New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1890-08-03
THE ARYANS.
ORIGIN OF THE RACE AND LANGUAGES.

ing example Of the blundcrs OF science an" ~
ought TO, though it probably will not, in"he
scientific men less dogmatlc and less lhcilre" ~
form positive judgments upon Inadequate Hio'
The pathological school known rs 'ne
skritistsn is mainly responsible Tor 'he p"'o'''
hypothesis which for half century lea a." H"i'P'
BY the ears; though il Is enough 10 man a."
tous students distrustful OF science ai'"So'"'i
N observe with what needless olacrity TIC most
DISTINGUISHED men followed the lead OF the phiIoio
rists and helped 10 spread, augment ana per
prtuate error. The theory oil me NaiSNil''''
was that all languages were derived from con'
mon ancestral tongue. which was Asiatic III OF
iain: and as a corollary II was assumed 'ha' que
speakers Of all these derived languages uescenu''
from common ancestors Says Canon Taylor on
this: Professor Max Muller, owing to thc
charm Of his STYLE. TO his unrivallcd power Of
popular exposition, and 10 his high authority as "
Sapskrit scholar has done more than any othcr
writer 10 popularlze this erroneous NOTION mus
in his lectures on the Science of Language de-
,,vered IN 1861. instead of speaking only OF
primitive Aryan language, lie speaks of an 'Aryan
race and 'Aryan family and asserts that there
WIS n time when the first ancestors OF the IN
dians the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the
Slaves the Celts and the Germans were living
together within the same Enclosures, nay, under the
same roof and he argues that because the same
forms Of speech are preserved by all the members
of the Aryan family it follows that before the
ancestors of the Indians and Pcrsans started ior
the South and the leaders of the creek fOihah,
Celtic, Teutonic and Sayonic colonies marched
toward the shores of Europe, there was a small
class Of Aryans settled probably on the highest
elevation Of Central Asia, speaking language not
yet Sanskrit or Greek German, but containing
the dialectical germs OF oil.
Canon Taylor holds that than this pictur-
esquc paragraph more mischievouS words nave
seldom been uttered by a great scholar. For
since they were written discoveries have been
made-chiehy by the anthropologsts--wh take
the ground from under the whole SanSkrltist
hypothesis, and while not ahording in themselves
a solution of the Aryan problem, az least demon
strate that the preceding explanation cannot he
the right one. French and German scholars dur
ing the last twenty-five years have shown con
elusively that the assumption of the common an
cestry of the speakers of Aryan languages is
mere Pigment, wholly contrary TO the evidence,
and as improbable as the hypothesis that a small
Aryan clan in Central Asia could have sent ont
great colonies which marched 1000 miles 10 the
shores of Europe" The old assumption Of the
philoogists, moreover, that relationship of Ian
guage implies relationship of race, has been dis
proved and Canon Taylor, representing the new
views declares that it cannot be insisted upon
too strongly that identity of speech does not i'm
ply identity of race. 1t is an interesting fact
that forty years ago the English pholOgist
Latham was bold and far-secing enough 10 enter
a protest against the Sanskrtist theory, then in
the prosperous flood of almost universal ac-
ceptance. He called attention TO the lack Of
evidence for successive great migrations westward
from Central Asian locality, and he put his
finger upon the inherent improbabity of the al
legged events. At the time he not listened
TO, but many years afterward German and French
scholars adopted the same views and upheld them
so cogenty that the whole Sanskritist fabric
crumbed into ruins.
Thirty years ago; says Canon Taylor, the
chronology of Archbishop Usher accepted with
out question, the origin of the human race being
assigned to the year 4004 Is. c. II was believed
that the primeval language spoken by our first
parents was Hebrew and that thc origin Of the
languages of Europe must he referred 70 the fam
lily Of Japhet, who set forth from the plains Of
ShinaI in the year 2241 b. G.. This theory
based on the belief that the human originated
in Asia at a comparatively recent period and that
the diversity of human speech dates from the
confusion of tongues at Babel, was universally
dCcepeu. WIN Iut DIFHiNS VI NIi>hil di'
Zend study arose the theory of Central Asian
cradle Of the race, and 10 account for the dis
pension of the peoples and the settlement Of En-
rope what was called an Irresistible impulse
probably resembling that which drives the lem
mincs across Norway and into the Sea-was p0Stu-
lated and gravely accepted explaining every
thing. Professor Max Muller was among those
who received it, and he wrote: The main ST ream
of the Aryan nations has always flowed toward
the northwest No historian tell MS by what i'm
pulse those adventurous nomads were driven on
through Asia toward the isles and shores Of En-
rope . But whatever il was, the impulse was
as irresistible as the spell which in our own times
sends the Celtic tribes toward the praires or the
regions of gold across the Atlantic Strange
enough it was that none of the learned men who
accepted this theory paused to ask themselves
whether there really existed any proof OF these
extensive migrations; whether they were, in short
aught but Pigments of the pathological Magma
ton
That. however, is precisely what they were
and when the proof came TO light which "a
posed their true character. it was of a kind not
10 be met by mere argument, no matter how
skilful For this proof consisted in the discovery
of human remains in various parts of EEropc
under conditions demonstrating the contempornn
eous existence of man. the bear and ;l'
mammoth! Hhrougbout an that region Thii
pushed back the origin of man in Europe 50 "a
beyond the utmost stretch of license REGARDED
the Asiatic theory that the Central Asian ny
pothesis of a race-cradle no longer In il.
The men who we're contemporaries of the man
moth must have lived in Europe from 500
TO 10000 years ago at least, and may nav
belonged to races whose European origin it
possible so conceive as having heen carried bacl
five or six times that period. But this was no
oil When the anthropoogists got 10 work wit
their cranal measurements, n new revelation CT
sued: it became clear then that the ncolithic TO
possibly mesolithici men whose remains had bee
disiinterred differed in no essential particula
from the races still occupying the countries i
which they were found. The implications Of thi