ered tenable by any competent authority. Not a few scholars have maintained that the Pelasgi were Semites. Among these are Kortuem, and particularly Kiepert. Crusius contends that they were either Semites or strongly impregnated by a Semitic civilization that points to Lydia. Pauli, on the other hand, seeks to prove that the Pelasgians were a pre-Semitic and preAryan people. Considering the problem from the Greek standpoint, we find the fullest discussion of this mysterious people in the second edition of Busolt's Griechische Geschichte. After a full citation of ancient authorities the author expresses the opinion that the name "Pelasgi" spread from Thessaly all over Greece. He concludes from statements in Homer that the Pelasgi were pre-Achæan and pre-Hellenic inhabitants of this country. But we nowhere find in his history a definite statement regarding their original home. Notwithstanding the conservatism of Busolt and others who have very recently written upon the history of the Greeks, it is daily becoming more manifest that their early civilization is almost purely an "eastern question." The primitive history of the world is no longer divided into "sacred" and "profane," even by the most orthodox theologians. It has become a wellestablished fact that man in his social state, from its earliest beginnings in Egypt and Mesopotamia, but chiefly in the latter region, passed through a series of slowly changing phases to which many influences contributed. Traces of the Greeks are found farther and farther back in the proto-historic period of the human race. It has become plainly evident that they, too, passed through the usual rude stages, but, unlike the other peoples that swarmed about the eastern shores of the "sea that moans with memories," they were continually profiting by contact and intercourse with their neighbors of alien race. The influence exerted upon them by the Phoenicians has long been recognized, and that of other non-Aryans more than surmised. It is probable that the rapid progress of archæological discovery will soon make it possible to mark out pretty clearly what elements in the social and religious institutions of the Greeks were original with themselves and what appropriated from the older ethnic units of Asia. Altogether the most ambitious attempt that has yet been made to so.ve the much-debated question of the origin of the Pelasgi is by De Cara in a volume of 750 pages. * It is devoted to a study of Siria, Asia Minore, and Ponto Eussino, and seeks to fortify the position indicated in its title. Ancient Greek authors are practically unanimous in the belief that all the islands of the Ægean, together with Cyprus, Crete, and Rhodes, as well as the Greek continent and a large portion of Italy, were first inhabited by Pelasgi. If, then, it can be shown that the Pelasgi were the Hittites or Hethites, the Khittim of the Bible, the Kheta or Khiti of the Egyptians, the Khatti of the Assyrians, and if the argument from tradition accords with that of the monuments which still bear the epithet "Pelasgic" and with the religious symbolism peculiar to the Pelasgi in all the countries occupied by them, nothing more can be desired to establish the priority in time of the migration of the Hethites to that of the sons of Javan. Strabo says the Syrians seem to have once occupied all the country from Babylon, by way of the Gulf of Issos, to the Euxine Sea. Owing to their wide dispersion the ancients frequently confounded the Syrians with the Assyrians, who were, however, as is well known, an entirely different people. The shorter name is nothing more than an unconscious abridgment of the longer one. In illustration of Greek names that have a Hethite basis we have room for only a few etymologies. "Kadmos" is "Khethmos" or "Kheth(i)mos." What Kadmos stands for in Greek legend need not detain us here. He was the reputed son of Agenor, king of Phoenicia. But Syria embraces Phoenicia, for as Pliny says, " Qui subtilius dividunt circumfundi Syria Phonicen volunt et esse oram maratimam Syria." Kadmos was then a Hethite. The same root also occurs in "Kythera," the name of a city and an island, where we have "Kyth" with the suffix "r," the compound meaning "city of the Hethites." By the usual extension of meaning a name at first purely local was afterward applied to the entire island. The same suffix appears in Hethite composites as "ar," "er," "ir," or," "ur," and "al," "el," "il," "ol," "ul." It also appears in other forms and disguises. The name xequà or xɛĐìμ was 66 * Gli Hethei-Pelasgi. Ricerche di Storia e di Archæologia Orientale, Greca ed Italica del P. Cesare De Cara della Compagnia di Gesù. Roma, 1894. The argument contained in this article is derived largely from this volume. applied to the whole island of Cyprus in the most ancient times. This name was subsequently transformed into "Kition" and "Citium." Now xeoìu is the Egyptian and Assyrian "Hamathâ," "Hemtu," or 66 Hemut." According to the testimony of Pliny, the whole island was at one time called "Amathusia." At a later period the name "Amathus" was restricted to the single city now called "Limisso." Both the appellation of the island and of the city are variants of Hamath, the parent city on the Orontes. The first syllable in "Pelasgi " is a Hamitic root signifying migrare, advenire; as a substantive its meaning is peregrinator, advena. If to the prefix we add the ethnic or local expletive " Ati" or "Asi" we get the meaning advena ex Asia, or Asiaticus. An earlier name of Asia was "Khatia," whence we get an explanation of the termination ασγοι or ασγι. This is ασικοι, ασικι, then by syncope