Aryan population living under an
Aryan lordship in India? The only argument for such a process is one
of convenience. It does so happen that the Roman theory _may_ account
for some of the English phenomena. But, then, the Celtic and Teutonic,
or Aryan theory also accounts for the same English phenomena, and,
what is more, it accounts for other phenomena not reckoned by the
Roman theory. My proposition is that the history of the village
community in Britain is the history of the economical condition of the
non-Aryan aborigines; that the history of the tribal community is the
history of the Aryan conquerors, who appear as overlords; and that the
Romans, except as another wave of Aryan conquerors at an advanced
stage of civilisation, had very little to do with shaping the village
institutions of Britain.[495]

It is necessary before leaving this subject to take note of a point
which may lead, and in fact has led to misconception of the argument.
I have stated that all custom, rite, and belief which is Aryan custom,
rite, and belief, as distinct from that which is pre-Aryan--pre-Celtic
in our own country--must have a position in the tribal system, and I
have said that custom, rite, and belief which cannot be traced back
to the tribal system may be safely pronounced to be pre-tribal in
origin and therefore pre-Celtic, to have survived, that is, from the
people whom the Celts found in occupation of the country when first
they landed on its shores. I did not interrupt my statement of the
case to point out one important modification of it, because this
modification has nothing to do with the great mass of custom and
belief now surviving as folklore, but I will deal with this
modification now so that I may clear up any misconception. We have
already ascertained that over and above the custom and belief, which
may be traced back to their tribal origins, there are both customs and
beliefs which owe their origin to psychological conditions, and there
are myths surviving as folk-tales or legends which owe their origin to
the primitive philosophy of earliest man. Neither of these departments
of folklore enters into the question of race development. The first
may be called post-ethnologic because they arise in a political
society of modern civilisation which transcends the boundaries of
race; the second may be called pre-ethnologic, because they arise in a
savage society before the great races had begun their distinctive
evolution. T