that language is
an infallible test of race; but it does assume that language and race
have something to do with one another. It assumes, that though language
is not an accurately scientific test of race, yet it is a rough and
ready test which does for many practical purposes. To make something
more of an exact definition, one might say, that though language is not
a test of race, it is, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, a
presumption of race; that though it is not a test of race, yet it is a
test of something which, for many practical purposes, is the same as
race.

Professor Max Mueller warned us long ago that we must not speak of a
Celtic skull. Mr. Sayce has more lately warned us that we must not infer
from community of Aryan speech that there is any kindred in blood
between this or that Englishman and this or that Hindoo. And both
warnings are scientifically true. Yet any one who begins his studies on
these matters with Professor Mueller's famous Oxford Essay will
practically come to another way of looking at things. He will fill his
mind with a vivid picture of the great Aryan family, as yet one,
dwelling in one place, speaking one tongue, having already taken the
first steps toward settled society, recognizing the domestic relations,
possessing the first rudiments of government and religion, and calling
all these first elements of culture by names of which traces still abide
here and there among the many nations of the common stock. He will go on
to draw pictures equally vivid of the several branches of the family
parting off from the primeval home. One great branch he will see going
to the south-east, to become the forefathers of the vast, yet isolated
colony in the Asiatic lands of Persia and India. He watches the
remaining mass sending off wave after wave, to become the forefathers of
the nations of historical Europe. He traces out how each branch starts
with its own share of the common stock--how the language, the creed, the
institutions, once common to all, grow up into different, yet kindred,
shapes, among the many parted branches which grew up, each with an
independent life and strength of its own. This is what our instructors
set before us as the true origin of nations and their languages. And,
in drawing out the picture, we cannot avoid, our teachers themselves do
not avoid, the use of words which imply that the strictly family
relation, the relation of community of blood, is at the root of the