, or what not, is beholden to a great extent under the guise of _species_; although it may not be so in reality, and although it might not have been so had we been witnesses to that earlier condition of things when one variety graduated into another and the integrity of the chain of likeness was intact. This explains the term _subjectivity_. A group is sharply defined simply because we know it in its state of definitude; a state of definitude which has been brought about by the displacement and obliteration of transitional forms.

The geographical distribution of the different ethnological divisions supplies a full and sufficient confirmation of this view. I say "full and sufficient," because it cannot be said that _all_ our groups are subjective, _all_ brought about by displacement and obliteration. Some are due to simple isolation; and this is the reason why the question was simplified by the omission of all the _insular_ populations. As a general rule, however, the _more definite the class, the greater the displacement_; displacement which we sometimes know to have taken place on historical evidence, and displacement which we sometimes have to infer. In thus inferring it, the language is the chief test. The greater the area over which it is spoken with but little or no variation of dialect, the more recent the extension of the population that speaks it. Such, at least, is the _primâ facie_ view.

A brief sketch of the chief details that thus verify the position of the text is all that can now be given.

1. The populations of South-eastern Asia, Mongol in physiognomy and monosyllabic in speech, have always been considered to form a large and natural, though not always a primary, group. Two-thirds of its area, and the whole of its frontier north of the Himalayas, is formed by the Chinese and Tibetans alone. These differ considerably from each other, but more from the Turks, Mongols, and Tongusians around. In the mountainous parts of the Assam frontier and the Burmese empire, each valley has its separate dialect. Yet these graduate into each other.

2. Central Asia and Siberia are occupied by four great groups, the populations allied to the Turk, the populations allied to the Mongol, the populations allied to the Mantshu, and the populations allied to the Finns. These are pretty definitely distinguished from each other, as well as from the Chinese and Tibetans. They cover a vast area, an area, which, either from history or inference, we are certain is far wider at present than it was originally. They have encroached on each and all of the populations around, till they meet with families equally encroaching in the direction of China and Tibet. This it is that makes the families which are called _Turanian_ and _Monosyllabic_ natural groups. They are cut off, more or less, from each other and from other populations by the displacement of groups originally more or less transitional. The typical populations of the centre spread themselves at the expense of the sub-typicals of the periphery until the extremes meet.

3. The circumpolar populations supply similar illustrations. Beginning with Scandinavia, the Lap stands in remarkable contrast with the Norwegian of Norway, and the Swede of Sweden. Why is this? Because the Northman represents a population originally German,--a population which, however much it may have graduated into the type of the most southern congeners of the Lap, is now brought into contact with a very different member of that stock.

4. This phænomenon repeats itself in the arctic portions of America, where the Algonkin and Loucheux Indians (Indians of the true American type) come in geographical contact, and in physiological contrast, with the Eskimo. Consequently along the Loucheux and Algonkin frontiers the line of demarcation between the Eskimo and the Red Indian (currently so-called) is abrupt and trenchant. Elsewhere, as along the coast of the Pacific, the two classes of population graduate into each other.

5. The African family is eminently isolated. It is, however, just along the point of contact between Africa and Asia that the displacements have been at a _maximum_. The three vast families of the Berbers, the Arabs and the Persians, cannot but have obliterated something (perhaps _much_) in the way of transition.

6. The Bushmen and Hottentots are other instances of extreme contrast, _i. e._ when compared with the Amakosah Caffres. Yet the contrast is only at its height in those parts where the proof of Caffre encroachment is clearest. In the parts east of Wallfisch Bay--traversed by Mr. Galton--the lines of difference are much less striking.

Such are some of the instances that illustrate what may be called the "subjectivity of ethnological groups,"--a term which greatly helps to reconcile two apparently conflicting habits, viz. that of thinking with the advocates of the unity of the human species, and employing the nomenclature of their opponents.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF PHILOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION AND THE VALUE OF GROUPS,

WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THE LANGUAGES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN CLASS.

