Touràn possesses no historical sense but that of non-Persian (Ani-
ranian) ethnologically : none hut that of Turkestàn geographical]*«.
It were as reasonable to divide Asiatic and European humanity into
Semitic, British (for Arian), and non-British (for everybody else not
compressible into such Procrustean bed), as to classify all these multiform
nations into Semitic, Arian (i. e. Persian) and Turanian;
when this last adjective suits, strictly speaking, no human group of
families hut the Turkish.
Nevertheless, like Shakspeare’s “ word ‘ occupy,’ which was an
excellent good word before it was ill-sorted,”478 “ Touranian” may still
do some eifeetive service in specifying, whenever their ethnic relations
become sufficiently cleared up,479 the ancient inhabitants of
oountries now termed Turkestàn : but, because “ agglutination”
happens to he,their linguistic attribute, in common even with
Hebrew (Semitic), and Sanscrit (Arian), and all human speech in its
earlier formations: or because “ in them the conjugation and the
declension can still he taken to pieces,” preserving all the while the
radical syllable of the discourse,480 — it does seem to me, that to
classify, on such grounds alone, the transplanted and now prodigiously
intermixed descendants of Hioung-nou, Sian-pi, San-miao
or Miao-tse, Tata, Yue-tchi, Ting-lings, Geou-gen, Thiu-ieiu, and other
indigenous, races (every one according to physiological descriptions
distinct fi’om the rest) known in ancient Asia to the Chinese,481 under
such a misnomer as “ Turanian;” to forget that primitive and
indefinable Scythia has vomited forth upon Europe men of absolutely
different stocks and unfixed derivations^-Huns, white and nearly
black, Khazars, Awars, Comans, Alains, &Gv|jpor finally, to connect,
through one omnific name, Samoyeds with Athapascans (if not also
with Toltecs and Botocudos !), hybrid Osmanlees with pure Aïnos,
Madjars with Telingas,482—these are aberrations from common sense
478 Henry IV, 2d part, Act II, scene 4.
478 For the real difficulties, slurred over by English ethnographers, see Klaproth and
Desmoulins.
488 Incomparably well indicated by the Turkish verb “ sev-mek;” M a x -M ü l le r op a t ,
pp. 111-4.
481 The most copious account of these nations, compiled from the best sources, is in
J a b d o t, Révolutions des Peuples de l’Asie Moyenne, Paris, 2 vols. 8vo, 1889. The Arai«, let
me here mention, did not reach Chinese vicinities, through navigation, before the 9th
century (M au ry , “ Examen de la route que suivaient, au IXe siècle de notre ère, les
Arabes et les Persans pour aller en Chine”—Bulletin de la. Soc. de Géographie, Avril, 1846).
482 Physical amalgamation with higher types, than any branch of the Turkish family was
in the days of Alp Arsiàn, has transmuted his mongrel descendants residing around the
Mediterranean, Archipelago, and Black Sea, to such an amazing extent that it is difficult
to describe what a real Turk (and I have lived where thousands of all grades reside) should
be. That the present Oaucasianised Osmanlee is not the same animal now that his forefathers
were only in the 12th century, is easily proved. Benjamin b e T u d e la —speaking
into which Bunsen’s endorsement of Prichard’s “ Touranian” has
led an amazing number of worthy monogenists on this side of the
water ; hut which Prof. Max-Müller himself never contemplated in
adopting this unlucky term : for the very learned philologist excludes
the Chinese,m and doubtless withholds other An-Arian types
of mankind from his Turanian arrangement.
It appears to he the unavoidable fate of every human science to
pass through a phase of empiricism. Each one, at some time or
other, is regarded as a sort of universal panacea competent to heal
all controversial sores. Such, at this moment, throughout Anglo-:
Saxondom, is the popular opinion concerning “ Philology:” last
refuge for alarmed protestant mohogenism,— at the very time that
Continental scholarship has stepped into a higher sphere of linguistic
philosophy, which already recognizes the total inadequacy of philo-
IaQV (041' other science) to solve the dilemma whether humanity
originates in one human pair, or has emanated from a plurality of
zoological .centres. Philology, instead of being ethnology, is only
one instrument, if even, a most precious one, out of many other tools
indispensable: in ethnological reseafches. The powers of the science
termed “ la linguistique” are not infinite, even supposing- that
correct knowledge had as yet been obtained of even one-half the
tongues spoken over the earth; or that it were within the capacity
of one man to become sufficiently acquainted with the grammatical
characteristics of the remainder. We do not even possess a complete
catalogue of the names of all tongues !484 Yet, “What studious man
is there,” inquires Le Clerc, “whose imagination has not been caught
straying from conjecture to conjecture, from century to century, in
search of the débris of a forgotten tongue; of those relics of words
that are but the fragments of the history of Hâtions ?”485 Eichhoff
eloquently continues the idea— “ The sciences of Philology and
History ever march in concert, and the one lends its support to the
other ; because the life of Hâtions manifests itself in their language,
the faithful representative of their vicissitudes. Where national
chronology stops short, where the thread of tradition is broken, the
antique genealogy of words that have survived the reign of empires
of Tartar flat-noses—narrates, “ The king of Persia being enraged at the Turks, who have
two holes in the midst of their face instead of a nose, for having plundered his kingdom,
resolved to pursue them.”' (B a s n a g e , Hist, of the Jews, p. 473).
483 Op. cit., pp. 8 6 , 9 5 - 6 . I refer to this admirable work in preference to “ Phonology”
in B u n s e n ’s Outlines, because the latter has been disposed of by R e n a n (supra, note 1 6 ) ..
484 A d e l u n g {Catalogue, St. Petersburg, 1 8 2 0 , p. 1 8 5 ) counted 3 ,0 6 4 languages: B a l b i
enumerated 8 6 0 languages and 5 0 0 0 dialects. ' The greatest linguist on record, Cardinal
Mezzofanti, was acquainted, it is said, with but 5 2 .
485 Olia Ægyptiaca, p. 12.