I shall not enter into a recital of these arguments, for I believe the debate is so nearly terminated that the conclusion may be accepted that the Aryac peoples originated in Western Europe and migrated easterly. This you will observe is in accord with the general theory of the origin and distribution of the white race which I laid before you, and is a potent argument in its support.
_The Aryac Physical Type._--When we endeavor to fix more precisely the home of that tribe which was the lineal Aryac progenitor, several considerations must be carefully weighed. The physical types of the Aryac people differ markedly, as I stated in my last lecture, and some writers (Penka, Lapouge, etc.) have claimed that the Teutonic, the tall blonde type, is peculiar to the Aryans, and must have been the original character. But it is found with just as great purity among the Libyans of Africa, so that the assumption is vain.
It is an undeniable fact that at the earliest period, both in Europe and Asia, the majority of Aryan-speaking peoples were brunettes, and it is also a fact that in the population of Europe to-day there is a tendency to revert to that type. When a blonde and a brunette intermarry, ten per cent. more children will take after the brunette.[91] There is a probability, therefore, that the original Aryac tribe was a mixture of blondes and brunettes, with a majority of the latter, and also that the form of its skulls was variable, some long, some broad.[92]
This would indicate a mixed descent, and such, no doubt, it owned. It is absurd to suppose the contrary. The type of _the proto-Aryac language_ is one which originates not early, but late in the history of human speech. The process of grammatical inflection is the highest stage of linguistic evolution. It is the result of a slow growth, in which the material elements of language are transformed into formal elements, and the “grammatical categories,” or parts of speech, gradually assume logical distinctness and independent expression. We can watch this growth in its imperfect form in the Nahuatl of Mexico and the Berber of Morocco; and when we see it completed, as in the Arabic or Latin, we may be sure it is a comparatively late fruit of the human intellect. The expressions common to all Aryac languages reveal a primitive social condition to correspond with this. It was above that of savagery. These common ancestors had domesticated dogs, cattle, and perhaps sheep; nomadic at times, they at some seasons tilled the soil; they were acquainted with copper, and brewed mead from honey; they had probably even invented a wagon, and milked their cows, and they certainly lived on or near the seashore, and used boats.