And
from this undisputed fact it is an inevitable inference that
these various races contain, along with other elements, a
race-element in common, due to their Aryan pedigree. That the
Indo-European races are wholly Aryan is very improbable, for
in every case the countries overrun by them were occupied by
inferior races, whose blood must have mingled in varying
degrees with that of their conquerors; but that every
Indo-European people is in great part descended from a common
Aryan stock is not open to question.
In the second place, along with a common fund of moral and
religious ideas and of legal and ceremonial observances, we
find these kindred peoples possessed of a common fund of
myths, superstitions, proverbs, popular poetry, and household
legends. The Hindu mother amuses her child with fairy-tales
which often correspond, even in minor incidents, with stories
in Scottish or Scandinavian nurseries; and she tells them in
words which are phonetically akin to words in Swedish and
Gaelic. No doubt many of these stories might have been devised
in a dozen different places independently of each other; and
no doubt many of them have been transmitted laterally from one
people to another; but a careful examination shows that such
cannot have been the case with the great majority of legends
and beliefs.
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