reject the images of stone and wood and proclaim that God is one,
overawed in its later expressions the whole of the white race, and now
extends its sway to the farthest seas.
Though the Aryan to-day may dislike the Semite and doubt of the God
whom he preached, let him not forget that the first vivid impression
of such a great idea came from the Semitic stock. If in his marts,
his diplomacy and his learned professions, he finds the Semites still
pressing him aside, let him remember that this is the people whose
destiny seems to be to own no country, but to rule all.
_2. The Abyssinian Group_
Of tribes is evidently descended from fugitives from the Arabian
peninsula. The Ethiopians, or Geez (a word meaning emigrants), speak
a dialect the nearest related to the Himyaritic of the inscriptions.
It has a literature and an ancient alphabet of its own. The Tigre,
the Massawa, the Amhara, and, further to the south, the Harrari, are
Semitic dialects, more or less akin to the Ethiopic.
The period when this migration took place is not precisely known, but
it was at a calculable period before the beginning of our era. Quite
likely it was about the time of the dissolution of the Joktanide
monarchy in the Hadramaut. There can be no question but that the course
of migration at this point was from Arabia into Africa.
The Tigre is the predominant nation of North Abyssinia, the Amhara in
the south of that region. The Harrari extends into the land of the
Somalis. All these are of Himyaritic descent, but near them are a
number of later Arab tribes who speak dialects of the modern Arabic.
These are the Jalin about Khartoum, and others near Senaar and Baqqara,
west of the Nile. There are also many Jews, who have inhabited the
country from the early centuries of our era.
An infusion of negro blood is visible in much of the population. Their
color is dark brown, the hair is crisp, and the features are negroid.
Where this mingling is absent, the color is a light or bright brown,
the face oval, the nose thin, lips not at all thick, and the hair wavy
and straight. In other words, the features are truly European, framed
in a brown setting.
The Abyssinians proper have always been an agricultural, pastoral and
manufacturing people. The soil is fertile and the climate temperate,
but there are no large rivers, and communication is difficult. The
crops are barley, dates, millet, sugar-cane, etc. Formerly the country
was under one ruler, who was called the Grand Negus. The late “Negus,”
Theodoras, could put in the field over fifty thousand fighting men,
and made himself so obnoxious to Europeans that the English sent an
expedition against him in 1868, and he perished under the ruins of his
capital, Magdala.
From the fourth century the principal religion in Abyssinia has been
Christianity, but in a corrupt form, mixed with the ancient heathen
observances, such as ceremonies at the rise of certain stars, and
veneration of holy stones and springs. The clergy are numerous,
estimated at about 72,000, and exert a leading influence in the state.
There are many monks and nuns living in cloisters, and possessing
extensive holdings. The church service is conducted with an effort
at pomp, and there is a considerable sacred literature, of very
little value. The influence of the religious teaching on the people
is scarcely visible except in making them fanatical, superstitious
and averse to enlightenment. Abyssinia thus presents the picture of
a country which for more than 1500 years has been a Christian state,
and where Christianity has wholly failed to render the people moral,
intelligent or pure.
_3. The Chaldean Group._
The third group of the Semites was the Chaldean, including the Syrians
and Arameans, the later Assyrians and Babylonians, the Israelites,
Samaritans and Jews. All these were from early times deeply tinged
with other blood. The Syrians and Chaldeans removed first from the
Arabian peninsula, and their dialects depart the furthest from the
pure stock. Abraham, the traditional ancestor of the Israelites, left
northeastern Arabia for Mesopotamia about 2000 B. C., to dwell in “Ur
of the Chaldees,” a city near the mouth of the Euphrates. Already the
Chaldees had secured from the older Hamitic settlers a portion of
Mesopotamia, and gradually extended their conquests.
