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Bogal Snstftuttfin at (Grrat Britain,
WEEKLY EVENING MEETING,
>
Friday, February 7, 1862.
Sir Henry Holland, Bart. M.D. D.C.L. F.R.S. Vice-President,
in the Chair.
Professor T. H. Huxley, F.R.S.
On Fossil Remains of Man.
The purpose of the discourse was to give an explanation of the interest
attaching to two casts upon the table—the one that of a skull, dis
covered and described by Professor Schmerling, from the Cave of
Engis, in Belgium ; the other, discovered by Dr. Fuhlrott and de
scribed by Professor Schaaffhausen, from a cave in the Neanderthal,
near Dusseldorf—the former being the oldest skull whose age is
geologically definable, the latter the most aberrant and degraded of
human skulls.
The nature and extent of the cranial modifications exhibited by
the man-like apes and by man were discussed ; and their modifications
were shown to depend upon variations in the capacity and in the form
of the cranium, in the greater or less development of its ridges, and
in the size and form of the face. In respect of such differences, skulls
have been called dolichocephalic and brachycephalic, orthognathous
and prognathous, &c.
Neither orthognathism or prognathism are necessarily correlated
with brachycephaly or dolichocephaly. But the most extreme pro
gnathism is accompanied by a dolichocephalic cranium, while perfect
orthognathism may occur with extreme brachycephalism.
The known varieties of the skull have a certain geographical
distribution, which may be broadly expressed by drawing a line upon
a map of the world from Russian Tartary to the Gulf of Guinea,
and by regarding the two ends of that line as ethnological poles, while
another line, drawn at right angles to it, from Western Europe to
Hindostan, may be called the ethnological equator.
At the north-eastern pole are situated the people with the most
eminently brachycephalic and orthognathous skulls; at the south
western pole, those people who have the most eminently dolichocephalic
and prognathous skulls; while along the ethnological equator the
�2
Professor T. H. Huxley
[Feb. 7,
races of men are for the most part, oval-headed, or, if dolichocephalic,
they are orthognathous. Passing from the ethnological poles, in either
direction, there is a tendency to the softening down of the extreme
types of skull. Turning from this general view of cranial modifica
tion, which was expressly stated to be open to many exceptions in
detail, the question was next raised whether the distribution of cranial
forms had been the same in all periods of the world’s history, or
whether the older races, in any locality, possessed a different cranial
character from their successors.
No evidence of the existence of such older and different races has
yet been obtained from Northern Asia, from Africa beyond the shores
of the Mediterranean, or from Australia ; it may be that the Alfourons
and the mound-builders of the Mississippi valley are to be regarded
as ancient stocks which preceded modern immigration ; but definite
evidence is wanting with regard to these and similar cases. In North
ern and Western Europe, however, there is little doubt that several
races, different in cranial conformation and in civilization, have suc
ceeded one another. Below and beyond the traces of Roman civiliza
tion, archaeologists find evidence, first, of people who used iron, then
of those who employed bronze, and then of those who were acquainted
only with stone and flint (or bone) weapons and implements. How
far these various weapons may have been used at different epochs by
the same people, is a question yet to be decided; but that in some
parts of Europe, at any rate, they characterize people of different cranial structure, appears to be tolerably well made out.
The remarkable crania from tumuli of the stone period at Borreby,
in Denmark, figured by Mr. Busk, were cited as authentic examples
of the skulls of people of the epoch in which stone axes ground to an
edge were the chief weapons.
The evidence of the antiquity of these people afforded by the peat
bogs of Denmark, and the probability of their contemporaneity with
the makers of the “ refuse-heaps ” of Denmark, and of the pile-works
of Switzerland, were next considered. Ancient as the Borreby race
may be, they peopled Denmark subsequently to its assumption of its
present physical geography, and since its only great quadrupeds were
the urus, the bison, and deer.
The Engis skull, on the other hand, is of a date antecedent to the
last great physical changes of Europe, and its owner was a contemporary
of the mammoth, the tichorine rhinoceros, the cave bear, and the cave
hyaena, so that a vast gulf of time separates him from the Borreby men.
The skull was shown, however, by all its measurements, to be nearly
as well developed as that of an average European.
The Neanderthal skull, whose age is not exactly known, on the
contrary, is the lowest and most ape-like in its characters of any
human skull yet discovered, though it presents certain points of resemd
blance to the Borreby skulls.
Great as are the differences between the Engis, the Borreby, and
the Neanderthal skulls, the speaker stated that it would not be justiJ
�1862.]
on Fossil Remains of Man.
3
fiable to assign them even to distinct races of men; for by a careful
examination of the crania of one of the purest of living races of men,
—the Australian,—it is possible to discover skulls which differ from
one another in similar characters, though not quite to the same extent,
as the ancient ones.
