Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1889-05-03
THE ARYAN RACE
ee"''he speeaiations ConcernipS II.
origin and Charaet.r.


speeaiations Concerning Its
origin aud Character.
when 1t was first discovered that
must European nations spoke Ian
gaages oil the Aryan Cor -Pers;ana
STOCK, the conclusion was at onoa
drawn that these European Arvana
must look for their ancestral home IN
the East AS no one doubted that ali
the nations of this stock had snruno
from one source, it was natural to in.
qulre In what place the primitive
Aryan tribe had its original seat. IT
was natural also TO adopt the view
mat this seat was TO be found some
"hefe IN that portion OF Central Asia
10 which the traditions embodied.
however vaguely, in the earliest
hhown compositions of Aryan origin,
the vedas and the Zend-Avesta.
seemed to point. This region, which
coInprehends ancient Persia and
bactria, has, from the earliest times of
which we have any knowledge. been
The home OF Aryan communities. The
reasons Tor accepting it as the pecul-
lar seat Of the race seemed con.
elusive to ethnologists until a
very recent date. OF late years some
scholars Of high rank. both in Ger
many and in England, have been led to
ADOPT the suggestion, first made by the
-
late eminent English philologist, DR..
Latham, that the Aryans may have
been OF European origin. Their argu-
mants were well summed up in the in
teresting address delivered last year
before the Section of Anthropology in
the British Association by the presi-
dent OF the section, Prof. Sayce. They
have since been fully considered and
discussed by Prof Max Muller in his
recent work, Biographies of Words,
and the Home of the Aryans" His
decision is that to which the great ma
Ioflty of ethnologists have long since
given their assent, namely, that the
pieponderant weight of argument
points to an Asiatic home for the race.
Some OF the grounds for this conclu.
sion will presently be shown, but. il
the first instance, it becomes neces-
5ary to fix the locality of this primitive
seat somewhat more definitely than il
is placed in Prof. Max Muller's essay
He finds that the Aryan home mas
have been somewhere in ASIA" bu
declines to say more.
This conclusion, it is evident, is too
indefinite for science; nor does it seen
likely that the learned author, if b,
had cared to be more precise. woult
have had any difficulty in drawing
much narrower limit The 'methot
Of elimination is easily sufficient TO
this end. From the whole of Asia ",
strike out at once. by the common con
sent of ethnologists, its eastern third
comprising China, Japan and Thibet
and along with it, by like consent, tn
three great southern peninsulas, tn
Endo- Chinese, the Indian and the Ara
bian. With Arabia the rest of the an
cient Semitic countries, Mesopotamia
syria and Phenicia. will be erase'
from the problem. The immense ex
panse of Siberia will also disappear
for, though one bold Spectator ha
ought frigid home for the earl
Aryans in that region, he has, as Nigh
be supposed, gained no adherents
his theory. No one proposes Ash
Minor; and Armenia and the Caucasu
seem put out of the question by the fat
that our earliest historical knowledg
of those regions shows them inhabite
mainly by non-Aryan tribes. -Horati
Hale, in Popular Science Monthly.