456 ARYAN HYPOTHESIS AND CONTROVERSY. CHAP. xxm. 



appreciable change has occurred in three or four thousand 

 years, we should be obliged to assume a far more remote date 

 for the first branching off of such races from a common stock 

 than the supposed period of the Aryan migrations, and the 

 dispersion of that language over many and distant countries. 



But Mr. Crawfurd haSj I think, himself helped us to 

 remove this stumbling-block, by admitting that a nation 

 speaking a language allied to the Sanscrit (the oldest of the 

 eight tongues alluded to), once probably inhabited that 

 region situated to the north-west of India, which within the 

 period of authentic history has poured out its conquering 

 hordes over a great extent of Western Asia and Eastern 

 Europe. The same people, he says, may have acted the 

 same part in the long, dark night which preceded the dawn 

 of tradition** These conquerors may have been few in 

 number when compared to the populations which they 

 subdued. In such cases the new settlers, although reckoned 

 by tens of thousands, might merge in a few centuries into the 

 millions of subjects which they ruled. It is an acknowledged 

 fact, that the colour and features of the Negro or European are 

 entirely lost in the fourth generation, provided that no fresh 

 infusion of one or other of the two races takes place. The 

 distinctive physical features, therefore, of the Aryan con 

 querors might soon wear out and be lost in those of the 

 nations they overran ; yet many of the words, and, what is 

 more in point, some of the grammatical forms of their lan 

 guage, might be retained by the masses which they had 

 governed for centuries, these masses continuing to preserve 

 the same features of race which had distinguished them long 

 before the Aryan invasions. 



There can be no question that if we could trace back any 

 set of cognate languages now existing to some common point 



* Crawfurd, Transactions of the Ethnological Society, vol. i. 1861. 