Thus it appears that the oldest known races of men differed com
paratively but little in cranial conformation from those savage races
now living, whom they seem to have resembled most in habits ; and it
may be concluded that these most ancient races at present known were
at least as remote from the original stock of the human species as they
are from us.
[T. H. H.J
��
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Title
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Of fossil remains of man
Creator
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Huxley, Thomas Henry
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 3 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Sir Henry Holland in the Chair. Delivered at the weekly evening meeting Friday, February 7, 1862
Please note that this pamphlet contains language and ideas that may be upsetting to readers. These reflect the time in which the pamphlet was written and the ideologies of the author.
Publisher
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Royal Institution of Great Britain
Date
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1862
Identifier
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G5279
Subject
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Ethnology
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Of fossil remains of man), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Anatomy
Conway Tracts
Ethnology
Fossils
-
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cd63bf4fd4b71a4a71b785ec8ab9d764
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Text
l^oral institution of <reat Britain
*
t
I
fl
WEEKLY EVENING MEETING,
Friday, April 20, 1855.
I
William: Robert Grove, Esq. M.A. Q.C. F.R.S.
Vice-President, in the Chair.
f
<
T. H. Huxley, Esq. F.R.S.
On certain Zoological Arguments commonly adduced in favour of
the hypothesis of the Progressive Development of Animal Life
in Time.
When the fact that fossilized animal forms are no lusus natures,
but are truly the remains of ancient living worlds, was once
fully admitted, it became a highly interesting problem to determine
what relation these ancient forms of life bore to those now in ex
istence.
The general result of inquiries made in this direction is, that
the further we go back in time, the more different are the forms of
life from those which now inhabit the globe, though this rule is by
no means without exceptions. Admitting the difference, however,
the next question is, what is its amount? Now it appears, that
while the Palaeozoic species are probably always distinct from the
modern, and the genera are very commonly so, the orders are but
rarely different, and the great classes and sub-kingdoms never. In
all past time we find no animal about whose proper sub-kingdom,
whether that of the Protozoa, Radiata, Annulosa, Mollusca, and
Vertebrata, there can be the slightest doubt; and these great divi
sions are those which we have represented at the present day.
In the same way, if we consider the Classes, e. g. Mammalia, Aves,
Insecta, Cephalopoda, Actinozoa, &c., we find absolutely no remains
which lead us to establish a class type distinct from those now
existing, and it is only when we descend to groups having the rank
of Orders that we meet with types which no longer possess any
living representatives. It is curious to remark again, that, notwith
standing the enormous lapse of time of which we possess authentic
records, the extinct ordinal types are exceedingly few, and more
than half of them belong to the same class—Reptilia.
�2
Jfr. Huxley on the Progressive
[April 20,
The extinct ordinal Reptilian types are those of the Pachypoda,
Pterodactyla, Enaliosauria, and Labyrinthodonta; nor are we
at present acquainted with any other extinct order of Vertehrata.
Among the Annulosa (including in this division the Echinodermata,') we find two extinct ordinal types only, the Trilobita and the
Cystidece.
Among the Mollusca there is absolutely no extinct ordinal type ;
nor among the Radiata {Actinozoa and Hydrozoa); nor is there
any among the Protozoa.
The naturalist who takes a wide view of fossil forms, in connec
tion with existing life, can hardly recognise in these results anything
but strong evidence in favour of the belief that a general uniformity
has prevailed among the operations of Nature, through all time of
which we have any record.
Nevertheless, whatever the amount of the difference, and however
one may be inclined to estimate its value, there is no doubt that the
living beings of the past differed from those of the present period ;
and again, that those of each great epoch, have differed from those
which preceded, and from those which followed them. That there
has been a succession of living forms in time, in fact, is admitted by
all; but to the inquiry—What is the law of that succession ? differ
ent answers are given; one school affirming that the law is known,
the other that it is for the present undiscovered.
According to the affirmative doctrine, commonly called the
theory of Progressive Development, the history of life, as a whole,
in the past, is analogous to the history of each individual life in the
present; and as the law of progress of every living creature now,
is from a less perfect to a more perfect, from a less complex to
a more complex state—so the law of progress of living nature in
the past, was of the same nature ; and the earlier forms of life
were less complex, more embryonic, than the later. In the general
mind this theory finds ready acceptance, from its falling in with the
popular notion, that one of the lower animals, e. g. a fish, is a
higher one, e. g. a mammal, arrested in development; that it is, as it
were, less trouble to make a fish than a mammal: but the speaker
pointed out the extreme fallacy of this notion; the real law of
development being, that the progress of a higher animal in develop
ment is not through the forms of the lower, but through forms
which are common to both lower and higher : a fish, for instance,
deviating as widely from the common Vertebrate plan as a
mammal.
