Page:Fairy Tales Their Origin and Meaning.djvu/22

10 government, and even different looks—for you can tell them from one another by some peculiarity of appearance. Yet, in fact, all these nations belong to one great family—English, and German, and Russian, and French, and Italian, and Spanish, the nations of the North, and the South, and the West, and partly of the East of Europe, all came from one stock; and so did the Romans and Greeks who went before them; and so also did the Medes and Persians, and the Hindus, and some other peoples who have always remained in Asia. And to the people from whom all these nations have sprung learned men have given two names. Sometimes they are called the Indo-Germanic or Indo-European race, to show how widely they extend; and sometimes they are called the Aryan race, from a word which is found in their language, and which comes from the root "ar," to plough, and is supposed to mean noble, or of a good family.

But how do we know that there were any such people, and that we in England are descended from them, or that they were the forefathers of the other nations of Europe, and of the Hindus, and of the old Greeks and Romans? We know