Many of the Syrians united with the Hamitic residents on the coast,
so that the Phœnicians became largely Semitized. All these nations
were in constant intercourse with the highly developed civilization of
Egypt, as is shown by the Mosaic books, and from that source derived
most of the germs of their intellectual growth. In spite of their love
of travel and commerce, in spite of their dispersion over the earth,
this group has retained a striking individuality. Many ethnographers
charge it against the Jews that the presence of blondes among them, and
of brachycephalic heads, proves a crossing of the blood. This is not
the case. The Semitic stock is a markedly white type of the race, and
in all ages fair complexion, light eyes and hair, have been admired
as especially beautiful. This is repeatedly referred to in the Hebrew
Scriptures, and is shown by observation among these people at the
present day.[84]
The physical type of the Jew is well known and unmistakable; wavy
hair, dark or blonde, full beard, eyes soft, nose prominent, rather
heavy, with an accentuated and peculiar outline, lips full, face oval,
skull medium or long. Nor are his mental traits less familiar; a
pliant, supple disposition, a distaste for physical labor or the toil
of the pioneer or soldier; deficiency in personal courage; subtlety
in monetary transactions; quickness in applying social or individual
weaknesses to his own benefit; industry in intellectual pursuits; love
of display and of position; strong devotion to family ties.
This is the Jew as we know him in the tussle of modern life, a
character prominent in all European and American cities, without a
nationality, in conflict with the prevailing religion, suspected and
disliked, but wielding an influence out of all proportion to the
numerical strength of his people. It may be regarded as continuing in
his person that remarkable intellectual superiority which the South
Mediterranean Branch of the white race has from the earliest time
exerted on the history of man.
_Scheme of the Eurafrican Race.--North Mediterranean Branch._
(Tribes in _italics_ are extinct.)
I. Euscaric Stock. 1. Euscaric group. {Euscaldonac, Basques, _Sards_, _Siculi_, _Aquitanians_,
{ _Picts_ (?), _Ligurians_ (?), _Cantabrians_.
{_Gauls_, Highland Scotch, Irish, Welsh, Manx,
{1. Celtic group. { Bretons, _Celtiberians_, _Cymri_.
{ {_Latins_, _Umbrians_, _Oscans_, _Sabines_, Italians, French,
{2. Italic group. { Spanish, Portuguese, Roumanians, Wallachians.
{3. Illyric group. ._Illyrians_, Albanians, _Thracians_,_Japyges_ (?).
{4. Hellenic group. ._Pelasgi_, _Phrygians_, _Lydians_, _Macedonians_, Greeks.
II. Aryac Stock. {5. Lettic group. .Letts, Lithuanians, _Old Prussians_.
{6. Teutonic {_Goths_, _Vandals_, _Franks_, _Angles_, _Saxons_, _Suevi_,
{ group. { Scandinavians, Germans, Danes, Dutch, English, Anglo-Americans.
{7. Slavonic {Russians, Poles, Czechs, Servians, Croatians,
{ group. { Wends, Bulgarians, Montenegrins.
{8. Indo-Eranic {Armenians, Persians, _Bactrians_, Hindoos,
{ group. { Kafirs, Dards, Beluchis, Hunzas, Gypsies.
{1. Lesghic group. .Avars, Laks, Udes, Kurins.
III. Caucasic {2. Circassic group. .Circassians, Abkhasians.
Stock. {3. Kistic group. .Tush, Karaboulaks.
{4. Georgic group. .Georgians, Mingrelians, Lazs.
LECTURE V.
THE EURAFRICAN RACE: NORTH MEDITERRANEAN BRANCH.
CONTENTS.--_B._--THE NORTH MEDITERRANEAN BRANCH.
I. THE EUSKARIC STOCK. Basques and their congeners. Physical type.
Language.
II. THE ARYAC STOCK. Synonyms. Origin of the Aryans.
Supposed Asiatic origin now doubted. The Aryac physical
type. The proto-Aryac language. Culture of proto-Aryans. The
“proto-Aryo-Semitic” tongue. Development of inflections.
Proto-Aryac migrations. Southern and northern streams. Approximate
dates. Scheme of Aryac migrations. Divisions. 1. The Celtic
Peoples. Members and location. Physical and mental traits. 2. The
Italic Peoples. Ancient and modern members. Physical traits. The
modern Romance nations. Mental traits. 3. The Illyric Peoples.
Members and physical traits. 4. The Hellenic Peoples. Ancient
and modern Greeks. Physical type. Influence of Greek culture. 5.
Lettic Peoples. Position and language. 6. The Teutonic Peoples.
Ancient and modern members. Mental character. Recent progress. 7.
The Slavonic Peoples. Ancient and modern Members. Physical traits.
Recent expansion. Character. Relations to Asiatic Aryans. 8. The
Indo-Eranic Peoples. Arrival in Asia. Location. Members. Indian
Aryans. Appearance. Mental aptitude.
