that home and began a wandering westwards, which only ceased when it
reached the Atlantic and the Northern Ocean. Nor was the fate of
those they left behind less strange. At some period almost as remote
as, but after, that at which the wanderers for Europe started, the
remaining portion of the stock, or a considerable offshoot from it,
turned their faces east, and passing the Indian Caucasus, poured
through the defiles of Affghanistan, crossed the plain of the Five
Rivers, and descended on the fruitful plains of India. The different
destiny of these stocks has been wonderful indeed. Of those who went
west, we have only to enumerate the names under which they appear in
history--Celts, Greeks, Romans, Teutons, Slavonians--to see and to
know at once that the stream of this migration has borne on its waves
all that has become most precious to man. To use the words of Max
Mueller: 'They have been the prominent actors in the great drama of
history, and have carried to their fullest growth all the elements of
active life with which our nature is endowed. They have perfected
society and morals, and we learn from their literature and works of
art the elements of science, the laws of art, and the principles of
philosophy. In continual struggle with each other and with Semitic
and Mongolian races, these Aryan nations have become the rulers of
history, and it seems to be their mission to link all parts of the
world together by the chains of civilization, commerce, and
religion.' We may add, that though by nature tough and enduring, they
have not been obstinate and self-willed; they have been distinguished
from all other nations, and particularly from their elder brothers
whom they left behind, by their common sense, by their power of
adapting themselves to all circumstances, and by making the best of
their position; above all, they have been teachable, ready to receive
impressions from without, and, when received, to develop them. To
show the truth of this, we need only observe, that they adopted