The. Progression theory, however, after all, resolves itself very
nearly into a question of the structure of fish-tails. If, in fact, we
enumerate the oldest known undoubted animal remains, we find
them to be Graptolites, Lingulae, Phyllopoda, Trilobites, and
Cartilaginous fishes.
The Graptolites, whether we regard them as Hydrozoa, Anthozoa,
or Polyzoa, (and the recent discoveries of Mr. Logan would strongly
�1855.]
Development of Animal Life in Time.
3
favour the opinion that they belong to the last division,) are cer
tainly in no respect embryonic forms. Nor have any traces of
Spongiadce or Foraminifera (creatures unquestionably far below
them in organization,) been yet found in the same or contempo
raneous beds. Lingulae, again, are very aberrant Brachiopoda,
in nowise comparable to the embryonic forms of any mollusk ;
Phyllopods are the highest Entomostraca; and the Hymenocaris
vermicauda discovered by Mr. Salter in the Lingula beds, is closely
allied to Nebalia, the highest Phyllopod and that which approaches
most nearly to the Podopthalmia. And just as Hymenocaris stands
between the other Entomostraca and the Podopthalmia, so the
Trilobita stand between the Entomostraca and the Edriopthalmia.
Nor can anything be less founded than the comparison of the Trilo
bita with embryonic forms of Crustacea; the early development of
the ventral surface and its appendages being characteristic of the
latter, while it is precisely these parts which have not yet been
discovered in the Trilobita, the dorsal surface, last formed in order
of development, being extremely well developed.
The Invertebrata of the earliest period, then, afford no ground
for the Progressionist doctrine. Do the Vertebrata?
These are cartilaginous fish. Now Mr. Huxley pointed out that
it is admitted on all sides that the brain, organs of sense, and re
productive apparatus, are much more highly developed in these
fishes than any others ; and he quoted the authority of Prof. Owen,
*
to the effect that no great weight is to be placed upon the cartilagi
nous nature of the skeleton as an embryonic character. There
remained, therefore, only the heterocercality of the tail, upon which
so much stress has been laid by Prof. Agassiz. The argument
made use of by this philosopher may be thus shortly stated:—
Homocercal fishes have in their embryonic state heterocercal tails ;
therefore, heterocercality is, so far, a mark of an embryonic state as
compared with homocercality ; and the earlier, heterocercal fish are
embryonic as compared with the later, homocercal.
The whole of this argument was based upon M. Vogt’s examina
tion of the development of the Coregonus, one of the Salmonidce;
the tail of Coregonus being found to pass through a so-called hetero
cercal state in its passage to its perfect form.f For the argument
to have any validity, however, two conditions are necessary.
1. That the tails of the Salmonidce should be homocercal, in the
same sense as those of other homocercal fish. 2. That they should
be really heterocercal, and not homocercal, in their earliest con
dition. On examination, however, it turns out that neither of these
conditions hold good. In the first place, the tails of the Salmonidce,
and very probably of all the Physostomi are not homocercal at all,
* Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy of the Vertebrata, pp. 146-7.
f Von Bar had already pointed out this circumstance in Cyprinus, and the
relation of the foetal tail to the permanent condition in cartilaginous fishes.—See
his “ Entwickelungsgeschichte der Fische,” p. 36.
�4
,
Mr. Huxley on the Development of Animal Life.
but to all intents and purposes intensely heterocercal': Ihe chorda
dorsalis in the Salmon, for instance, stretching far into the upper
lobe of the tail. The wide difference of this structure from true
homocercality is at once obvious, if the tails of the Salmonidce be
compared with those of Scomber scombrus, Gadus ceglefinus, &c.
In the latter, the tail & truly homocercal, the rays of the caudal fin
being arranged symmetrically above and below the axis of the spinal
column.
i. AU M. Vogt’s evidence, therefore, goes to show merely that a
heterocercal fish is heterocercal at a given period of embryonic life ;
and in no way affects the truly homocercal fishes.
/■'
In the second place, it appears to have been forgotten that, as
Vogt’s own excellent observations abundantly demonstrate,
.
rtf this heterocercal state of the tail is a comparatively late one in
-W. < Coregonus, and that, at first, the tail is perfectly symmetrical, i.e.
homocercal.
In fact, all the evidence on fish development which we possess, is
-jtffiWto the effect that Homocercality is the younger, Heterocercality the
more advanced condition : a result which is diametrically opposed
f' ' '
to that which has so long passed current, but which is in perfect
accordance with the ordinary laws of development; the asymmetri
cal being, as a rule, subsequent in the order of development to the
symmetrical.
