Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 3.djvu/377

 ADDITIONAL NOTES. I. The most learned Scandinavian antiquaries of our times have ascertained to their own satisfaction that three distinct populations have inhabited the North : — a Mongolian race, of which the type is to be found in the Laplander, the Samoeid, the Esquimaux; a Celtic race; and a Caucasian race which, almost within the limits of northern history, came from Asia, drove out or extirpated the Celtic and Lap- landic races, and are the present inhabitants. It appears that Professors Rask and Petersen come to this conclusion on philological and mythological grounds ; Professors Molbech, Nilsson, and Finn Magnusen come to the same conclusion on archaeological grounds, from the relics of the former inhabit- ants, their arms, utensils, and ornaments, discovered from time to time, and collected in museums.* The mythological grounds, — that is, the similarity of worship and belief in religion, — are the least conclusive, perhaps ; because in all natural religions, and in all superstitions, there is a common principle — an attempt to express a sentiment common to all races of rational men, it being part and parcel of mind itself: viz. a sentiment of divine power. This innate movement of mind common to all creatures endowed with mind, however imperfectly developed, must produce very striking analogies between the religious ideas and worship of men living in the most widely-separated corners of the earth ; but these ana- logies do not prove that these populations have had any con- nection or communication with each other in some distant age, but only that the human mind every where, and in all ages, is labouring to express a sentiment common to all men ; and, excepting where the revealed religion of the Gospel has penetrated, with only the same means to express it. It is thus that Budha or Vudha, and Wodin or Odin, appear to p. 534<, NOTES.
 * See Runamo og Runerne ved Finn Magnuson. Kiopenhavn, 1841,