the simplest terms denoting existence, actions, perceptions,
such as -sum-, -do-, -pater-, the original echo of
the impression which the external world made on the
mind of man, but also a number of words indicative
of culture (not only as respects their roots, but
in a form stamped upon them by custom) which are the
common property of the Indo-Germanic family, and which
cannot be explained either on the principle of an
uniform development in the several languages, or on
the supposition of their having subsequently borrowed
one from another. In this way we possess evidence
of the development of pastoral life at that remote
epoch in the unalterably fixed names of domestic animals;
the Sanscrit -gaus- is the Latin -bos-, the Greek
—bous—; Sanscrit -avis- is the
Latin -ovis-, Greek —ois—; Sanscrit
-asvas-, Latin -equus-, Greek —ippos—;
Sanscrit -hansas-, Latin -anser-, Greek —chein—;
Sanscrit -atis-, Latin -anas-, Greek —neissa—;
in like manner -pecus-, -sus-, -porcus-, -taurus-,
-canis-, are Sanscrit words. Even at this remote
period accordingly the stock, on which from the days
of Homer down to our own time the intellectual development
of mankind has been dependent, had already advanced
beyond the lowest stage of civilization, the hunting
and fishing epoch, and had attained at least comparative
fixity of abode. On the other hand, we have
as yet no certain proofs of the existence of agriculture
at this period. Language rather favours the negative
view. Of the Latin-Greek names of grain none
occurs in Sanscrit with the single exception of —zea—,
which philologically represents the Sanscrit -yavas-,
but denotes in the Indian barley, in Greek spelt.
It must indeed be granted that this diversity in
the names of cultivated plants, which so strongly
contrasts with the essential agreement in the appellations
of domestic animals, does not absolutely preclude
the supposition of a common original agriculture.
In the circumstances of primitive times transport
and acclimatizing are more difficult in the case of
plants than of animals; and the cultivation of rice
among the Indians, that of wheat and spelt among the
Greeks and Romans, and that of rye and oats among
the Germans and Celts, may all be traceable to a common
system of primitive tillage. On the other hand
the name of one cereal common to the Greeks and Indians
only proves, at the most, that before the separation
of the stocks they gathered and ate the grains of
barley and spelt growing wild in Mesopotamia,(3) not
that they already cultivated grain. While, however,
we reach no decisive result in this way, a further
light is thrown on the subject by our observing that
a number of the most important words bearing on this
province of culture occur certainly in Sanscrit, but
all of them in a more general signification. -Agras-among
the Indians denotes a level surface in general; -kurnu-,
anything pounded; -aritram-, oar and ship; -venas-,
that which is pleasant in general, particularly a