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Ethnology is a new science. Its function is to ascertain the origin and filiation, the customs and institutions, of the various nations and tribes which make up, or have made up in the past, the human race. In tracing their relationship to one another, or their genealogy, the sources of information are mainly three—physical characteristics, language, and written memorials of every sort.

Ethnology is a branch of Anthropology, as this is a subdivision of

Zoölogy, and this, again, of Biology. Ethnography differs from

Ethnology in dealing more with details of description, and less with

rational exposition.

RACES OF MANKIND.—Authorities differ widely from one another in their classification of races. Prichard made seven, which were reduced by Cuvier to three; viz., Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopic. Blumenbach made five, and Pickering eleven. It is the Caucasian variety which has been chiefly distinguished in history, and active in the building-up of civilization. None of the numerous schemes of division, from a zoölogical point of view, however, are satisfactory.

Huxley has proposed a fourfold classification: 1. The Australoid, represented by the Australians and the indigenous tribes of Southern India. 2. The Negroid. 3. The Mongoloid. 4. The Xanthochroi, or fair whites, among whom are comprised most of the inhabitants of Northern Europe. To these are added a fifth variety, the Melanochroi, to which belong a part of the Celts, the Spaniards, Greeks, Arabs, etc.

Of the various methods of race-division, A. van Humboldt says: "We fail to recognize any typical sharpness of definition, or any general or well-established principle, in the division of these groups. 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." (Cosmos, i. 365.) For example, black skin, woolly hair, and a negro-like cast of countenance, are not necessarily connected together.

MONOGENISM.—Zoölogists, from the point of view of their own science, now more generally favor the monogenist doctrine, which traces mankind to a single pair, than the polygenist, which assumed different centers of origin. The present tendencies of natural science, especially since Darwin, are favorable to the monogenist view.

"The opinion of modern Zoölogists, whose study of the species and breeds of animals makes them the best judges, is against this view of the several origins of man, for two principal reasons. First, That all tribes of men, from the blackest to the whitest, the most savage to the most cultured, have such general likeness in the structure of their bodies and the working of their minds, as is easiest and best accounted for by their being descended from a common ancestry, however distant. Second, That all the human races, notwithstanding their form and color, appear capable of freely intermarrying, and forming crossed races of every combination, such as the millions of mulattoes and mestizoes sprung in the New World from the mixture of Europeans, Africans, and native Americans; this again points to a common ancestry of all the races of man. We may accept the theory of the unity of mankind as best agreeing with ordinary experience and scientific research." (Tylor's Anthropology, etc., pp. 5, 6.)

EVIDENCE OF LANGUAGE.—Languages, through marked affinities, are grouped together into several great families, i. The Aryan, or Indo-European, of which the oldest known branch is the Sanskrit, the language in which the ancient books of the Hindus, the Vedas, were written. With the Sanskrit belong the Iranian or Persian, the Greek, the Latin or Italic, the Celtic, the Germanic or Teutonic (under which are included the Scandinavian tongues), the Slavonian or Slavo-Lettic. 2. The Semitic, embracing the communities described in Genesis as the descendants of Shem. Under this head are embraced, first, the Assyrian and Babylonian; secondly, the Hebrew and Phoenician, with the Syrian or Aramaic; and thirdly, the Arabic. The Phoenician was spread among numerous colonies, of which Carthage was the chief. The Arabic followed the course of Mohammedan conquest. It is the language of the northern border of Africa, and has strongly affected various other languages—the Persian, Turkish, etc. 3. The Turanian or Scythian. This is an extensive family of languages. The Finno-Hungarian, which includes two cultivated peoples, the Fins and Hungarians; the Samoyed, stretching from the North Sea far eastward to the boundary between Russia and China; and the Turkish or Tartar, spreading from European Turkey over a great part of Central Asia, are connected together by family ties. They spring from one parent stock. Whether the Mongolian and the Tungusic—the last is the language of the Manchus—are also thus affiliated, is a point not absolutely settled.

Besides these three great divisions, there are other languages, as the Chinese, and the monosyllabic tongues of south-eastern Asia, which possibly are connected lineally with it; the Japanese; the Malay-Polynesian, a well-developed family; the Hamitic (of which the Egyptian or Coptic is the principal member); the Dravidian or South Indian; the South African; the Central African; the American Indian languages, etc.

