40 TUB ETHNOLOGY OF THE INDIAN A RCHTPKL A 00. 



ascend to a simpler culture, and one in which they appear to stand 

 out less prominently from the other nations of the world. We 

 can also trace moat of them to confined seats imraemorially 

 occupied by them, and in which their culture was received. Toe 

 permanence of the general character of thchr languages, and a 

 comparison of these with the other languages now existing, prove 

 that races speaking the latter, or older formu of them, hnd n 

 contemporaneous existence. IF we withdraw from the world the 

 ideas and the customs generated by these civilisation}*, or in other 

 word?, tro hark to a time anterior to their development, we find a 

 wonderful uniformity pervading the greater portion of the inhabited 



J 'lobe in religion, and in customs of many kinds. If we abstract 

 rom Africa all that she owed to the higher development of Egypt, 

 blot out from the Asiatic region between the Mediterranean and 

 the northern -hore of Uie Indian Ocean, the Phoenician, Hebrew, 

 Arabian, A ian, Babylonian and Iranian civilisations, from 

 India all she owed to the Arian race, and from the region between 

 the Bay of Bengal and China all that it derived from Iranian 

 India and from China, we leave an older and far ruder development 

 which is nearly the u»me throughout That it. embraced the tribes 

 in which the higher developments afterwards took place, is evident 

 from their retaining many of its traits. In the general character 

 of the more active human developments of this era, we find 

 almost a dead level, not of the negations of which the lowest 

 ethnic stage constat at present, as it has always done, but of 

 positive social forms of a barbarous nature. We also rind that 

 numerous traits of a specific kind may be traced over extensive 

 regions, or identified in widely separated tribes. This general 

 uniformity, combined with a sameness in many particulars, leads 

 to the inference that the archaic world was connected. But the 

 immemorial diversity in physical character and language, proves 

 that this connection was -iccompanied by a distinct separation of 

 races, as at present We ore therefore led to believe that mankind 

 was even then very ancient, and that the prevalence of the tame 

 trails was owing either to the derivation of most races or their 

 mother-races from a common centre in which the primitive 

 civilisation was drveluped, or that an extensive intercourse existed, 

 by means of which these traits were diffused, subsequently to the 

 dispertion of the various races- The wide spread of any race 

 shews that at one period its diffusion was unimpeded by the 

 presence of races of higher civilisation and power, that is, it was 

 the prevailing race of the region. If traits of a common civilisation 

 am found over a large space, die same conclusion may be drawn. 

 The nation witkwhich they originated must have been the highest 

 in influence at. the time of their diffusion. All developments 

 unconnr ted with that of the imaginative and abstractive powers 

 and t> r productive action, are simple, and easily diffused even 

 amo- t the rudest tribes. They are therefore far more universal 



