origin, is at once illogical and unwarrantable. Besemblances in
physical conformation and in intellectual capacity, manners, and
customs, growing out of, and dependent in great measure upon such
conformation, are indications rather of a similarity of position in
the great natural scale of the human family, than of identity of
origin. To establish identity, proof of another kind is required.
That positive identity of cranial form, structure and gentilitial characters
is the best evidence of identity of origin, or, at all events, of
very close relationship, there can be no doubt. But identity must not
be inferred from striking similarity. The confusion of terms has led
to much error. Similarity in the features above alluded to, indicates
merely an allied natural position, and nothing more. This distinction
is as important in cranioscopy as that made by the comparative
anatomist between the analogies and homologies of the skeleton.
Somebody has said that “ when history is silent, language is evidence.”
The cranioscopist knows that oftentimes, when both history
and language are silent, cranial forms become evidence. For the
cranial similarities and differences above mentioned may be estimated
with mathematical accuracy and precision, by weight, measurement,
&e. Hence, while the language of an ante-historic people may be
lost, the discovery of their skulls will afford us the means of determining
their rank or position in the human scale, &e. From considerations
of this nature, we are led to recognise the existence of a
craniological school in Ethnology, a craniological principle of classification
and research, and a craniological test of affinity or diversity.
According to P rich a r d , Ethnology is, equally with Geology, a branch
of Palaeontology. “ Geology,” says he, “ is the archaeology of the
globe,— Ethnology that of its human inhabitants.”63 L atham, commenting
upon this sentence, very appropriately observes, that “when
Ethnology loses its palaeontological character, it loses half its scientific
elements.”54 From this we learn the importance of osteology, especially
the cranial department, since it constitutes one of the surest,
and often the only guide in identifying ancient populations. Dr.
L atham, the well-known philologist, lays great stress upon the ethnological
value of language, which he speaks of as “ yielding in defi-
nitude to no characteristic whatever.” . . . . “ "Whatever maybe
said against certain over-statements as to constancy, it is an undoubted
fact, that identity of language is primd facie evidence of identity of
origin.”65 Among the apophthegms appended to his work on the
Varieties of Man, the same opinion occurs.—“ In the way of physical
53 Anniversary Address, delivered before the Ethnological Society of London, in 1847.
H Man and his Migrations, Amer. Edit. New York, 1852, p. 41.
» Ibid, p. 35.
. I 14
wuumuus ueveiop common points of conformation.
Hence, as elements of classification, physical characters
are of less value than the philological moral ones.”66 There are
reasons for dissenting from the opinion of this eminent philologist
When we contemplate the mutability and destructibilify of languages,
as abundantly exemplified in the obliteration of the Etruscan dialect
by the Boman-Latin; the Celtiberian and Turdetan by the Latin and
Spamsh; the Syriac by Arabic; Celtic by the Latin and French;
the Celtic of Britain by the Saxon and English; the Pelhevi and Zend
i 7 1 P®rs.ian’ and the Mauritanian by Arabic;67 when we reflect
how the Epirotes and Siculi changed their language, without conquest
or colonization, into Greek, and how the ancient Pelasgi all
the primitive inhabitants of the Peloponnessus, and many of those
E& Attica> abandoned their own language and adopted
that of the Hellenes;68 when we behold the Hegroes of St. Domingo
speaking the French tongue, the Bashkirs, of Finnish origin, speaking
Turkish ; and when, finally, as one instance of another and
significant class of facts, we call to mind how the Carelians, in consequence
of certain linguistic analogies, have been classed with the
Finns, though descended from an entirely different race, who, at an
early period, overran the region about Lake Ladoga,“ - w e are
disposed to believe with Humboldt”—I am using the words of
Morton— that we shall never be able to trace the affiliation of
nations by a mere comparison of languages; for this, after all, is but
one of many clews by which that great problem is to be solved.”61
ely anatomy and physiology—those handmaids of the zoologist
m S B P°We? u1’ a“dl in the na^ e of things, better adapted
to settle the question of the unify of man, to determine whether the
uman family is composed of several species, or of but one species
comprising many varieties. Surely the human skeleton is more enduring
and less mutable than the oldest language. Instances are
not wanting, as we have seen above, of a nation forgetting its own
neoffiage-£ \ltS admirati°Tn for the more perfect speech of another
m f f im Put’ as far as 1 am aware, not a solitary instance can be
duced of a nation, genealogically pure, entirely changing its physical
chonaCf f t PR thT e °f an0ther' Let us eonclude then, with Bodi-
etbnnto f hySlolop 18 superior to Philology as an instrument of
ethnological research.-“ To throw light upon the question of origins
— 1 necessary to appeal to a science more precise, and founded on
“ Varieties of Man, p. 562. < ¡rrrTZm E S S ~ ------------ ------
68 Niebuhr, Hist, of Rome, 1, 37. Hamilton Snnth, op. at, p. 178.
“ Helwerzen, Annuaire des Mines de Russie, 1840, p. 84
M n “ rtoT ’ TransaotloM «f the Royal Society of Stockholm, for 1847.
L/rania Americana, p. 18.