and therefore Celtic literature,--the Celt-haters having failed to
prove it a bubble,--Celtic literature is interesting, merely as an
object of knowledge. But it reinforces and redoubles our interest in
Celtic literature if we find that here, too, science exercises the
reconciling, the uniting influence of which I have said so much; if
we find here, more than anywhere else, traces of kinship, and the
most essential sort of kinship, spiritual kinship, between us and the
Celt, of which we had never dreamed. I settle nothing, and can
settle nothing; I have not the special knowledge needed for that. I
have no pretension to do more than to try and awaken interest; to
seize on hints, to point out indications, which, to any one with a
feeling for literature, suggest themselves; to stimulate other
inquirers. I must surely be without the bias which has so often
rendered Welsh and Irish students extravagant; why, my very name
expresses that peculiar Semitico-Saxon mixture which makes the
typical Englishman; I can have no ends to serve in finding in Celtic
literature more than is there. What IS there, is for me the only
question.


III.


We have seen how philology carries us towards ideas of affinity of
race which are new to us. But it is evident that this affinity, even
if proved, can be no very potent affair, unless it goes beyond the
stage at which we have hitherto observed it. Affinity between races
still, so to speak, in their mother's womb, counts for something,
indeed, but cannot count for very much. So long as Celt and Teuton
are in their embryo rudimentary state, or, at least, no such great