Table Of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Aids to Study 34 . 7 Consecration of the Friends in Council Lodge 348 Historical Notice of the St . Clairs of Rosslyn 349 United Grand Lodge—Quarterl y Communication ... 352 Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons 355 CRAFT MASONRY : —

Metropolitan , ,, 35 6 Provincial 35 6 Provincial Grand Lodge of Lincolnshire 356 ROYAL ARCH : — Gibraltar , 357 CORRESPONDENCE : —

1 he Royal Ark Mariners Degree 35 8 Masonic Meetings for next week 358 Advertisements 345 , 34 6 , 359 , 360

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BY BRO . WM . CARPENTER , P . M . & P . Z . 177 . V . Resuming the subject with which my last paper concluded , namely , the division of the human family into the three

varieties—Caucasian , Mongolian , and Ethiopian , or Black , or Negro ; it may be well to repeat , that the sacred record , in its account of the dispersion of mankind , and of the division of the earth ( Gen . x . )

confines itself to the primary settlements of the Caucasian race , so called , because the most perfect types are found among the natives of the Caucasian isthmus . The student of history

must inform himself of the original families , their geographical position , and their political nationality , to be able to enter intelligently and profitably into their subsequent history and exploits ,

and to mark the peculiarities attaching to them . Be it remembered , then , that the Caucasian race occupies all Europe , except Lapland , Finland , and part of Hungary ; America and Australia , as

far as their population is of European origin ; Asia Minor , Arabia , Persia , India , and the whole north of Africa , to the southern border of the Great Desert . The Mongolian race occupies all

Asia , north of Persia and the Himalayas , and east of the Bramahpootra ; Lapland , Finland , part of Hungary , in Europe ; and the Arctic regions of North America . The Ethiopian race

occupies the whole of the African continent south of the Great Desert j one half of Madagascar , together with Australia , Papua , and Borneo , so far as the population of these islands is aboriginal .

But , as intimated , it will be well that the student not only gets a clear view of the character of the races into which ethnologists and historians have divided the human family , but also

of the families from which they originally sprung . It is on all hands admitted that there exists no more interesting record , ethnological and geographical , independent of its scriptural

authority , than that contained in the tenth chapter of Genesis . " These are the generations of the sons of Noah ; Shem , Ham , and Japheth . Without discussing the several names in detail ,

Mr . Philip Smith , whose " Ancient History of the East " i again commend to the student , suggests that we may be tolerably sure of these general results . 1 . The Hamite Race , which seems first to have left their common home , is located in Africa

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and South Arabia , in four branches : —1 st the Cushites ' m Ethiopia and the southern part of Arabia , separated only by the straits of Bab-el-mandeb . and , the Egyptians , under their historic name of

Mizraim ; with the kindred Philistines on the one side , and ( probably ) north African tribes on the other . 3 rd . The Libyans ( probably ) designated by the name of Phut , 4 th . The Canaanites , whose

tribes are particularly enumerated . The mention of Sidon among these indicates that the first settlers in Phoenicia were Hamite ; though the Phoenicians of history were undoubtedly Shemite . The like

displacements clearly happened in Arabia , where the same names ( Havilah and Sheba ) occur among the sons of Cush , and again among those of the Shemite Joktan . Besides these nations ,

the record mentions a personal name among the sons of Cush , Nimrod , the founder of a kingdom , with four cities , in the plain of Babylonia ; and there are later traces of Cushites in the

east . They seem , in fact , to have spread over India and the Islands of the Eastern Archipelago . In all the countries of their abode the Hamite race seem to have been the p ioneers of material

civilisation , and the founders of States based on mere force . Their enduring monuments are gigantic buildings , the sculptures upon which attest the grossness of their worship of nature .

Everywhere , except in Egypt ( and there also at last ) , they gave way before the races of Shem and Jap heth , fulfilling Noah ' s prophetic curse , that Ham should be the servant of his brethren .

