n his objection; but I admit it only as a
_presumption_--against which there is a decided preponderance of
material facts.

In the first place, there are the oldest names of the geographical
localities throughout Spain. These, as shown by the well-known monograph
of Humboldt, are _not_ Celtic, and are _Iberic_.

In the next place, the Celtic frontier was by no means so near the
geographical boundary of the Peninsula as it is often supposed to have
been. Instead of the Celtic of Gaul reaching the Pyrenees, the Iberic of
Spain reached the Loire--so that the province of Aquitania, although
Gallic in politics, was Iberic in ethnology. This, again, is shown by
Humboldt.

For my own part, instead of discussing the relation of the Celts of
Celtiberia to the other inhabitants of Spain, I would open a new
question, and investigate the grounds upon which we believe in an
intermixture at all. Whatever respect we may pay to the statements of
the classical writers, the _name_ itself is not conclusive; since it
would be just as likely to be given from an approach on the part of an
Iberic population to the Celtic manners, or from the adoption of any
_supposed_ Celtic characteristic, as from absolute ethnological
intermixture. Like modern observers, the ancient writers were too fond
of gratuitously assuming an intermixture of blood for the explanation
of the results of common physical or social conditions. Hence--without
pressing my opinion on the reader--I confine myself to an expression of
doubt as to the existence of Celts amongst the Celtiberi _at all_.

But this only simplifies the question as to the ethnological position of
the Iberic variety of the human species. It does not even suggest an
answer. They were the aborigines of Spain. They are the ancestors of the
present Biscayans. Their tongue survives in the north-west provinces of
Spain, and in the north-east corner of France. It _has no recognized
affinity with any known tongue; and it has undeniable points of contrast
with all the languages of the countries around._

Yet it is only by means of the Basque language that the problem can be
attempted. The physical conformation of the still extant Iberians, has
nothing definitely characteristic about it. The ancient mythology has
died away. The tribes most immediately allied have ceased to be other
than unmixed. So the language alone remains--and that has yet to find
its interpreter.

An Iberic basis--Greek, Ph[oe]nician,