On language and the divisions of language, W. D. WHITNEY, Language, and the Study of Language (1867), Oriental and Linguistic Studies (two series, 1872–74), Life and Growth of Language (1875); Art. Philology, in Encycl. Brit., vol. xviii.; Max Müller's Lectures on the Science of Language (two series), and other writings by the same author.

ETHNOLOGY AND HISTORY.—History is generally written from the political point of view. It is the history of nations considered separately and in relation to one another. There are, also, histories of culture. History, from a cultural point of view, without paying regard to national boundaries, seeks to unfold the rise and progress of arts and industry, of inventions, of customs, manners, and institutions. It is the history of culture and civilization. History, from the ethnological point of view, would describe the migrations and experiences of the different races of men, and the formation of the various nationalities by these races, through conquest and intermixture. Following the divisions of linguistic science, we should have, first, the Egyptian race and their history. Then we should have the Semitic race, in the three eras of their pre-eminence, and in their various branches. Then would come the Aryan, or Indo-European family, whose power, except when interrupted and partially broken by the Mohammedan conquests, has continued to dominate in history since the rise of the ancient Persian Empire.

There have been three periods of Semitic ascendency—the era of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires; that of the Phoenician cities and of Carthage (a Tyrian settlement), with their colonies; and that of the Arabic-Mohammedan Conquests. This last epoch falls within the Christian era. In this course of Semitic history would be embraced the narrative of the Israelites, and of their dispersion in ancient and in modern times. The Indo-European, or Aryan family, follows next in order. In recording its history, we should consider, first, its oldest representative of which we have knowledge—the Indian race, with its literature, its social organization, and its religions, Brahmanism and Buddhism. Then come the Persians, with their religion founded by Zoroaster, and the Armenians. With the fall of the Ancient Persian Empire, the center of power was transferred from Asia to Europe, where it has since continued, though still in the hands of the same Aryan race. The history of the Greeks and of the Romans succeeds; then the history of the three races—the Celtic, Teutonic, and Slavonian—as they present themselves at the threshold of authentic history. The forming of the several nationalities of Europe would have to be traced: the Slavonian, including Russia and Poland; the Teutonic, comprising England, Holland, Germany, and the Scandinavian peoples (viz., Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland); the Romanic or Italic nations (viz., Portugal, Spain, Provence, Italy, Wallachia, the Grisons of Switzerland), which are the nations the basis of whose languages is the rustic or people's Latin of the middle ages. Such, in brief outline, is the method which history, from the point of view of race affinities, as these are indicated by language, would adopt.

UNITY OF DESCENT.—Whether mankind are all descended from one pair—the Monogenist view, or spring from more than one center of origin—the Polygenist view, is a question which philological science can not answer. The facts of language are reconcilable with either doctrine. While cautious philologists are slow in admitting distinct affinities between the generic families of speech—as the Semitic and Indo-European—which would be indicative of a common origin, they agree in the judgment, that, on account of the mutability of language, especially when unwritten, and while in its earlier stages, no conclusion adverse to the monogenist doctrine can be drawn from the diversities of speech now existing, or that are known to have existed at any past time. As far as science is concerned, the decision of the question must be left to zoölogy. The tendencies of natural science at present, as we have said above, are strongly toward the monogenist view. The variety of physical characteristics not only affords no warrant for assuming diversity of species among men; they do not even imply diversity of parentage at the beginning.

"Nothing," says Max Müller, "necessitates the admission of different independent beginnings for the material elements" [the vocabulary] "of the Turanian, Semitic, and Aryan branches of speech." The same thing Müller affirms of "the formal elements" [the grammatical structure] "of these groups of languages." "We can perfectly understand how, either through individual influences or by the wear and tear of speech in its continuous working, the different systems of grammar of Asia and Europe may have been produced." (Lectures on Language, 1st series, p. 340.) The same conclusions are reached by Professor W. D. Whitney, who, while disclaiming for linguistic science the power to prove that the human race in the beginning formed one society, says, that it is "even far more demonstrable" that it can "never prove the variety of human races and origins." (Life and Growth of Language, p. 269.)

We know that nations can learn and unlearn a language. The Irish, adopting the language of their English conquerors, is one of many examples of the same sort in history. What effects upon language took place, prior to recorded history, from the mingling of tribes and peoples, it is impossible to ascertain. The consequences to language, of mixture among different forms of speech, were like those which must have been produced upon the physical man from the mingling of diverse physical types in remote ages. Science, if it has no decided verdict to render, does not stand in conflict with the monogenist doctrine, which has generally been understood to be the teaching of the Scriptures.