ασκοι and ασκι. Now this Asiki is a compound signifying "people of Khatia or Asia." The country of the Hethites was known as "mat Khati." The phonetic change is compared to that occurring in Athana, Asana-pari, paoi. If we wish to know how the Greeks came to adopt a name given to themselves by these foreigners met with in so many places on Grecian territory we apparently have it in the answer to the question as to who they were and whence they came. To both the reply would be, "We are Pelasgi, that is, immigrants from Asia." By this method it is not difficult to find an explanation of such local names as " Attika,” “Ithaka,” and many more. In the first syllable we have again the word 'Heth," to which is added a suffix of locality, "ka." The names "Atys," "Kotys," and "Asia" are identical, as De Cara says, and thus he assists us in studying the origin of the Pelasgi in all its bearings. Comparatively few persons can contribute anything of value to the solution of this long-debated question. It is, however, fairly certain that the Hittites were a race of conquerors who subjugated the countries they overran for the purpose of laying them under tribute, and not with a view to colonization and permanent occupancy. The chief seats of their power were Carchemish on the Euphrates, Hamath, Aleppo, and Kadesh. They were at the height of their power in the four teenth and thirteenth centuries before Christ, but traces of their presence are found at least a century earlier and four centuries later. Their migrations can be followed as far as Lake Van, but they probably started farther east. Their own sculptures, with which those of the Egyptians in the main agree, represent them as short in stature and thick of limb. They had retreating foreheads, high cheek bones, large nostrils, and a prominent upper lip. Their skins were yellow; their hair and eyes were black. Their hair was arranged in the form of a queue, and on their feet they wore a sort of shoe with upturned toes. This is taken as an indication that they came from a cold country, as such foot-gear is well adapted for walking on snow. "The type," says Sir Charles Wilson, "while not a beautiful one, is still found in some parts of Kappadokia, especially among the people living in the extraordinary subterranean towns which I discovered beneath the great plain west of Nigdeh." While these people were unquestionably an exotic among the Semites of northern Asia, they intermarried more or less with them-a relationship into which they could easily enter as long as they were the ruling race. A study of the whole question in the light of accessible evidence makes it well-nigh certain that the Hittites were Turanians, and that their early conquests in western Asia belong to a list of raids made southward, eastward, and westward from their original seats in Turkestan. The Hyksos may have been of this race. Professor Hommel is confident that the Sumero-Akkadians, the mysterious people whose civilization underlies that of the later Mesopotamians, spoke a language that has many points of resemblance to the modern Turkish. It seems incredible that tribes that had not advanced beyond the half-nomadic and half-agricultural stage of social progress should be capable of overthrowing great empires and establishing on their ruins a government possessing some of the ele ments of permanence. But the careers of Attila, Tamerlane, Jenghis Khan, and the Turks are sufficient evidence of what they were capable of doing under competent leadership. chas, W. Super. ART. VIII.-THE MENTAL CONDITION OF THE THE writer had a singular experience recently which he has no doubt will strike others as peculiar, even as it did him. He had been engaged for some time in conversation with a Chinese friend, Mr. Wu Ming-shih. The talk had been about the comparative mental condition of the educated Chinaman and the educated foreigner, and we were surprised at the intelligence our friend manifested and the clear distinctions he was able to make. Often he was mistaken in his judgments, and consequently arrived at incorrect conclusions; but his mind, unlike the minds of many Chinese, was open to conviction that there is something worth knowing outside of China and Chinese methods, and his eye would light up with intelligence whenever he got a new idea, no matter what pet theories of his own it might overthrow. After he left we sat at our desk in a deep study, with forehead on our hands and elbows resting on the desk. In a short time our attention was attracted by the faintest little sound in front, and raising our eyes we saw, sitting on the ink bottle, one of the most peculiar little fellows it has ever been our lot to behold. It was a man in form and figure, face and limb. Between it and a brownie there was no comparison; and a Lilliputian beside it would be a giant, though it was by no means a dwarf. It was the exact counterpart in appearance, even to the complexion and expression, of the young man who had just left the study. Nevertheless, it was scarcely half an inch in length, or would surely not exceed an inch. As is natural under such circumstances, we stared at it for a moment in blank curiosity and surprise. The little creature noticed this surprise, for the faintest shadow of what might be designated an atomic smile began to bloom upon his features, and in a moment he broke into a tiny laugh much like what would be given forth by a necktie phonograph, if such a thing were possible. As is natural, when the pressure of surprise was taken off our organs of speech, as if to make for lost time, they blurted forth, all in a single breath, the up |