by heredity; we
might be Negroes or Chinese, and share in their tendencies. Animals
also have their instincts. Only while animals, like serpents for
instance, would never hesitate to follow their innate propensity, man,
when he feels the power of what we may call inherited human instinct,
feels also that he can fight against it, and preserve his freedom,
even while wearing the chains of his slavery. This may have removed
some of Dr. Wendell Holmes' scruples in writing his powerful story,
_Elsie Venner_, and may likewise quiet the fears of his many critics.

I believe that language also--our own inherited language--exercises
the most powerful influence on our reason and our will, far more
powerful than we are aware of.

A Greek speaking Greek and a Roman speaking Latin would certainly have
been very different beings from the Romance and French descendants of
a Horace or a Cicero, and this simply on account of the language which
they had to speak, whether Greek, Latin, French, or Spanish. We cannot
tell whether the original differentiation of language, symbolized by
the story of the Tower of Babel, took place before or after the racial
differentiation of men. Anyhow it must have taken place in quite
primordial times. Without speaking positively on this point, I
certainly hold as strongly as ever that language makes the man, and
that therefore for classificatory purposes also language is far more
useful than colour of skin, hair, cranial or gnathic peculiarities.
Whether it be true that with every new language we speak we become
new men, certain it is that language prepares for us channels in which
our thoughts have to run, unless they are so powerful as to break all
dams and dykes, and to dig for themselves new beds.

For a long time people would not see that languages can be classified;
and as languages always presuppose speakers of language, these
speakers also can be classified accordingly. It is quite true that
some of these Aryan speakers may in some cases have Negro blood and
Negro features, as when a Negro becomes an English bishop. Conquered
tribes also may in time have learnt to speak the language of their
conquerors, but this too is exceptional, and if we call them Aryas, we
do not commit ourselves to any opinion as to their blood, their bones,
or their hair. These will never submit to the same classification as
their speech, and why should they? Nor should it be forgotten that
wherever a mixture of language