III. THE CAUCASIC STOCK. Its languages. Various groups and members.
Physical types. Error of supposing that the white race came from
the Caucasus.
In my previous lectures I have shown with as much detail as my time
permits, that the original home of the white race was in that portion
of the Atlantic seaboard which I have called _Eurafrica_, and which
includes the present areas of northwestern Africa and southwestern
Europe. From this region, I have pointed out, the race divided into two
branches, the one moving eastward, south of the Mediterranean sea, the
other in the same direction, north of this separating stream. To-day we
shall consider the ethnic history of the latter.
B. THE NORTH MEDITERRANEAN BRANCH.
Unlike the South Mediterranean Branch, whose languages present
everywhere some degree of resemblance, sufficient to predicate for them
a remote common origin, the North Mediterranean Branch includes several
stocks fundamentally diverse. They are the Euskaric, the Aryac, and the
Caucasic stocks. The second of these is by far the most extended and
important; but, as I have previously observed, it does not bear the
impress of the highest antiquity, nor yet is its location that where
we should look for the most ancient members of this branch. Both these
conditions are fulfilled by
_1. The Euskaric Stock._
At present this contains but one group, the Basques, residing in the
valleys of the Pyrenees, on both the Spanish and French frontiers.
There is little doubt from the linguistic studies of Humboldt and
from the researches of archæologists that the Basques once extended
widely throughout the present area of Spain and Portugal; but I am
not inclined to identify them with the Iberians of the classical
geographers, for reasons given in my last lecture. There is a great
deal of evidence that in proto-historic times they occupied central and
southern France, portions of Italy, Corsica, Sardinia, perhaps Sicily,
and some southern tracts of England. Many believe that the ancient
Aquitanians and Ligurians, the Picts and Cantabrians, were of this
stock, as well as the pre-Aryac tribes of Greece.[85]
I described in my last lecture the Basques as representatives of one
of the dark types of the white race, with a peculiarly shaped skull,
elongated posteriorly.[86] The face is oval, the chin pointed and weak.
The general aspect indeed of a Basque cranium conveys the impression of
a feeble character, and such the history of the people shows them to
have been. They never contributed anything to the advance of the race,
and from their earliest appearance in history have been retiring before
the pressure of sturdier nationalities. At present they do not number
over three hundred thousand, and in a few generations will be merged in
the neighboring Spaniards and French.
The Basque language belongs to one of those primitive forms of human
speech such as we find among the Negroes of Central Africa, or the
savage tribes of Siberia. It is of that type called agglutinative and
polysynthetic, and in some points has the incorporative tendency of
American tongues. It is the speech of a people whose ideas remained
confined to objective material relations. According to the latest
students, it is absolutely without connection with any of the so-called
Turanian (Ural-Altaic) languages, and is equally remote from the
Hamitic group.[87]
I now turn to
_2. The Aryac Stock_
of peoples and languages. It is sometimes called the “Indo-European,”
or “Indo-Germanic,” or “Celt-Indic”[88] stock, and embraces the
principal historic nations of Europe, and in Asia the Armenians,
Persians and Hindostanees.
_Origin of the Aryans._--No ethnographic question of late years has led
to keener discussion than the origin and affinities of these peoples.
The theory derived from the Hebrew myth of the Deluge, that they
migrated into Europe from Asia, was long accepted without question,
and seemed to be strengthened by the discovery that Sanscrit, the
classical language of India, and Zend, the ancient tongue of Persia,
are related to Greek, Latin and German.
But reflection and extended observation led to other results. It was
perceived that the majority of the Aryac peoples had lived in Europe
from the remotest historic times, and only a small minority in Asia;
that some of the Aryac tongues of Europe retain more ancient forms
than either Sanscrit or Zend; that the oldest traditions point to
migrations from Europe into Asia, and not the reverse; that these
traditions are supported by the Indian Aryans, who distinctly claim
that their ancestors migrated from the north into India, and by the
Persians, whose sacred book, the Avesta, declares they were not the
original owners of Iran, and finally by an examination of the arts of
the pre-historic Europeans,[89] and an exhaustive analysis of the words
common to all the dialects of Aryac speech, which indicate that the
ancestral tribe must have lived in geographic surroundings not to be
found in the Aryac districts of Asia, but answering in all points to
the regions of central or western Europe.
