78 THOUGHTS ON NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 



Persia, or Iran, are in modern political geography 

 synonymous terms ; the kingdom which we call Persia 

 the Persians themselves call Iran. The name Iran, 

 on the other hand, was originally of much wider 

 signification than Persia, and the whole upland 

 country from Kurdistan to Afghanistan may, in 

 accordance with the native use of its ancient inhabi- 

 tants, be called the Iranian upland. The inhabitants 

 of this upland, together with certain tribes of the same 

 race in other lands, shared with their near kinsmen 

 in India the name of Aryans. 



Attempts have been made with considerable success 

 to argue from the words and beliefs found, in their 

 earliest records, to have been common afterwards 

 among one or more of the seven races, to the religious 

 ideas which must have existed in the parent stock. 

 *The beliefs of our remote ancestors may be summed 

 up as having resulted from that curious attitude of 

 mind which is now designated by the word Animism. 

 They had come to believe, most probably through the 

 influence of dreams, etc., in the existence of souls, or 

 ghosts, or spirits inside their own bodies; and they had 

 not yet learned to discriminate in this respect between 

 themselves and the other animals and objects around 

 them w r hich seemed to be possessed of power and 

 movement. In due course they produced written 

 records; some of these have survived in the form of 

 Vedic hymns. The Vedas, though they are amongst 

 our earliest records, show us only a very advanced 

 stage in the beliefs resulting from an Animistic frame 



* Read the works of E. B. Tylor, T. W. Rhys Davids, Max Muller, 

 Hev. A. H. Sayce, Dr. Isaac Taylor, Maspero, etc. 



