TRANSFORMATION IN SANSKRIT STUDIES 103 



mans, so long mysterious, the obscure peasants of Bengal, the Punjab, 



Gujerat, had received their heritage from the same linguistic fund as 



a Homer or a Virgil; the groups which had been unknown, despised, 



hated, the German, Slav, and Neo-Latin, grouped themselves 



into a new family of languages. Soon new discoveries filled the gaps 



and attached to the chain those links which were missing. The 



deciphering of cuneiform inscriptions brought to light the Persian 



of the Achscmenidse; Zoroaster spoke in the Avesta, which was 



even explained in the original, and these ancient documents of Iran 



connected the shores of the Indus with the valleys of the Caucasus. 



Never had a Plato, a Descartes, a Leibnitz, in their vastest dreams 



conceived so large a family within the human species. The learned 



were dazzled; even their heads were turned, this time. Then arose 



a strange and at first puerile sentiment, which proved disastrous 



later, when it spread to the common people; comparative grammar 



gave birth to Indo-European chauvinism. The Revolution, borne to 



the far ends of Europe by Napoleon's wars, had awakened the national 



conscience in one people after another. Allies or adversaries of France, 



those who had been subjects the day before, awoke suddenly to find 



themselves citizens; divine right was forgotten; the state ceased to 



be incarnated in the monarch, and was incorporated in the entire 



nation. Neither certain of their doctrines, nor of their own inmost 



essence, but upheld nevertheless by the will to live, the nations 



gouped themselves with restless fervor around their languages, their 



institutions, their traditions, which constituted their collective titles 



of nobility. The national spirit was formed, as in the cities of ancient 



times, in the struggle with barbarians. When scholars afterwards 



proceeded to call attention to the linguistic relationships which 



antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance had neglected or 



disdained, national pride was willing to lay claim to the kindred 



groups. Led away by the bewildering charm of a grand discovery, 



savants, and after them the public, took kinship of language to be 



a sure indication of common origin. The peoples scattered over the 



immense area of Indo-European languages saw themselves, in spite 



of the natural sciences, and on the evidence of their language, grouped 



into one single race which received the name of Indo-European 



or Aryan race. The civilized world which was still within the limits 



drawn by the prejudices current in Europe and the nearer half of 



Asia, appeared thenceforward as the patrimony and the battle-field 



of two races eternally hostile, the Aryan and the Semitic races, both 



pushing forward to conquer the earth. 



The fierce struggle between the Encyclopedia and the Church 

 was bearing fruit. In his eagerness to bring contempt on the Bible 

 Voltaire had already been imprudent enough to accept as genuine 

 testimony from ancient India a pretended Veda, the Ezour Vedam, 