The speaker then concluded by observing that a careful consider
ation of the facts of Palaeontology seemed to lead to these results :
1. That there is no real parallel between the successive forms
assumed in the development of the life of the individual at present,
and those which have appeared at different epochs in the past; and
2. That the particular argument supposed to be deduced from
the heterocercality of the ancient fishes is based on an error, the
evidence from this source, if worth anything, tending in the oppo
site direction.
At the same time, while freely criticising what he considered to
be a faUacious doctrine, Mr. Huxley expressly disclaimed the
slightest intention of desiring to depreciate the brilliant services
which its original propounder had rendered to science.
[T. II. H.]
A series of specimens of Aluminium, prepared by M. St. Claire
Deville, in Paris, were laid upon the Library table by Dr. Hofmann.
These specimens consisted of a medal, with the head of the Em
peror Napoleon III., two bars, a watch wheel, and a piece of
copper plated with Aluminium. A large piece of Tellurium, pre
pared by Dr. Lowe, of Vienna, was likewise exhibited by Dr,
Hofmann.
Z
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
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Title
A name given to the resource
On certain zoological arguments commonly advanced in favour of the hypothesis of the progressive development of animal life in time
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 4 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: William Robert Grove in the Chair. Delivered at the weekly evening meeting Friday, April 20, 1855. Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
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Royal Institution of Great Britain
Date
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1855
Identifier
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G5281
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (On certain zoological arguments commonly advanced in favour of the hypothesis of the progressive development of animal life in time), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Subject
The topic of the resource
Evolution
Biology
Animals
Conway Tracts
Evolution (Biology)
-
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7f8f181d2a1f9f631de5fdb7be412f86
PDF Text
Text
-*1l
ON SOME FIXED POINTS IN BRITISH ETHNOLOGY.
MN view of the many discussions to which the complicated problems
offered by the
of
I may be useful toethnology to 'the British islands have given rise,
it
attempt
pick out, from amidst the confused
masses of assertion, and of inference, those propositions which
appear to rest upon a secure foundation, and to state the evidence
by which they are supported. Such is the purpose of the present
paper.
Some of these well-based, propositions relate to the physical cha-_
racters of the people of Britain and their neighbours ; while others
concern the languagesLwhich they spoke. I shall deal, in the first
place, with the physical questions.
I. Eighteen hundred yeates ago the population of Britain comprised
people of two types of complexion—the one fair and the other dark.
The darh people resembled theAquitani and the Iberians; the fairpeople
icere like the Belgic Gauls.
The chief direct evidence of the truth of this proposition is the
well-known passage of Tacitus:—■
“ Ceterum, Britanniam qui mortales initio coluerint, indigense an advecti,
ut inter barbaros, parum compertum. Habitus corporum varii: atque ex eo
argumenta : nam rutilae Caledoniam habitantium comas, magni artus Germa
nic,am origin cm asseverant. Silurum colorati vultus et torti plerumquo
crines, et posita contra Hispaniam, Iberos veteres trajecisse, easque sedes
VOL. XIV.
M M
�5^2
THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.
occupasse, fidem faciunt. Proximi Gallis et similes sunt; seu durante originis vi, seu procurrentibus in diversa terris, positio coeli corporibus habitum
dedit. In universum tamen sestimanti, Gallos vicinum solum occupasse,
credibile est; eorum sacra deprehendas, superstitionum persuasione ; sermo
baud multum diversus * . . .”
This passage, it will be observed, contains statements as to facts,
and certain conclusions deduced from these facts. The matters
of fact asserted are: firstly, that the inhabitants of Britain exhibit
much diversity in their physical character; secondly, that the
Caledonians are red-haired and large-limbed, like the Germans;
thirdly, that the Silures have curly hair and dark complexions, like
the people of Spain; fourthly, that the British people nearest Gaul
resemble the “ Galli.”
Tacitus, therefore, states positively what the Caledonians and Silures
were like; but the interpretation of what he says about the other
Britons, must depend upon what we learn from other sources as to
the characters of these “ Galli.” Here the testimony of “ divus Julius”
comes in with great force and appropriateness. Caesar writes:—
“ Britannia pars interior ab iis incolitur, quos natos in insula ipsi memoria
proditum dicunt: marituma pars ab iis, qui predaa ac belli inferendi causa ex
Belgio transierant; qui omnes fere iis nominibus civitatum appellantur quibus
orti ex civitatibus eo pervenerunt, et bello inlato ibi permanserunt atque
agros colere caeperunt.”f
From these passages it is obvious that, in the opinion of Caesar
and Tacitus, the southern Britons resembled the northern Gauls, and
especially the Belgae; and the evidence of Strabo is decisive as to
the characters in which the two people resembled one another : “The
men [of Britain] are taller than the Kelts, with hair less yellow;
they are slighter in their persons.” J
The evidence adduced appears to leave no reasonable ground for
doubting that, at the time of the Roman conquest, Britain contained
people of two types, the one dark and the other fair complexioned,
and that there was a certain difference between the latter in the
north and in the south of Britain : the northern folk being, in the
judgment of Tacitus, or, more properly, according to the information,
he had received from Agricola and others, more similar to the
Germans than the latter. As to the distribution of these stocks,
all that is clear is, that the dark people were predominant in certain
parts of the west of the southern half of Britain, while the fair stock
appears to have furnished the chief elements of the population else
where.
