strictly scientific aspect of the
subject. The doctrine of race, in its popular form, is the direct
offspring of the study of scientific philology; and yet it is just now,
in its popular form at least, somewhat under the ban of scientific
philologers. There is nothing very wonderful in this. It is in fact
the natural course of things which might almost have been reckoned on
beforehand. When the popular mind gets hold of a truth it seldom gets
hold of it with strict scientific precision. It commonly gets hold of
one side of the truth; it puts forth that side of the truth only. It
puts that side forth in a form which may not be in itself distorted or
exaggerated, but which practically becomes distorted and exaggerated,
because other sides of the same truth are not brought into their due
relation with it. The popular idea thus takes a shape which is
naturally offensive to men of strict precision, and which men of strict
scientific precision have naturally, and from their own point of view
quite rightly, risen up to rebuke. Yet it may often happen that, while
the scientific statement is the only true one for scientific purposes,
the popular version may also have a kind of practical truth for the
somewhat rough and ready purposes of a popular version. In our present
case scientific philologers are beginning to complain, with perfect
truth and perfect justice from their own point of view, that the
popular doctrine of race confounds race and language. They tell us,
and they do right to tell us, that language is no certain test of race,
that men who speak the same tongue are not therefore necessarily men of
the same blood. And they tell us further, that from whatever quarter
the alleged popular confusion came, it certainly did not come from any
teaching of scientific philologers.

The truth of all this cannot be called in question. We have too many
instances in recorded history of nations laying aside the use of one
language and taking to the use of another, for anyone who cares for
accuracy to set down language as any sure test of race. In fact, the
studies of the philologer and those of the ethnologer strictly so
called are quite distinct, and they deal with two wholly different sets
of phenomena. The science of the ethnologer is strictly a physical
science. He has to deal with purely physical phenomena; his business
lies with the different varieties of the human body, and specially, to
take that branch of his