TEE ARYANS IN SCIENCE AND HISTORY. 683 



Nothing is more certain than that the immense advance of the 

 European Aryans (so styled) beyond those of Asia has been due 

 mainly to the aboriginal races whom the Asiatic invaders over- 

 came by virtue of their superior organization, but whose posterity 

 still constitutes the main element in the population of Europe. 

 The simple comparison of the Iranians, ancient and modern, with 

 the nations of the West, affords ample evidence on this point. Of 

 the ancient Persians we have had a vivid portraiture from Raw- 

 linson. Their modern descendants are described to us by a late 

 traveler, Mr. Arthur Arnold, an English gentleman of keen dis- 

 cernment and of much experience among Oriental races. In his 

 recent work, " Through Persia by Caravan," he gives an account 

 of the government and the people, which shows them both to be 

 much as they were in the days of Xerxes. Of all governments 

 above the grade of savagery, the Persian seems to be the worst ; 

 and all that can be said for it is that it faithfully reflects the char- 

 acter of its people. The ordinary punishments are still, as in 

 former days, death and the bastinado ; and each of these punish- 

 ments is inflicted with the most ingenious refinement of cruelty. 

 Shortly before Mr. Arnold's arrival, the governor of Ears had 

 endeavored to repress crime in that province by a special exhibi- 

 tion of energy. " He tried," we are told, " throat-cutting, and left 

 the bleeding bodies exposed to the view of all comers in the public 

 square of Shiraz. He tried crucifixion, nailing the wretches by 

 the hands and feet to the walls of the town, and leaving them 

 under a guard of soldiers to die of exhaustion and starvation. 

 Finally^ he tried burial alive in pits, or cylinders of brick-work, 

 of depth such as to allow the criminal's head to appear above the 

 top ; " in which condition, we are told, " the miserable men were 

 in their dying hours barbarously ill-treated, on their exposed and 

 defenseless heads, by the rabble and soldiery of Shiraz." 



Such is the race whose ancestors achieved the conquest of 

 Europe some two or three thousand years before the Christian 

 era, subduing gradually the scattered and disorganized tribes of 

 Semitic, Iberian, and Uralian origin. As has been already noted, 

 the two traits of Aryan character which, in addition to the per- 

 sonal valor shared by them with their opponents, especially in- 

 sured the success of the invaders, were their worship of hereditary 

 rank — a base sentiment, almost unknown to the other great races 

 of mankind — and their ruthless cruelty to the conquered. The 

 former trait gave them union and discipline, the other made them 

 terribly formidable. Both traits have survived to our own day 

 in the dominant class throughout Europe. In the feudal system, 

 the state of society to which these qualities gave rise attained its 

 highest development. A carnival of tyranny, superstition, and 

 cruelty prevailed for several centuries throughout the finest por- 



