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We will now transport ourselves to the cradle of the Aryas “Noble,” according to some writers situated on the Asiatic continent, according to others more to the north, between the Baltic and the Caspian seas. This will suffice for the first stage; I shall make few demands on history, or on grammar.

There was a time when the great mass of the Aryan people was hesitating on the eve of abandoning their early habitations, previous to a dispersion in two directions. This people was composed of two branches, the tribes of the north, and those of the south; the former went towards the north-west of Asia and Europe; here they established themselves, and the great historical nations—historical, since most of them have played noted parts amongst the nations—the Celts, Grecians, Romans, Germans and Slavs were their descendants. Endowed with every aptitude for an active life, they fostered these capabilities to the highest degree; society was founded by them, morals brought to a greater perfection, the foundation of science and art established, and the principles of philosophy laid down. Although constantly in conflict with the Semitic and Turanian races, these Aryans became in their descendants the masters of the world. Whilst the northern division followed a north-westerly direction, the southern went to the mountains lying to the north of India; crossing the passes of the Himalayas, and following the long watercourses, they descended into the vast fertile valleys, and from that time India became as their own land. These pleasant dwelling-places of the Aryan colonists, protected on the one side by high mountains, and on the other by the ocean from all foreign invasions, were not disturbed by any of the ancient conquerors of the world; around them kingdoms rose and fell, dynasties were created and became extinct, but the inner life of the tribes remained undisturbed by these events. The ancient Hindoos were calm, contemplative dreamers, a nation of philosophers, who could only conceive of disputes in themselves, in their own thoughts; the transcendental nature of the atmosphere in which his ideas worked, and in which the Hindoo lived, could not fail to retard the development of practical, social, and political virtues, and the appreciation of the beautiful and useful. The Hindoo saw nothing in the past but the mystery of the Creation, in the future but the mystery of his destiny; the present offered nothing to him that could awaken physical activity, and apparently had no reality for him; no people ever existed who believed more firmly in a future life, or who occupied themselves less with this one; such as they were in the beginning, such they remained. The only sphere in which the Indian mind moves freely is the sphere of religion and that of philosophy. In no other part of the world have metaphysical ideas taken such deep root as in India; the forms in which these ideas were clothed, in epochs of varying culture, and in the midst of divers classes of society, were alternately those of the grossest superstition and of the most exalted spiritualism.