The several members of this ethnological group will receive special notice each in its place. As to the hypotheticallnother-nation—the primitive Aryan stock before separa tion, it might seem impossible to affirm anything beyond its mere existence and locality. But the ethnologist does not content himself with this. In an admirable essay on Com parative 1110hology (Oxford •Essays, 1856), prof. Max 3ItIller has drawn a picture of the Aryan family while yet one and undivided, in which the state of thought, language, religion, and civilization is exhibited in a multitude of details. Where the same name for an object or notion is found used by the widely spread members of a family, it is justly inferred that that object or notion must have been familiar to them while yet resident together in the paternal home. It is in this way established, that among the primitive Aryans not only were the natural and primary family relations of father, mother, son, daughter, hallowed, but even the more conventional affinities of father-in law, mother-in-law, sister-in-law; that to the organized family life there was superadded a state organization with rulers or kings; that the ox and the cow constituted the chief riches and means of subsistence; and that houses and towns were built.
One general observation made by Muller is so interesting that we take the liberty of quoting it entire. " It should be observed," he says, "that most of the terms connected with chase and warfare differ in each of the Aryan dialects, while words connected with snore peaceful occupations belong generally to the common heirloom of the Aryan language. The proper appreciation of this fact in its general bearing will show how a similar remark made by Niebuhr, with regard to Greek and Latin, requires a very different explanation from that which that great scholar, from his more restricted point of view, was able to give it. It will show that all the Aryan nations had led a long life of
peace before they separated, and that their language acquired individuality and nation ality as each started iu search of new, hones-new generations-forming new terms connected with the warlike and adventurous life of their onward migrations. Hence it is that not only Greek and Latin, but all Aryan languages have their peaceful words in common: and hence it is that they all differ so strangely in their warlike expressions. Thus the domestic animals are generally known by the same name in England and in India, while the wild beasts have different names, even in Greek and Latin." In this mainly pastoral life, the more important of the primitive arts were known and exerci ed: fields were tilled; grain was raised and ground into meal; food was cooked and b;.k.al; cloth was woven and sewn into garments; and the use of the metals, even of iron, was known. The numbers as far as a hundred had been named, the decimal principle being followed. The name for a thousand had not come into requisition until after the dispersion, for it differs in the different Aryan tongues.
Finally, it was among the yet undivided Aryans, while abstract language did not yet exist, while every word was a metaphor, and the setting of the sun, for example, could only be expressed by his growing old and dying, that those stories of gods, heroes, and monsters originated, which, with more or less of variety, but still with a family-likeness, formed the pagan mythology of every member of the group.