would necessarily commence the first steps towards forming a speech,
as birds instinctively sing and dogs hark. The wants, and range of
ideas of these tribes, would, for a long time, be very limited, and
their vocabulary, thus formed, very meagre. The aboriginal races of
America, though not identical, display a certain similarity in their physical
and intellectual characters, as species of a genus in the animal
kingdom possess certain physical characters and instincts in common;
and it is probable that their primitive languages would, in consequence,
more or less, resemble each other. This view is strengthened
by the fact of general resemblance amongst American crania. But
nothing in human anatomy can be more striking, than the wide difference
in the conformation of the skulls of American and African
races. ;
I f two distinct races, created on incommunicable continents, had
been left alone, originally, each to form its own languages independently
of the other, is it not presumable, ft priori, that there would
accrue a much greater similarity among the tongues of the one race,
on the same, continent, than between these tongues and those spoken
on the other continent by the other race ? Especially, when the physical
and moral characteristics of the former differ radically from
those of the latter ?-
As, then, the crania of American races resemble each other, while
differing entirely from those of African races, so do'American and
African languages differ from each other in structure and vocabulary;
although both are in harmony with the various dialects spoken on
their respective continents by races osteologically similar.
Whether the above proposition be true or false, all languages which,
in their infant state, came together, would necessarily become fused into
one heterogeneous mass. Let us illustrate this point a little farther.
Suppose that, five thousand years ago, a country had existed large as
Europe, covered by a virgin forest, and that the Creator had scattered
over it tribes, bearing the type of the old Teutonic stock — each of
whom commenced at once in forming a language — what would be
the result in ; our day, after 5000 years of migrations, wars, amalgamations?
Can any one doubt that these languages would be fused
into one whole, quite as homogeneous as those of the aborigines of
America ? When we reflect that there is every reason to believe that
this continent has been inhabited for more than 5000 years, such case
becomes a much stronger one. Aiebuhr, in one of his letters, expresses
views very similar.368
“ These great national races have never sprung from the growth of a single family
into a nation, but always from the association of several families of human beings, raised
above their fellow animals by the nature of their wants, and the gradual invention of a
language; each of which families probably had originally formed a language peculiar to
itself. This\last idea belongs to Reinhold. By this I explain the immense variety of languages'
among .the.North American Indians, which it is absolutely impossible to refer to any
common source, but which, in some cases, have resolved themselves into one language, as
in Mexico and Peru, for instance; and also the number of synonyms in the earliest periods
of languages. - On this account, I maintain that we must make a very cautious use of differences
of language.as applied to the theory.of races,.and have more regard to physical
conformation;, which.latter is exactly the same, for instance, in most of the Indian tribes
of North America. I believe, farther, that the origin of the human race is not connected
with any given place, but is to be sought everywhere over the face of the earth; and that
it is an idea more worthy of the power and wisdom of the Creator, to assume that he gave
to each zone and each climate its proper inhabitants, to whom that zone and climate would
be most suitable, thad to assume that the human species has degenerated in such innumerable
instances.” • ' '
Wiseman approaches the subject from a different point of view,
offering another explanation for the dissimilarity of languages. He
maintains that there are.affinities. among all languages, which can only
be explained by original unity, but acknowledges, on the other side,
certain radical differences, which are only to be explained by a miracle.
He says, in Lecture second: —
“ As the radical difference among the languages forbids their being considered dialects,
or offshoots of one another, we are driven to the conclusion that, on the one hand, these
languages must have been originally united in one, whence they drew their common elements,
essential to them a ll; and, on the other, that the separation between them, which
destroyed other and no less important elements of resemblance, could not have been caused
by any-gradual departure, or individual development— for these we have long since excluded
but by some violent, unusual, and active force, sufficient alone to reconcile these
conflicting appearances, and to account at once for the resemblances and the differences.” 369
Tbis view of the enigma would be much the most agreeable to
many readers, inasmuch as, by the obtrusion of an unwarranted physical
impossibility, it gets clear-of that radical diversity of languages
which philology has hot yet been able to overcome. Such reasoning,
however plausible at the time when it was written, will not stand
the test of criticism in the year 1853. The facts revealed to us by
the subsequent discoveries of Lepsius and others, require a much
higher antiquity, for nations and languages than the Cardinal had any
idea of; and which is entirely irreconcilable with the Jewish date for
the , “ confusion of tongues ” at Babel, to which he plainly points. If
that confusion of tongues in Generis were even taken as literally true,
it could neither have applied to all the nations of the earth, nor,
particularly, to those inhabiting parts of the world unknown to
Oriental geography in the time of Moses or Abraham; and this
owing to exegetical reasons hereinafter set forth.
Clavigero, whose ability and opportunities confer upon his authority
especial weight, gives the following chronology, derived from
data obtained through Mexicans; —