I constantly see it stated in works on ethnology and linguistics that
the scientist who first advanced this opinion was the Englishman,
Dr. Robert G. Latham. Nothing is more erroneous. For a score of
years before he introduced it to the English public, this view had
been repeatedly and ably defended by the eminent Belgian naturalist,
d’Omalius d’Halloy. He lost no opportunity of showing that the
ancestors of the modern Europeans did not come from Asia, but belonged
originally to the continent they now inhabit.[90]
Since his first promulgation of this theory in 1839, the evidence in
its favor has been slowly but steadily accumulating, until now it
numbers among its adherents practically all the ethnologists of the
day who do not feel committed by their previous writings, or by their
creeds, to the Asian hypothesis. Among the English writers who have
recently treated the subject with marked ability and much more fullness
than is possible for me at present, I mention Canon Isaac Taylor and
Professor A. W. Sayce; in Germany, O. Schrader, Karl Penka, Theodor
Pösche, L. Geiger, and in France, M. de Lapouge, etc.
I shall not enter into a recital of these arguments, for I believe the
debate is so nearly terminated that the conclusion may be accepted that
the Aryac peoples originated in Western Europe and migrated easterly.
This you will observe is in accord with the general theory of the
origin and distribution of the white race which I laid before you, and
is a potent argument in its support.
_The Aryac Physical Type._--When we endeavor to fix more precisely
the home of that tribe which was the lineal Aryac progenitor, several
considerations must be carefully weighed. The physical types of the
Aryac people differ markedly, as I stated in my last lecture, and some
writers (Penka, Lapouge, etc.) have claimed that the Teutonic, the tall
blonde type, is peculiar to the Aryans, and must have been the original
character. But it is found with just as great purity among the Libyans
of Africa, so that the assumption is vain.
It is an undeniable fact that at the earliest period, both in Europe
and Asia, the majority of Aryan-speaking peoples were brunettes,
and it is also a fact that in the population of Europe to-day
there is a tendency to revert to that type. When a blonde and a
brunette intermarry, ten per cent. more children will take after the
brunette.[91] There is a probability, therefore, that the original
Aryac tribe was a mixture of blondes and brunettes, with a majority of
the latter, and also that the form of its skulls was variable, some
long, some broad.[92]
This would indicate a mixed descent, and such, no doubt, it owned.
It is absurd to suppose the contrary. The type of _the proto-Aryac
language_ is one which originates not early, but late in the history
of human speech. The process of grammatical inflection is the highest
stage of linguistic evolution. It is the result of a slow growth, in
which the material elements of language are transformed into formal
elements, and the “grammatical categories,” or parts of speech,
gradually assume logical distinctness and independent expression. We
can watch this growth in its imperfect form in the Nahuatl of Mexico
and the Berber of Morocco; and when we see it completed, as in the
Arabic or Latin, we may be sure it is a comparatively late fruit of the
human intellect. The expressions common to all Aryac languages reveal a
primitive social condition to correspond with this. It was above that
of savagery. These common ancestors had domesticated dogs, cattle, and
perhaps sheep; nomadic at times, they at some seasons tilled the soil;
they were acquainted with copper, and brewed mead from honey; they
had probably even invented a wagon, and milked their cows, and they
certainly lived on or near the seashore, and used boats.
The conclusion is that the original inflected Aryac tongue arose
from the coalescing of two or more uninflected agglutinative or
semi-incorporative tongues, the mingling of the speeches being
accompanied, as always, by a mingling of blood and of physical traits.
This explains the fact that has puzzled so many ethnologists, that
there is no fixed Aryac type.
Where should we look for this intermingling to have taken place? From
the arguments already advanced you would naturally say, somewhere on
the western coast of Europe.
This is supported by an unexpected piece of evidence of a strong
character. The system of consonants is undoubtedly the most persistent
part of a language, and there is no question but that the Celtic
and Lithuanian, of all the Aryac tongues, have kept most closely to
the primitive system of consonants once common to them all.[93] The
Lithuanian is spoken by a limited community on the coast of the Baltic
sea, while the Celtic, in proto-historic times, occupied the whole of
Great Britain and northern Belgium, France and Spain. In the two latter
areas it was from immemorial time in close connection with the Euskaric
(Basque), and perhaps the Libyan (Berber) groups, and it is possible
that in comparatively late (neolithic) times the Aryac with its
inflections might have been developed from these partly agglutinative
languages.
