The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1875-11-19

| 4,UUO years b. u, and probably at a.
much earlier time. At that period,
which is the date reckoned by the usual
chronology of the creation of the earth
and the beginning of the life of man,
the divisions of the human race above
recounted, Aryan, Turanian and Semi
tic, were already in existence, with lam
guages well developed and so widely di-
verse that no positive connection can be
traced between them.
The classical scholar uses the Greek or
Latin, the oriental scholar the Hebrew
or Sanscrit, as key to the understand
ing of the literary monuments which
by-gone ages have bequeathed to US, and
as a means ultimately to trace the
social, moral and intellectual progress
of our race. At the epoch of Alexander,
the achievement of the Aryans, in phi
losophy, in morals and in literature, al
ready counted many thousands of years
of existence. And since the language
of those early ages, Notwithstanding its
many changes, still shows itself unmis-
takably in the modern forms of speech,
we are forced by inexorable logic to ad-
nit that historic and religious tradi-
tions from the same antiquity would
descend to modern times. And such we
find to be actually the fact. 1t is here
that pathological science gives us a clue
which enables US to unravel some of the
most complicated tissues of the human
intellect.
'The idea of a revelation" says
Muller, "and I mean more particularly
book revelation, is not a modern idea,
nor is it peculiar to Christianity.
Though we look for it in vain in the lit
eratGee of Greece and Rome, we find the
literature of India saturated with this
idea from beginning to end. According
to the orthodox views of Hindu theolo-
gians, not line of the Vedas was the
work of human authors" And what
are the Vedas?
Many have a general or vague idea,
but few an accurate or definite one. In
the Aryan world the Vedas are the old
est of books. Many scholars, indeed,
think they are the oldest in existence,
ante-dating the most ancient Hebrew
writings. The Vedas, besides, are the
Sacred Scriptures of India. DIR. Hang,
very noted oriental scholar and pro-
fessor of Sanscrit in a college in India,
places the antiquity of some of the We
die hymns as high as 2, 400 B. c., which,
according to the usual reckoning, is
about the time when Moses, the Hebrew
law-giver, lived.
The word Veda means originally,
knowledge or knowing. 1t is preserved
with little change of form in the Eng
lish words wise and wisdom. The
hymns consist of ten books, and are
something more than 1000 in number.
Up to the present. day they are regarded
by the Brahman with the same venera-
tion with which the Jew regards the
Old Testament, and a Christian his
Gospel. For thousands of years they
have been the basis of the religious
moral, political and literary life of the
inhabitants of India, and to-day they
are still a revelation from heaven Il
more than one-third of the human race
Says one of the writers above quoted
! '"The Vedas have revealed to US state
, of religion anterior to the first begin
nings of that mythology which in Ho
mer and Hesiod stands before US in
= ] r,1Or,Ilori,nr ~ -, .
: Old Testament as clear vestiges of In
; dian influences as of Greek and Roman
influences in the new. All testimony
? points, as Speigel shows, to very earl!
e intercourse between the Aryan ant
Semitic nations, and a common belief il
f paradise situated near the sources o
l.. the Oxus and Jaxartes. The forms o
d Jewish legends come near to Indian ant
< Persian traditions, showing certainly al
= intercourse between these people, an,
possibly, a development of their idea
: form a common origin. Though n
e certain affinities sufficient to indicate
n common source for their RESPECTIVE
It forms of speech can be traced, there
= remarkable similarity of ideas of thi
J. description, a fact which would tend t
d show, if we accept the doctrin es of tn
e unity of the human race, that forms c
e language diverge and set more rapid
l. than ideas, or that physical causes, wit
e which we are yet unacquainted, ma
l. have led 10 changes in the development
u of speech into distinct forms. Th
2. weight of argument, however, is consid
e cred by most scholars to be against th
s, original unity of the race, and thei
conclusion is that traditions commo
l. to them all were developed by the reaC
n ton of mind on mind, evolving, and 6
e. the same time assimilating conception
es that grew gradually into ideas whic
of present so remarkable a resemblanc
le Each race grew into intellectual life b
" contact and dintercourse with each othel
ne We have here to do with period fs
ut antecedent, not only to the oldest Bibl,
s, of mankind, but even to the very MOTTO
in of such thing as the transmission
o. knowledge. But in these -histor
N deeps, where even the half-blind guild,
O. of mythology fail, language opens pat
IooJe lorpv tn