Note 202 — Chapter V

[Dr. Hunt, however, does not think that language is such an unfailing test as our author appears to imagine. He considers that language must be utterly discarded as the first principle of anthropological classification, and gives a far higher value to religion and to art, considering language merely as the third element. It is possible to change the language of a race; but apparently impossible to change either their religion or their innate ideas of art. See Hunt on Anthropological Classification (Brit. Assoc., 1863), Anthrop. Rev., vol. i, p. 383. “On ethnology, Professor Müller says, ‘The science of language and the science of ethnology have both suffered most seriously from being mixed up together. The classification of races and languages should be quite independent of each other. Races may change their languages; and history supplies us with several instances where one race adopted the language of another. Different languages, therefore, may be spoken by one race, or the same language may be spoken by different races; so that any attempt at squaring the classification of races and tongues must necessarily fail.’”(On the Science of Language, R. S. Charnock; Anthrop. Rev., vol. i, p. 200.)—Editor.]