THE ARYANS IN SCIENCE AND HISTORY. 677 



naturally bloodthirsty people, religion, whicli in other minds has 

 led to the extreme of charity and self-sacrifice, might be combined 

 with the worst exhibitions of cruelty. 



This same overpowering sense of reverence, directed toward 

 their earthly rulers, became an excessive servility, which made 

 the Aryans incapable of freedom. On this important point the 

 exact expressions of the historian deserve to be cited. " The feel- 

 ing of the Persian toward his king,"" he tells us, " is one of which 

 moderns can vith difiiculty form a conception. In Persia the 

 monarch was so much the state that patriotism itself was, as it 

 were, swallowed up in loyalty ; and an absolute, unquestioning 

 submission, not only to the deliberate will but to the merest ca- 

 price of the sovereign, was, by habit and education, so ingrained 

 into the nature of the people that a contrary spirit scarcely ever 

 manifested itself. In war the safety of the sovereign was the first 

 thought and the principal care of all. . . . Uncon^plaining acqui- 

 escence in all the decisions of the monarch — cheerful submission 

 to his will, whatever it might chance to be — characterized the 

 conduct of the Persians in time of peace. . . . The father, whose 

 innocent son was shot before his eyes by the king in pure wanton- 

 ness, instead of raising an indignant protest against the crime, 

 felicitated him on the excellence of his archery. Unfortunates, 

 bastinadoed by the royal order, declared themselves delighted 

 because his majesty had condescended to recollect them. A tone 

 of sycophancy and servility was thus engendered, which, sapping 

 self-respect, tended fatally to lower and corrupt the entire charac- 

 ter of the people." 



He who is servile to his rulers is usually tyrannical toward his 

 inferiors. We learn from the Greek historians what the govern- 

 ment of the Persian monarch and his satraps was in their day, 

 and modern travelers find that the lapse of twenty-five centuries 

 has made no change in this respect, and little in any other. So 

 far as history gives us information, no self-governing community 

 has ever been found among any purely Aryan people. 



One fine trait, however, which the ancient authors ascribe to 

 the Persians should be recorded to their honor — their truthful- 

 ness. According to Herodotus, every young Persian was taught 

 by his preceptors three main things — " to ride, to draw the bow, 

 and to speak the truth. ... In the Zend-Avesta, and more espe- 

 cially in its earliest and purest portions," continues Prof. Rawlin- 

 son, "truth is strenuously inculcated. Ahura-Mazda himself is 

 ' true,' ' the father of all truth,' and his worshipers are bound to 

 conform themselves to his image." This quality of truthfulness 

 is not commonly deemed to be consistent with servility ; but we 

 must remember that the servility of the Aryans was the fruit, 

 not of the timidity of conquered serfs, but of the reverence of 



