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a 84 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. VI.

_ THE USE AND ABUSE OF PHILOLOGY.

By THE REV. FATHER A. G. Morice, O.M.I.

(Read March 4th, 1899.)

WE frequently hear in scientific circles of craniometry and other
anthropological measurements ; our literature is full of descriptions of
the manners and customs of different peoples ; their social organization

-is detailed and their psychological attainments studied, while the
archeologist never tires of submitting the claims of his favorite science
to our consideration. Yet, when it is a question of determining with
precision and without fear of error the ethnic differences upon which is

based the distribution of mankind into distinct races, philology alone is :
entitled to unqualified confidence and respect. In other words, philology | 3 |
is the best, nay, the only safe criterion of ethnological certitude.

This proposition I have repeatedly formulated, and my first intention,
on being asked to contribute my mite towards the fund of information
which is to become the Memorial Volume, was to try and put it beyond
the possibility of cavil. Proofs of the fallibility of the other branches of
ethnological science are many and weighty. They could readily be
presented for the appreciation of the indulgent reader. Circumstances
however, have ‘arisen whereby I have been led to abandon, or at least
postpone, such a course in favor of more timely considerations.

Let it suffice, just now, to state by way of an a fortzord argument that,
not only is language the best criterion of racial differentiations, but it can
even be represented as greatly subserving the ends of history through
archeology and mythology. Had not Champollion and Sir Henry
Rawlinson previously familiarized themselves with the.dialects of ancient
Egypt and Assyria, those hieroglyphic and cuneiform inscriptions which
for ages had puzzled legions of savants would still wait for a philologist
og equal to the task of ‘deciphering them. And why is it, I may ask, that
he the researches of the American, French and German scientists relative to
the Maya and other aboriginal characters have not yielded more
practical results? Let Dr. D. G. Brinton answer for me. In the case
of the former, it is largely, he says, ‘‘ because none of the interpreters have