National grandeur y ielded to spiritual power , and the active energy of political life . 2 . The Juphethite Race extends from the Caucasian region to the south-east , across the

table-land of Iran ; to the west , over the peninsula of Asia Minorandtheneighbouringislands , as far as Greece , ( the " Isles of the Gentiles , " ) and to the north-west , all round the shores of the

Black Sea . That the tribes enumerated in the record were the parents of those which overspread all Europe on the one hand , and became masters of Northern India on the other , admits

of no reasonable doubt . 3 . Between the other two , the Shemite Race remained nearer its primeval seats , as the destined guardian of the primeval religion and traditions .

Its nucleus in Armenia ( probably represented by the name Arphaxed ) , forms the apex of a triangle , resting on the Arabian peninsula , along the east side of which we have the Assyrians

( Asshur ) and Elymaeans , ( Elame ) the latter of whom gave way to the Jap hethite Persians ; and on its west side the Aramaean race ( Aram , denoting highlundj of Northern Mesopotamia and Syria ,

whose Hebrew descendants ( Ebcr ) afterwards possessed the land of Canaan . The middle space of the Syrian Desert , and the whole peninsula of Arabia is the seat of the Arab tribes , denoted bv

Joktan , the son of Eber , with v . liora were afterwards mingled other Semitic descendants of Abraham . It has been intimated , in a former paper , that

the two main sources of knowledge , as to the natural history of man , are human physiology and human language ; lines of argument distinct

in themselves , yet parallel in direction , and mutually giving force to every conclusion in which they concur . Through these channels alone can we proceed upwards , when history

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deserts us , and tradition throws a light too flickering or false to be safel y trusted . It was a profound saying of Wilhelm Humboldt , that man is man only by means of speech , but that

in order to invent speech , he must be man already . This is a powerful argument for the unity of that race which is distinguished from all other animals , by the possession of

articulate language . But , moreover , the greatest philologists of the present day seem to be approaching the conclusion , that the evidence of comparative grammar , so far as it goes , is in

favour of the original unity of human language . " One of the grandest results of modern comparative philology , " says Dr . Meyer , "has been to show that all languages belonging to

one common stock—and we may say , enlarging this view , all languages of the earth—are but scattered indications of that primitive state of human intellect , and more particularly of the

imitative faculty , under ihe higher excitement of poetical inspiration , in which the language originated , and with which every language remains connected , as well through the

physiological unity of the human race , as through the historical unity of the family to which it more especially belongs . ( Bunsen ' s Christianity of Mankind , hi ., 163 . ) In like manner , Professor

Max Muller says , " these two points comparative philology has gained ( 1 . ) Nothing necessitates the admission of different independent beginnings for the material elements of Turanian , Semitic ,

and Aryan branches of speech ; nay , it is possible , even now , to point out radicals , which , under various changes and disguises , have been current in these three branches ever since

their first separation . ( 2 . ) Nothing necessitates the admission of different beginnings for the formal elements of the Turanian , Semitic , and Aryan branches of speech ; and though it is

impossible to derive the Aryan system of grammar from the Semitic , or the Semitic from the Turanian , we can perfectly understand how , either through individual influences , or by the wear

and tear of grammar in its own continuous working , the different systems of grammar of Asia and Europe may have been produced . " ( Ibid ., pp . 479 , 480 . ) Once more , although it may not be

possible singly to assign all Semitic tongues to the descendants of Shem , Aryan to the descendants of Jap heth , and Turanian to the descendants of Ham , it is still observable , that

comparative philology seems to have reduced all languages to three distinct stocks , even the rapid degeneracy of barbarian dialects , not wholl y obscuring their relationship to one of these three

families . This is the more to be noticed , when we learn that in savage tribes those who speak the same dialect will sometimes , by separation

and estrangement , become , in the course of a generation , unintelligible to each other . ( See the " Speaker ' s Commentary , " vol . i ., p . 83 . )

Languages are divided , according to their form , into three classes : —( 1 . ) Isolating , consisting of monosyllabic roots , entirely destitute of composition and grammatical inflection ; of which the

great type is the Chinese . ( 2 . ) Agglutinative , in which grammatical changes are denoted b y the mere juxtaposition of different roots , and which is spoken chiefly by the Nomad tribes of Asia , and Northern Europe , and by some of those