its, inclinations which go with the speech; human nature, in all times
essentially imitative, copies qualities which are united with presumed
superiority; to this process not even racial hostility is a bar;
assimilation and transmission go on in spite of hatred directed against
the persons who are the object of the imitation; such a process may be
observed in the recent history of Ireland.

Reception of new ideas, however, though promoted by the possession of a
common language constituting a means of exchange, is not limited by its
absence; on the contrary, in all historical time among contiguous races
takes place a transference of ideas which dislike and even warfare do not
prevent. Here the law seems to be that the lower culture has relatively
little effect on the higher with which it is in contact, while the
superior civilization speedily influences an inferior one. Nor is the
effect confined to the higher classes of any given society; beginning
with these, the new knowledge descends through all ranks, and everywhere
carries its transforming influence. What is true of written literature in
a less degree is true of oral; songs and tales, rites and customs,
beliefs and superstitions, diffuse themselves from the civilization which
happens to be in fashion, with a rapidity greater or less according to
the interworking of a multitude of modifying forces. In the other
direction, from the lower culture to the higher, exchange is slow, albeit
likely to be promoted, in certain cases, by peculiar conditions, such as
the deliberate literary choice which seeks opportunity for archaistic
representation, or the respect which an advanced race may have for the
magical ability of a simple tribe, believed to be nearer to nature, and
therefore more likely to remain in communion with natural forces.

But these exceptional effects are of small relative moment; the general
principle, continually at work, in the main controls the result. In
regard to the themes of stories especially, the many tongues and dialects
of Western Europe offer scarcely more variation than will be often found
to exist among the versions of the same tale which may be discovered in a
single canton. The spirit of the language, already mentioned as
constituting the element of nationality, taking possession of this common
stock of knowledge, moulds its precise form and sentiment in accordance
with its own character; it is in details, rather than in outlines, that
racia