No ancient writer troubled himself with measuring skulls, and
therefore there is no direct evidence as to the cranial characters of the
* Taciti Agricola, c. 11.
J “ The Geography of Strabo.”
t De Bello Gallico, v. 12.
Translated by Hamilton and Falconeri: v. 5.
�BRITISH ETHNOLOGY.
5i|
fair and the dark stocks. The indirect evidence is not very satisfactory. The tumuli of Britain of pre-Roman date have yielded two
extremely different forms of skull, the one broad and the other long ;
and the same variety has been observed in the skulls of the ancient
Gauls.* The suggestion is obvious that the one form of skull .may
have been associated with the fair, and the other with the dark,
complexion. But any conclusion of this kind is at once checked by
the reflection that the extremes of long and short-headedness are to
be met with among the fair inhabitants of Germany and of Scan
dinavia at the present day—the South-western Germans and the
Swiss being markedly broad-headed, while the Scandinavians are as
predominantly long-headed.
What the natives of Ireland were like at the time of the Roman
conquest of Britain, and for centuries afterwards, we have no certain
knowledge ; but the earliest trustworthy records ;prove the existence,,
side by side with one another, of a fair .and a dark stock, in Ireland
as in Britain. The long form of skull- is predominant among the
ancient, as among modern, Irish.
II. The people termed Gauls, and thosecalled Germans, by the Romans,,
did not differ in any important physiol character.
The terms in which the ancient writers describe both Gauls and
Germans are identical. They are always tall people, with massive
limbs, fair skins, fierce blue eyes, and hair, the colour of which ranges
from red to yellow. Zeuss, the great authority on these matters,
affirms broadly that no distinction in bodily feature is to be found
between the Gauls, the Germans, and the Wends, so far as their
characters are recorded by the old historians ; and he proves his case
by citations from a cloud of witnesses.
An attempt has been made to show that the colour of the hair off
the Gauls must have differed very much from that which obtained
among the Germans, on the strength of the story told by Suetonius
(Caligula, 4), that Caligula tried to pass’ off Gauls for Germans by
picking out the tallest, and making them “ rutilare et summittere
comam.”
The Baron de Belloguet remarks upon this passage :—
“ It was in the very north of Gaul, and near the sea, that Caligula got
up this military comedy. And the fact proves that the Belgae were already
sensibly different from their ancestors, whom Strabo had found almost
identical with their brothers on the other side of the Rhine.”
But the fact recorded by Suetonius, if fact it be, proves nothing;
for the Germans themselves were in the habit of reddening their
hair. Ammianus Marcellinus f tells how, in the year 367 a.d., the
* See Dr. Thnmam “ On the two Principal Forms of Ancient British and Gaulish
Skulls.”
t Res Gestae, xxvii.
mm2
�5M
THE CONTEMPORAR Y RE VIE W.
Roman commander, Jovinus, surprised a body of Alemanni near
the town now called Charpeigne, in the valley of the Moselle^
and how the Roman soldiers, as, concealed by the thick wood, they
stole upon their unsuspecting enemies, saw that some were bathing
and others “ comas rutilantes ex more.” More than two centuries
earlier Pliny gives indirect evidence to the same effect when he says
of soap :—
“ Galliarum hoc inventum rutilandis capillis . . . apud Germanos majore
in usu viris quam faeminis.”*
Here we have a writer who flourished only a short time after the
date of the Caligula story, telling us that the Gauls invented soap
for the purpose of doing that which, according to Suetonius, Caligula
forced them to do. And, further, the combined and independent
testimony of Pliny and Ammianus assures us that the Germans were
as much in the habit of reddening their hair as the Gauls. As to
He Belloguet’s supposition that, even in Caligula’s time, the Gauls
had become darker' than their ancestors were, it is directly contradicted
by Ammianus Marcellinus, who knew the Gauls well. “ Celsioris
staturse et candidi poene Galli sunt omnes, et rutili, duminumque
torvitate terribiles,” is his description; and it would fit the Gauls
who sacked Rome.
III. In none of the invasions of Britain which have taken place since
the Roman dominion, has any other type of man been introduced than one
or other of the two which existed during that dominion.
