The different races of mankind are forms of one sole species, by the union of two of whose members descendants are propagated. They are not different species of a genus, since in that case their hybrid descendants would remain unfruitful. But whether the human races have descended from several primitive races of men, or from one alone, is a question that can not be determined from experience."*
[footnote] *Joh. Muller, 'Physiologie des Menschen', bd. ii., s. 768.
Geographical investigations regarding the ancient 'seat', the so-called 'cradle of the human race', are not devoid of a mythical p 355 character. "We do not know," says Wilhelm von Humboldt, in an unpublished work 'On the Varieties of Languages and Nations', "either from history or from authentic tradition, any period of time in which the human race has not been divided into social groups. Whether the gregarious condition was original, or of subsequent occurrence, we have no historic evidence to show. The separate mythical relations found to exist independently of one another in different parts of the earth, appear to refute the first hypothesis, and concur in ascribing the generation of the whole human race to the union of one pair. The general prevalence of this myth has cause it to be regarded as a traditionary record transmitted from the primitive man to his descendants. But this very circumstance seems rather to prove that it has no historical foundation, but has simply arisen from an identity in the mode of intellectual conception, which has every where led man to adopt the same conclusion regarding identical phenomena; in the same manner as many myths have doubtlessly arisen, not from any historical connection existing between them, but rather from an identity in human thought and imagination. Another evidence in favor of the purely mythical nature of this belief is afforded by the fact that the first origin of mankind — a phenomenon which is wholly beyond the sphere of experience — is explained in perfect conformity with existing views, being considered on the principle of the colonization of some desert island or remote mountainous valley at a period when mankind had already existed for thousands of years. It is in vain that we direct our thoughts to the solution of the great problem of the first origin, since man is too intimately associated with his own race and with the relations of time to conceive of the existence of an individual independently of a preceding generation and age. A solution of those difficult questions, which can not be determined by inductive reasoning or by experience — whether the belief in this presumed traditional condition be actually based on historical evidence, or whether mankind inhabited the earth in gregarious associations from the origin of the race — can not, therefore, be determined from philological data, and yet its elucidation ought not to be sought from other sources."
The distribution of mankind is therefore only a distribution into 'varieties', which are commonly designated by the somewhat indefinite term 'races'. As in the vegetable kingdom, and in the natural history of birds and fishes, a classification into many small families is based on a surer foundation than p 356 where large sections are separated into a few but large divisions; so it also appears to me, that in the determination of races a preference should be given to the establishment of small families of nations. Whether we adopt the old classification of my master, Blumenbach, and admit 'five' races (the Caucasian, Mongolian, American, Ethiopian, and Malayan), or that of Prichard, into 'seven races'* (the Iranian, Turanian, American, Hottentots and Bushmen, Negroes, Papuas, and Alfourons), we fail to recognize any typical sharpness of definition, or any general or well-established principle in the division of these groups.
[footnote] *Prichard, op. cit., vol. i., p. 247.
The extremes of form and color are certainly separated, but without regard to the races, which can not be included in any of these classes, and which have been alternately termed Scythian and Allophyllic. Iranian is certainly a less objectionable term for the European nations than Caucasian; but it may be maintained generally that geographical denominations are very vague when used to express the points of departure of races, more especially where the country which has given its name to the race, as, for instance, Turan (Mawerannahr), has been inhabited at different periods* by Indo-Germanic and Finnish, and not by Mongolian tribes.
[footnote] *The late arrival of the Turkish and Mongolian tribes on the Oxus and on the Kirghis Steppes is opposed to the hypothesis of Niebuhr, according to which the Scythians of Herodotus and Hippocrates were Mongolians. It seems far more probable that the Scythians (Scoloti) should be referred to the Indo-Germanic Massagetae (Alani). The Mongolian, true Tartars (the latter term was afterward falsely given to purely Turkish tribes in Russia and Siberia), were settled, at that period, far in the eastern part of Asia. See my 'Asie Centrale', t. i., p. 239, 400; 'Examen Critique de l'Histoire de la Geogr.', th. ii., p. 320. A distinguished philologist, Professor Buschmann, calls attention to the circumstance that the poet Firdousi, in his half-mythical prefatory remarks in the 'Schahnameh', mentions "a fortress of the Alani" on the sea-shore, in which Selm took refuge, this prince being the eldest son of the King Feridun, who in all probability lived two hundred years before Cyrus. The Kirghis of the Scythian steppe were originally a Finnish tribe; their three hordes probably constitute in the present day the most numerous nomadic nation, and their tribe dwelt, in the sixteenth century, in the same steppe in which I have myself seen them. The Byzantine Menander (p. 380-382, ed. Nieb.) expressly states that the Chacan of the Turks (Thu-Khiu), in 569, made a present of a Kirghis slave to Zemarchus, the embassador of ustinish II.; he terms her a [Greek word]; and we find in Abulgasi ('Historia Mongolorum et Tatarorum') that the Kirghis are called Kirkiz. Similarity of manners, where the nature of the country determines the principal characteristics, is a very uncertain evidence of identity of race. The life of the steppes produces among the Turks (Ti Tukiu), the Baschkirs (Fins), the Kirghis, the Torgodi and Dsungari (Mongolians), the same habits of nomadic life, and the same use of felt tents, carried on wagons and pitched among herds of cattle.
p 357 Languages, as intellectual creations of man, and as closely interwoven with the development of mind, are, independently of the 'national' form which they exhibit, of the greatest importance in the recognition of similarities or differences in races. This importance is especially owing to the clew which a community of descent affords in treading that mysterious labyrinth in which the connection of physical powers and intellectual forces manifests itself in a thousand different forms. The brilliant progress made within the last half century, in Germany, in philosophical philology, has greatly facilitated our investigations into the 'national' character* of languages and the influence exercised by descent.
[footnote] *Wilhelm von Humboldt, 'Ueber die Verschiedenheit der menschlichen Sprachbaues', in his great work 'Ueber die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Java', bd. i., s. xxi., xlviii., and ccxiv.
But here, as in all domains of ideal speculation, the dangers of deception are closely linked to the rich and certain profit to be derived.