This suggestion is not so hazardous as it may seem. William von
Humboldt, one of the ablest linguists of this century, suggested that
the Basques and the Celts, the Ligurians and the Gauls, in spite of the
contrasted structure of their languages, may have sprung from the same
ethnic trunk, and derived their languages from a common source.[94]
Other scholars of eminence, such as Delitzsch, Ascoli, Raumer,
Schultze and Abel, have pointed out numerous affinities between the
Hamito-Semitic, Libyan, old Coptic and Assyrian tongues, and the
oldest Aryac forms, and have argued for the existence of a fundamental
“proto-Ayro-Semitic” speech which existed before the separation of
the white race into its northern and southern branches.[95] There
is evidence that this very ancient tongue was of the “isolating”
character, with a tendency to agglutination by suffixes.
It is now recognized that inflection did not exist in the primitive
Aryac dialects, but was gradually developed by means of such suffixes
added to the stem, by different processes in the different dialects,
many of which are in activity to-day.[96] These inflective processes
bear closer resemblance to the Libyan, which has suffixes, and the old
Egyptian, than to pure Semitic tongues, which leads to the suggestion,
again, that the separation of the race was in the west rather than the
east.
_Proto-Aryac Migrations._--Leaving these speculations as to the origin
of the Aryac stock, let us sketch its probable migrations, as indicated
by linguistic research. It appears to have divided early into two main
streams, the one occupying central and southern Europe, the other
moving eastward on a northerly route, the two meeting as they neared
the Bosphorus.
The central stream was of Celtic affinities. Its tribes having
possessed themselves of the coast line from Cape Finisterre to the
mouth of the Rhine and the islands of Great Britain, passed up the
valleys of the Rhine and its affluents into southern Germany, the
valleys of Switzerland and the Tyrol, quite to the Danube. Its
easternmost tribes were probably the Dacians.
The Aryac Italic peoples, the Umbrians, the Oscans, the Latins, were
the first offshoot of this southern migration; not that they were
directly descended from the Celts, but that they sprang from the same
division of the primitive Aryac stock. This is still so clear that I
remember Matthew Arnold in his lectures on poetry quotes sentences
from ancient Irish which are also intelligible Latin.
A second offshoot was the Illyrians, who peopled the northern and
eastern shores of the Adriatic, the ancestors of the modern Albanians.
A third was the Hellenic people, organized later than the Latins, and
imbued with elements quite foreign to these.
The northern stream was the Letto-Slavic, whose primitive home was on
the shores of the German Ocean north of the mouth of the Rhine, and in
the region which extends thence to the Gulf of Finland. Its members
presented the physical traits of the Libyo-Teutonic type, contrasting
in this to the traits of the central and southern stream, who were
of the dark type of the race. The Cymric type seems to have been a
mingling of the two, and was found at or near the boundaries between
them.
At a comparatively late period--certainly after the beginning of the
bronze age, as we know from their languages--the Teutonic tribes
separated from the Letto-Slavs, and moved into Central and South
Germany, where they remained. Numerous Slavonic hordes, however,
pushed eastward, some passing to the north of the Black and Caspian
Seas, where they formed the ancient Sarmatians, others approaching the
Hellespont, where they mingled with Celtic and other elements to make
the Thracian and other peoples.
Passing into Asia across the Hellespont and Bosphorus, or along the
coast in their vessels, or pursuing the shores of the Caspian, numerous
Aryac colonies from the vanguard of the eastern emigrants wandered into
Asia. The Indo-Eranians that is, the ancient Persians and Sanscrit
speaking tribes, entered first and progressed farthest, settling in
Iran, and occupying the land between the Caspian Sea and the Indian
Ocean.
Later came the Phrygians and Armenians, who had formerly lived in
Thrace, crossing the Bosphorus and establishing themselves in Asia
Minor.
The dates of these occurrences can be fixed only approximately. The
Armenian migration was later than 700 B. C., as previous to that date
the Vans, a people of non-Aryac speech, occupied the region later known
as Armenia. The Brahmans crossed the Hindu-Kusch into India, about
1500-2000 B. C., and the Persians possessed themselves of Iran at least
a thousand years earlier.
_Scheme of Aryac Migration._