The English and their Origin,

  a Prologue to authentic English History. By LUKE OWEN PIKE, M.A. London: Longmans.

A great deal has been written of late years on the subject of race, and the views propounded have been as various as the tempers of the writers. Some have regarded the diversity of tribes and nations as indicating permanent varieties of the species, brought about from one stock by natural selection. Others have regarded these so-called varieties as separate species springing from independent stocks. The orthodox ethnologists, who trace up the human race to one common progenitor belong, of course to the former class ; the latter are represented by Dr. Knox, who, casting aside all Hebrew tradition and Scripture, avers that each tribe of man must have had a separate and distinct origin. Nay more, he declares that these different species of the genus homo are capable of existing only on certain zones, and under certain climatic conditions ; that if these conditions be altered the species affected must degenerate, and finally perish ; that no two races can give rise to one permanent progeny; that their common offspring are only temporarily fertile ; and that in time the hybrid race will either die out, or wholly return to one or other of the parent types. Mr. Charles Darwin and his disciples may be said to occupy a middle place between the advocates of a single origin, and many independent origins. He does not positively assert that the human race sprang from one parent, but his doctrine is reconcilable with such a view, whilst his doctrine of the origin of species would fit in well enough with the statements of Dr. Knox.
The author whose work is now before us does not surrender his judgment to any of these schools of ethnology ; indeed, he shows the errors of some of them in a very clear light and exposes the excessive absurdity of Dr. Knox with merciless logic. His object is to ascertain what are the hereditary ingredients that enter into the composition of the modern English people. He endeavours to answer the questions,—who were our ancestors ? whence did they come? and what relics of their existence have they left among their descendants ? We have been brought up in the tacit belief that the forefathers of the great mass of the English people were Saxons ; curiously enough, not coming from Saxony, but from Schleswig-Holstein and the neighbouring districts. This has been written in so many books, repeated in so many lectures, asserted in so many popular speeches, and so often dwelt upon in English conversation, that it has become an article of the popular faith. He would be a bold man who would tell a meeting of Englishmen that their "Anglo-Saxon forefathers" never had any existence ; that the North German and Scandinavian elements had blended but slightly with the blood of the English people ; that, in short, nine drops out of ten that run in our veins are Celtic, pure and simple, or if we like it better, in order to avoid the reproach of being the brother of Irishmen, Cymric. But the, Cymric is Welsh, and, therefore, lest we should be offended at being called the sons of Welshmen, the author conjectures that there was a higher race of Cymry, who were neither Welsh, nor Irish, nor Scotch, but Cymry, having affinities with each of the inferior races, but dominating them, and driving them out of the fair plains of England to find refuge in Ireland, in Wales, and beyond the Grampians. These superior and select Cymry were the Ancient Britons, who fought Julius Cæsar, constructed war chariots and weapons, and had reached no mean degree of culture when Julius landed on their shores.
It is not an easy matter to see with equanimity the whole fabric of our belief in the Teutonic origin of the English people assailed so remorselessly ; not that we are insensible to the fact that a vast deal of nonsense has been spoken and written about it, but because it is the thing we had been taught, the creed in which we have grown up. It is true that to attribute all that has distinguished us as a nation to our Anglo-Saxon strain has been very convenient. It has furnished a satisfactory solution of our superiority, as we deem it, in the arts of peace and of war. It has helped us to account for our skill as miners, as mechanics, as sailors. We are satisfied that to it we are indebted for our perseverance and endurance, for our statesmanship, and, above all for our common sense. Nor has this satisfaction been at all diminished by the patent fact that the real descendants of the ancient Teutons do not display any of these qualities which we boast to have derived from the same ancestry. However unpleasant it may be to submit to a cherished opinion to the logical test, we ought not to decline it. If it fail to overturn our convictions, it must strengthen them ; if it show their fallacy, it will at least clear the way to a sounder belief. We are bound to say that Mr. Pike pursues his argument with excellent temper, he assumes nothing, his simplest elements are demonstrated before they are arranged in the order of proof. He deals candidly and very respectfully with his opponents, and even where he puts up their position he never allows any personal feeling to interfere with the process.