READ BEFORE THE ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY, 28TH FEBRUARY 1849.

In respect to the languages of the Indo-European class, it is considered that the most important questions connected with their systematic arrangement, and viewed with reference to the extent to which they engage the attention of the present writers of philology, are the three following:--

1. _The question of the Fundamental Elements of certain Languages._--The particular example of an investigation of this kind is to be found in the discussion concerning the extent to which it is a language akin to the Sanskrit, or a language akin to the Tamul, which forms the basis of certain dialects of _middle_ and even _northern_ India. In this is involved the question as to the relative value of grammatical and glossarial coincidences.

2. _The question of the Independent or Subordinate Character of certain Groups._--Under this head comes the investigation, as to whether the Slavonic and Lithuanic tongues form separate groups, in the way that the Slavonic and Gothic tongues form separate groups, or whether they are each members of some higher group. The same inquiry applies to the languages (real or supposed) derived from the Zend, and the languages (real or supposed) derived from the Sanskrit.

3. _The question of Extension and Addition._--It is to this that the forthcoming observations are limited.

Taking as the centre of a group, those forms of speech which have been recognised as Indo-European (or Indo-Germanic), from the first recognition of the group itself, we find the languages derived from the ancient Sanskrit, the languages derived from the ancient Persian, the languages of Greece and Rome, the Slavonic and Lithuanic languages, and the languages of the Gothic stock; Scandinavian, as well as Germanic. The affinity between any two of these groups has currently been considered to represent the affinity between them all at large.

The way in which the class under which these divisions were contained, as subordinate groups, has received either _addition_ or _extension_, is a point of philological history, which can only be briefly noticed; previous to which a difference of meaning between the words _addition_ and _extension_ should be explained.

To draw an illustration from the common ties of relationship, as between man and man, it is clear that a family may be enlarged in two ways.

_a._ A brother, or a cousin, may be discovered, of which the existence was previously unknown. Herein the family is enlarged, or increased, by the _real_ addition of a new member, in a recognised degree of relationship.

_b._ A degree of relationship previously unrecognised may be recognised, _i. e._, a family wherein it was previously considered that a second-cousinship was as much as could be admitted within its pale, may incorporate third, fourth, or fifth cousins. Here the family is enlarged, or increased, by a _verbal_ extension of the term.

Now it is believed that the distinction between increase by the way of real addition, and increase by the way of verbal extension, has not been sufficiently attended to. Yet, that it should be more closely attended to, is evident; since, in mistaking a verbal increase for a real one, the whole end and aim of classification is overlooked.

I. _The Celtic._--The publication of Dr. Prichard's Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations, in 1831, supplied philologists with the most definite addition that has, perhaps, yet been made to ethnographical philology.

Ever since then, the Celtic has been considered to be Indo-European. Indeed its position in the same group with the Iranian, Classical, Slavono-Lithuanic, and Gothic tongues, supplied the reason for substituting the term Indo-_European_ for the previous one Indo-_Germanic_.

2. Since the fixation of the Celtic, it has been considered that the Armenian is Indo-European. Perhaps the wellknown affinity between the Armenian and Phrygian languages directed philologists to a comparison between the Armenian and Greek. Müller, in his Dorians, points out the inflexion of the Armenian verb-substantive.