The North Germans, who effected what is commonly called the
Saxon conquest of Britain, were, most assuredly, a fair, yellow, or
red-haired, blue-eyfed, long-skulled people. So were the Danes and
Norsemen who followed them; though it is very possible that the
active slave trade which went on, and the intercourse with Ireland,
may have introduced a certain admixture of the dark stock into both
Denmark and Norway. The Norman conquest brought in new
ethnological elements, the precise' value of which cannot be esti
mated with exactness; but as to their quality, there can be no
question, inasmuch as even the wide area from which William drew
his followers could yield him nothing but the fair and the dark types
of men, already present in Britain. But whether the Norman
settlers, on the whole, strengthened the fair or the dark element, is
a problem, the elements of the solution of which are not attainable.
I am unable to discover any,grounds for believing that a Lapp
element has ever entered into the population of these islands. So
far as the physical evidence goes, it is perfectly consistent with the
hypothesis that the only constituent stocks of that population, now.
* Historia Naturalis, xxviii. 51,
�BRITISH ETHNOLOGY.
5i5
or at any other period about which we have evidence, are the dark
whites, whom I have proposed to call “Melanochroi” and the fair
whites, or “ Xanthoclvroi.”
IV. The Xanthochroi and the Melanochroi of Britain are, speaking
broadly, distributed, at present, as they were in the time of Tacitus; and
their representatives on the continent of Europe have the same general dis
tribution as at the earliest period of which we have any record.
At the present day, and notwithstanding the extensive inter
mixture effected by the movements consequent on civilization and on
political changes, there is a predominance of dark men in the west,
and of fair men in the east and north, of Britain. At the present
day, as from the earliest times, the predominant constituents of the
riverain population of the North Sea and the eastern half of the
British Channel, are fair men. The fair stock continues in force
through Central Europe, until it is lost in Central Asia. Offshoots of
this stock extend into Spain, Italy, and Northern India, and by way
of Syria and North Africa, to the Canary Islands. They were known
in very early times to the Chinese, and in still earlier to the ancient
Egyptians, as frontier tribes. The Thracians were notorious for
their fair hair and blue eyes many centuries before our era.
On the other hand, the dark stock predominates in Southern and
Western France, in Spain, along the Ligurian shore, and in Western
and Southern Italy; in Greece, Asia, Syria, and North Africa; in
Arabia, Persia, Affghanistan, and Hindostan, shading gradually,
through all stages of darkening, into the type of the modern Egyp
tian, or of the wild Hill-man of the Dekkan. Nor is there any
record of the existence of a different population in all these countries.
The extreme north of Europe, and the northern part of Western
Asia, are at present occupied by a Mongoloid stock, and, in the
absence of evidence to the contrary, may be assumed to have been so
peopled from a very remote epoch. But, as I have said, I can find
no evidence that this stock ever took part in peopling Britain. Of
the three great stocks of mankind which extend from the western
coast of the great Eurasiatic continent to its southern and eastern
shores, the Mongoloids occupy a vast triangle, the base of which is
the whole of Eastern Asia, while its apex lies in Lapland. The
Melanochroi, on the other hand, may be represented as a broad band
stretching from Ireland to Hindostan ; while the Xanthochroic area
lies between the two, thins out, so to speak, at either end, and
mingles, at its margins, with both its neighbours.
Such is a brief and summary statement of what I believe to be the
chief facts relating to the physical ethnology of the people of Britain.
The conclusions which I draw from these and other facts are—
(1) That the Melanochroi and the Xanthochroi are two separate races
�516
THE CONTEMPORARY REVIE~
in the biological sense of the word race; (2) That they have had
the same general distribution as at present, from the earliest times
of which any record exists on the continent of Europe ; (3) That the
population of the British Islands is derived from them, and from
them only.
The people of Europe, however, owe their national names, not
to their physical characteristics, but to their languages, or to their
political relations; which, it is plain, need not have the slightest
relation to these characteristics.
Thus, it is quite certain that, in Caesar’s time, Gaul was divided
‘politically into three nationalities—the Belgae, the Celtae, and the
.Aquitani; and that the last were very widely different, both in language and in physical characteristics, from the two former. The
Belgae and the Celtae, on the other hand, differed comparatively little
either in physique oft in language. On the former point there is the
distinct testimony of Strabo ; as to the latter, St. Jerome states that
the “ Galatians had almost.the same’language as the Treviri.” Now
the Galatians were emigrant Volcae Teetosages, and therefore Celtae;
while the Treviri were Belgae.
