The American Encyclopedia of History, Biography and Travel: Comprising Ancient and Modern History: the Biography of Eminent Men of Europe and America, and the Lives of Distinguished Travelers. — John Shaqi
The American Encyclopedia of History, Biography and Travel: Comprising Ancient and Modern History: the Biography of Eminent Men of Europe and America, and the Lives of Distinguished Travelers.Prescott, Thomas H.
History
The American Encyclopedia of History, Biography and Travel: Comprising Ancient and Modern History: the Biography of Eminent Men of Europe and America, and the Lives of Distinguished Travelers.
Prescott, Thomas H.
Biography; World history
settling rather in the centre and north of Europe in two great
moieties――the Scandinavians and the Germans Proper. This seems the
most plausible pedigree of the Celtic and Germanic races, although
some object to it. 3_d_, The Semitic or Aramaic branch, which,
diffusing itself southward and westward from the original Caucasian
seat, filled Syria, Mesopotamia, Arabia, etc., and founded the early
kingdoms of Assyria, Babylonia, Phœnicia, Palestine, etc. It was this
branch of the Caucasian variety which, entering Africa by the Isthmus
of Suez and the Straits of Babelmandel, constituted itself an element
at least in the ancient population of Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia; and
there are ethnographers who believe that the early civilization which
lined the northern coasts of Africa arose from some extremely early
blending of the Ethiopic with the Semitic, the latter acting as a
dominant caste. Diffusing itself westward along the African coast as
far as Mauritania, the Semitic race seems eventually, though at a
comparatively late period, to have met the Celtic, which had crossed
into Africa from Spain; and thus, by the infusion of Arameans and
Celts, that white or tawny population which we find in northern Africa
in ancient times, distinct from the Ethiopians of the interior, seems
to have been formed. 4_th_, The Pelasgic branch, that noble family
which, carrying the Greeks and Romans in its bosom, poured itself from
western Asia into the south-east of Europe, mingling doubtless with
Celts and Germans. 5_th_, The Scythian, or Slavonic branch, which
diffused itself over Russia, Siberia, and the central plains of Asia,
shading off in these last into the Mongolian Such is a convenient
division of the Caucasian stock; a more profound investigation,
however, might reduce the five races to these two――the Semitic and the
Indo-Germanic; all civilized languages being capable, it is said, of
being classified under these three families――the Chinese, which has
monosyllabic roots; the Indo-Germanic (Sanscrit, Hindoostanee, Greek,
Latin, German, and all modern European languages), which has
dissyllabic roots; and the Semitic (Hebrew, Arabic, &c.), whose roots
are trisyllabic. Retaining, however, the fivefold distribution which
we have adopted, we shall find that the history of the world, from the
earliest to the remotest times, has been nothing else than the common
Caucasian vitality presenting itself in a succession of phases or
civilizations, each differing from the last in the proportions in
which it contains the various separate elements.
It is advisable to sketch first the most eastern Caucasian
civilization――that is, that of India; and then to proceed to a
consideration of the state of that medley of nations, some of them
Semitic, some of them Indo-Persian, and some of them Armenian, out of
which the great Persian empire arose, destined to continue the
historic pedigree of the world into Europe, by transmitting its
vitality to the Pelasgians.
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