As in the enunciation of every new view of old things there must of course be a destructive process precedent to the constructive, so here the first portion of the book is devoted to the removal of rubbish in the shape of prejudices, to the grubbing up of authorities in the form of dead stakes that have been long taken for living trees, and in a general clearing of the ground for the new edifice. The invasion of Hengist and Horsa, the pretty story of Rowena and Vortigern, the oft-touched picture of the Heptarchy, are swept away by our author with a ruthless if not a contemptuous hand— cut down with as little compunction as a builder would feel in cutting down the thistles and nettles that encumbered the site of his proposed erection. Nay, the very authorities upon which Hume, and Sharon Turner, and Palgrave drew for their materials, are put to the question, and compelled to acknowledge themselves either impostors or untrustworthy witnesses. Bede, Athelward, Asser, and Gildas are convicted of ignorance, exaggeration, and superstition. The Welsh Triads are of more authority, because they contain the rhythmic traditions of the people, but even they are too vague and mythical to prove anything satisfactorily. The author very justly and fairly proves that the intrusion of foreigners into England during the first five or six centuries of the Christian era was by no means so great as we have been in the habit of thinking, and certainly not sufficient to displace all, or even a considerable portion, of the original inhabitants.
This brings us, therefore, to the conclusion that at the period when Britain begins to emerge distinctly into the light of history, the mass of the people were high Celtic or Cymric. The position thus reached is fortified by philological evidence, upon which we have no space to enter. We remark, however, that at the outset of the philological argument, the author strikes an effective blow against the favourite theory that the language spoken by any people is a sure guide to their origin and affinities with other races. His method here is reductio ad absurdum, and is very incisive. Written language, taken as an index of race, would lead to the conclusion "that the Gallic nation emigrated from the Seven Hills of Rome, and that the Franks came with them ; that the Romans extirpated the Celts and Iberians of Spain, and that the Goths and Moors spoke nearly the same language as the Romans ; that the negroes of the United States had been imported from England, and that the people of Cornwall, who were Celtic a hundred years ago, have been completely metamorphosed without any assignable cause. That written language may be an index of former conquest or dominancy may be clear enough, for it would become the medium of intercourse and government between the dominant and the subject race ; but even his could not enforce it upon the people unless the conquerors were nearly equal to them in numbers, or the power of the dominant race was very superior and of long continuance. The Normans were few and comparatively feeble ; therefore the native element, after a few ages, submerged both them and their language. The English power in Ireland has continued unrelaxed for several centuries, and therefore the native race, though purely Celtic in blood, are for the most part an English speaking people."
Mr Pike adduces many curious facts to show that the Cymric race, from which he would deduce the modern Englishman, had a close affinity with the ancient people of Greece, and gives several instances of identity between words in the Welsh and Greek tongues. We cannot very distinctly perceive the nature of the relation he desires to establish between the English and ancient Hellenic people, nor do we think the parallel he draws between them quite true, but we acknowledge that he points out many features of similarity. Perhaps the cruellest cut which the author gives to our Anglo-Saxon self-complaisance is his absolute denial that as a people we possess the hereditary physical qualities we are fond of attributing to the Anglo-Saxon race. Our beau ideal of the Anglo-Saxon is that of a man with fair hair, blue eyes, white skin tinged with pink, and a large finely formed figure. The author adduces an overwhelming array of evidence to show that we are a decidedly dark-haired race, that there are not thirty per cent. of even moderately light-haired people among us, and that the traditional Saxon complexion is still rarer. He also shows that although Englishmen are big and well-formed, the real Saxons are far from being so, and further that red hair, which is the acme of Teutonism, according to received notions, prevails far more widely in the Highlands of Scotland and in, the more Celtic parts of Ireland than it does in Germany. The last physical proof that we are essentially a Celtic people is the shape of our heads. Mr. Pike brings forward evidence of great variety to prove that the most ancient inhabitants of Britain whom, he identifies with the Cymric race, were a long-headed or dolichocephalic people, whilst the Teutons are a round-headed or brachycephalic people but he also shows that the modern English are characterised by the long, oval, arched head, and have therefore a distinct affinity with the primitive Britons, and not with the Germans. This accumulation of proofs of our Celtic origin is further strengthened by arguments drawn from our national exercises and sports, and from our mental characteristics, and the whole is wound up with what the author considers to be an irrefragable Q.E.D. The course of the argument is too long to be gauged with logical severity in this short notice, and the proofs are derived from such a variety of sources that a long process of verification would be necessary before they could be pronounced valid.
Speaking of the work by itself, we can with truth pronounce it to be a masterly performance. The author follows out his purpose with remarkable steadiness, and develops his proofs in the most telling manner. We cannot say that his reasoning is strictly inductive, for this implies that a man comes to the examination of his facts without any preconception of the conclusions to which they may lead him, but this, though quite correct in idea, is impossible in practice. No man ever yet came to the investigation of a subject without some hypothesis or theory for his guide. All that we can expect from the most philosophical inquirer is that he be prepared to alter his theory till it corresponds with facts, and this we believe is the spirit in which Mr. Pike has conducted this most important and interesting investigation into the origin of the English race. —Daily News.

Empire (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1875), Friday 28 December 1866, page 3