Catholic University Question, The, Christianity in Face of the Nine- Collins, Mabel, 33, 142, 267, 425, Conder, F.R., C.E., 129, 385. Professor E. J. Poynter, R.A., Charles Darwin, F.R.S., 154. Professor Max Müller, 474. Cook, Keningale, LL.D., 1, 177, 257, :- Amory, T. C. The Transfer of Erin, 249. Blunt, Rev. J. H. Annotated Bible, 757. Belief and Modern Thought, 633. 755. Boult, Joseph. The Credibility of Brown, Rev. James, D.D. Life of John Burton, Capt. Richard F. The Gold Clarke, Marcus. The Future Australian Conder, Lieut. Claude R., R.E. Tent Cosson, E. A. de, F.R.G.S. The Cradle Deane, Mary. Seen in an Old Mirror, 255. Dudgeon, Rev. E., M.D. The Human Dutt, Shoshee Chunder. A Vision of Elwes, Alfred. Ocean and her Rulers, 255. Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E. Homer, 377. Spectrum Analysis, 112. Studies in Malet, H. P. Beginnings, 757. 383. Masterman, J. Worth Waiting For, 254. Monteiro, Mariana. Allah-Akbar, 383. Poole, Harriet. Great and Small, 256. Price, Prof. Bonamy. Practical Poli- Ranking, D. F. and B. M. Milton's Robinson, A. Mary F. A Handful of Old Contributor, An, 90, 351, 531, Orbit of the Irregular, The, 345. Plurality of Worlds, The Romance Poynter, E. J., R.A., Contemporary Regicides, The Circle of the, 50. Robertson, Edward Stanley, 86. Slave of the Lamp, To the, 363. THE UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE. JULY, 1878. AN ARYAN ANCESTOR. We have many reasons for feeling a special interest in the Aryans. When we look for the traditional cradle of our race, a star overhangs the Orient. Our language finds its roots in a spreading centre which is ascribed to the regions lying south of the great river Oxus, and between Euphrates on the west and Indus on the east. As members of the Indo-Germanic family, we own sonship to the Friesic tribes, who filled the wild fringes of Northern Europe, and made our AngloSaxondom by westward invasion, as no doubt they had made their own domain of Friez and Teuton land by incursion from their ancestral east. This Aryan expansion it would be prudent to style the beginning of a semi-historical period rather than the first colonisation of a world. When the noble nomads wandering eastward reached India (Arya in Sanscrit signifies noble) they found rude darker races to subjugate. Somewhat degenerated from their ancient superiority, these conquerors themselves are now ruled by another and stronger shoot of the Aryan branch which extended itself westward, and, notwithstanding many a fusion, lives still in England with distinction and unexhausted vitality. The view we have expressed of the primeval Aryans as the dominant race of an early period will allow of room for the questions whether Egypt is not older still than Aryana, and whether the differences between the so-called Semitic languages of the Phoenician and Hebrew peoples and those of the so-called Indo-Germanic group are not differences due to variation rather than to absence of fellowship in origin. The hieroglyph and the oldest cuneiform have not yet been fully explored and compared with other ancient alphabets. A clue which will fairly exemplify the ramifications of the Aryan brotherhood may be found in our word "wit," or "wot." This same word is to be traced with slight variation through the Gothic, the Anglo-Saxon, the old Norman, the German. In the Greek it is edu or olda, preceded by the obsolete letter vau. In Latin it is video. In Sanscrit it appears as vid and in the well-known Veda, making by a variation also bodhi and budha, both signifying deep knowledge. Perhaps it is the Assyrian idu, to know, or to oversee. In Zend it is the A-vista (vid), the book of knowledge. To return to Anglo-Saxon again, the same word forms the name of 1 the deity Voden, Woden, or Odin (old German wuotan), the equivalent of the Hermes or god of wisdom. From Woden it comes to us as Wednesday, and it were to be hoped, if it were not too much to hope, that with such an ancestry we could all have at least one wise or witty day in a week. Another word which also signifies to know appears in our language in the verbs ken, can, con, acquaint, and know, and in the adjectives canny and cunning. It is Gothic kunnan; Anglo-Saxon, can, cennan, and cnawan; Swedish, kunnig and kæanna; Dutch and German, kennen; Danish, kan; Sanscrit, gna, g'ânâmi; Zend, hunara, Pazand, khunar (science), also Zend vaen, and Pazand vinastan and ginastan, to perceive; Greek, ywóσke; Latin, cognoscere; old French, connoistre. From these roots-knowledge conveying power-come the words signifying king, old English cyning, German könig, and possibly the Tatar khan. An Aryan ancestry of language is here pretty clear, but there is no sign in the words given of Egyptian or Hebrew brotherhood. Before turning more particularly to our Aryan forefathers, it may be interesting to give a few instances in which the connection between the older languages is readily to be traced. In Egyptian hieroglyphs may be found más, anoint; masu, anoint, dip. In Zend mashya is clarified butter. In Hebrew and Syriac messiah, meshihha, in Arabic masih, signify anointed. In Egyptian khab, Assyrian caccabu, Hebrew kohhabi, alike signify a star. We find in Egyptian makheru, justified, especially in reference to the dead after judgment; Assyrian magaru, obedient, happy; in Greek μákap, blessed, happy, especially an epithet of the lately dead. Egyptian kam, a reed; Sanscrit, kalm; Hebrew, gome, reedgrass, rush; Greek, kalapos; Arabic, qalam; German, halm; French, chaume, stubble; English, halm, haulm, are evidently one word. A more singular word-history still may be found in the following. Among the deities of the Veda, which gives the most ancient trace of the Aryans in India, is Varuna, the sky, and the god who resides in the sky. It is easy to perceive the connection between Varunas, the nightly firmament, and the Greek οὐρανός, the heaven or the sky (ouranos, which might, with the obsolete Greek letter vau, have been written vouranos). It is not until we come to Egypt, however, that we reach the origin of the word. There the great water of the Nile was worshipped as a personification of the beneficence of nature. As to the Egyptian this mighty stream seemed to make a highway through the world, so was there imagined to be a splendid spiritual highway through the firmament. Along this the disembodied spirit was supposed to pass on its journey to the Unseen. This highway was the Urnas, or celestial water, personified as a deity of the sky. The derivation of this word may perhaps be ura, great, and na, water, the hieroglyphic symbols for which roots both appear in the sign representing urnas. We seem to have had the word handed down to us English folk not only in the Urania and other variations which we draw from Greek, but in the word urn or water vessel, and in another word signifying water, employed now in a limited sense. An element transferable from generation to generation, and from race to race, which would appear to be as indestructible as etymological roots, is spiritual thought or philosophy; that is, the results of such |