Ridpath's history of the world; being an account of the ethnic origin, primitive estate, early migrations, social conditions and present promise of the principal families of men .. . s which wereaccepted aforetime as not only probablebut authentic. Even beyond this im-aginary point of departure for the twolanguages from a common linguisticoriginal we are obliged to look stillfurther and take into account the vaststructure and derivation of the Orientaltongues. In doing so, geographicaldifficulties have to be overcome. Thehigh mountains of Asia must be sur-passed and vast ethnical obstacles re-
Ridpath's history of the world; being an account of the ethnic origin, primitive estate, early migrations, social conditions and present promise of the principal families of men .. . s which wereaccepted aforetime as not only probablebut authentic. Even beyond this im-aginary point of departure for the twolanguages from a common linguisticoriginal we are obliged to look stillfurther and take into account the vaststructure and derivation of the Orientaltongues. In doing so, geographicaldifficulties have to be overcome. Thehigh mountains of Asia must be sur-passed and vast ethnical obstacles re-moved before we can combine the line ofthe Mongolian languages with that ofthe races of Western Asia and other words, the same profound per-spective is here required as in the case ofthe dispersion of races and of the geolog-ical history of primeval man. It is asdifficult to reach a common original forall existing linguistic forms as it is tofind a common ancestry for the cavedwellers of Western Europe, the nativeAustralians, the blubber-eating Esqui-maux, and the flint-chipping barbariansof Polynesia. 128 GREAT RACES OF MANKIND. Chapter VI.—History and S we approach the pres-ent, through the vari-ous branches of inquirywhich have occupiedour attention, we comeat length to Historyand Tradition. If thefirst of these were complete, or the othertrustworthy, we might walk with moreconfidence through the shadowland ofthe past. We are constrained, however,to take history as it is, with all its in-completeness and tradition, with all itscrudity, contradictions, and inflections,and to gain therefrom whatever we mayrespecting the date of the appearance ofman on the earth. In the first place, his-Why history tory as an oracle is silent ondirectiVof the this subject; but this is nobeginning. more than what we should expect. Indeed, if the historian, with-out the light reflected from other fieldsof inquiry, .should attempt to fix a cal-endar for the prehistoric ages
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksub, booksubjectworldhistory
