may say our Gallic and German ancestors were so also; but we ask, _Why do they continue to be slaves?_ The merit of first endeavouring to distinguish races of men by characteristics taken from without the physical world, by the quality of the manifestations of their intelligence, is, perhaps, due to Linnæus. With this spirit of laconism, which led him to group in one simple and easy formula the characteristic facts which he desired to impress on the mind of the reader as being important, he endeavoured to determine, in a few words, the various tendencies of different races, and it must be acknowledged that he has at times been happy in this kind of synoptic classification.[174] In proportion as modern knowledge has made us penetrate more deeply into the minds of races,--since we are no longer contented with studying them superficially in the ordinary manifestations of life, which we may call “common-place,” and which belong to nearly all countries,--we perceive that insuperable limits separate one set of men from another with regard to intellectual affinity, so that here, as in the case of physical characteristics, each race is almost to be distinguished from its neighbours. “Profound and unchangeable differences,” said M. Paul de Remusat,[175] in 1854, “which would, perhaps, suffice of themselves to found definite and thoroughly limited classifications.” It was in order to point out a new branch of anthropology, a new and fruitful branch,--that a work appeared which was destined to throw a bright light on the subject. It was necessary to explain these distinctions, and not merely to enunciate them. The merit in this matter belongs to M. Renan, who, in his treatise on the languages of the great Semitic family, has painted, from the most favourable characteristics, this humanity which is, morally, so different from our own, however like it may be in external form. The intellectual disparity of races is henceforward an undeniable fact.