﻿ON THE PERSIANS. 65 



sent forth its colonies to all the kingdoms of Asia. 

 The Brahnans' could never have migrated from India 

 to Tfw/, because they are expressly forbidden by their 

 oldest existing laws to leave the region which they in- 

 habit at this day j the Arabs have not even a tradition 

 of an emigration into Persia before Mohammed, riof 

 had they indeed any inducement to quit their beauti- 

 ful and extensive domains ; and as to the Tartars, we 

 have no trace in history of their departure from their 

 plains and forests till the invasion of the Medes, who, 

 according to etymologists, were the sons of Madai ; 

 and even they were conducted by princes of an Assy- 

 rian family. The three races, therefore, whom we 

 have already mentioned (and more than three we 

 have not yet found) migrated from Iran as from their 

 common country ; and thus the Saxon Chronicle^ I 

 presume from good authority, brings the first inhabit- 

 ants of Britain trom Armenia ; while a late very 

 learned writer concludes, after all his laborious re- 

 searches, that the Goths or Scythians came from Per- 

 sia j and another contends with great force, that both 

 the Irish and old Britons proceeded severally from the 

 borders of the Caspian ; a coincidence of conclusions 

 from different media by persons wholly unconnected, 

 which could scarce have happened if they were not 

 grounded on solid principles. We may therefore 

 hold this proposition firmly established, that Iran, or 

 Persia in its largest sense, was the true centre of popu- 

 lation, of knowledge, of languages, and of arts ; which, 

 instead of travelling westward only, as it has been fan- 

 cifully supposed, or eastward, as might with equal 

 reason have been asserted, were expanded in all di- 

 rections to all the regions of ihe world in which the 

 Hindu race had settled under various denominations: 

 but whether Asia has not produced other race9 of 

 men, distinct from the Hindus, the Arabs, or the 

 Tartars ; or whether any apparent diversity may no; 



ipruns from an intermixture of those thres 



P r F 