At the present day, the physical characters of the people of Belgic
Gaul remain distinct from those of the people of Aquitaine, notwith
standing the immense changes which have taken place since Caesar’s
time; but Belgaej Celtae, and Aqtuitani (all but a mere fraction of the
last two, represented by the Basques and the Britons) are fused into
one nationality, “ le peuple, Faaneais.’’ But they have adopted the
language of one; set of invaders, and the name of another; their
original names and languages having almost disappeared. Suppose
that the French language remained as the sole evidence of the
existence of the population of Gaul, would the keenest philologer
arrive at any other conclusion than that this population was essen
tially and fundanmnttelly a “ Latin ” race, which had had some com
munication with/GeltSi and Teutons ? Would he so much as suspect
the former existence of the Aquitani ?
Community of language testifies to close contact between the
people who speak the language, but to nothing else ; and philology
has absolutely nothing to do with ethnology, except so far as it sug
gests the existence or the absence of such contact. The contrary
assumption, that. language, is a test of race, has introduced the utmost
confusion into ethnological speculation, and has nowhere worked
greater scientific and -practical mischief than in the ethnology of the
British Islands.
What is known, for certain, about the languages spoken in
these islands and their affinities may, I believe, be summed up as
follows:—
5 ’
«
�BRITISH ETHNOLOGY.
5i7
I. At the time of the Roman conquest, one language, the Celtic,
under two principal dialectical divisions, the Cymric and the Gaelic, was
spoken throughout the British Islands. Cymric was spoken in Britain,
Gaelic in Ireland.
If a language allied to Basque had in earlier times been spoken
in the British Islands, there is no evidence that any Euskarianspeaking people remained at the time of the Roman conquest. The
dark and the fair population of Britain alike spoke Celtic tongues,
and therefore the name “Celt” is as applicable to the one as -to the
other.
What was spoken in Ireland can only be surmised by reasoning
from the knowledge of later times; but there seems to be no doubt
that it was Gaelic; and that the Gaeli^dialect was introduced into
the Western Highlands by Irish invaders.
II. The Belgce and the Celtce, withfifye offshoot® of the latter in Asia
Minor, spoke dialects of the Cymric division of Celtic.
The evidence of this proposition lies-in the statement of St. Jerome
before cited ; in the similarity of the names of places in Belgic Gaul
and in Britain; and, in the direct comparison of sundry ancient
Gaulish and Belgic words which have- been preserved, with the
existing Cymric dialects, for which I must refer to the learned work
of Brandes.
Formerly, as at the present day,, the Cymric dialects of Celtic
were spoken by both the fair and the dark stocks.
III. There is no record of Gaelic being spoken anywhere save in
Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man.
This appears to be the final result of the long discussions which
have taken place on this much-deba^d question. As is the case
with the Cymric dialects, Gaelic is now spoken by both dark and
fair stocks.
IV. When the Teutonic languages first became known, they were
spoken only by Xanthochroi, that is to sayg, by the Germans, the Scandi
navians, and Goths. And they were imported by Xanthoehroi into Gaul
and into Britain.
- In Gaul the imported Teutonic dialect has been completely over
powered by the more or less modified Latin, which it found already in
possession; and what Teutonic blood there may be in modern French
men is not adequately represented in their language. In Britain, on
the contrary, the Teutonic dialects have overpowered the pre-existing
forms of speech, and the people are vastly less “ Teutonic ” than their
language. Whatever may have been the extent to which the Celtic
speaking population of the eastern half of Britain was trodden out
and supplanted by the Teutonic-speaking Saxons and Danes, it is
quite certain that no considerable displacement of the Celtic-speak-
�5iS
THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.
ing people occurred in Cornwall, Wales, or the Highlands of Scotland;
and that nothing approaching to the extinction of that people took
place in Devonshire, Somerset, or the western moiety of Britain
generally. Nevertheless, the fundamentally Teutonic English lan
guage is now spoken throughout Britain, except by an insignificant
fraction of the population in Wales and the Western Highlands.
But it is obvious that this fact affords not the slightest justification
for the common practice of speaking of the present inhabitants of
Britain as an “Anglo-Saxon” people. It is, in fact, just as absurd
as the habit of talking of the French people as a “ Latin” race, because
they speak a language which is, in the main, derived from Latin.
And the absurdity becomes the more patent when those who have
no hesitation in calling a Devonshire man, or a Cornish man, an
“Anglo-Saxon,” would think it ridiculous to call a Tipperary man
by the same title, though he and his forefathers may have spoken
English for as long a time as the Cornish man.