3. Since the fixation of the Celtic, it has been considered that the old Etruscan is Indo-European.

4. Since the fixation of the Celtic, it has been considered that the Albanian is Indo-European.

5. Since the fixation of the Celtic, Indo-European elements have been indicated in the Malay.

6. Since the fixation of the Celtic, Indo-European elements have been indicated in the Laplandic.

7. Since the fixation of the Celtic, it has been considered that the Ossetic is Indo-European.

8. Since the consideration of the Ossetic as Indo-European, the Georgian has been considered as Indo-European likewise.

Now the criticism of the theory which makes the Georgian to be Indo-European, is closely connected with the criticism of the theory which makes the Ossetic and the Malay to be Polynesian; and this the writer reserves for a separate paper. All that he does at present is to express his opinion, that if any of the seven last-named languages are Indo-European, they are Indo-European not by real addition, in the way of recognised relationship, but by a verbal extension of the power of the term Indo-European. He also believes that this is the view which is taken, more or less consciously or unconsciously, by the different authors of the different classifications themselves. If he be wrong in this notion, he is at issue with them as to a matter of fact; since, admitting _some_ affinity on the part of the languages in question, he denies that it is that affinity which connects the Greek and German, the Latin and Lithuanian.

On the other hand, if he rightly imagine that they are considered as Indo-European on the strength of some other affinity, wider and more distant than that which connects the Greek with the German, or the Latin with the Lithuanic, he regrets that such an extension of a term should have been made without an exposition of the principles that suggested it, or the facts by which it is supported; principles and facts which, when examined by himself, have convinced him that most of the later movements in this department of ethnographical philology, have been movements in the wrong direction.

There are two principles upon which languages may be classified.

According to the first, we take two or more languages as we find them, ascertain certain of their characteristics, and then inquire how far these characteristics coincide.

Two or more languages thus taken agree in having a large per-centage of words in common, or a large per-centage of grammatical inflexions; in which case they would agree in certain _positive_ characters. On the other hand, two or more such languages agree in the _negative_ fact of having a small and scanty vocabulary, and an inflexional system equally limited; whilst, again, the scantiness of inflexion may arise from one of two causes. It may arise from the fact of inflexions having never been developed at all, or it may arise from inflexions having been lost subsequent to a full development of the same. In all such cases as these, the principle of classification would be founded upon the extent to which languages agreed or differed in certain external characteristics; and it would be the principle upon which the mineralogist classifies minerals. It is not worth while to recommend the adoption of the particular term _mineralogical_, although mineralogy is the science that best illustrates the distinction. It is sufficient to state, that in the principle here indicated, there is no notion of _descent_.

It is well known that in ethnographical philology (indeed in ethnology at large) the mineralogical principle is not recognised; and that the principle that _is_ recognised is what may be called the _historical_ principle. Languages are arranged in the same class, not because they agree in having a copious grammar or scanty grammar, but because they are descended (or are supposed to be descended) from some common stock; whilst similarity of grammatical structure, and glossarial identity are recognised as elements of classification only so far as they are _evidence_ of such community of origin. Just as two brothers will always be two brothers, notwithstanding differences of stature, feature, and disposition, so will two languages which have parted from the common stock within the same decennium, be more closely allied to each other, at any time and at all times, than two languages separated within the same century; and two languages separated within the same century, will always be more cognate than two within the same millennium. This will be the case irrespective of any amount of subsequent similarity or dissimilarity.

Indeed, for the purposes of ethnology, the phenomena of subsequent similarity or dissimilarity are of subordinate importance. Why they are so, is involved in the question as to the rate of change in language. Of two tongues separated at the same time from a common stock, one may change rapidly, the other slowly; and, hence, a dissimilar physiognomy at the end of a given period. If the English of Australia were to change rapidly in one direction, and the English of America in another, great as would be the difference resulting from such changes, their ethnological relation would be the same. They would still have the same affiliation with the same mother-tongue, dating from nearly the same epoch.

In ethnological philology, as in natural history, _descent_ is the paramount fact; and without asking how far the value thus given to it is liable to be refined on, we leave it, in each science, as we find it, until some future investigator shall have shewn that either for a pair of animals _not_ descended from a common stock, or for a pair of languages _not_ originating from the same mother-tongue, a greater number of general propositions can be predicated than is the case with the two most dissimilar instances of either an animal or a language derived from a common origin.

_Languages are allied just in proportion as they were separated from the same language at the same epoch._

_The same epoch._--The word _epoch_ is an equivocal word, and it is used designedly because it is so. Its two meanings require to be indicated, and, then, it will be necessary to ask which of them is to be adopted here.

