vr TIIE ARYAN QUESTION. 273 



by science. And it must be confessed that the 

 error is too often justified by the effects of the irre- 

 pressible tendency which men of science share with 

 all other sorts of men known to me, to be impatient 

 of that most wholesome state of mind — suspended 

 judgment; to assume the objective truth of specula- 

 tions which, from the nature of the evidence in 

 their favour, can have no claim to be more than 

 working hypotheses. 



The history of the " Aryan question " affords a 

 striking illustration of these general remarks. 



About a century ago, Sir William Jones pointed 

 out the close alliance of the chief European lan- 

 guages with Sanskrit and its derivative dialects 

 now spoken in India. Brilliant and laborious phi- 

 lologists, in long succession, enlarged and strength- 

 ened this position, until the truth that Sanskrit, 

 Zend, Armenian, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Slavo- 

 nian, German, Celtic, and so on, stand to one an- 

 other in the relation of descendants from a common 

 stock, became firmly established, and thencefor- 

 ward formed part of the permanent acquisitions of 

 science. Moreover, the term " Aryan " is very 

 generally, if not universally, accepted as a name 

 for the group of languages thus allied. Hence, 

 when one speaks of " Aryan languages," no hypo- 

 thetical assumptions are involved. It is a matter of 

 fact that such languages exist, that they present 

 certain substantial and formal relations, and that 



convention sanctions the name applied to them. 

 182 