Ireland, at the earliest period at which we have any know
ledge, contained, like Britain, a dark and a fair stock, which, there
is every reason to believe, were identical with the dark and the
fair stocks of Britain. When the Irish first became known they
spoke a Gaelic dialect, and though, for many centuries, Scandinavians
made continual incursions upon, and settlements among them, the
Teutonic languages made no more way among the Irish than they
did among the French. How much Scandinavian blood was intro
duced there is no evidence to show. But after the conquest of Ireland
by Henry II., the English people, consisting in part of the descend
ants of Cymric speakers, and in part of the descendants of Teutonic
speakers, made good their footing in the eastern half of the island,
as the Saxons and Danes made good theirs in England; and did their
best to complete the parallel by attempting the extirpation of the
Gaelic-speaking Irish. And they succeeded to a considerable extent;
a large part of Eastern Ireland is now peopled by men who are
substantially English by descent, and the English language has
spread over the land far beyond the limits of English blood.
Ethnologically, the Irish people were originally, like the
people of Britain, a mixture of Melanochroi and Xanthochroi.
They resembled the Britons in speaking a Celtic tongue; but it
was a Gaelic and riot a Cymric form of the Celtic language.
Ireland was untouched by the Roman conquest, nor do the Saxons
seem to have had any influence upon her destinies, but the Danes
and Norsemen poured in a contingent of Teutonism, which has been
largely supplemented by English and Scotch efforts.
What then is the value of the ethnological difference between
the Englishman of the western half of England and the Irish
�BRITISH ETHNOLOGY.
519
man of the eastern half of Ireland ? For what reason does
the one deserve the name of a 11 Celt,” and not the other ?
[knd further, if we turn to the inhabitants of the western half of
Ireland, why should the term “ Celts ” be applied to them more than
to the inhabitants of Cornwall ? And if the name is applicable to
the one as justly as to the other, why should not intelligence, perse
verance, thrift, industry, sobriety, respect for law, be admitted to be
Celtic virtues ? And why should we not seek for the cause of their
absence in something else than the idle pretext of “ Celtic blood ? ”
I have been unable to meet with any answers to these questions.
V. The, Celtic and the Teutonic dialects are members of the same great
Aryan family of languages; but there is evidence to show that a non
Aryan language was at one time spoken over a large extent of the area
occupied by Nelanochroi in Europe.
The non-Aryan language here referred to is the Euskarian, now
spoken only by the Basques, but which seems in earlier times to have
been the language of the Aquitanians and Spaniards, and may possibly
have extended much further to the East. Whether it has any con
nection with the Ligurian and Oscan dialects are questions upon
which, of course, I do not presume to offer any opinion. But it is
important to remark that it is a language the area of 'which has
gradually diminished without any corresponding extirpation of the
people who primitively spoke it; so that the people of Spain and of
Aquitaine at the present day must be largely “ Euskarian ” by descent
in just the same sense as the Cornish men are “Celtic ” by descent.
Such seem to me to be the main facts respecting the ethnology of
the British Islands and of Western Europe, which may be said to be
fairly established. The hypothesis by which I think (with Be
Belloguet and Thurnam) the facts may best be explained is this : In
very remote times Western Europe and the British Islands were
inhabited by the dark stock or the Melanochroi alone, and
these Melanochroi spoke dialects allied to the Euskarian. The
Xanthochroi, spreading over the great Eurasiatic plains west
ward, and speaking Aryan dialects, gradually invaded the
territories of the Melanochroi. The Xanthochroi, who thus came
into contact with the Western Melanochroi, spoke a Celtic lan
guage ; and that Celtic language, whether Cymric or Gaelic,
spread over the Melanochroi far beyond the limits of intermixture of
blood, supplanting Euskarian, just as English and French have sup
planted Celtic. Even as early as Caesar’s time, I suppose that the
Euskarian was everywhere, except in Spain and in Aquitaine, re
placed by Celtic, and thus the Celtic speakers were no longer of one
ethnological stock, but of two. Both in France and in England a
�520
THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.
third wave of language — in the one case Latin, in the other
Teutonic—has spread over the same area. In France, it has left a
fragment of the primary Euskarian in one corner of the country, and
a fragment of the secondary Celtic, in another. In the British
Islands only outlying pools of the secondary linguistic wave remain in
Wales, the Highlands, Iretagd, and the Isle of Man. If this hypo
thesis is a sound one, it follows thatgthe name of Celtic is not
properly applicable to the Melanochroic or dark stock of Europe.
They are merely, so to speak, secondary Celts. The primary and
aboriginal Celtic-speaking people are Xanthochroi — the typical
Gauls of the ancient writers and the close allies by blood, customs,
and language, of the Germans.
T. H. Huxley.
�
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On some fixed points in British ethnology
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Huxley, Thomas Henry
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Collation: [511]-520 p. ; 26 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Contemporary Review 14, July 1870. Includes bibliographical references.
Please note that this pamphlet contains language and ideas that may be upsetting to readers. These reflect the time in which the pamphlet was written and the ideologies of the author.
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Ethnology
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British Ethnology
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Ethnology