(P's Hamites) as dark brown (Di. 167); but the characteristic was not shared by the offshoots of Kush in Arabia; and a colour line between Shem and Japheth could never have been drawn.—The test of language also breaks down. The perception of linguistic affinities on a wide scale is a modern scientific attainment, beyond the apprehension of an antique people, to whom as a rule all foreign tongues were alike 'barbarous.' So we find that the most of P's Hamites (the Canaanites and nearly all the Kushites) are Semitic-speaking peoples, while the language of Elam among the sons of Shem belongs to an entirely different family; and Greek was certainly not spoken in the regions assigned to sons of Javan.—Of race, except in so far as it is evidenced by language, modern science knows very little; and attempts have been made to show that where the linguistic criterion fails the Table follows authentic ethnological traditions: e.g. that the Canaanites came from the Red Sea coast and were really related to the Cushites; or that Babylonia was actually colonised from central Africa, etc. But none of these speculations can be substantiated; and the theory that true racial affinity is the main principle of the Table has to be abandoned. Thus, while most of the Japhetic peoples are Indo-European, and nearly all the Shemitic are Semites in the modern sense, the correspondence is no closer than follows necessarily from the geographic arrangement to be described presently. The Hamitic group, on the other hand, is destitute alike of linguistic and ethnological unity.—Similarly, when J assigns Phœnicians and Hittites (perhaps also Egyptians) to one ethnic group, it is plain that he is not guided by a sound ethnological tradition. His Shemites are, indeed, all of Semitic speech; what his Japhetic peoples may have been we cannot conjecture (see p. 188).
So far as P is concerned, the main principle is undoubtedly
geographical: Japheth representing the North and
West, Ham the South, and Shem the East. Canaan is the
solitary exception, which proves the rule (see p. 201 f.). The
same law appears (so far as can be ascertained) to govern
the distribution of the subordinate groups; although too
many of the names are uncertain to make this absolutely
clear. There is very little ground for the statement that
the geographical idea is disturbed here and there by considerations
of a historical or political order.
The exact delimitation of the three regions is, of course, more or
less arbitrary: Media might have been reckoned to the Eastern group,
or Elam to the Southern; but the actual arrangement is just as natural,
and there is no need to postulate the influence of ethnology in the one
case or of political relations in the other. Lûd would be a glaring
exception if the Lydians of Asia Minor were meant, but that is probably
not the case (p. 206). The Mediterranean coasts and islands are ap-
