Genre:

Review

Publications reviewed:

Bastian 1870

Subjects:

Comparative Philology, Ethnology, Race, Taxonomy

    Complains that the books of Adolf Bastian too often have 'the air of having been written by a dilettante' and 'can scarcely be recognised as standard scientific works'. In particular, the present book gives the impression that 'the point of view which principally interests the author is not that of philology or of the science of language, but that of ethnology', but Bastian fails to recognize that 'language, if it is to have any ethnological value, must be regarded from the point of view of comparative philology'. Dismisses Bastian's 'opinion that a classification of races according to language would be just like that of flowers according to colours' as merely an old theory that was 'expressed several years ago, but in a milder form, by J. Oppert and other scholars, and was soon refuted in a style equally thorough and convincing by Professor Whitney'. (405)