G. A. F. Van Rhyn

“ Helmholtz's new doctrines of sight and sound have been universally received, and his fame will last as long as they continue to be among the main pillars of physical science. His name is also inseparably connected with the doctrine of the conservation of force, which subsequent investigation at the hands of others has shown to be the key-note of every law of Nature. Its bearing on the doctrine of evolution is, however, so strong and favorable that, like that doctrine, it will need much time before it receives an unreserved acceptance. ”

“ Many believe still in the blood relationship of all human beings, while others are of opinion that each race originated independently. Not all who accept the doctrine of evolution are monogenists; and the polygenists, or those who believe in the plurality of origin of the human race, base their belief on the fact that the languages do not seem to have come from one and the same source. ”

“ Prepositions always follow the words they govern; as, indeed, it is a general rule that the governed word precedes the governing. Words connecting sentences, relatives and conjunctions, are in most languages hardly employed at all. A marked phonetic peculiarity running through all the dialects is the law of harmonic sequence of vowels; the vowels are divided into two classes, heavy and light (or hard and soft) , and within the same word only heavy or only light vowels can follow one another ”

“ The Dutch language has no literature earlier than the 16th century, but it is still a literary and national language; while Flemish, which was also used during this period in the courts of Flanders and Brabant, had to give way to the official languages of Holland and Belgium, and its use is almost completely confined to the Flemish peasantry. Anglo-Saxon is also a Low German dialect. The four Germanic tribes that invaded Britain have left no record in the dialects peculiar to each, and there are no facts from which to determine the precise nature of their speech. ”

“ He proved, for example, that, when we touch a thing, it takes a little time before we know that we touched it, and that, however rapid and seemingly instantaneous our actions be, some small period of time must elapse before we can begin to execute the mandates of our will. ”

“ In the following rapid survey of the human races copious references have been made to the latest works of travel. Our space does not permit us to give in detail the customs and morals of each; we confine ourselves instead to a succinct enumeration of the physical characteristics, the languages, and the habitats. Beginning with the lowest types of man, we must consider first the Ulotriches or woolly-haired men, among whom the Papuans probably resemble very closely the primitive species. ”

“ The discovery of this principle of Nature has been of the greatest moment to the progress of the whole range of physical sciences. This law is, in fact, indispensable to a sound understanding of any and every phenomenon in the animate and inanimate world. And Helmholtz opened his scientific career with a production that would have worthily closed a long life of study and fame.
After the publication of "The Conservation of Force," he was appointed prosector at the Anatomical Institute in Berlin, where he remained about a year. ”

“ The Scandinavians remained in comparative isolation. The Goths inhabited only a small portion of the Scandinavian peninsula, going no further north than the lakes Wener, Wetter, and Hielmar. From the population south of Jutland went forth the stock of the English-speaking race. During the 5th and 6th centuries three Germanic tribes, the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, crossed the North sea, settled in the British islands, and subjugated the former population. The country of the Rhine and the Weser then became the main abiding place of pure Germanic elements. ”

“ This character belongs to them in varying degree; the Mantchoo dialects are the poorest of all, and the Mongol do not much surpass them; the Tartaric idioms hold the middle rank; the tongues of the Finnic branch, particularly the Finnish proper and the Hungarian, possess a marked superiority to the others. Most of the languages of the family are known only in their present condition. None of the branches has ever had a properly national literature, if we except the mythic and legendary songs of the Finns and the mostly lyric popular songs of the Hungarians ”

“ The Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit forms have been added to show the degree of relationship of the Germanic to the cognate groups of the Aryan or Indo-European family of languages. The primitive tongue is understood to be the mother of all, and gives the forms from which linguistic scholars derive those of the most ancient as well as of the modern Aryan dialects. ”

“ In Germany there has always been a greater fearlessness of the consequences resulting from speaking the whole truth than anywhere else. The eminent savants of England and France are still obliged to bow to the dictates of social and ecclesiastical prejudices, and, when they speak openly, they do it to the injury of their social standing. ”

“ Mongolians are all the inhabitants of the Asiatic continent, with the exception of the Hyperboreans in the north, a few Malays in the southeast, the Dravidas in Further India, and the Mediterraneans in the southwest. The species is represented in Europe by the Finns and Lapps in the north, the Osmanlis in Turkey, and the Magyars in Hungary. The color of the skin is yellow, with either a white or a brown tinge; the hair is straight and black; the head is either short or medium in size, long heads being rare; the face is round; the eyes are small, and often oblique ”

“ Helmholtz is nobody's pupil; he stands on the basis of personal observation, and speaks whatever he believes to be true. To show how independently his mind was developed, it may be stated that he could not be induced to attend a single lecture on physical science while a student in Berlin. ”

“ The Malays are ethnologically of great importance, though not very numerous. High authorities consider it certain that the forefathers of the Malays, called Pro-Malays, were the ancestors of most of the nations of Asia, Europe, and America. The modern Malays comprise three races far distant from each other. The Sundanese inhabit Malacca, the Sunda archipelago, and the Philippines; a branch of them is found on the island of Madagascar, and another is scattered over the Polynesian archipelago. The Malays are very fond of navigation, which explains the great territorial extent of the species. ”

