=The Aryans and the Semites.=--There is no clearly marked external
difference between the Aryans and the Semites. Both are of the white
race, having the oval face, regular features, clear skin, abundant
hair, large eyes, thin lips, and straight nose. Both peoples were
originally nomad shepherds, fond of war. We do not know whence they
came, nor is there agreement whether the Aryans came from the mountain
region in the northwest of the Himalayas or from the plains of
Russia. What distinguishes them is their spiritual bent and especially
their language, sometimes also their religion. Scholars by common
consent call those peoples Aryan who speak an Aryan language: in Asia,
the Hindoos and Persians; in Europe, the Greeks, Italians, Spaniards,
Germans, Scandinavians, Slavs (Russians, Poles, Serfs), and Celts.[5]

Similarly, we call Semites those peoples who speak a Semitic language:
Arabs, Jews and Syrians. But a people may speak an Aryan or a Semitic
language and yet not be of Aryan or Semitic race; a negro may speak
English without being of English stock. Many of the Europeans whom we
classify among the Aryans are perhaps the descendants of an ancient
race conquered by the Aryans and who have adopted their language, just
as the Egyptians received the language of the Arabs, their conquerors.

These two names (Aryan and Semite), then, signify today rather two
groups of peoples than two distinct races. But even if we use the
terms in this sense, one may say that all the greater peoples of the
world have been Semites or Aryans. The Semitic family included the
Phœnicians, the people of commerce; the Jews, the people of religion;
the Arabs, the people of war. The Aryans, some finding their homes in
India, others in Europe, have produced the nations which have been,
and still are, foremost in the world--in antiquity, the Hindoos, a