Chapter XXXIII

., II.

[144] The physiological criterion of a race is consanguinity. But unfortunately racial lineage soon loses itself in obscurity. Moreover, during periods as to which we have some knowledge, no race has continued pure from alien admixture; and every people that has taken part in the world’s advance has been acted upon by foreign influences from its prehistoric beginnings throughout the entire course of its history. Indeed, foreign suggestions and contact with other peoples appear essential to tribal or national progress. For the historian there exists no pure and unmixed race, and even the conception of one becomes self-contradictory. To him a race is a group of people, presumably related in some way by blood, who appear to transmit from generation to generation a common heritage of culture and like physical and spiritual traits. He observes that the transmitted characteristics of such a group may weaken or dissipate before foreign influence, and much more as the group scatters among other people; or again he sees its distinguishing traits becoming clearer as the members draw to a closer national unity under the action of a common physical environment, common institutions, and a common speech. The historian will not accept as conclusive any single kind of evidence regarding race. He may attach weight to complexion, stature, and shape of skull, and yet find their interpretation quite perplexing when compared with other evidence, historical or linguistic. He will consider customs and implements, and yet remember that customs may be borrowed, and implements are often of foreign pattern. Language affords him the most enticing criterion, but one of the most deceptive. It is a matter of observation that when two peoples of different tongues meet together, they may mingle their blood through marriage, combine their customs, and adopt each other’s utensils and ornaments; but the two languages will not structurally unite: one will supplant the other. The language may thus be more single in source than the people speaking it; though, conversely, people of the same race, by reason of special circumstances, may not speak the same tongue. Hence linguistic unity is not conclusive evidence of unity of race.

[145] As to the Celts in Gaul and elsewhere, and the early non-Celtic population of Gaul, see A. Bertrand, _La Gaule avant les Gaulois_ (Paris, 1891); _La Religion des Gaulois_ (Paris, 1897); _Les Celtes dans les vallées du Pô et du Danube_ (in conjunction with S. Reinach); D’Arbois de Jubainville, _Les Premiers Habitants de l’Europe_ (second edition, Paris, 1894); Fustel de Coulanges, _Institutions politiques de l’ancienne France_ (Paris, 1891); Karl Müllenhoff, _Deutsche Altertumskunde_, Bde. I. and II.; Zupitza, “Kelten und Gallier,” _Zeitschrift für keltische Philologie_, 1902.

[146] See _ante_,