as happy as himself? Were ditectives set to watch him, to spy
out the cause of a habit of sleek rotundity that was growing upon
him at last visibly? We shall never know. Or did he call in his
neighbors at once and annouce it? Did someone ask: 'What shall
we name this God-given thing?'--and did another reply: 'It looks
to me like a _potato;_ let's call it that!'? That at least must
have been how it came by it name. They received the suggestion
with acclamations: and all future out-going expeditions took
sacks of it with them; and their descendants have continued to
call it _potato_ to this day. For you must not that being the
only food with a name common to all the languages--or almost all
--it must be supposed to have been the only food they knew of
before their separation. Even the words for _father, mother,
fire, water,_ and the like, have a greater number of different
roots in the Aryan languages than have these blessed two.

To say the truth, a dawning perception of the possibilities
of this kind of reasoning chilled the enthusiasm of the
Aryan-hunters a good deal; it was the bare bodkin that did
quietus make for much philological pother and rout. No; if
you are to prove racial superiority or exclusiveness, you had
much better avail yourself of the simplicity of a stout bludgeon,
than rely upon the subtleties of brain-mind argumentation; for
time past is long, and mostly hidden; and lots of things have
happened to account for your proofs in ways you would never
suspect. The long and short of it is, that after pursuing
the primitive Aryans up hill and down dale through all parts
of Europe, Science is forced to pronouce her final judgement
thus: _We really know nothing about it._