Page:Transactions of the Second International Folk-Congress.djvu/303

caution is needed is this: how far particular institutions or customs of an archaic character existing in civilised countries are to be called non-Aryan. For one thing we have to be perfectly clear what we mean by non-Aryan: do we mean something peculiar to non-Aryans, or only something that is not specifically Aryan, that is to say, common to Indo-European races, or to other races of mankind? There are some customs, such as eating and sleeping, which are obviously neither Aryan nor non-Aryan, but simply human; and a great many customs about which people have wrangled, claiming a monopoly for some particular race, may turn out, as our observations extend, to be general human nature. On the other hand, when we say that a certain institution is non-Aryan, we may mean, and we ought to mean—if we use the word with a definite point—that it is specifically something else. It may be that we can discover among Aryan institutions points which can be traced to the survival or imitation of institutions specifically belonging to other races. Any definite evidence of that kind that can be got is, of course, of great importance for the historical reconstruction of archaic society, but the mere fact that institutions and practices are common to Aryan and other peoples, only shows that they are not specifically Aryan. It is quite open to question whether there has been any borrowing at all, and whether resemblances may not be due to the resemblances of human nature, and of adaptation to similar circumstances. I may say that, for my own part, I believe that all arguments adduced to prove that English institutions are substantially Celtic, are founded on the simple resemblance of similar stages of development in different, but not widely different, branches of the Indo-European family. When we come to verify details of coincidences, of borrowings or imitations—in the history of institutions as well as in languages—it has often been observed, and will no doubt continue to be observed, that things have a- perverse way of refusing to happen in the logical and convenient order which would enable posterity to arrive at results without much trouble. All generations from the beginning of history have treated posterity badly, and I am not aware that we are treating it any better than our ancestors have treated us. At all events we are accumulating an amount of printed matter which I tremble to think of. With regard to the specific subjects we have before us, I think they well illustrate the