Indigenous Races of the Earth

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422 THE MONOGENISTS AND tongue, in tho island of Java;" 43 elsewhere cited in Oosmos. One of these passages is noteworthy, not only for the law it enunciates, but also for the variety of rendering it has received: O•mMAN OnrorN.AI.. 44-" Die Sprache umschlingt mohr, ala sonst ctwns im Mensch on, das ganzo Oosohlocbt. Gomde in ihrer volkortronnondon Eigensolmft vorcinigt sio duroh dna Wcohaclver~tiinduiaz fromd~trliger· Redo dio Verscbiodenhoit dor lndividuulimten, ohne ihrer Eigenlbilmliohkoil Eintrng zu rhun. (A. 11 0. S. 427.)" SAnrNII's TrtANSLA'rtON.'~-" J.angu~tge, more than any other faculty, binds mankind together. Diversities of idiom produce, indood, to a certain oxtont, sepal'ation between nations; but tho necessity of mutual understanding occasions tbo acquirement of foreign langu!Lges, nnd reunites men without destroying national peculiarity." O·rT!i's TRANBtATION.'O-" L11ngungo, more than any other attribute of mankind, binds together tho wbolo bmrmn rnco. Uy its idiomatic properties, it oortninly seems to sepamte natio!lB; but tho reoiprocnl undorstnnding of foreign lnngunges connoots men together, on the other hand, without injur·ing individunl nr\tional cbSLrnctoristios." GuJONJAU1''8 TllANSLATION.'7-" Lo lnng11go, plus qu'nucuno autre fncult6 do l'bomme, forme un fniscoau uo l'ospcce humaino tout ont.ibro. Il semble, au premier abord, s6paror los pouplo8 oommc los idiom OR; mn.is o'ost jnatomcnt la nocossil6 do s'ontondro r6ciproquo­mont 1lans uno langue 6tmngcre qui rnpprocho los individualit6s, on laissant u chacuno son originalit6 pro pro." That the organs of speech enable mankind to interchange their thonO'hts, is one of those truisms to question which would bo absurd. Spoecl1 is nn inherent attribute of the" genus homo;" just as mewing is to the feline, and badcing to the canine : but it docs not follow that, because n Lapp might by some chance acqnil'e Gua1·ani, a 'rasmanian English, an Arab ](or-ean, a Mandingo MadJar, an E~'~qui­mau 'l'amul, or, what is more possible, that a thorough-bred Israeli­t. ish omigran~ fr·om ancient Chaldoa (h.is own national tongue being· 10J·gotton) m1ght now bo fotmd spoakmg any ono of these tonO'uos as his own vernacular,-it docs not follow, I repeat, either ~hat hum~nity is indivisible into gt·onps of men linguistically, as well as phys10ally and gooO'raphically, distinct in origin; or that Wilhelm von Humboldt thought so: any more than because "felis catus Angorensis" of Tm·HI'!b Angora "mows" like "felis b1·evicaudata" of Japanese Nippon, and both these animals like "felif! domestica ccerulia" of iberian 'J'obolsk,48 that these throe cats aro necessarily 43 Ueber die Kawi-Sproclu auf der ltl8el Java, Dorlin, 4to, 1886. Cardinal Wrst~MAN fre-quently quotes it oulogisticr~lly in his Oonnectio11 between Science a11d revealed Religion. 44 Op. cit. (6upra, p. 407), p. 403. 4 ~ Sttpra (note 10)-0o6mo8, I, p. oxv, note 448. 66 Supra (note 6)-0osmo8, l, p. 860, note. 47 Supra (note 1 )-0oMI081 I, pp. 670-80, note 411. ."'Not being m~self n zoologist, it may bowen to shield nasortiona, on this cat-question, w1th t?o tmlhol'lty of ono who is. Pno~·. S. S. lL1Lo•1~!AN remarks: "Tlrus tho cnt mummrcs of Egyp~ ';oro sni.d to be idcnticnl with tho modern Felis domostioo.; 'nnd such was tho gonoral. op1~ron, untrl ~he diHcovery, of Dr. Rilppoll, of tho gonuino annlogno of tho embalmed spe01os, m tho Folrs maniculLLta of Noubia. 1 bolievo l>rofoasor Don to bo TilE POLYGENIS1'S. 423 of tho same blood lineage, identical species, or proximate geogra­phical origin: notwithstanding that, amongsL other "philosop1tical aphorisms," Bunsen-with whom philology and ethnology arc syno­nymes tht·ough which we shall r cover, some day, the one primeval language Bpoken by tho fi.rt!t pail', who arc now accounted to be "beatorum in crolis"-doclares, "that physiologi ·al inquiry [one, as wo all know, completely out!;ido of the ran go of his high ou ucalion and va.l'ious studies], although it can JlOVOI' at'l'ive by itself at any conclusive result, still decidedly inclines, on tho whole, towards tl:c theory of tho unity of the hL1man race." ! '~ I have no hopes, w view of his early education and present time of life, that tho accom­plished Chevalier will evot· modify such orthodox opinion; but readers of tho present volume may perhaps discover some roasous for dif:tcring from it. But, oven under tho supposition that Wilhelm von IIumboldt, in his now-past generation, when writing "on the ])ive1·sity of Lan­guaO'os and Peoples," may have spooulatocl upon tho possibility .of reducinO' both inLo one original stock, it will remain equally col'tmn, that iu such assumed conclusion, he was bin. sed by no dogmatical rospe' t for ' . d MYTHS, l!'IC'l'ION, Or J>RETJ.<:NDJW 'l'ltADl'l'ION (ubz supra) i an furthcrmOI'O that, if ho gl'oundod his results on tho "ll.awi Spmeho," he inadvertently built UI on a quicksand; as subsequent rosoaJ·chos have cst.:.tblit!hed. Amongst scionLiftc travellers and enlightened 01'ientalists of Eng­land, the vcn rablo author of tho "History of tho Indian Ar ·lripe­lago" has long stood in the foremost ra11k. l~is speciulity of invos~ tigation occupied-" a period of more than forty !oars, tw lvo oi which wore I assod in countries of which the Malay 1s tho vernacular or tllo popular language, and ten in tho compilation of materials;"­of which a rocent 60 ''Dissertation" embodi s not merely tb pro­cious oLhnographical i suo; but, tltrongh his method of analyHis and depth of logic, superadded to vast practical l now ledge of his Lhomo -combined with sterling common sons , its author has produced what, in my individual opinion, must become tho model text-book, col'l'ect in dooi<ling Urn.t Polis dornosticr.L cnn neither bo roforrc(l to this species, nor to tho Felis 011tus found wild in tho J'or·osts of Europe." (Recent Preahwater fifollusca, which are common to North America and IJJurope, Boston Jour. of Nnt. Hist., .Tan. 1844, PP· 6-7.) 4D Outlines (~uprn, p. 102), 1, p. 46. "Multoo torriooli~ linguoo, cocloslibus unr1," i~ another wny of stnting such axiom. How did this last writer know tlutt people do tr\l.k one lnnguago in !Jcavon? Cnn ho show 11~ whether tho "dcnd" l111vo sp~oolr nt all? Durrng some gonc­rntions, tho Sorbonno, nt Pnr·is, discussed, in schoolboys' themes, a coherent onigm11, viz., An 8011cti rwtrgant crm1 intmini8-not n less diflicult problem for such youths' podfLgoguosl 60 A Grammar and Dictio11ary of the ,)[a lay Lan,rpwge, tvith a preliminarrJ Di18ertalion; 2 vole. 8vo., London, 1852. Our citl'tions are from 1. pp. 85-6, 128-0.