The _epoch_, as a period in the duration of a language, may be simply _chronological_, or it may be _philological_, properly so called.

The space of ten, twenty, a hundred, or a thousand years, is a strictly chronological epoch. The first fifty years after the Norman conquest is an epoch in the history of the English language; so is the reign of Henry the Third, or the Protectorship of Oliver Cromwell. A definite period of this sort is an epoch in language, just as the term of twenty or thirty years is an epoch in the life of a man.

On the other hand, a period that, chronologically speaking, is indefinite, may be an epoch. The interval between one change and an other, whether long or short, is an epoch. The duration of English like the English of Chaucer, is an epoch in the history of the English language; and so is the duration of English like the English of the Bible translation. For such epochs there are no fixed periods. With a language that changes rapidly they are short; with a language that changes slowly they are long.

Now, in which of these two meanings should the word be used in ethnographical philology? The answer to the question is supplied by the circumstances of the case, rather than by any abstract propriety. We cannot give it the first meaning, even if we wish to do so. To say in what year of the duration of a common mother-tongue the Greek separated from the stock that was common to it and to the Latin is an impossibility; indeed, if it could be answered at once, it would be a question of simple history, not an inference from ethnology: since ethnology, with its palæontological reasoning from effect to cause, speaks only where history, with its direct testimony, is silent.

We cannot, then, in ethnological reasoning, get at the precise year in which any one or two languages separated from a common stock, so as to say that _this separated so long before the other_.

The _order_, however, of separation we _can_ get at; since we can _infer_ it from the condition of the mother-tongue at the time of such separation; this condition being denoted by the condition of the derived language.

Hence the philological epoch is an approximation to the chronological epoch, and as it is the nearest approximation that can possibly be attained, it is practically identical with it, so that the enunciation of the principle at which we wish to arrive may change its wording, and now stand as follows,--_Languages are allied, just in proportion as they were separated from the same language in the same stage_.

Now, if there be a certain number of well-marked forms (say _three_) of development, and if the one of these coincide with an early period in the history of language, another with a later one, and the third with a period later still, we have three epochs wherein we may fix the date of the separation of the different languages from their different parent-stocks; and these epochs are natural, just in proportion as the forms that characterise them are natural.

Again, if each epoch fall into minor and subordinate periods, characterised by the changes and modifications of the then generally characteristic forms, we have the basis for subordinate groups and a more minute classification.

It is not saying too much to say that all this is no hypothesis, but a reality. There _are_ real distinctions of characteristic forms corresponding with real stages of development; and the number of these is three; besides which, one, at least, of the three great stages falls into divisions and subdivisions.

1. The stage anterior to the evolution of inflexion.--Here each word has but one form, and relation is expressed by mere juxtaposition, with or without the superaddition of a change of accent. The tendencies of this stage are to combine words in the way of composition, but not to go further. Every word retains, throughout, its separate substantive character, and has a meaning independent of its juxtaposition with the words with which it combines.

2. The stage wherein inflexions are developed.--Here, words originally separate, and afterwards placed in juxtaposition with others, as elements of a compound term, so far change in form, or so far lose their separate signification, as to pass for adjuncts, either prefixed or postfixed to the main word. What was once a word is now the part of a word, and what was once Composition is now Derivation, certain sorts of Derivation being called Inflexions, and certain Inflexions being called Declensions or Conjugations, as the case may be.

3. The stage wherein inflexions become lost, and are replaced by separate words.--Here case-endings, like the _i_ in _patr-i_, are replaced by prepositions (in some cases by postpositions), like the _to_ in _to father_; and personal endings, like the _o_ in _voc-o_, are replaced by pronouns, like the _I_ in _I call_.

Of the _first_ of these stages, the Chinese is the language which affords the most typical specimen that can be found in the present _late_ date of languages--_late_, considering that we are looking for a sample of its earliest forms.