es, such as Gothic and Anglo-Saxon, and the ancient
Celtic and Slavonic languages too, came to be studied, no one could
help seeing a certain family likeness among them all. But how such a
likeness between these languages came to be, and how, what is far more
difficult to explain, such striking differences too between these
languages came to be, remained a mystery, and gave rise to the most
gratuitous theories, most of them, as you know, devoid of all
scientific foundation. As soon, however, as Sanskrit stepped into the
midst of these languages, there came light and warmth and mutual
recognition. They all ceased to be strangers, and each fell of its own
accord into its right place. Sanskrit was the eldest sister of them
all, and could tell of many things which the other members of the
family had quite forgotten. Still, the other languages too had each
their own tale to tell; and it is out of all their tales together that
a chapter in the human mind has been put together which, in some
respects, is more important to us than any of the other chapters, the
Jewish, the Greek, the Latin, or the Saxon.

The process by which that ancient chapter of history was recovered is
very simple. Take the words which occur in the same form and with the
same meaning in all the seven branches of the Aryan family, and you
have in them the most genuine and trustworthy records in which to read
the thoughts of our true ancestors, before they had become Hindus, or
Persians, or Greeks, or Romans, or Celts, or Teutons, or Slaves. Of
course, some of these ancient charters may have been lost in one or
other of these seven branches of the Aryan family, but even then, if
they are found in six, or five, or four, or three, or even two only of
its original branches, the probability remains, unless we can prove a
later historical contact between these languages, that these words
existed before the great _Aryan Separation_. If we find _agni_,
meaning fire, in Sanskrit, and _ignis_, meaning fire, in Latin, we may
safely conclude that _fire_ was known to the undivided Aryans, even if
no trace of the same name of fire occurred anywhere else. And why?
Because there is no indication that Latin remained longer united with
Sanskrit than any of the other Aryan languages, or that Latin could
have borrowed such a word from Sanskrit, after these two languages had
once become distinct. We have, however, the Lithuanian _ugnis_, and
the Scottish _ingle_, to show that t