ity. Thus, assuming the great groups of
mankind as primary facts, the origin of which lies beyond our certain
knowledge, we may speak of families and races, of the great Aryan family
and of the races into which it parted, as groups which have a real,
practical existence, as groups founded on the ruling primeval idea of
kindred, even though in many cases the kindred may not be by natural
descent, but only by law of adoption. The Celtic, Teutonic, Slavonic
races of man are real living and abiding groups, the distinction
between which we must accept among the primary facts of history. And
they go on as living and abiding groups, even though we know that each
of them has assimilated many adopted members, sometimes from other
branches of the Aryan family, sometimes from races of men alien to the
whole Aryan stock. These races which, in a strictly physiological point
of view, have no existence at all, have a real existence from the more
practical point of view of history and politics. The Bulgarian calls to
the Russian for help, and the Russian answers to his call for help, on
the ground of their being alike members of the one Slavonic race. It may
be that, if we could trace out the actual pedigree of this or that
Bulgarian, of this or that Russian, we might either find that there was
no real kindred between them, or we might find that there was a real
kindred, but a kindred which must be traced up to another stock than
that of the Slav. In point of actual blood, instead of both being Slavs,
it may be that one of them comes, it may be that both of them come, of a
stock which is not Slavonic or even Aryan. The Bulgarian may chance to
be a Bulgarian in a truer sense than he thinks; for he may come of the
blood of those original Finnish conquerors who gave the Bulgarian name
to the Slavs among whom they were merged. And if this or that Bulgarian
may chance to come of the stock of Finnish conquerors assimilated by
their Slavonic subjects, this or that Russian may chance to come of the
stock of Finnish subjects assimilated by their Slavonic conquerors. It
may then so happen that the cry for help goes up and is answered on a
ground of kindred which in the eye of the physiologist has no existence.
Or it may happen that the kindred is real in a way which neither the
suppliant nor his helper thinks of. But in either case, for the
practical purposes of human life, the plea is a good plea; the kindred
on which it is founded is a real kind