“ The genuine negro has always very thin calves and very long arms. This species separated probably very early into numerous tribes, inasmuch as the many totally different languages spoken by them cannot be retraced to the original tongue. The migrations of the African races so far noticed are due in part to the slavery practised among them, compelling the weaker tribes to move if possible beyond the reach of the stronger. ”

“ This regulation provides her with large available forces, but sadly interferes with the pursuits of the young men at a time when the foundation must be laid for their future career. To overcome this difficulty, and to create at the same time a comparatively cultured army, it is provided that those who attend for a short period some military institution, and pass a satisfactory examination of a certain literary grade, shall be more or less exempt from active service in time of peace. ”

“ Acclimation transformed these races so peculiarly as to render it natural to classify them as a separate species. They are low in stature; their heads are medium-sized, and occasionally long; their eyes are small and somewhat oblique; their cheek bones protrude; their mouths are large; their hair is straight and black. The color of the skin is more or less brown, sometimes with a white or a yellow tinge, like the Mongolians, and sometimes with a ruddy tinge, like the Americans. ”

“ Among the Indo-European languages, Gothic diverges widely from the primitive tongue, and must be considered as a younger sister of Sanskrit. Gothic was not the oldest of the Germanic tongues, though its literary documents date back further than any other. Old High German, old Norse, Anglo-Saxon, and Gothic were probably sister dialects; at least no one of them appears to be derived from any of the others. Old High German comprises a number of dialects which were spoken chiefly in South Germany, as the Thuringian, Frankish, Swabian, Alsatian, Swiss, and Bavarian. ”

“ The Mediterraneans have always been considered the best developed and most cultivated species. They were formerly classified as Caucasians, but the term was abandoned on account of the insignificance of the proper Caucasian branch, and Mediterranean was substituted because the most important races of this species flourished first on the shores of that sea. ”

“ It is not unlikely that Polynesians also entered America from the west.—The three species still to be noticed, Dravidas, Nubians, and Mediterraneans, have many characteristics in common, which separate them entirely from the others. The most noticeable feature is the development of a strong beard, which is either entirely wanting or but little developed in the other species. The hair is not quite as straight and smooth, but always more or less curly. ”

“ The history of the German empire after Otho I. is a series of contests between the emperors and the dukes of the principal races composing it. The Saxons, the Franconians, and the Swabians were in turn at the head of the empire in the persons of their own leaders. The political significance of special races ceased in the 13th century, but in language and manners there are still five which may be clearly distinguished. ”

“ Germanic tribes were for centuries put to their utmost to prevent the further advance to the north of their southern enemies. Cæsar and Tacitus are the most valuable authorities upon the condition of the western districts of Germany in their time. Cæsar states that the Rhine was the eastern boundary of Gaul, and affirms that in Switzerland, southern Alsace, near the upper Moselle, and on the shores of the strait of Dover, there were only four Celtic tribes, the Helvetii, Sequani, Mediomatrici, and Morini. ”

“ But the pressure of the eastern races continued, and impelled by it about one half of the German warriors attacked the Roman empire, and divided southern Europe among them. The whole Gothic family of Vandals, Heruli, Rugii, Gepidæ, Alani, Suevi, Longobards, Burgundians, and Franks left Germany almost entirely, and the Slavs and Finnic races took possession of the thinly populated districts, and extirpated in several places the German inhabitants. The Gothic empire on the Danube, founded there after the exodus of the Goths from the Baltic territory, was conquered by the Huns. ”

“ Scherzer and Schwarz took numerous careful measurements of the bodies of individuals belonging to different races, and the conclusion arrived at, as given by Weissbach, was that the resemblance between man and apes is not restricted to any particular people, but is traceable in some portion of the body in all nations; that an heirloom of the relationship is owned by every one, and that even Europeans cannot claim exemption from it. (See Evolution.) The question of the unity or diversity of origin of the different races can also be answered only hypothetically. ”

“ Those ethnologists who give a plural origin to mankind account for the present distribution of the races by tracing their migrations to several starting points or primitive homes. The majority of ethnologists adopt, however, the monophyletic hypothesis, and regard the southern part of Asia as the birthplace of man, placing it either in the highlands of the Himalayas, or near the sources of the Oxus and Jaxartes, or between the Euphrates and Tigris, or in the southern part of Arabia, or on the ancient continent of Lemuria. ”

“ The stationary existence of the Norse language in Icelandic, in which it has been preserved almost intact to the present day, is explained by the secluded position of the island, and the zeal with which the old songs and sagas, as collected and fixed in the two Eddas, have been cultivated by the inhabitants. ”

“ It is believed that in the development of the brain, especially of the frontal lobe, may be retraced the history of man, and that skulls of primitive man furnish a clue to the intellectual spirit of primitive ages. ”