Of this, no better illustration can be given here than the error committed when it is asserted that we, one people, are holding another people, the Filipino, in subjection. As a matter of fact, there is no Filipino people. A certain number of persons, about eight millions, inhabit, the Philippine Archipelago, but it is no more correct to call these one people than it is to call the Europeans one people, because they happen to inhabit the European continent. It is well to keep this point in mind, because, unless a grave error is here committed, the impression prevails that it is one single, homogeneous people whom we are unjustly depriving of independence. At any rate, if not categorically expressed, the connotation of the idea of homogeneity exists. How far this is from the truth is so evident to any person having the slightest real acquaintance with the Philippines, that it would hardly be worth while to dwell upon the matter here, were it not for the ignorance of our people at large. It is convenient to speak of the Filipino people, just as it is convenient to speak of the Danish people, or of the English; but whereas, when we say "Danish" or "English" we mean one definite thing that exists as such, when we say "Filipino" we should understand that the term stands for a relatively great number of very different things. For example, confining ourselves for the moment to the Christianized tribes, it may be asserted that the inhabitants of the great Cagayan Valley, the tobacco-growing country, are at least as different from those of the Visayas, the great middle group of Islands, as are the Italians from the Spanish. Precisely similar differences, increasing, roughly, with the difference of latitude, may be drawn almost at random between any other pairs of the elements constituting the Filipino population. The Ilokanos, to give only one more illustration, have almost nothing more, in common with the Bicols than the fact that they both probably come from the same original stock, just as the English and the Germans have the same ancestors. All these subdivisions speak different languages, and the vast majority do not speak Spanish at all.