OUR ARYAN FOREFATHERS 



more profound and manifold influence upon the 

 intellectual culture of mankind than the Eng- 

 lish conquest of India. The enlargement of our 

 mental horizon which has resulted therefrom 

 is not less remarkable than that which attended 

 the revival of Greek studies in the fifteenth 

 century. It is not simply that observation of 

 India is making us acquainted with an enor- 

 mous multitude of primitive social, linguistic, 

 and religious phenomena which formerly were 

 hidden from our notice. In contemplating these 

 phenomena, we have become possessed of a 

 method of study which has already wrought 

 such wonders as to vie with the ointment of 

 the Arabian dervise, that enabled its owner to 

 detect all the buried treasures of the earth. This 

 mighty talisman is the Comparative Method, 

 or the attempt to interpret a fact by comparing 

 it with a series of similar facts, which different 

 circumstances have caused to vary in different 

 degrees. I do not mean to imply that mankind 

 have not always used this method more or less, 

 both in matters of science and in matters of 

 every -day life. Nor do I mean to claim for 

 modern philology any exclusive title to the 

 honour of having shown what can be done by 

 studying phenomena in this way. I do not for- 

 get that the classification of living and extinct 

 animals by Cuvier, with reference to palaeon- 

 tological epochs, was a gigantic act of compari- 

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